(IT WAS A SETUP!) Troops Didn't Know Brothers Were There

http://www.military.com/NewsContent?file=FL_know_072403


Associated Press
July 24, 2003

MOSUL, Iraq - It was 10 a.m. when the four Humvees pulled up outside the handsome villa on
Shalalat Street and disgorged a party of U.S. soldiers. Over a bullhorn, they told the occupants to
come out with their hands up.

What followed
was a firefight
from the ground
and air that
reduced the
comfortable
villa to a
smoking hulk.
And only then
did the troops
find out how
high the stakes
had been: Their
targets, they
discovered, were
Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai, second in
power only to their father.

The raid was a "turning point" in the campaign
against Iraq's deposed regime, the commander of
coalition forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez, said Wednesday in Baghdad. President Bush
said it would help convince Iraqis that Saddam's
regime is over for good.

But soldiers who participated in the raid said
they didn't know what they were getting into when
they headed out to the wealthy al-Falah
neighborhood in the northern city of Mosul on
Tuesday morning.

The Administration looks on the fighting men and women as so much cannon fodder.

Many of the troops may not have known who was in the building. The officers were aware, however, based on the 30 million dollar man info.

the State Department has to "process" this and decide the worthyness of the claim and the amount owed.

I wonder what's arabic for "the check's in the mail"?

Story has changed so many times now

just like every other story

US govt. has no cred.

in a criminal way -

Several troops guarding the area appeared relaxed, taking snapshots of the villa from the gunners' positions of Humvees.

"This makes me feel great," Granter said as he gazed at the destruction. But already, he was looking ahead to the biggest prize of all.

"Saddam, he's the big one," he said. "If we can get him, we can go home."

Wonder if the "I was only following orders" defense will work in the Hague?

That poor, poor fool....right up there with the ones who believed that the "fall of Baghdad" meant they could come home. We're there for the long haul--troops sent for a year at a time.

Poor kids.. this is the bullshit AWOL is feeding them. He is leading them with a stick and carrot. They don't know they don't get to leave..

5 are coming home in a box.

growing criticism for killing the two instead of capturing them and then getting information from them re: missing WMD's.

Another lie. More die.

:grr: