- Jul 25, 2002
- 10,053
- 0
- 71
Or we'll kill you
(Washington Poat)
<CLIP>
The top Marine Corps commander in Iraq said Thursday he was displeased with the quantity and quality of weapons handed over by people in Fallujah and bluntly warned that an all-out attack against insurgents would occur within days if local compliance with a peace deal signed earlier this week did not improve.
"We need to see a better indication of good faith," said the commander, Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, who heads the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. But he said he remained skeptical that local leaders who signed the agreement have enough influence over the insurgents -- believed to be a mix of hundreds of foreign fighters and indigenous religious zealots -- to compel them to turn in heavy weapons and otherwise abide by the deal.
Conway's assessment, made at a small news conference here, suggested that the peace agreement, signed on Monday after intense negotiations among American and Iraqi officials, was near collapse.
"It is our estimate that the people of Fallujah have not responded well to the agreement that was made," he said, speaking in the same, well-scrubbed room on an otherwise dusty Marine base where the peace deal was negotiated among local leaders, Iraqi politicians from Baghdad, military commanders and civilian representatives of the U.S.-led occupation authority.
Conway did not set a deadline for compliance, but said he was only willing to wait for "days not weeks." Since April 4, thousands of Marines have encircled Fallujah, a city of about 200,000 located 35 miles west of Baghdad that has been a hotbed of insurgent activity involving local religious extremists, foreign fighters and former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party government. Although attacks on U.S. forces in Fallujah had been a regular occurrence over the past year, Conway's Marines were ordered to mount an intense counter-insurgency operation after a mob killed and mutilated four American security contractors driving through the city last month.
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Question # 1 -Who are they going to launch the all out assault on, the general citizenry ?
The general public maynot have the huge arsenal that we claim - remember the WMD stockpiles !
Question#2 - Do we really want to risk further alienation of the civilian population by blustering about
how much military muscle we have to blow them up with ?
Remember - in 'Namour military won each and every battle with the Cong, we were able to outkill them
by at least 10 to 1, we NEVER had a single skirmish - large or small end in a defeat of the Military.
It was irrelevant - we lost the heart and mind of the population, so in the end we lost the war by having
won every battle - except that for thesoul of the community.
</NITF>
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(Washington Poat)
<CLIP>
The top Marine Corps commander in Iraq said Thursday he was displeased with the quantity and quality of weapons handed over by people in Fallujah and bluntly warned that an all-out attack against insurgents would occur within days if local compliance with a peace deal signed earlier this week did not improve.
"We need to see a better indication of good faith," said the commander, Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, who heads the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. But he said he remained skeptical that local leaders who signed the agreement have enough influence over the insurgents -- believed to be a mix of hundreds of foreign fighters and indigenous religious zealots -- to compel them to turn in heavy weapons and otherwise abide by the deal.
Conway's assessment, made at a small news conference here, suggested that the peace agreement, signed on Monday after intense negotiations among American and Iraqi officials, was near collapse.
"It is our estimate that the people of Fallujah have not responded well to the agreement that was made," he said, speaking in the same, well-scrubbed room on an otherwise dusty Marine base where the peace deal was negotiated among local leaders, Iraqi politicians from Baghdad, military commanders and civilian representatives of the U.S.-led occupation authority.
Conway did not set a deadline for compliance, but said he was only willing to wait for "days not weeks." Since April 4, thousands of Marines have encircled Fallujah, a city of about 200,000 located 35 miles west of Baghdad that has been a hotbed of insurgent activity involving local religious extremists, foreign fighters and former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party government. Although attacks on U.S. forces in Fallujah had been a regular occurrence over the past year, Conway's Marines were ordered to mount an intense counter-insurgency operation after a mob killed and mutilated four American security contractors driving through the city last month.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question # 1 -Who are they going to launch the all out assault on, the general citizenry ?
The general public maynot have the huge arsenal that we claim - remember the WMD stockpiles !
Question#2 - Do we really want to risk further alienation of the civilian population by blustering about
how much military muscle we have to blow them up with ?
Remember - in 'Namour military won each and every battle with the Cong, we were able to outkill them
by at least 10 to 1, we NEVER had a single skirmish - large or small end in a defeat of the Military.
It was irrelevant - we lost the heart and mind of the population, so in the end we lost the war by having
won every battle - except that for thesoul of the community.
</NITF>
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