SwiftVets.com

[JB Stone]

Preparations ... a US marine camped outside Fallujah, expected to be the scene of Iraq's bloodiest battle yet, writes his "zap number" on his kit bag. The number contains information on his social security number and blood type, to help with identification in case the troops are injured.



Games ... to ease the tension, the troops have had to find new ways of entertaining themselves, staging games over the weekend.


Meanwhile, civilians are leaving Fallujah. These men were headed for Baghdad yesterday, their ute loaded with household appliances. The US military warning any man under 45 entering or leaving Fallujah will now be detained; they are also advising women and children to leave.


[The declared state of emergency for the next 60 days]...comes after a recent spike in violence nationwide. Even yesterday the attacks on Iraqi police continued - this car was blown up in Baghdad while in Haditha, 21 officers were rounded up and shot in the head.

~~~~~

One report says 300 rebels have volunteered to act as suicide bombers in a ferocious counter-attack on any coalition assault.


US Army surgeon Tommy Brown, working in the centre of Baghdad, makes a phone call to his wife. He says he has slept for three of the past 48 hours and is preparing for the fallout from the anticipated attack on


Danger zone ... Major Scott Taylor of the British Army's Black Watch force leads his brigade into position in accordance with the ancient traditions of the fighting unit. They have taken up "forward positions" in the Sunni triangle to free up US troops needed at Fallujah.


In place ... Maj Taylor, his bagpiping done, takes his position at the Jurf al-Sukhr bridge.

PEACE LIKE A RIVER

When peace like a river, attendeth my way;
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

It is well...with my soul... It is well, it is well, with my soul...

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

It is well...with my soul... It is well, it is well, with my soul...

He lives--oh, the bliss of this glorious thought;
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Oh my soul.

It is well...with my soul... It is well, it is well, with my soul...

And, Lord, haste the day when our faith shall be sight
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,
The trumpet shall sound, and the Lord shall descend;
Even so, it is well with my soul...

It is well...with my soul... It is well, it is well, with my soul...

~~Horatio Gates Spafford -- [1873]




Iraqi National Guard soldiers with 3rd Company 5th Battalion provide security during training at Camp Fallujah, Iraq, Nov. 5, 2004. U.S. Marine Corps. photo by Staff Sgt. Jonathan C. Knauth




Mexican-born U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Ardo Ramos writes a letter while Lance Corporal John Bishop of Indiana sleeps, during a break at a base near Falluja in western Iraq (news - web sites), November 7, 2004. The Marines are preparing for an expected full-scale assault on Falluja and Ramadi, another rebel-held Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad

AP: U.S. forces storm into western Fallujah
Bakersfield Californian ^ | 11/7/04 | Jim Krane - AP

Posted on 11/07/2004 4:24:27 PM PST by NormsRevenge

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - U.S. forces stormed into western districts of Fallujah early Monday, seizing the main city hospital and securing two key bridges over the Euphrates river in what appeared to be the first stage of the long-expected assault on the insurgent stronghold.

An AC-130 gunship raked the city with 40 mm cannon fire as explosions from U.S. artillery lit up the night sky. Intermittent artillery fire blasted southern neighborhoods of Fallujah, and orange fireballs from high explosive airbursts could be seen above the rooftops.

U.S. officials said the toughest fight was yet to come - when American forces enter the main part of the city on the east bank of the river, including the Jolan neighborhood where insurgent defenses are believed the strongest.

The initial attacks on Fallujah began just hours after the Iraqi government declared 60 days of emergency rule throughout most of the country as militants dramatically escalated attacks, killing at least 30 people, including two Americans.

Dr. Salih al-Issawi, the head of Fallujah's main hospital, said he had asked U.S. officers to allow doctors and ambulances go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded but they refused. There was no confirmation from the Americans.

"The American troops'take over the hospital was not right because they thought that they would halt medical assistance to the resistance," he said by telephone to a reporter inside the city. "But they did not realize that the hospital does not belong to anybody, especially the resistance."

The action began after sundown on the outskirts of the city, which has been sealed off by U.S. and Iraqi forces, and the minaret-studded skyline was lit up with huge flashes of light.

Flares were dropped to illuminate targets, and defenders fought back with heavy machine gunfire. Flaming red tracer rounds streaked through the night sky from guerrilla positions inside the city, 40 miles west of Baghdad.

Before the assault began, U.S. commanders warned troops to expect the most brutal urban fighting since the Vietnam War.

