Thursday, April 08, 2004
"VIGILANT RESOLVE" AND OPERATION "GET THE 'CLERIC' " (THURSDAY)
NOTE: Newer updates higher up.
UPDATE XVI: Now, for some sanity. American Forces Press Service has this today:
Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 7, said during a briefing from Baghdad that the coalition will not allow thugs, extremists and terrorists to stop the transition to Iraqi sovereignty or to try to control the country with a violent power play. . .
. . . He said the Marines are experts at civil-military operations and will bring substantial resources to improve the quality of life in Fallujah. Sanchez said coalition forces are allowing food and humanitarian supplies into the city.
In the central and southern areas of Iraq, coalition forces have launched another operation dubbed Resolute Sword. This operation is aimed directly at the militia forces of Muqtada al-Sadr. Pentagon officials said Sadr is a minor Shiia cleric who is launching a power play to increase his stature in the country as transfer of sovereignty approaches. The cleric is anti-American and has urged followers to kill coalition forces. . .
. . .Helping the command is the fact that it is in the midst of a major troop rotation, and this provides an increased number of U.S. troops in the country. "We are taking advantage of these forces, and we will manage the redeployment to give us the combat power that is necessary to accomplish the mission at hand," he said.
The current coalition strength troop strength in Iraq is about 160,000 -- 134,000 Americans. More than 200,000 Iraqis serve in the country's security forces. . .
UPDATE XV: Surprise. Surprise. Sky has dug up Robin Cook:
. . . "A number of changes need to be made if we are going to recover the situation in Iraq.
"The first and most compelling of those is that the US forces have got to stop acting like warriors and start acting like peacekeepers". . .
For goodness sake, just what does the clueless Cook think they were doing BEFORE last weekend?
And, just curious: How does one behave like a "peacekeeper", in the middle of a battle?
UPDATE XIV: Sky reports:
An Iraqi group has threatened to kill three Japanese hostages within three days.
Elsewhere, eight South Koreans and a Briton have also been kidnapped in Iraq.
Arab TV station Al Jazeera reports that, if the Japanese government fails to pull out its troops by the deadline, the group will burn the three hostages alive. . .
. . . And those are the "moderates."
The "Geneva Convention, P.O.W. protection crowd" could not be reached for comment.
UPDATE XIII: Having seen the entire British Expeditionary Force cut off and trapped around the port of Dunkirk, the Blair government is even now meeting in emergency session, to consider asking the now unstoppable and triumphant Baathists/Islamists if they might care to talk terms. The BBC reports:
. . .The heaviest of the fighting has been reported in Falluja.
A correspondent for French news agency AFP, told the BBC there was a constant rumble of explosions throughout the city - some caused by mortars and rockets fired by the insurgents. . .
Can nothing stop them? Do we have anything at all left? Anything?
UPDATE XII: The A.P. reports:
Shiite Muslim militias held partial control Thursday over three southern Iraqi cities, while Sunni insurgents killed a U.S. Marine in the battle for Fallujah. In escalating violence, gunmen kidnapped three Japanese and eight South Korean civilians.
The militia led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has full control over the city of Kut and partial control in Najaf, but coalition forces will move soon to break their hold, said Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq said. Residents of Kufa said militiamen also control that southern city by holding police stations and government buildings.
In a videotape broadcast to the Arab world by Al-Jazeera, kidnappers armed with automatic rifles and swords threatened to kill the blindfolded Japanese hostages unless Tokyo withdrew its troops from Iraq. . .
Just like the good, ol' days we all remember, in Beirut, in the lovely 1980s. Ah, to be young again. . .
And the "Geneva Convention, P.O.W. protection crowd" is, uh, WHERE exactly?
UPDATE XI: The Nazi counteroffensive continues. Where might it be halted? The Meuse? Antwerp? Euronews (short lived link, 1300 British time) tells us:
. . .The coalition no longer controls the central Shia holy city of Najaf now that Spanish troops have withdrawn ahead of April 12, the second holiest religious day for the Shia community. It has also lost control of the southern city of Kut after Ukrainian troops withdrew on Wednesday when they came under heavy attack. . .
Najaf and Kut. Next, Topeka?
