Comrade
Senior Member
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20...045Z_01_L24698509_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAQ-DC.html
Don't you just love the polls on their webpage?
Then there is the meat of the artical:
:bangheads :bangheads :bangheads
I don't know about you folks, but dear old Santa Klaus is off his rocker.
Don't you just love the polls on their webpage?
Then there is the meat of the artical:
:bangheads :bangheads :bangheads
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld paid a surprise Christmas visit to Iraq on Friday, seeing victims of a suicide bombing at a U.S. base in Mosul and troops who stormed the city of Falluja last month.
Having flown in amid great secrecy on trip that took in four cities and wound up with commanders in Baghdad, he told them the war could be won despite what seemed a bleak outlook to some.
Under fire at home but applauded by the troops, he assured them of his "respect" and told them he was doing all he could to improve their equipment -- a sensitive topic many asked about.
His trip began in Mosul, where he pinned a Purple Heart medal on one of dozens wounded when a suicide bomber in Iraqi uniform blasted a mess tent on Tuesday, killing 22 people, 18 of them Americans. It was the costliest single incident for Americans since the start of the war.
The attack, which has hit Americans' trust in the very Iraqi forces they hope to train to take over from them, highlighted the continued potency of an insurgency that the assault on Falluja was supposed to quell before next month's election.
Conceding prospects of victory might look grim -- he spoke of times "when it looks bleak, when one worries how it's going to come out" -- Rumsfeld said in Mosul: "There is no doubt in my mind this is achievable."
Outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell told President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair last month that there were too few troops in Iraq, the Washington Post said in a report likely to spark new debate on a controversial issue.
Following a stop in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, Rumsfeld went on to Falluja, where more than 80 U.S. Marines and more than 1,000 guerrillas have been killed in the past six weeks. Three Marines were killed in the area only on Wednesday.
He said: "This is a tough situation here in Iraq. It is dangerous, people are being wounded, people are being killed."
FALLUJA ANGER
Despite 21 months of sustained offensive operations against diehard nationalist remnants of Saddam's old guard and, now, Islamist fighters, some of whom have come in from abroad, U.S. forces seem no nearer ending violence in much of the country.
Tuesday's attack in Mosul, claimed by Islamist group Ansar al-Sunna, struck at the heart of efforts to bring Iraqi forces on board and lent weight to U.S. commanders' fears that many top militants fled Falluja before the battle, some making for Mosul.
Also worrying ahead of an election that some in Saddam's once dominant Sunni Arab minority decry as unfair,are signs of new resentment building from the ruins of Falluja, a Sunni bastion, where people have been trickling back to their homes.
A day after the first few official returnees were let in, people spoke with anger of damage sustained. There was little sign of gratitude for American efforts to dislodge militants.
Fighting continues in parts of the city, where U.S. aircraft were again in action overnight. Guerrillas also struck police stations in Baquba, and clashed with U.S. forces there.
Rumsfeld, who warned this week that the Jan. 30 election would not end nearly two years of bloodshed, told about 200 Marines at a town hall-style meeting: "The great sweep of human history is for freedom and you are on the right side of that."
After he met Iraq's U.S.-backed interim president in Baghdad, Ghazi al-Yawar said: "We want to think big. We know the situation is tough but I have no doubt in my mind that we will succeed. It's just a matter of time."
SECRET VISIT:shocked:
Rumsfeld said his trip to Iraq had been planned for a while but was kept secret for security reasons and Tuesday's attack had not been a factor in selecting Mosul for a visit.
"I am deeply grateful to all of you. You will look back in 10 or 20 or 30 years and know you were a part of something very important," Rumsfeld told dozens of soldiers in Mosul.
"I respect you. I wish you all a merry Christmas."
He conceded that bloody anarchy in Mosul in recent weeks may have been caused by guerrillas from Falluja: "I don't doubt for a moment that some of these folks in Falluja went up to Mosul."
U.S. troops were on alert at bases across Iraq after the suicide bombing: "I am concerned about ... copycat attacks," said Brigadier General Carter Ham, the U.S. commander in Mosul.
"So we have to be on our best guard over the coming days, weeks and months for that kind of threat," Ham told CNN.
He said the bomber probably wore an Iraqi uniform of the kind increasingly common on U.S. bases as Americans train local forces that they hope will allow them to go home.
The attack was a fresh nightmare for troops battling guerrillas bent on disrupting the elections. They not only see increasingly sophisticated ambushes while on patrol but now also face a deadly threat to bases where they eat and sleep.
Ansar al-Islam taunted the Americans on its Web site: "First they said it was a mortar or rockets, then they said it was a suicide operation with local materials," the group said.
"Are they really this stupid that they still don't know how they've been hit, or was it too painful to admit?"
(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Luke Baker, Alastair Macdonald and Omar Anwar in Baghdad, Faris al-Mehdawi in Baquba and Fadil al-Badrani in Falluja)
I don't know about you folks, but dear old Santa Klaus is off his rocker.