Underscoring the instability elsewhere in Iraq, several heavy explosions thundered through the capital even as government spokesman Thair Hassan al-Naqeeb was announcing the state of emergency, which applies throughout the country except for Kurdish-ruled areas in the north.

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said the state of emergency is a "very powerful message that we are serious" about reining in insurgents before elections set for late January.

"We want to secure the country so elections can be done in a peaceful way and the Iraqi people can participate in the elections freely, without the intimidation by terrorists and by forces who are trying to wreck the political process in Iraq," he told reporters.

Allawi said nothing in public about the beginning of the attack in Fallujah, although U.S. commanders have said it would be his responsibility to order the storming of the city.

Insurgents, meanwhile, waged a second day of multiple attacks across the restive Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad, storming police stations, assassinating government officials and setting off deadly car bombs. About 60 people have been killed and 75 injured in the two days of attacks.

At dawn, armed rebels stormed three police stations in the towns of Haditha and Haqlaniyah, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, killing 22 policemen. Some were lined up and shot execution-style, according to police and hospital officials.

Three attacks on U.S. convoys in and around Baghdad killed two American soldiers and wounded five others, the military said. Residents reported grenades setting police cars aflame on Haifa Street in the heart of the capital.

A car bomb also exploded near the Baghdad home of Iraq's finance minister, Adil Abdel-Mahdi, a leading Shiite politician. Abdel-Mahdi and his family were not home at the time, but the U.S. military said the bomb killed one Iraqi bystander and wounded another. A U.S. patrol came under small-arms fire as it responded, wounding one soldier, a statement said.

In a Web posting, the al-Qaida affiliate group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, believed headquartered in Fallujah, claimed responsibility for the attacks on Haditha and Haqlaniyah.

"In the dawn of this blessed day, the lions of al-Qaida in Iraq faced up to a group of apostates in the proud city of Haditha," said the statement, which could not be authenticated. "The lions stormed the city's police directorate and killed everyone there...With this operation, the city has been completely liberated. The lions have been wandering in the city until late today."

The widespread insurgent attacks seemed aimed at relieving the pressure on Fallujah, where about 10,000 American troops - including two Marine battalions and an Army battalion - were massed for the assault. Two Iraqi brigades also stood by.

The emergency decree lays the groundwork for a severe crackdown in areas where guerrillas operate.

Under the law, all traffic and men between the ages of 15 and 55 were banned from the streets of Fallujah and surrounding areas 24 hours a day.

All members of the Fallujah police and security services were suspended indefinitely. Under the emergency power, all roads into Fallujah and neighboring Ramadi are closed indefinitely.

Government negotiators earlier Sunday reported the failure of last-minute talks for peace even as Allawi had said dialogue with Fallujah leaders was still possible, even if a large-scale military action began.

Allawi, a secular-minded Shiite Muslim, faced strong pressure from within the minority Sunni community to avoid an all-out assault.

"I urge the brother prime minister to reconsider the issue of storming Fallujah and to give another chance for dialogue," Hatim Jassim, a member of the Iraqi National Council, told Al-Jazeera television.

"I urge the brother prime minister to reconsider the issue of storming Fallujah and to give another chance for dialogue," Hatim Jassim, a member of the Iraqi National Council, told Al-Jazeera television.

Ooooooopssss.....too little, TOO LATE...!!!



Battle Hymn of the Republic

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He has loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps
His day is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish`d rows of steel,
"As ye deal with my contemners, So with you my grace shall deal;"
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel
Since God is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

(Deleted By Admin)

[JB Stone]

US Begins Fallujah Assault -(New British Black Watch Injuries)
scotsman ^ | 8 Nov 2004 | PA Reporters


(UK) US Begins Fallujah Assault

By PA Reporters

US forces stormed key areas of Fallujah early today, in what appeared to be the first stage of the long-expected assault on the rebel stronghold.

The offensive came hours after two Black Watch soldiers were seriously injured in a suicide bombing while on patrol in the notorious “triangle of death”.

The initial attacks on Fallujah began after the Iraqi government declared 60 days of emergency rule throughout most of the country, as militants dramatically escalated attacks, killing at least 30 people, including two Americans.

And further south in Zubayr, a city just south of Basra, a British contractor died in a roadside car bomb, according to reports.



