Fw: [Vision2020] The Ramadi Hell Hole

[rvrcowboy]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "rvrcowboy" <rvrcowboy at clearwire.net>
To: <nickgier at adelphia.net>
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 10:34 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] The Ramadi Hell Hole


> Nick,
>
> Please enlighten us all to just what you think the results of a coalition
> pullout of Iraq would be.  Of course the presence of coalition troops
draws
> insurgents, just as horse shit draws flies and wars draw philosophy
> professors.
>
> So what is your point?  What, at this point, would be your alternative?
> Should we just abandon Iraq to civil war and allow Iran to take control of
> the entire region?  What then?
>
> Dick S.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <nickgier at adelphia.net>
> To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 10:01 AM
> Subject: [Vision2020] The Ramadi Hell Hole
>
>
> > Greetings:
> >
> > A young Marine was recently interviewed on NPR, and after he said that
U.
> S. troops should stay until the mission is completed, he then admitted
that
> the insurgency continues because of the U. S. presence!
> >
> > July 5, 2006, New York Times
> > Insurgency Hotbed
> > In Ramadi, Fetid Quarters and Unrelenting Battles
> > By DEXTER FILKINS
> >
> > RAMADI, Iraq, July 4 — The Government Center in the middle of this
> devastated town resembles a fortress on the wild edge of some frontier: it
> is sandbagged, barricaded, full of men ready to shoot, surrounded by
rubble
> and enemies eager to get inside.
> >
> > The American marines here live eight to a room, rarely shower for lack
of
> running water and defecate in bags that are taken outside and burned.
> >
> > The threat of snipers is ever present; the marines start running the
> moment they step outside. Daytime temperatures hover around 120 degrees;
> most foot patrols have been canceled because of the risk of heatstroke.
> >
> > The food is tasteless, the windows boarded up. The place reeks of urine
> and too many bodies pressed too close together for too long.
> >
> > "Hey, can you get somebody to clean the toilet on the second floor?" one
> marine yelled to another from his office. "I can smell it down here."
> >
> > And the casualties are heavy. Asked about the wounded under his command,
> Capt. Andrew Del Gaudio, 30, of the Bronx, rattled off a few.
> >
> > "Let's see, Lance Corporal Tussey, shot in the thigh.
> >
> > "Lance Corporal Zimmerman, shot in the leg.
> >
> > "Lance Corporal Sardinas, shrapnel, hit in the face.
> >
> > "Lance Corporal Wilson, shrapnel in the throat."
> >
> > "That's all I can think of right now," the captain said.
> >
> > So it goes in Ramadi, the epicenter of the Iraqi insurgency and the
focus
> of a grinding struggle between the American forces and the guerrillas.
> >
> > In three years here the Marine Corps and the Army have tried nearly
> everything to bring this provincial capital of 400,000 under control.
> Nothing has worked.
> >
> > Now American commanders are trying something new.
> >
> > Instead of continuing to fight for the downtown, or rebuild it, they are
> going to get rid of it, or at least a very large part of it.
> >
> > They say they are planning to bulldoze about three blocks in the middle
of
> the city, part of which has been reduced to ruins by the fighting, and
> convert them into a Green Zone, a version of the fortified and largely
> stable area that houses the Iraqi and American leadership in Baghdad.
> >
> > The idea is to break the bloody stalemate in the city by ending the
> struggle over the battle-scarred provincial headquarters that the
insurgents
> assault nearly every day. The Government Center will remain, but the empty
> space around it will deny the guerrillas cover to attack. "We'll turn it
> into a park," said Col. Sean MacFarland.
> >
> > Ramadi, a largely Sunni Arab city, is regarded by American commanders as
> the key to securing Anbar Province, now the single deadliest place for
> American soldiers in Iraq. Many neighborhoods here are only nominally
> controlled by the Americans, offering sanctuaries for guerrillas.
> >
> > While the focus in Baghdad and other large Iraqi cities may be
> reconciliation or the political process, here it is still war. Sometimes
the
> Government Center is assaulted by as many as 100 insurgents at a time.
> >
> > Last week a midnight gun battle between a group of insurgents and
American
> marines lasted two hours and ended only when the Americans dropped a
> laser-guided bomb on an already half-destroyed building downtown. Six
> marines were wounded; it was unclear what happened to the insurgents.
> >
> > "We go out and kill these people," said Captain Del Gaudio, the
commander
> here. "I define success as continuing to kill the enemy to allow the
> government to work and for the Iraqi Army to take over."
> >
> > Government Mostly in Name
> >
> > That day seems a long way off. The Iraqi government exists here in
little
> more than name. Last week about $7 million disappeared from the Rafidain
> Bank — most of the bank's deposits — right under the nose of an American
> observation post next door. An Iraqi police officer was shot in the face
and
> dumped in the road, his American ID card stuck between his fingers.
> >
> > The governor of the province, Mamoun Sami Rashid al-Alwani, still goes
to
> work here under an American military escort. But many of the province's
> senior officials deserted him after the kidnapping and beheading of his
> secretary in May.
> >
> > The previous governor was assassinated, as was the chairman of the
> provincial council, Khidir Abdel Jabar Abbas, in April. At a meeting of
the
> provincial cabinet last week, only six of 36 senior officials showed up.
> >
> > "The terrorists want to keep Anbar people out of the government," said
> Taha Hameed Mokhlef, the director general for highways, who went into
hiding
> last month when his face appeared on an American-backed television station
> here showing him in his job. He has since re-emerged. "My friends told me
> that the terrorists were planning to kill me, so I went to Jordan for a
> while," he said.
> >
> > The Iraqi police patrol the streets in only a handful of neighborhoods,
> the ones closest to the American base. In the slow-motion offensive that
has
> been unfolding, in which the Americans have been gradually clearing
> individual neighborhoods, nearly all of the fighting has been done by
> American marines and soldiers, not the Iraqi Army.
> >
> > The 800-member Third Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment, which until
> recently was responsible for holding most of the city on its own, has lost
> 11 marines since arriving in March. Commanders declined to disclose the
> number of wounded. Over all in Iraq the number of American wounded in
action
> is roughly seven times the number killed.
> >
> > Be Polite, and Ready to Kill
> >
> > One of the "habits of mind" drilled into the marines from posters hung
up
> inside: "Be polite, be professional and have a plan to kill everyone you
> meet."
> >
> > The humor runs dark, too. On a sheet of paper hung up in the Government
> Center, marines wrote down suggestions for their company's T-shirt once
they
> go home. Most are unprintable, but here is one that got a lot of laughs:
> "Kilo Company: Killed more people than cancer."
> >
> > The marines at the Government Center have held on, but the fighting has
> transformed the area into an ocean of ruin. The sentries posted on the
> rooftops have blasted the larger buildings nearby so many times that they
> have given them nicknames: Battleship Gray, Swiss Cheese. The buildings
are
> among those that will be bulldozed under the Green Zone plan.
> >
> > "Aesthetically it will be an improvement," Lt. Col. Stephen Neary said.
> >
> > Holding the place has cost blood. A roadside bomb killed three marines
and
> a sailor on patrol here in March. Another marine was shot through the
> forehead by a sniper, just beneath the line of his helmet.
> >
> > The number of Iraqi casualties — insurgents or civilians — is unknown
and
> impossible to determine in the chaotic conditions.
> >
> > As in the rest of Iraq, the insurgents' most lethal weapon is the
homemade
> bomb. The bombs virtually cover Ramadi: an American military map on
display
> here showed about 50 places where roadside bombs had recently been
> discovered. Two weeks ago a marine sniper was killed by a homemade bomb
when
> he ran from a house where he had been spotted.
> >
> > Bombs Nearly Everywhere
> >
> > Sometimes it feels as if the bombs are everywhere. On a single hourlong
> patrol one night last week, a group of marines spotted two likely bombs
> planted in an area that is regularly inspected, meaning that they had been
> laid within the previous few days.