UPDATE X: With Condoleezza Rice due before the "9-11 Commission" today, Insults Unpunished notes that at least one commission member has a rather less than "nuanced" view about the battle of Iraq:
Bob Kerrey, not to be confused with John Kerry though both were Senators, supports the war with Iraq and sees it, properly, as a part of the war against terrorism. He's right that the terrorists despise the idea of a free Iraq, an oasis of freedom in a sea of despots, and that is playing a big role in the uptick in violence. The insurgents and terrorists want either a Ba'athist dictatorship or a Muslim theocracy. With the United States leading the charge they will get neither.
UPDATE IX: Murdoc:
. . . There is certainly a lot yet to be done, but our troops seem to be getting a handle on things. Those that suggested we weren't going into Fallujah because we were unable to appear to have been quite wrong. We seem to have waited until our ducks were in a row, then launched our operations methodically. . .
UPDATE VIII: The issue of treatment of any prisoners taken by both sides in the current fighting has not been tackled much in the media. It may have to be. Sky reports:
A US General has denied claims by an Iraqi militia group that it is holding Spanish hostages and possibly an American.
The Spanish military has also "categorically" denied the claims made by militiamen loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al Sadr.
The militia is demanding the release of its Najaf-based leader Mustafa Yaacubi who was arrested by coalition forces on Saturday.
"We hold coalition hostages, most of them Spaniards, and possibly a US soldier, whom we want to swap against Mustafa al-Yaacubi", said Amar al-Husseini, a spokesman for Sadr in Baghdad's Shia stronghold of Sadr City. . .
If you think about it, though, when compared to suicide bombings aimed at families in restaurants, and "freedom fighters" crashing hijacked civilian aircraft into NY skyscrapers, ye good, ol' fashioned Middle Eastern "hostage taking" sounds almost downright . . . civilized.
UPDATE VII: Lileks:
. . . Questions: when the UN takes control before the hand-over, and refuses to authorize a military response to an assault on coalition troops, and the emboldened “rebels” kill a dozen Marines in a new attack, can we vote Kofi out of office? Can we sue Hans Blix?. . .
UPDATE VI: Victor Davis Hanson:
. . . Are the citizens of Fallujah the victims of Saddam, or did folk like this find their natural identity expressed in Saddam? Postcolonial theory and victimology argue that European colonialism, Zionism, and petrodollars wrecked the Middle East. But to believe that one must see India in shambles, Latin America under blanket autocracy, and an array of suicide bombers pouring out of Mexico or Nigeria. South Korea was a moonscape of war when oil began gushing out of Iraq and Saudi Arabia; why is it now exporting cars while the latter are exporting death? Apartheid was far worse than the Shah’s modernization program; yet why did South Africa renounce nuclear weapons while the Mullahs cheated on every UN protocol they could?
No, there is something peculiar to the Middle East that worries the world. The Arab world for years has promulgated a quite successful media image as perennial victims—proud folks, suffering under a series of foreign burdens, while nobly maintaining their grace and hospitality. Middle-Eastern Studies programs in the United States and Europe published an array of mostly dishonest accounts of Western culpability, sometimes Marxist, sometimes anti-Semitic that were found to be useful intellectual architecture for the edifice of panArabism, as if Palestinians or Iraqis shared the same oppressions, the same hopes, and the same ideals as downtrodden American people of color—part of a universal “other” deserving victim status and its attendant blanket moral exculpation. But the curtain has been lifted since 9-11 and the picture we see hourly now is not pretty. . .
UPDATE V: While the BBC's reporting is generally anti-coalition and pro-Baathist/Islamist, it is rather predictable, and not hysterical. On the other hand, Britain's ITV is setting itself up for the scaremongering award of 2004. Get an eyefull of this nonsense (posted around 1000):
Coalition troops in Iraq are bracing themselves for more violence as chaos continues to spread across the country.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has insisted the US-led forces are still in control but has warned of further bloodshed.
This week's intense fighting has killed 35 Coalition soldiers and several hundred Iraqis.
The descent into mayhem and murder has accelerated rapidly and Mosques have started broadcasting calls for a holy war. . .
