We are Retaliating For Fallujah!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
We are Retaliating For Fallujah!!!
161
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 1:42pm
I am happy to see that we are doing something!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4667031/

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi troops in tanks, trucks and other vehicles surrounded the turbulent city of Fallujah on Monday ahead of a major operation against insurgents blamed for the grisly slayings of four American security contractors last week.

U.S. commanders have been vowing a massive response to pacify Fallujah, one of the most violent cities in the Sunni Triangle, the heartland of the anti-U.S. insurgency north and west of Baghdad.


(For the rest of the story, click the link above)

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Thu, 04-08-2004 - 4:48pm
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Not based on anything you've said about it so far. You've just described what you what you think you've been seeing on television.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-02-2003
Thu, 04-08-2004 - 4:48pm
Thanx.... Miffy

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Welcome to the board, by the way. I don't recall seeing you before, and I apologize if you have been around awhile and I am just now noticing you.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Thanx for the welcome. What city are you at now?

I only stop by here once in a while but it's good to know it's here to chat.

I was there in 1994. I took some german classes before, to add to my trip. I hate being on a tur bus and feeling like cattle and stuck in a typical tourist trap. Yes I really hate all tourist traps and only venture out on my own when I travel. That way I really do meet the natives. Hummmm I did bring along some Cuban cigars, the natives went ape chit when I passed a few of those out at the biergarten, but only to the people who were allready chatting and friendly with me.

OK....Being allready bi-lingual it helped in a 3rd language. I just got a car and took off. I went from Koln, Heidleburg, Lindau, Black Forest(had to get the Koo Koo clock), München(luv them biergartens), and Colburg(where they made the Hummel figureines) and a few small towns. Frankfurt was only the city to fly to and from USA. When I went to France and Italy I tried to meet the locals also. Don't ask me about the french, even through we were speaking spanish, because only 2 of us did spoke English or italian but not french, we got the same hatefull treatment as the yanqui's. The Italians were fantastic, also and going from spanish to italian is close enough to understand each other if they didn't speak English.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-14-2003
Thu, 04-08-2004 - 5:11pm

I know what you mean about the Italians!

Miffy

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-02-2003
Thu, 04-08-2004 - 5:47pm
Miff:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Ugh, can you believe I still have not been to the Black Forest or down to Muenchen to celebrate in Oktoberfest?! I am so lame! HA! I have one last Oktoberfest before I leave that I can attend. I better go, or I will regret it. Just to say that I have been there will be good enough, you know? And Paulaner of Muenchen is my FAVORITE beer!! I have some sweet pictures of the Heidelberg Schloss! My neighbor and I plan on going to see some more castles this summer. I can't wait! Did you ever make it down to Rotenberg Ob Der Tauber for their annual Weihnachts Markt? I went with my neighbor and we had heard that it was supposed to be one of the best Christmas Markets in Germany. We were disappointed, I must say. I thought it was going to be bigger than it was, but the city was beautiful. I mistakenly ate one of those "Schnee Ballen" from one of the many bakeries, and it was awful. It was basically like eating a ball of pie crust covered in a light dusting of powdered sugar. ICK! HA! Oh, to answer your question, I am in a city right outside of Wiesbaden. Wow, anyway, sorry to everyone else about talking off topic.>>>>>>>>>>>>>

LOL.............. you took a SOS bus................OMG I would of died on one of those cattle cars. Yes seeing Paris was nice, but forget the natives. But on the plus side, I did meet some yanqui's at the Degalle airport who went to other cities in France and they were treated ok. When I travel, I make it a point to avoid tourist traps and head for where the natives go.

I didn't make it to the X-mas market or Octoberfest yet, maybe one day. I did hit the Paulaner Biergarten when I was in Nünchen, great bier. Nope, I haven't tried that pie, I perfer the "Apfel Strüdel" Have you been to Disney's designed castle in the black forest, "Nuesswanstein"(sp). It looks just like a fairy tale. I've seen the Heidelberg Schloss. I wonder why they never rebuilt it? How is your Deutsch?

I haven't made it to that part of Italy yet, only Roma, y Frienze(with the store lined bridge). I also got family close to Genova. One of these days maybe when I visit family in Italy, maybe I can slid up and hit the Octoberfest at the same time?

The trains in Europe are easy to get around and cheap.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Thu, 04-08-2004 - 6:17pm

I'm going to try and pull several of your posts to me into one...it's getting too time consuming to keep repeating the same things over and over.


I'll edit this to add the info on Afghanistan when I've had the time to search it out.


However, for Bosnia...you do realize that it was NATO & Russia, in combination, that entered Kosovo?


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Thu, 04-08-2004 - 6:30pm

Not based on anything you've said about it so far. You've just described what you what you think you've been seeing on television.


No more so than you....Rolly 2


iVillage Member
Registered: 11-14-2003
Fri, 04-09-2004 - 1:42pm

Hey Gem,


The "Schnee Ballen" are not pies, they are just a big ball of strips of pie crust-like dough baked together with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

Miffy

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Wed, 04-14-2004 - 6:24pm

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq


Wednesday, April 14, 2004 · Last updated 2:49 p.m. PT


Fallujah truce shaken by heavy fighting


By JASON KEYSER AND LOURDES NAVARRO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. warplanes strafed gunmen in Fallujah on Wednesday, and more than 100 guerrillas with rocket-propelled grenades pounded a lone Marine armored vehicle lost in the streets - a sign of the heavy battles waiting if Marines resume a full assault on this besieged city.


With a truce crumbling and President Bush calling for a key U.N. role to keep Iraq's political transition moving amid the violence, a top U.N. envoy proposes a caretaker government, a formula that abandons a U.S.-favored plan.


