Coalition sends reinforcements to Fallujah

[Brandon]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

Coalition sends reinforcements to Fallujah

Saturday, April 10, 2004 Posted: 2:06 PM EDT (1806 GMT)

BAGHDAD (CNN) -- Coalition commanders sent reinforcements to the beseiged Sunni Triangle city of Fallujah on Saturday, as they worked to arrange a cease-fire with insurgents there, a top U.S. military spokesman said.

Brig. Gen Mark Kimmitt said that another battalion of U.S. Marines has been sent to the city. Two Marine batallions are already there, along with a fourth battalion that includes members of the Iraq Civil Defense Corps.

Despite a pause in coalition offensive operations and a call for a cease-fire in the city of 200,000 people, "the enemy seems to continue to fight," Kimmitt said.

Coalition forces were still taking small arms and mortar fire, and are "responding to enemy provocations and attacks," he said.

"Maybe there is a communications problem -- that we have not gotten the message out to the leadership; it may be that there is no leadership; or it may be that they have chosen to fight. If it is the latter, that's probably the wrong decision to be making," Kimmitt said in a Saturday news conference.

Earlier Saturday, coalition officials urged insurgents who control the central city to lay down their arms and agree to a bilateral cease-fire.

Iraqi Governing Council members met with Fallujah leaders and leadership of the anti-coalition forces to try to bring calm.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have captured 60 anti-coalition insurgents in the last few days in Fallujah, Kimmitt said, including five fighters from Egypt, Sudan and Syria.

He said those detainees have not been implicated in the March 31 killing and mutilation of four U.S. security contractors in Fallujah.

One witness described Fallujah as a "ghost town" dominated by fighting and evacuated by residents.

Coalition forces suspended their offensive around noon on Friday to allow Iraqis to bury their dead and aid supplies to be brought into the city.

U.S. Marines were letting only women, children and the elderly out of the city, while allowing humanitarian supplies, such as food and medical supplies, to enter.

In other cities around Iraq, fighting continues. In the southern city of Kut, U.S. troops battled the banned militia loyal to militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The coalition said on Saturday it has control over about 70 percent of Kut.

The coalition had seized control of the radio and television station by Saturday, as well as a key bridge that provides access to all routes into the city.

The U.S. forces killed 17 militia fighters and captured 55 in Kut, according to the U.S. Army.

Al-Sadr's Mehdi Army controls parts of Karbala and all of the holy city of Najaf.

[Bobo Adobo]

The Gov't starts talking about handing over Iraq...

Maybe the US should wait until the war is over. :/

Just a thought.

[Brandon]

Coalition forces suspended their offensive around noon on Friday to allow Iraqis to bury their dead and aid supplies to be brought into the city.

U.S. Marines were letting only women, children and the elderly out of the city, while allowing humanitarian supplies, such as food and medical supplies, to enter.

I want everyone who thinks that the U.S. is callous, bloodthirsty, and deserving of this kind of backlash to read that part of the article over and over.

EDIT: This type of violence is, sadly, inevitable, but we can't drop Iraq like a hot potato at this point. We have to follow through with what we intended to do, since fleeing would almost certainly place power in the hands of someone like Sadr.

[mburbank]

A.) I don't think America is bloodthirsty and I think what callpousness it has stems from the arrogance of it's leadership. I think we're hamfisted, proud, cocksure and a hots of oter things that make for bad foreign policy, and I think that about our current leadership in spades.

I think when we are represented by 'boots on the ground' were about as civilzed as warriors get, although that's daming with faint praise. I think when we set of daisy cutters from a distance, we're kind of like an ot of control toddler in the infant room.

We are without question icer by far than folks who use human remians as hood ornaments. Bully for our side.

I'm not suggesting that America cut and run in Iraq leaving no one behind. I stating that of all the major powers, be they nation states, coalitions, alliances or international organzations, we are the leaast able to carry out this job. You can't occupy and command a country that hates you and do anything productive. Should we provife soldiers and money to whoever r5uns the show? Absolutely. Should we command? Absolutely not. Any action we take is tainted in fact or perception.

W cannot hand over Iraq. First of all he won't. Second, no one would accept this mess from him. This has got to be in the top ten reasons why it's very, very important W. not be our next president. He will never admit the tragic mistakes he's made, and without such an admission, without the humility in foreign policy he spoke so much about when he raan, no one is going to take this mess off his bloody hands.