20 GIs, 100 Iraqis Killed Since Weekend

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20040406/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer

NAJAF, Iraq - Coalition forces fought on two fronts Tuesday, battling a Shiite-inspired uprising in southern Iraq (news - web sites) and Sunni insurgents in the violent city of Fallujah in clashes that have killed 20 American troops and at least 100 Iraqis since the weekend.

Backers of fiery anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr attacked coalition forces in three cities — Italians in Nasiriyah, Britons in Samawah and Ukrainians in Kut — after a weekend of fighting that was especially intense in the poor Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad.

Among the dead Americans were five Marines killed near Fallujah on Monday and Tuesday as forces surrounded and then fought their way to the center of the city to crush an uprising by insurgents loyal to ousted leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). Marines pulled back to the outskirts at nightfall Tuesday.


Al-Sadr left his fortress-like complex Tuesday in Kufa and moved to his office near a sacred shrine in this holy city, vowing to shed his own blood to oust the American occupation.


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This is getting old

And the unadapted Amnericans swoon under the blazing sun, and choke on the dust of Babylon!

in the Spring,
during the troop rotation,
in the period before Ashura.

A police officer joins supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr celebrating on the roof while occupying the governor's residence in the southern city of Basra April 5, 2004. The costs of the war in Iraq (news - web sites), which contributed to a destabilization of the Middle East, have outweighed the benefits of removing Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told a Danish newspaper on April 6. Photo by Atef Hassan/Reuters

They have lots of "allies" and are stuck outside the city,
(a good place to be actually now that I think about it)
and are already taking casualties and bombing random stuff.

FUBAR for sure! I suppose we paid for that weapon he is brandishing also. Fuck....

I know it won't do any good. Today I don't know if I am more angry or sad.

We are obviously winning the war...

<sarcasm>

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SADDER AND SADDER AND SADDER........

I wonder if Iraq Nam will be like Viet Nam in that an arm, a leg, and a torso gets counted as three bodies.

:shrug:

who lived across the street from me in 1971 told me he was ordered to do just that - count each PART of a Vietnamese body (with no attempt to determine if any were civilians) as 1 'kill', plus they were only to report an American dead if they found almost all of the body &/or the dog tags.

(My first husband was IN Vietnam at that time. You can imagine how worried this guy's stories made me!)

Iraq is not Vietnam, but it could potentially be more fatal to civilians (at least percentage wise) because the fighting is and will be predominantly urban. Regardless of some lack of similarities in the two conflicts, I still keep getting these incredible deja vu sensory overloads when I hear the apologists in the administration, Congress or the media pronounce that things are just hunky dory in Iraq and, anyway, we'll have them pacified real soon now or these are only troublemakers or the majority of the population really, REALLY support us!

In Vietnam, the ratio was regularly above 20:1, yet there still was utter defeat. Battling a people is like that.

all the time. It is like that now.

"Among the dead Americans were five Marines killed near Fallujah on Monday and Tuesday as forces surrounded and then fought their way to the center of the city to crush an uprising by insurgents loyal to ousted leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). Marines pulled back to the outskirts at nightfall Tuesday."

I don't know if Stalingrad is exactly the right example, maybe Moscow during Napoleon's time. It just seems like battling your way into town, shooting it up, and retreating back to the outskirts is not a strategy that really gets you much further ahead.

They didn't "pull back", the "retreated" to a secure position.

They can't really subdue or hold the city. Just shoot it and its people up and retreat to do it again tommorrow.

They can kill 10 for everyone of the coaliton that dies and the coalition will tire of it faster.

Iraqi Army thrown in. Not nearly enough to do much in this setting I am afraid.

on edit: Quote from UK Independent:

"With 1,200 US Marines and two battalions of Iraqi security forces poised to march into the sealed-off city of Fallujah, and with an arrest warrant having been issued for a radical Shia cleric, many observers were predicting an increase in the bloodshed."

They didn't retreat, they advanced to the rear! <sarcasm>

"Game over." Is this something we'll hear, or are they just dancing around it now, hoping to save face until 6/30? I can't help but wonder. Someone please tell me I don't understand.

still be run by the U.S. from the gigantic US Embassy compound through its puppet Iraqi government. A similar size US military force will still be there to enforce our will for the forseeable future, or else the embassy and puppet government would be overrun and slaughtered within weeks.

fourth paragraph:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040406/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

About 20 of those were today.

It gets worse and worse.