Lakhdar Brahimi said the caretaker government should be led by respected national figures - with a prime minister, president and two vice-presidents to run the country from the handover of power by the Americans on June 30 until national elections in January.


Under the Brahimi plan, the U.S.-picked Governing Council would be dissolved June 30, rather than expanded to form an assembly as called for in an earlier proposal U.S. administrators promoted.


The White House thanked Brahimi for his plan. "We appreciated the United Nations' help in moving forward on our strategy to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people by June 30," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.


This month's unprecedented violence has eclipsed the political process, killing at least 87 U.S. troops - the deadliest month ever for the Americans in Iraq - and more than 880 Iraqis.


Though negotiations were trying to halt the fighting on both fronts, Fallujah and the south, Bush warned on Tuesday that it "may become more difficult before it is finished"


In Fallujah, a four-day-old truce was crumbling amid nightly battles in which Sunni insurgents have been attacking U.S. troops in greater numbers and with increasing sophistication. Wednesday night the fighting began again, with AC-130 gunships over the city battering targets below.


The top Marine commander in western Iraq suggested time for negotiations was running out before U.S. forces call off their halt in offensive operations.


"I don't forecast that this stalemate will go on for long," Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division said. "It's hard to have a ceasefire when they maneuver against us, they fire at us."


Tuesday night, insurgents launched near simultaneous attacks on several positions of a company of Marines controlling a few city blocks in the northeastern edge of the city. In one attack, the gunment sent up illuminating flares to light up the American position then unleashed heavy, continous gunfire, Marines said.


In another intense battle that lasted nearly five hours, one of two armored vehicles sent to resupply a front-line Marine position got lost during an ambush and ended up nearly a kilometer (half mile) inside the city.


There the vehicle, with 20 Marines inside, came under an even larger ambush. At least 100 gunmen opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades, hitting it at least 10 times, knocking out its communications and its engine, paralyzing it.


"They've been preparing for this the whole time ... We definitely stumbled into the wasp nest," said Captain Jason Smith, who was at the position meant to be resupplied.


The Marines in the armored vehicle fled into a nearby building for cover, where they waited for rescue, throwing back grenades that insurgents tossed over the wall and listening to gunmen whisper outside.


A rescue force, backed by four tanks, wandered the streets in search of the beleaguered vehicle, finally finding by following the plume of black smoke in the sky. "We were fireing in a 360 degree radius," said Lt. Joshua Glover, part of the team that reached the vehicle. While F-15 warplanes strafed the area for cover, he striken armored vehicle was hooked to a tank and dragged away.


Meanwhile, both sides were fortifying their positions in the city in preparation for more positions.


In the abandoned homes they occupy on the frontlines a few blocks into the city, Marines punched bricks out of wall to make holes to fire through and knocked down walls between rooftop terraces to allow movement from house to house without descending to the street. Shards of glass were spread across doorsteps, so the boot of an approaching enemy would be heard approaching the door.


Insurgents were also organizing. Marines said they suspected tunnels had been dug under houses held by gunmen to allow them to move without being targeted by Marines snipers. Gunmen had looted Iraqi police stores, some wearing plice flak jackets in battle.


"We fought for every one of these streets," said Col. B.P. McCoy, 41, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment said during a dangerous, zigzagging trot through a northern neighborhood to inspect Marine positions there. The streets were empty. A few scorched cars littered roads.


Still, Marines were sticking to their halt in their advance into the city, the top commander, Mattis, said. "We've got to be patient, but not too patient."


In the south, the country's top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, persuaded radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to drop defiant negotiating demands - including that U.S. troops withdraw from all Iraqi cities. An Iranian envoy was also getting involved in the mediation with al-Sadr, an aide to the cleric said.


Al-Sadr was in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Outside Najaf, 2,500 U.S. troops prepared for a possible assault to capture al-Sadr. Troops scoured the area around the city, combing through mangroves, villages and the desert in search of al-Sadr's militiamen.


A U.S. attack on Najaf, the holiest Shiite city, would likely outrage Iraq's Shiite majority, a community that - aside from al-Sadr's militia - has so far shunned anti-U.S. violence.


Meanwhile, Russia announced that it will evacuate its citizens from Iraq following a spate of kidnappings of at least 22 foreigners that erupted with the violence this month.


A kidnapped French journalist was freed, but there were reports that two Japanese were abducted - in addition to three Japanese already held captive by gunment threatening to kill them.


U.S. officials and the top U.S contractor in Iraq, Halliburton, were trying to determine whether four bodies found belonged to seven Americans missing since gunmen attacked their convoy outside Baghdad on Friday. One of the seven, Thomas Hamill of Macon, Mississippi, is known to have been kidnapped, and his captors threatened to kill him.


---


AP correspondent Denis D. Gray contributed to this report from Najaf.

cl-nwtreehugger



iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2004
Wed, 04-14-2004 - 10:10pm
I'm confused. When did Hussein kick Weapons inspectors out of Iraq? Was there an occasion in 1998 when the UNSCOM weapons inspectorswere withdrawn by Richard Butler, the head of the inspections team. Butler ordered his inspectors to evacuate Baghdad, in anticipation of a military attack. There was some controversy at the time that Butler issued the order without the permission of the Security Council. Then again in 2003 weapons inspectors were withdrawn for the same reason. I don't recall another occasion, yet I keep reading on this board about Saddam kicking out weapons inspectors.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Thu, 04-15-2004 - 12:55am
From 1991 to 1998 Saddam *repeatedly* denied access to inspectors. In '96 and '97 there were *three* UN resolutions demanding that Saddam let the inspectors back in. He played us for fools during the entire Clinton presidency. He had plenty of time to hide everything he had without anyone watching.

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