US Marines to leave Fallujah?

[Graham]

BBC Report

US marines are to withdraw from positions they have held in the flashpoint Iraqi city of Falluja, an American military commander has said.

Lt Col Brennan Byrne said this would allow a newly created all-Iraqi force to take control of the city on Friday.

Col Byrne said the new Iraqi force that will move into the city had been set up under a new agreement reached with local leaders.

Known as the Falluja Protective Army, it will be made up of up to 1,100 Iraqi soldiers led by a former general from the Saddam Hussein era.

I was under the impression that all Saddam-era officers above a certain rank were also high-ranking Baathists. This must be one of thse exceptions they were talking about.

That said, what think we of this move, consdiering:

1) The generally poor showing of US-trained Iraqi forces (ref recent articles about how many have left the programme and become insurgents, etc)

2) The small numbers in the force (less than even the most conservative estimates of insurgent numbers.

3) The fact that the insurgents still have not surrendered their arms as per the terms offered for the ceasefire. How can this not be interpreted as a retreat or a form of surrender by the Americans?

Graham

 

[Ziggurat]

Graham,

The best writing I've seen by far about Fallujah is at http://belmontclub.blogspot.com
From what they're saying, it sounds like this might be more of a redeployment to other locations. The insurgents are backed into a corner of the city known as Golon, which has narrow streets and shoddy construction, making street-to-street fighting very dangerous. But the shoddy construction also makes it quite vulnerable to targetting with AC-130 gunships (rather than needing larger bombs to take out buildings). The marines know what they are doing. The analysis from Belmont Club has been extremely insightful, and gives a much better picture (in terms of accuracy, completeness, AND optimism) of what the Marines are doing than the professional press.

 

[Tmy]

How will the hawks spin this one when just a few weeks ago they were all "we will crush these insurgents, bring n the rouge cleric. Anything less shows a weakness. Wont negotiate with terrorists....bla bla bla."

 

[Ziggurat]

How will the hawks spin this one when just a few weeks ago they were all "we will crush these insurgents, bring n the rouge cleric. Anything less shows a weakness. Wont negotiate with terrorists....bla bla bla."

Spin which one? Fallujah? As I said to Graham, check out the Belmont Club link I provided above. Pretty much as soon as the Contractors had been killed, they made a prediction that the Marines would lay seige to the town, and that it would look from a superficial level like progress wasn't being. They laid out the basic progression that this operation would take, along with WHY things would happen that way. So far, it's been pretty damned spot on. And they've got some pretty solid arguments for why we're going to take our time finishing the Fallujah insurgency.

As for what's happening with Sadr, that's a little more complicated, but I wouldn't jump to any conclusions yet. We're primarily NOT negotiating with Sadr, we're much more concerned with negotiating with Sistani and the other Shia clerics, who don't support Sadr but also don't want to be seen as subservient to us. And that has to be handled with finesse. But despite the fact that press reports aren't showing much happening, I'd also bet quite a lot is happening beneath the radar, and the locals of Najaf are probably getting pretty pissed at Sadr right now. It is indeed important that we not give in to any demands by Sadr, but it isn't important that we rush to action because of some imagined sense of urgency.

 

[Tmy]

Ok i get it. The spin is "We won. Things are calm and all is swell in Falluja. So swell that we can let the Iraqi police take it from here."

 

[Ziggurat]

Ok i get it. The spin is "We won. Things are calm and all is swell in Falluja. So swell that we can let the Iraqi police take it from here."

No, evidently you DON'T get it. Did you even read the link? It makes quite clear that while we are winning, we haven't won yet, and the pace of the operation is probably going to be slow.

As for your comments about "spin", they reveal a bias of your own: not only do you not think things are going well (differences of opinion happen, nothing wrong with that), you've convinced yourself that you're so right even the hawks must secretly view things the same way you do. Because if the hawks honestly believe that things are going well and base that conclusion on the hard data available, then it's not simply spin that they put forward (even if you don't agree with the assesment), but honest arguments, and you can't acknowlege that possibility.

 

[subgenius]

The new ``Fallujah Brigade,'' put together by Iraqi generals from Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, likely will include some former army soldiers who fought American forces over the past month, Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway said.

http://www.freep.com/news/latestnews/pm19633_20040501.htm

Uh, uh, hmmm, uh, hmmm, what?

 

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by subgenius
Uh, uh, hmmm, uh, hmmm, what?

Once again, the best source for what's really going on in Fallujah and what the Marines are doing is the Belmont Club:
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com

Bottom line: the marines know what they're doing, and they aren't doing this for no reason.

 

[Mr Manifesto]

Once again, the best source for what's really going on in Fallujah and what the Marines are doing is the Belmont Club:
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com

Bottom line: the marines know what they're doing, and they aren't doing this for no reason.

I like watching someone rely on a blog to support their beliefs. Gives me a giggle.

 

[Ziggurat]

I like watching someone rely on a blog to support their beliefs. Gives me a giggle.

Did you check out that site, or are you just being your typical self?

I rely on Belmont Club because their anaylsis is not only very thoughful and perceptive, but even more importantly, they made predictions about how the situation in Fallujah would play out that have been spot-on so far (such as the apparently slow pace of operations, and the way the Marines have compressed the insurgents into a small section of the city by making probing attacks from different sides to throw them off). So do you have any actual criticisms of that website and what they say, or are you just going to dismiss it because it somehow doesn't match some silly criterion for whether or not you consider it authoritative?

 

[Mr Manifesto]

Let me put it another way, by fixing some omissions you made in a previous post:

Once again, the best source in my opinion for what's really going on in Fallujah and what the Marines are doing is the Belmont Club a blog that agrees with my opinions in almost every respect:
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com

Bottom line: the marines know what they're doing in my opinion, and they aren't doing this for no reason in my opinion.

 

[The Fool]

Its good to see that we're finally getting around to giving out the white hats to the (goodie) iraqis. Now we can get on with backing the side we will determine are the winners in the civil war... The side we will call "brave freedom loving Iraqis", the side that will be the next western installed totalitarian regime after the northern alliance.....free elections? Lol...... Regime change? Yep, new hats all round.

 

[epepke]

I rely on Belmont Club because their anaylsis is not only very thoughful and perceptive, but even more importantly, they made predictions about how the situation in Fallujah would play out that have been spot-on so far (such as the apparently slow pace of operations, and the way the Marines have compressed the insurgents into a small section of the city by making probing attacks from different sides to throw them off). So do you have any actual criticisms of that website and what they say, or are you just going to dismiss it because it somehow doesn't match some silly criterion for whether or not you consider it authoritative?

Quite honestly, I don't. The world is full of thoughtful and perceptive thinking that just turned out to be completely bogus when the actual experiment is done. Nice idea; shame about the reality.

I'm willing to reserve judgement on Fallujah until something good or bad happens. That's the best that I can do. I don't consider the Marines much smarter than the rest of the idiots involved in this conflict, which is to say, not much. Stalwart, loyal sociopaths to a man or woman, but seriously, the buttons on their dress uniforms are the brightest thing about them.

 

[Ziggurat]

Let me put it another way, by fixing some omissions you made in a previous post:

Sure, whatever. Isn't posting our opinions rather the point of this message board? Or are opinions only valid when they're flippant and cynical, such as yours?