Everybody, ready, set, and all together now . . . PANIC! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! They're coming!!!!!! Ahhhhh!
UPDATE IV: The A.P:
More than 280 Iraqis have been killed and 400 wounded this week in the U.S. Marines' siege of insurgents in this city west of Baghdad, the director of Fallujah's hospital said Thursday. . .
We are, of course, supposed to believe reports from a "news service" that also finds the phrase "the war over" in the first paragraph of a now famous speech.
UPDATE III: At 0740, the BBC is reporting:
. . .Operations were also continuing in the Sunni city of Falluja west of the capital - a day after the US military bombed a compound housing a mosque. . .
Ah, so now it's a compound "housing" a mosque. . .
Better. Better.
Still this would have been much better: - a day after the US military attacked a mosque compound, which defenders were using as if it were a section of the Maginot Line.
UPDATE II: The Daily Ablution's Scott Burgess:
Andrew Neil (Scotland's preeminent newspaper publisher) serves up a fine example of reportorial spin in his Evening Standard Media column (seemingly unavailable online) this afternoon.
In the item, headlined:
Blair is losing the media war in Iraq
Neil writes:
"Support for Anglo-American intervention in Iraq is waning fast in the British press as events there deteriorate.
"Only The Telegraph and the Murdoch press can be counted on as true believers in the coalition's mission."
Well, The Telegraph is the highest circulation broadsheet in the country. And the unnamed papers sneakily bundled together as "the Murdoch press" happen to be the Sun - the highest circulation newspaper in the UK - and the obscure, little-credited Times. . .
Read the rest.
UPDATE: CNN reports:
Coalition troops battled Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents separately in several key Iraq cities Wednesday, one day after suffering their deadliest ground attack
. . . hold it, hold it, wait, wait, here it comes; you know what's coming. Okay guys, print it!!!!
since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1.
Ah, that's it.
At least CNN, unlike the A.P. and Ananova, is using the term "major combat."
The fundamental misconception for readers, however, remains. The context is clearly implying that somehow Bush had then declared that "the war" was really supposed to be, uh, yeh, "over."
The A.P. and Ananova, however, don't even bother to be "nuanced." They have reported -- flat out and incorrectly -- that Bush had said that the war was over.
This bears repeating, yet again. Here is the entire speech, on the White House web site. (Talk about DIFFICULT research!) And here is the forever misquoted and misconstrued opening paragraph:
Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.) And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.
And this is how the GENERAL IN CHARGE understood the president's words, when some eight days later General Franks told a briefing the following: (Again, it is "difficult research" -- being in a DOD transcript, visible to anyone with internet access.)
. . . As President Bush told the nation from the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, decisive combat operations in Iraq have concluded, and the coalition today is focused on helping Iraqi people as they work to build a new country. Our forces still stand in harm's way and much dangerous work remains to be done. I have every expectation that we will continue to see pockets of resistance, and we will see pockets of instability and we will come across difficult situation[s] in the weeks and in the months ahead. But our forces are up to the task, and will remain committed to the task. . .
And the likes of the A.P. and Ananova consider Bush's words as meaning "the war is over"? And, come to think of it, that interpretation is especially clueless given that the only place the word "over" even appears in the entire address is in this sentence:
. . .The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. . .
Frankly, if they can't even read and report correctly a quote from what is perhaps Bush's most widely heard single address, how the hell are we supposed to trust ANYTHING ELSE they "report"?
INITIAL POST
Oh, help us. It begins again. At 0520 British time, the BBC reports:
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said US plans for Iraq will not be derailed by the surge in violence.
He said US-led forces had not lost control of the security situation, but some "seasoned" US troops in Iraq might be kept there longer than planned.
His comments came after the US military bombed a compound housing a mosque in the Sunni Muslim Iraqi town of Falluja.
Sounds horrific! The "horrific" death toll?
US officials initially said about 40 Iraqis were thought to have died, but the figure was later revised to one. . .
I have no idea what to do with that. One? Seriously? That isn't a Beeb typo, to be secretly fixed later?
Anyway, we'll see, as today goes on.
By the way, Kurt Cobain blew his own head off ten years ago. That is currently a big story on the Beeb's web site. . . ¶ by Robert, Thursday, April 08, 2004
NOTE: Newer updates higher up.
UPDATE XVI: Now, for some sanity. American Forces Press Service has this today:
Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 7, said during a briefing from Baghdad that the coalition will not allow thugs, extremists and terrorists to stop the transition to Iraqi sovereignty or to try to control the country with a violent power play. . .
. . . He said the Marines are experts at civil-military operations and will bring substantial resources to improve the quality of life in Fallujah. Sanchez said coalition forces are allowing food and humanitarian supplies into the city.
In the central and southern areas of Iraq, coalition forces have launched another operation dubbed Resolute Sword. This operation is aimed directly at the militia forces of Muqtada al-Sadr. Pentagon officials said Sadr is a minor Shiia cleric who is launching a power play to increase his stature in the country as transfer of sovereignty approaches. The cleric is anti-American and has urged followers to kill coalition forces. . .
. . .Helping the command is the fact that it is in the midst of a major troop rotation, and this provides an increased number of U.S. troops in the country. "We are taking advantage of these forces, and we will manage the redeployment to give us the combat power that is necessary to accomplish the mission at hand," he said.
The current coalition strength troop strength in Iraq is about 160,000 -- 134,000 Americans. More than 200,000 Iraqis serve in the country's security forces. . .
UPDATE XV: Surprise. Surprise. Sky has dug up Robin Cook:
. . . "A number of changes need to be made if we are going to recover the situation in Iraq.
"The first and most compelling of those is that the US forces have got to stop acting like warriors and start acting like peacekeepers". . .
For goodness sake, just what does the clueless Cook think they were doing BEFORE last weekend?
And, just curious: How does one behave like a "peacekeeper", in the middle of a battle?
UPDATE XIV: Sky reports:
An Iraqi group has threatened to kill three Japanese hostages within three days.
Elsewhere, eight South Koreans and a Briton have also been kidnapped in Iraq.
Arab TV station Al Jazeera reports that, if the Japanese government fails to pull out its troops by the deadline, the group will burn the three hostages alive. . .
. . . And those are the "moderates."
The "Geneva Convention, P.O.W. protection crowd" could not be reached for comment.
UPDATE XIII: Having seen the entire British Expeditionary Force cut off and trapped around the port of Dunkirk, the Blair government is even now meeting in emergency session, to consider asking the now unstoppable and triumphant Baathists/Islamists if they might care to talk terms. The BBC reports:
. . .The heaviest of the fighting has been reported in Falluja.
A correspondent for French news agency AFP, told the BBC there was a constant rumble of explosions throughout the city - some caused by mortars and rockets fired by the insurgents. . .
Can nothing stop them? Do we have anything at all left? Anything?
UPDATE XII: The A.P. reports:
Shiite Muslim militias held partial control Thursday over three southern Iraqi cities, while Sunni insurgents killed a U.S. Marine in the battle for Fallujah. In escalating violence, gunmen kidnapped three Japanese and eight South Korean civilians.
The militia led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has full control over the city of Kut and partial control in Najaf, but coalition forces will move soon to break their hold, said Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq said. Residents of Kufa said militiamen also control that southern city by holding police stations and government buildings.
In a videotape broadcast to the Arab world by Al-Jazeera, kidnappers armed with automatic rifles and swords threatened to kill the blindfolded Japanese hostages unless Tokyo withdrew its troops from Iraq. . .
Just like the good, ol' days we all remember, in Beirut, in the lovely 1980s. Ah, to be young again. . .
And the "Geneva Convention, P.O.W. protection crowd" is, uh, WHERE exactly?
UPDATE XI: The Nazi counteroffensive continues. Where might it be halted? The Meuse? Antwerp? Euronews (short lived link, 1300 British time) tells us:
. . .The coalition no longer controls the central Shia holy city of Najaf now that Spanish troops have withdrawn ahead of April 12, the second holiest religious day for the Shia community. It has also lost control of the southern city of Kut after Ukrainian troops withdrew on Wednesday when they came under heavy attack. . .
Najaf and Kut. Next, Topeka?