The two soldiers, both bomb disposal experts, were in the back of an armoured Warrior combat vehicle when a suicide car bomber ploughed into them.

The explosion, within earshot of Camp Dogwood, blew the legs off one of the men and caused horrific limb injuries to the other. Their lives were probably saved by a doctor at the scene.

The men, one serving with the Royal Logistics Corps and the other with the Royal Signals, were airlifted to a US medical centre where their condition was described as “stable” by the Ministry of Defence.

From there, they were flown out of Iraq bound for a military hospital in Germany.

The rebel action came four days after three Black Watch soldiers were killed following their controversial redeployment in the US controlled area.

[JB Stone]

U.S. Marine Tanks Prepare for Falluja Offensive
Yahoo News ^ | 11/07/04 | Michael Georgy



NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunfire crackled from a nearby junkyard used by insurgents on Monday when a U.S. Marine tank company and infantry units began moving into a desert staging position for an expected offensive on Falluja. U.S. artillery pounded the rebel-held Sunni Muslim city overnight while tracer rounds and flares lit up the sky.

An electronic tracking device in a rear Humvee vehicle showed U.S. positions on the edge of Falluja, some 30 miles west of Baghdad.

"Shoemaker do you have your neck guard on? Scan the area," Gunnery Sargeant Christopher Garza told his tobacco-chewing machinegunner as 70-ton tanks and amphibious transport vehicles traveled along deserted roads.

"If we get hit you just drive and we will do the rest," he told the driver.

The marines had been warned to stay alert for any suicide car bombers ramming American convoys.

Iraq (news - web sites)'s U.S.-backed interim government has vowed to break the back of a raging insurgency, particularly in Falluja, and help stabilize the country before elections scheduled for January.

For many of the marines, it marks the first time they will see major combat.

The U.S. military says 1,000 to 6,000 fighters -- Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) supporters and foreign Islamic militants led by Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- are holed up in Falluja's alleyways and on rooftops.

"These insurgents are going to get a lot more than they bargained for," said Garza, 30, from Houston, Texas.

Wearing night vision goggles over their helmets, marines were ready with their M-16 rifles on the two-hour journey to the staging post, where headlights were kept off.

U.S. warplanes screamed overhead and AC-130 gunships with cannons and machineguns that sound like a giant drill pounded Falluja.

After their Humvees parked near M1A1 tanks, marines were told to take turns manning swivel machineguns on the dark green armored vehicles.

"Even though the tanks are positioned in front you still need to keep close watch," said tank company commander Captain Robert Bodisch.

The sound of thunder mixed with the air strikes as lightning illuminated tank cannons pointing toward Falluja.

"If we start getting mortared you need to get in the Humvee and close the door and stay there. And you need to get in and close the swivel hatch," Garza told his men.

[JB Stone]

Video shows deadly attack on UK troops
From correspondents in Baghdad
November 8, 2004

A VIDEO purportedly showing a suicide attack against British troops last week has been posted on an Islamic website.

Soldiers from Britain's Black Watch regiment were manning a vehicle checkpoint south of Baghdad when a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle and other insurgents fired mortars at the position on Thursday, killing three soldiers and wounding eight more, according to British officials.

An Iraqi interpreter who had postponed his wedding to travel to central Iraq with the troops was also killed, British officials said.

Al-Qaeda-linked followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack.

A subtitle on the videotape posted yesterday claimed "The first martyrdom operation against the British forces in Baghdad" before a car was shown slowly driving down a road before it bursts into flames.


The video later shows a blown-off arm and a person, partially off-camera, kicks the arm around before he forcefully steps on it. A subtitle reads "these are some of the body parts that they have not seen because there were so many."

Off-camera, a voice yells out "Allahu akbar," or "God is Great." The tape also shows military vehicles and a helicopter hovering nearby.

At one point, a voice proclaims: "I swear ... that the head of America has been rolled in the dust and trampled on by our heroes."

A spokesman for the British Ministry of Defence said officials were unable to authenticate the video.

"It does however appear to show an attack against coalition forces," he said.


U.S. Army surgeon Maj. Charlie Clark dresses the head of an American soldier after reconstructing the soldier's entire face at the 31st Combat Support Hospital in the Green Zone of Baghdad, Iraq in the early hours of Monday, Nov. 8, 2004. The soldier had been shot in the face by an insurgent sniper.

The British forces had been sent from relatively peaceful southern Iraq to the American-controlled high-risk area near Baghdad to free up US forces for an assault on the militant stronghold of Fallujah.

