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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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January 2nd,
2007 - Marines Locked in Anbar Standoff |
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Marines Locked in Anbar Standoff Al-Qaida insurgency called well-financed, well-led and elusive By David Wood Baltimore Sun January 2, 2007 Ramadi, Iraq - After three
years of fighting that has killed 143 American troops in Anbar province, the
U.S. military has been unable to quash a vicious insurgency that shows no
sign of abating. Senior U.S. commanders,
grappling with Islamist fighters through the Euphrates River towns and the
dusty, wind- swept expanse of this province west of Baghdad, describe the
insurgents of al-Qaida in Iraq as well-financed, well-led and elusive. In interviews at heavily
bunkered American outposts in Ramadi, Fallujah, Haditha Dam and elsewhere,
the officers described the fight as a frustrating uphill battle that will
require a steady commitment over many years to win. President Bush's struggle to
find a strategy to halt Iraq's slide toward chaos and civil war is focused on
the growing sectarian strife in Baghdad, where White House and Pentagon
strategists say the war must be won. But no matter the fate of
Baghdad, the separate insurgency in Anbar will fester and grow as a dangerous
al-Qaida sanctuary unless it is decisively defeated, U.S. commanders said. Gen. James T. Conway, making
his first tour of the region since he was named commandant of the Marine
Corps in November, called the steadily rising violence against U.S. troops
and Iraqi civilians, despite the presence of 20,000 Marines,
"disheartening." He said it is likely that
the deployment of 2,000 Marines in the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, sent
here as reinforcements in November, would be extended by 60 to 90 days in
March because they are filling critical combat missions around Rutbah, a
stronghold of the main insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq. But Conway said in an
interview that he believes the bombings, assassinations and sniper attacks
are "at a high-water mark." U.S. forces are using such
creative tactics as building earthen dikes or berms around some urban areas
to control access by insurgents. They are outfighting the insurgents in
firefights. They are helping to train and advise new Iraqi army and police
units - all factors that Conway said convinced him the situation was better
than he had expected. The day after Marines
finished building the berm around several large towns near Haditha this fall,
insurgent attacks dropped by half. "I was really
encouraged," said Conway, who led 60,000 troops of the 1st Marine
Expeditionary Force in two combat tours in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. Other officers stressed that
while there is progress, it will be slow. "The issue isn't
whether we can hang on," said Brig. Gen. Robert G. Neller, operations
chief for Multinational Force-West, the military command for Anbar province.
"The issue is whether the American people are willing to accept a
long-term commitment in Iraq." In direct firefights with
insurgents, the Marines and soldiers here always prevailed. But there's no
straight line from winning battles to winning the war. "If killing people
would win this, we'd have won a long time ago," said Col. William Crowe,
commander of Regimental Combat Team 7, the main combat force in Anbar, where
about 1,400 insurgents have been killed since June. Working the back alleys and
neighborhoods where there is no constant U.S. presence, the Sunni insurgents
are waging a campaign of murder and intimidation to demonstrate that neither
the Iraqi government nor U.S. forces can protect people. "Kill one, scare one
thousand," said an intelligence officer. "Anyone cooperating with
us becomes a target for AQI assassination." In Haditha, several
relatives of the police chief were killed and their heads impaled on stakes
for public display. A woman detonated a vest bomb at the entrance to a local
university. The provincial council has fled from the capital, Ramadi, to the
relative safety of Baghdad. In general terms, violence
in Anbar has risen steadily over the past year, in a pattern that shows up on
intelligence charts as a ramp rising "in a northeasterly
direction," as Conway described it. In Ramadi, roadside bomb attacks
have jumped from four a day in October to six per day in November, despite a
concerted Marine crackdown. This year, thanks to growing
expertise in smuggling, extortion, bank holdups and black marketing, the
insurgency became self-supporting, independent of any need for outside
financing. Contractors working for U.S. forces often are told to pay
kickbacks or be killed. By one estimate, the insurgents brought in $80
million this year. External link: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.iraq02jan02,0,4597014.story |