UPDATE X: With Condoleezza Rice due before the "9-11 Commission" today, Insults Unpunished notes that at least one commission member has a rather less than "nuanced" view about the battle of Iraq:
Bob Kerrey, not to be confused with John Kerry though both were Senators, supports the war with Iraq and sees it, properly, as a part of the war against terrorism. He's right that the terrorists despise the idea of a free Iraq, an oasis of freedom in a sea of despots, and that is playing a big role in the uptick in violence. The insurgents and terrorists want either a Ba'athist dictatorship or a Muslim theocracy. With the United States leading the charge they will get neither.
UPDATE IX: Murdoc:
. . . There is certainly a lot yet to be done, but our troops seem to be getting a handle on things. Those that suggested we weren't going into Fallujah because we were unable to appear to have been quite wrong. We seem to have waited until our ducks were in a row, then launched our operations methodically. . .
UPDATE VIII: The issue of treatment of any prisoners taken by both sides in the current fighting has not been tackled much in the media. It may have to be. Sky reports:
A US General has denied claims by an Iraqi militia group that it is holding Spanish hostages and possibly an American.
The Spanish military has also "categorically" denied the claims made by militiamen loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al Sadr.
The militia is demanding the release of its Najaf-based leader Mustafa Yaacubi who was arrested by coalition forces on Saturday.
"We hold coalition hostages, most of them Spaniards, and possibly a US soldier, whom we want to swap against Mustafa al-Yaacubi", said Amar al-Husseini, a spokesman for Sadr in Baghdad's Shia stronghold of Sadr City. . .
If you think about it, though, when compared to suicide bombings aimed at families in restaurants, and "freedom fighters" crashing hijacked civilian aircraft into NY skyscrapers, ye good, ol' fashioned Middle Eastern "hostage taking" sounds almost downright . . . civilized.
UPDATE VII: Lileks:
. . . Questions: when the UN takes control before the hand-over, and refuses to authorize a military response to an assault on coalition troops, and the emboldened “rebels” kill a dozen Marines in a new attack, can we vote Kofi out of office? Can we sue Hans Blix?. . .
UPDATE VI: Victor Davis Hanson:
. . . Are the citizens of Fallujah the victims of Saddam, or did folk like this find their natural identity expressed in Saddam? Postcolonial theory and victimology argue that European colonialism, Zionism, and petrodollars wrecked the Middle East. But to believe that one must see India in shambles, Latin America under blanket autocracy, and an array of suicide bombers pouring out of Mexico or Nigeria. South Korea was a moonscape of war when oil began gushing out of Iraq and Saudi Arabia; why is it now exporting cars while the latter are exporting death? Apartheid was far worse than the Shah’s modernization program; yet why did South Africa renounce nuclear weapons while the Mullahs cheated on every UN protocol they could?
No, there is something peculiar to the Middle East that worries the world. The Arab world for years has promulgated a quite successful media image as perennial victims—proud folks, suffering under a series of foreign burdens, while nobly maintaining their grace and hospitality. Middle-Eastern Studies programs in the United States and Europe published an array of mostly dishonest accounts of Western culpability, sometimes Marxist, sometimes anti-Semitic that were found to be useful intellectual architecture for the edifice of panArabism, as if Palestinians or Iraqis shared the same oppressions, the same hopes, and the same ideals as downtrodden American people of color—part of a universal “other” deserving victim status and its attendant blanket moral exculpation. But the curtain has been lifted since 9-11 and the picture we see hourly now is not pretty. . .
UPDATE V: While the BBC's reporting is generally anti-coalition and pro-Baathist/Islamist, it is rather predictable, and not hysterical. On the other hand, Britain's ITV is setting itself up for the scaremongering award of 2004. Get an eyefull of this nonsense (posted around 1000):
Coalition troops in Iraq are bracing themselves for more violence as chaos continues to spread across the country.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has insisted the US-led forces are still in control but has warned of further bloodshed.
This week's intense fighting has killed 35 Coalition soldiers and several hundred Iraqis.
The descent into mayhem and murder has accelerated rapidly and Mosques have started broadcasting calls for a holy war. . .
Everybody, ready, set, and all together now . . . PANIC! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! They're coming!!!!!! Ahhhhh!