The troop movement is politically sensitive for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has come under criticism for supporting the US in Iraq.

The three deaths represented the worst combat loss suffered by British troops since August 23, 2003, when three Royal Military Police were killed in southern Iraq. So far, 73 British troops have been killed.

Al-Zarqawi's group, formerly known as Tawhid and Jihad, is believed responsible for numerous car bombings and beheadings of foreign hostages, including Briton Kenneth Bigley.

[JB Stone]

"Never do what the enemy wishes you to do, for this reason alone, that he desires it; avoid a battlefield he has reconnoitered and studied and, with even more reason, ground that he has fortified and where he is entrenched."
-- Napoleon: Maxims of War



Recently, in a short article regarding the massacre of Iraqi national guardsmen, I noted that, because it is a sanctuary for Islamoterrorists and a symbol of their power, "Fallujah must fall."



Now U.S. forces including Marines, Army, some special units and Iraqi troops are tightening the noose around the so-called "City of Mosques."



Air and artillery strikes against "strongpoints" in the city have been increasing in frequency and intensity. Press reports and television news footage often show destroyed or damaged buildings and inevitable reports of what may or may not be "civilian casualties." It is difficult to assess the degree to which these strikes have actually killed fighters and vitiated the insurgents' combat capability.



In any case, Fallujah promises to be a bloody, vicious fight. One press report led with a U.S. Marine surgeon's alleged statement that the American casualty rate "probably will reach levels not seen since Vietnam."



Estimates of the size of the terrorist force inside the "ring" range from 1000 to 5000. It remains to be seen whether the Islamofascist fighters will be as suicidally dedicated as, say, the Japanese on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, but if past experience in Iraq is any indicator some portion of them will be.



And, worse, they have had time to prepare -- many months in which to anticipate where and how they will meet the "crusaders" and their "apostate" Iraqi allies. They have planted explosive booby traps and rigged car bombs. They have keyed their defense to those sites which they know Americans will be reluctant to engage -- school buildings, hospitals, and of course the city's many mosques and holy sites.



Some of these efforts will be (and in some cases have been) obviated by the work of our special units (Seals, etc.). And the proven ability of modern American weapons and surveillance technology to "shape" the battlefield may palliate to some extent the challenges of Napoleon's maxim. But Fallujah and its environs will still present some treacherous real estate for American troops.



In the April fighting in Fallujah, the insurgents showed a grasp of urban combat basics, such as the fortifying of houses or buildings that command strategic intersections of the city. They also showed no compunction about using ambulances and school buses to move fighters from strongpoint to strongpoint, or using the remaining civilians (city population: about 300,000) as shields and foils in street fighting.



Many insurgents killed in the April street battles were Fallujah "locals," young men (some probably ex-Iraqi soldiers) fired to a combative fervor by their imams but fatally ignorant of how to fight against a trained force. But there was behind them a core of veteran Arab terrorists with Al Qaeda training and good basic military skills.



What these leaders and experienced fighters will do as the assault on the city approaches, presents one of the most intriguing aspects of the "defense" of Fallujah.



The possibility cannot be discounted that any Al Qaeda "foreign legionnaires" and fighters loyal to Jordanian jihadofanatic Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may already be trickling out of Fallujah. They may melt away with the intention of reconstituting somewhere else and fighting some other day.



In fact, from the standpoint of guerrilla warfare, that would be considered the wise strategic move. One of the subtle paradoxes of effective insurgency is that the guerrillas should not concentrate forces in one place lest they become the target for one fatal blow against them.



And if the terrorists stay in Fallujah they will certainly be decimated. Car bombings and beheadings have their own terrible power but al-Zarqawi's fighters will find that street fighting with Marines has a terrible inevitability.



In "classic" guerrilla warfare, the terrorists would avoid such a circumstance by not being wedded to territory. Their headquarters would be in their pockets. They would disperse; move "among the people." They would follow the dictum of that consummate guerrilla, the Confederate John S. Mosby:



"Having no fixed lines to guard or defined territory to hold, it was always my policy to elude the enemy when they came in search of me, and carry the war into their own camps."



So, this is the puzzle of Fallujah. Has the "Islamic Republic" established there become such a symbol to the insurgents that they must now stay and defend it? And have they in fact put down such logistical and financial roots in the city that they are militarily tied there?