> >
> > One was hidden under a pile of trash. Another was thought to be under a
> pair of gasoline cans that had been set in the middle of the road. The
> marines spied them with their night vision glasses; without them, it is
> likely that the Humvees would have run over them.
> >
> > Indeed, the marines often manage to spot bombs — covered in trash, made
of
> metal and wires — in streets that are themselves covered in trash, metal
and
> wires.
> >
> > "Right there, look at that," Gunnery Sgt. John Scroggins said from the
> passenger seat of his Humvee, pointing to the street.
> >
> > And there it was: a thin metal tube, with a long green wire protruding
and
> sticking into the pavement, almost certainly a bomb. The pipes typically
> contain what is called a pressure trigger, which closes an electrical
> circuit — and detonates a bomb — when crushed by a vehicle. The Humvee was
> about two feet away when the marines spotted it.
> >
> > Some of the marines have been hit by so many bombs that they almost
shrug
> when they go off. On Sunday a Humvee carrying four marines on a patrol
> dropped off a reporter and photographer for The New York Times at the
> Government Center. The Humvee rumbled 100 yards down the road and struck a
> bomb. No one was killed, and the marines returned to base as if they had
> encountered nothing more serious than a fender bender.
> >
> > "It's my fifth," said Cpl. Jonathan Nelson, 21, of Brooklyn. "It's the
> best feeling in the world to get hit by one and live — like bungee
jumping."
> >
> > In the end, whether the Americans can succeed in bringing security to
> Ramadi will depend on how much support they can draw from the Iraqis.
> >
> > Many Iraqi civilians have spent the last three years caught between the
> two warring camps, too afraid to throw their lot with one group or the
> other. It is, by nearly all accounts, a miserable situation, with
individual
> Iraqis often simultaneously under threat by insurgents and under suspicion
> by the Americans.
> >
> > Many complain of bad treatment and unjustified killings by both sides.
> That civilians have been killed here is beyond dispute, but the
> circumstances are nearly impossible to verify.
> >
> > Qais Mohammed, 46, owned a dress shop across the street from the
> Government Center but moved away when the Americans set up and the
fighting
> began. Then a mortar shell hit his home and he moved with his wife and 10
> children to a refugee camp outside the city.
> >
> > Fed up with conditions at the camp, Mr. Mohammed and his family moved
back
> to the city not long ago, into a seedy little place much reduced from the
> comfort he once knew.
> >
> > "We do not want gold, or dresses or the food of kings," Mr. Mohammed
said.
> "We want to live without fear for our lives and our kids. These days
neither
> your tribe nor the police can protect you. It is the jungle law."
> >
> > The marines say their highest priority is winning over people like Mr.
> Mohammed, even at the cost of letting insurgents escape. Indeed, the
marines
> seem far less aggressive than they were during their earlier tours here,
> when the priority was killing insurgents. Now they seem much more
interested
> in capturing the loyalty of the residents.
> >
> > Civilians in the Middle
> >
> > Iraqi civilians, by and large, did not seem to fear the American marines
> as they passed on patrol. When the Americans rumbled past, the Iraqis
often
> continued whatever they were doing: talking, sitting, standing, eating.
The
> children held up their hands for soccer balls, and occasionally a marine
> would toss one to a child.
> >
> > "Football! Football!" the children cried.
> >
> > "The people are in the middle, between us and the insurgents," Lance
Cpl.
> Sean Patton said as he wheeled his Humvee through a neighborhood downtown.
> (He says he is a great-great-grandnephew of Gen. George S. Patton.)
"Whoever
> is friendly, they will help."
> >
> > A few moments later, Corporal Patton and his men were reminded of just
how
> bewildering this city could be. As he turned slowly down a street, all the
> Iraqis milling about, maybe 30 people in all, suddenly disappeared.
> >
> > "They're going to hit us," the corporal said, convinced that the crowd
had
> been tipped off to the presence of a bomb or an impending attack.
> >
> > When the Americans left the street, the Iraqis returned.
> >
> > Corporal Patton turned onto the street again, and the people vanished a
> second time.
> >
> > "We're going to get hit," he said, bracing himself.
> >
> > The attack never came.
> >
> >
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