UPDATE IV: The A.P:
More than 280 Iraqis have been killed and 400 wounded this week in the U.S. Marines' siege of insurgents in this city west of Baghdad, the director of Fallujah's hospital said Thursday. . .
We are, of course, supposed to believe reports from a "news service" that also finds the phrase "the war over" in the first paragraph of a now famous speech.
UPDATE III: At 0740, the BBC is reporting:
. . .Operations were also continuing in the Sunni city of Falluja west of the capital - a day after the US military bombed a compound housing a mosque. . .
Ah, so now it's a compound "housing" a mosque. . .
Better. Better.
Still this would have been much better: - a day after the US military attacked a mosque compound, which defenders were using as if it were a section of the Maginot Line.
UPDATE II: The Daily Ablution's Scott Burgess:
Andrew Neil (Scotland's preeminent newspaper publisher) serves up a fine example of reportorial spin in his Evening Standard Media column (seemingly unavailable online) this afternoon.
In the item, headlined:
Blair is losing the media war in Iraq
Neil writes:
"Support for Anglo-American intervention in Iraq is waning fast in the British press as events there deteriorate.
"Only The Telegraph and the Murdoch press can be counted on as true believers in the coalition's mission."
Well, The Telegraph is the highest circulation broadsheet in the country. And the unnamed papers sneakily bundled together as "the Murdoch press" happen to be the Sun - the highest circulation newspaper in the UK - and the obscure, little-credited Times. . .
Read the rest.
UPDATE: CNN reports:
Coalition troops battled Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents separately in several key Iraq cities Wednesday, one day after suffering their deadliest ground attack
. . . hold it, hold it, wait, wait, here it comes; you know what's coming. Okay guys, print it!!!!
since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1.
Ah, that's it.
At least CNN, unlike the A.P. and Ananova, is using the term "major combat."
The fundamental misconception for readers, however, remains. The context is clearly implying that somehow Bush had then declared that "the war" was really supposed to be, uh, yeh, "over."
The A.P. and Ananova, however, don't even bother to be "nuanced." They have reported -- flat out and incorrectly -- that Bush had said that the war was over.
This bears repeating, yet again. Here is the entire speech, on the White House web site. (Talk about DIFFICULT research!) And here is the forever misquoted and misconstrued opening paragraph:
Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.) And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.
And this is how the GENERAL IN CHARGE understood the president's words, when some eight days later General Franks told a briefing the following: (Again, it is "difficult research" -- being in a DOD transcript, visible to anyone with internet access.)
. . . As President Bush told the nation from the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, decisive combat operations in Iraq have concluded, and the coalition today is focused on helping Iraqi people as they work to build a new country. Our forces still stand in harm's way and much dangerous work remains to be done. I have every expectation that we will continue to see pockets of resistance, and we will see pockets of instability and we will come across difficult situation[s] in the weeks and in the months ahead. But our forces are up to the task, and will remain committed to the task. . .
And the likes of the A.P. and Ananova consider Bush's words as meaning "the war is over"? And, come to think of it, that interpretation is especially clueless given that the only place the word "over" even appears in the entire address is in this sentence:
. . .The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. . .
Frankly, if they can't even read and report correctly a quote from what is perhaps Bush's most widely heard single address, how the hell are we supposed to trust ANYTHING ELSE they "report"?
INITIAL POST
Oh, help us. It begins again. At 0520 British time, the BBC reports:
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said US plans for Iraq will not be derailed by the surge in violence.
He said US-led forces had not lost control of the security situation, but some "seasoned" US troops in Iraq might be kept there longer than planned.
His comments came after the US military bombed a compound housing a mosque in the Sunni Muslim Iraqi town of Falluja.
Sounds horrific! The "horrific" death toll?
US officials initially said about 40 Iraqis were thought to have died, but the figure was later revised to one. . .
I have no idea what to do with that. One? Seriously? That isn't a Beeb typo, to be secretly fixed later?
Anyway, we'll see, as today goes on.
By the way, Kurt Cobain blew his own head off ten years ago. That is currently a big story on the Beeb's web site. . . ¶ by Robert, Thursday, April 08, 2004