Or might al-Zarqawi and whoever else represents the "military" leadership stage a sort of Potemkin defense -- whipping hundreds of young Sunni men there into a fatalistic frenzy and letting them die in the streets while the more experienced fighters escape?



It is completely within the cast of the Islamoterrorist leaders' thinking to cynically decide that, since Fallujah will eventually fall, it can fall as a symbolic city of young martyrs.



A few experienced, hard-core fighters would remain to guide and goad those chosen for the slaughter. Given the nature of this kind of warfare (car and roadside bombs, suicidal snipers etc.) such a force would still be able to exact daunting casualties on U.S. and Iraqi troops. Meanwhile, the main element of the terrorist forces, the veterans, will have moved on to reconstitute itself elsewhere.



It is hoped that troops in the American cordon are ruthlessly screening and sifting all the "civilians" fleeing the area in case this conjecture is correct.



The legendary Arab insurgent leader T. E. Lawrence described the characteristics of a guerrilla force as "speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply." The "ubiquity" of al-Zarqawi and his fighters - their presence as a force to be reckoned with in Iraq -- will be severely compromised or eliminated if they choose to stay and fight in Fallujah.



Let us hope that some kind of Islamic hubris has painted them into a difficult and ultimately fatal corner.


And if the terrorists stay in Fallujah they will certainly be decimated. Car bombings and beheadings have their own terrible power but al-Zarqawi's fighters will find that street fighting with Marines has a terrible inevitability.

[JB Stone]

Long-planned Fallujah attack begins
First of more than 10,000 American and Iraqi troops start campaign to drive insurgents from city attack begins





BY MATTHEW MCALLESTER
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

November 8, 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- American and Iraqi forces attacked the insurgent-held city of Fallujah last night in a bid to sweep the town of rebels and turn it over to the interim Iraqi government in the run-up to the country's scheduled first elections in January, American military commanders said.

As an AC-130 gunship targeted suspected car bombs in the town, and artillery pounded suspected rebel positions, the first of more than 10,000 American and Iraqi troops began to push into this city of 250,000, military sources said.

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Working from a battle plan weeks in the making, Marines and an Iraqi commando squad made the first thrust -- seizing a peninsula on the western side of the town, which is separated from the rest of the city by the Euphrates River, military sources said. On the peninsula is a hospital that the American commanders wanted to secure as soon as the fighting began. Troops secured two key bridges over the Euphrates at both ends, an American commander said.

American commanders said shortly before the airstrikes began that the forces amassed against the estimated 3,000 insurgents in Fallujah were overwhelming.

"That town's going to be lit up tonight," said Army Maj. Tim Karcher, operations officer for the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, an army unit that a Newsday reporter is accompanying.

Hours before the attack began, Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, addressed 2,000 to 3,000 Marines at a base near Fallujah.

"You can feel the energy," Sattler told them. "You can feel the chemistry. You're going to give that to the Iraqi forces as they join that fight. God bless you, each and everyone. You know what your mission is. Go out there and get it done."

What military commanders said was the start of the much anticipated attack began on a day in which the interim Iraqi government announced a state of emergency for 60 days in all of the country except for the Kurdish-controlled north.

Insurgents continued what appeared to be an escalating campaign to distract coalition and Iraqi forces elsewhere in the central region of the country. The bombings, executions of police officers, assaults on police stations and other acts of violence against Iraqi and American targets brought the total of those killed over the weekend to more than 50.

Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said yesterday, shortly before the attack started, that action could be near. "We can't wait indefinitely," he said. "We have made our case very clear, that we have nothing with the people of Fallujah. On the contrary, the people of Fallujah have been asking us to really intervene as fast as we can and to salvage the people. They have been taken hostage by a bunch of terrorists and bandits and insurgents who were part of the old regime. They had been involved in atrocities when Saddam was around. Our government is determined to safeguard the Iraqi people."

Tense time for soldiers

With violence erupting around the region, tension has been building among the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, which was once led by Lt. Col. George Custer at Little Big Horn.

The men here have seen major action before, unlike many in Iraq. Most of them were involved in the intense battle with Shia insurgents from the Mehdi Army in the city of Najaf in August.

Each night, soldiers have lain in big blue-and-white tents in a camp outside Fallujah on dark khaki cots, watching DVDs on their laptops, chuckling in the private oblivion of headphones. Others have sat in corners with a pack of cards, a voice rising with a win, others groaning.

Somewhere nearby an artillery battery has for days been booming irregularly but often, targeting Fallujah and making even some of these experienced soldiers leap.

"You need new underwear, you just let me know," they like to call out to each other when they spot each other flinching.

Soldiers have not been coming to Chaplain Jonathan Fowler with jokes. They have been coming to him "to get good with God," he said. These are young men, some 19 years old, and they know that they might not come back from this fight.

One soldier new to the unit -- he signed up five months ago -- has been suspiciously quiet, said Staff Sgt. Carlos Santillana, 24, of Abilene, Texas, himself already a veteran of the fighting in Najaf.

"What's wrong, man?" Santillana said he asked the soldier on Saturday.

"I'm scared," the young soldier told him.

"Scared of what?" Santillana asked him.

"Scared of dying," the soldier said.

"You're in the wrong job, man," came the response.

Yesterday Santillana, a self-described obsessive-compulsive neatness freak -- he smiles beatifically when he talks about the calming sound of a vacuum cleaner -- was making his final, meticulous preparations with his squad. The anxious soldier would be fine, he said.

"He's new," he said. "Once the first bullet flies by his head he'll be fine. He'll wake up real quick."

In Najaf, Santillana had another soldier who just wouldn't fight. He would follow the others into a building, he would do everything he was told; he just wouldn't "pull that damn trigger," Santillana said.

Most of his soldiers didn't have that problem. They shot too much, if anything, he said.

Remembering past fighting

There are memories from that battle that soldiers like Santillana are carrying around with them, like it or not. Santillana, a father of a 15-month-old boy he's hardly seen, shot people dead from a distance that neutralized his emotions and he shot others so close he could see their facial expressions. One time, he and his men shot dead two Iraqi militants after watching them load their Kalashnikovs.

"It's a sick feeling," he said, looking at the ground. "You kind of put yourself in his position. It's a sick feeling."

Santillana, like many soldiers, had been preparing himself for this coming battle in his own way.

"Everyone's different," he said. He gestured to his friend, Sgt. Akram Abdelwahab, 28, from Spartanburg, S.C., who is known around the platoon as the craziest of them all. He's the point man of Santillana's squad. That means he runs ahead, scouting for hidden bombs and hiding enemies. He has tattoos all over his torso.

"He's listening to music and getting psyched up," Santillana said, as Abdelwahab smiled. "I just like to sleep."

Abdelwahab's favorite pre-battle music is the shock rockers like Marilyn Manson. His favorite song's title cannot be published in a family newspaper but it is about hate. (He also has a photograph of his two young children stuck on the inside of his helmet. "We love you, Daddy," is printed on the photograph.)

If you don't think about dying, if you don't try to come to terms with it, Santillana said, there's something wrong with you.

"If you're ready and at peace with wherever you're going to go, you're good to go," he said. "If you ain't afraid of dying, you got issues. ... Whenever you come close to it, you find God real quick."

Abdelwahab said he wasn't afraid of dying.

"Are you at one with Satan?" Santillana asked him, laughing.

Religion and faith pops up in conversation with just about every soldier with the 2nd Battalion.

"I do a lot of praying," said Staff Sgt. Michael Clifford, 39, of Arlington, Texas. "Making sure he's taking care of us up there. The way I look at it, we're not over here to kill. We're here to separate good from evil."

Clifford will be loading huge, devastating shells in an Abrams in the coming days. As an observant Catholic, he can't bear the idea of Iraqi civilians dying in this fight.

"That was my first thought is I sure hope those civilian people get out of there," he said. "I pray for the innocent. The insurgents will come into their homes and take away their homes. ... What can they do?"

Expecting to take casualties

It's his own men that the 2nd Battalion's commanding officer was thinking about on Saturday.

"We're going to take some casualties," Lt. Col. Jim Rainey, 39, said, sitting in his Tactical Operations Center, a room created under canvas between military vehicles that has been his headquarters for several days. Early this morning, he moved it up to within a mile of the outskirts of Fallujah.

Rainey gets respect from his men. He's something of a scholar of the region, Islam, past wars, history and insurgents like Che Guevara. He has two master's degrees. But he downplays that, chews tobacco on the inside of his lower lip like many of his grunts and likes to imply that his executive officer, Maj. Scott Jackson, is smarter than he is. But the battle-planning and the ultimate responsibility for the hundreds of men under his command are his.

"It's hard," he said. "I'm in charge of X number of guys and some of them are going to get hurt."

One thing that will help protect them is their experience in Najaf. Most of his men were there. They fought for 15 sweltering days in the summer, alongside the Marines. They learned some useful lessons there, soldiers said.

Most important was that all they had learned in training meant nothing on the ground. After that salutary lesson came the revelation that the 2nd Battalion's Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles turned out to be perfect for urban combat. Designed for open-terrain warfare rather than street-to-street fighting, the heavily armored track vehicles gave the soldiers enormous protection.

Santillana said that the tanks, with their huge shells that can pierce through two walls before exploding in devastating heat, would take care of threats from the ground level; the Bradleys, with their mobile 25 mm guns, would swivel around and kill assailants on roofs or higher floors. Once the vehicles and their gunners had done what they could, the ramp at the back of the Bradleys would lower and five or six infantrymen like Santillana would rush out and into the buildings where lingering insurgents were.

Once inside, they learned not to stand anywhere there was light. The insurgents had good snipers. They also learned that in face of death, humor and calm bubble up at the most unlikely of times. Once, two soldiers were about to go into a stairwell but they couldn't agree on who should go first.

"No, you go," one said.

"No, you go," the other said. So they played rock, paper, scissors to see who went first, Santillana said.

But whatever experience gained and lessons learned in Najaf are only of limited comfort to the soldiers who were preparing to go into Fallujah, a city apparently crawling with committed and sometimes suicidal enemies who have had six months to prepare for this battle.

Rainey's men have gone out on reconnaissance missions, out to the trailers where other soldiers dole out food twice a day, out to train bursting into narrow doorways. Until last night, they had not gone out to do what they came here to do.

"You're rested you're ready and we're prepared," Rainey told his staff last night, as they sat around him in his command tent. "This is going to be the biggest fight any of us will do in the near future. No matter what we think about the Iraqi war or the Iraqi government this fight is 100 percent about terrorists, terrorists who want to come to your home and kill you. It's going to be a tougher fight than Najaf."

Rainey had a final thought for his officers and senior NCOs: "Don't leave your honor, values or buddies on the battlefield."

[JB Stone]

[JB Stone]

The AC-130H’s call sign is “Spectre.” The AC-130U’s call sign is “Spooky. ” The U-model is the third generation of C-130 gunships.

[Chuck Z Ombie AC2000]

Can i recommend a link to those articles or at least your favorite one?
_________________
John Kerry, R.I.P. (Rot In Paris)

[Hellfire]

call me kooky, but I would just carpet bomb the piss out of the place, or roast them with a few MOABs. Don't we have the accuracy to cluster bomb the piss out of all the allys to prematurally detonate any booby traps, or at least render them useless? I think I'm just out of patience with that sewer and would hate losing any of our guys to these bastards when we can just roast them from space and be done with it. At that point the hardest thing left for our troops would be pissing on their ashes. The insurgents need to see hell on earth.
_________________
All your base are belong to us.
Kerry delenda est. Omnes cum studio clamabant

[TEWSPilot]

...and damage (gulps) the Mosques?

[arkadyfolkner]

the AC-130 and the A-10, two of the most feared ground attack aircraft on the planet...

I bet some of those Fajullahs who were in this last main fight and the previous Gulf War are about to get some flashbacks as to exactly what it means to be in their pain when they let loose with the steel rain.

[JB Stone]

Fallujah rules spelt out

From correspondents in Baghdad
November 8, 2004

IRAQ'S interim prime minister said today "terrorists" are not interested in a peaceful settlement.

He announced that emergency measures would be imposed on the insurgent strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi beginning at 6pm (2am AEDT Tuesday).

In a press conference in Baghdad, Iyad Allawi said that Iraq's borders with Syria and Jordan will also be closed off and Baghdad's international airport would be shut down for 48 hours.

"Once again, we have seen more criminal acts committed by these terrorists who continue to use Fallujah as a base for their operations... We have no other option but to take the necessary measures to protect Iraqi people from these killers and liberate Fallujah," he said.

Early today, US and Iraqi troops began an offensive to take the city, seizing a hospital and two bridges over the Euphrates River in the first stage of a major assault on the insurgent stronghold.


Mr Allawi said that during the raid today, "Iraqi forces entered Fallujah Hospital, capturing four foreigners and killing 38 persons. We do not know whether they are Iraqis or not. They were stationed in the hospital in order to carry out terrorist actions."

Two of the foreign terrorists seized were from Morocco, he said.

[JB Stone]

(Deleted by Admin - same story as prior post)

~~~~~~~

[JB Stone]

Last Updated: Monday, 8 November, 2004, 12:12 GMT
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Iraqi PM orders Falluja offensive
Image from TV of a US soldier blindfolding a man after troops entered Falluja hospital, in Iraq
Troops seized control of a hospital in the west of the city
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has given the go-ahead for a US-led attack on the rebel stronghold of Falluja.

Mr Allawi announced a curfew in Falluja and Ramadi from 1800 local time (1500 GMT), and said Baghdad airport and some international borders would be closed.

He was speaking as US troops advanced into the western outskirts of the city, where they came under heavy fire.

The BBC's Paul Wood in Falluja reports earth-shaking explosions and bright flashes in the vicinity.

F18 bombers have been dive-bombing the city, occasionally letting out short bursts of machine-gun fire.

Meanwhile fighters in the city fired mortars and small arms across the River Euphrates at American positions.

Click below for a satellite image of Falluja

Enlarge Image

US troops, who are massed near the city awaiting orders for an attack, took two bridges and a hospital overnight in the western part of the city.

But they have not entered deep into the city, and have repeatedly had to change position due to the insurgents' fire.

Two US marines died overnight when their bulldozer overturned in the river. Their bodies were discovered in the morning.

State of emergency

We have no option but to take necessary measures to protect the Iraqi people from these killers and to liberate Fallujans [so they can return home]
Iyad Allawi

In pictures: City under siege

Mr Allawi said he was closing Baghdad airport for 48 hours and closing the Iraqi borders with Syria and Jordan. Only essential goods would be allowed through.

"We have no option but to take necessary measures to protect the Iraqi people from these killers and to liberate Fallujans [so they can return home]," he said.

On Sunday, Mr Allawi declared a 60-day state of emergency across the country in response to the escalation of violence by militants.

The BBC's Quil Lawrence, with US forces near Falluja, said troops used night vision to seize the two bridges, which are main routes west out of the city.

One of the bridges was the site of the killing of four US contractors that sparked the first attempt to retake Falluja in April.

There is no sign yet of American ground forces entering the city centre, where street by street fighting is expected, our correspondent adds.

US planes and artillery have been battering what they call insurgent positions for the past few weeks to make entry into the city easier.

More than 60 people have died in two days of co-ordinated attacks by insurgents in an apparent response to US military preparations around Falluja.

Our correspondent says the marines believe Falluja will be their biggest engagement since Hue, the Vietnamese city they captured in 1968, losing 142 men and killing thousands of the enemy.

There are fears that insurgents will unleash suicide attacks on the troops once they have entered Falluja, our correspondent says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3992263.stm