Marine Officers See Risk in Cuts in Falluja Force -NYT

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - Senior Marine intelligence officers in Iraq are warning that if American troop levels in the Falluja area are significantly reduced during reconstruction there, as has been planned, insurgents in the region will rebound from their defeat. The rebels could thwart the retraining of Iraqi security forces, intimidate the local population and derail elections set for January, the officers say.

They have further advised that despite taking heavy casualties in the weeklong battle, the insurgents will continue to grow in number, wage guerrilla attacks and try to foment unrest among Falluja's returning residents, emphasizing that expectations for improved conditions have not been met.

The pessimistic counsel is contained in a seven-page classified report prepared by intelligence officers in the First Marine Expeditionary Force, or I MEF, last weekend as the offensive in Falluja was winding down. The assessment was distributed to senior Marine and Army officers in Iraq, where one officer called it "brutally honest."........
............
Details of the report and some of its verbatim findings were provided to The New York Times this week by four active-duty or retired military officers in Iraq and Washington who have read the report or heard descriptions of it.

http://nytimes.com/2004/11/18/international/middleeast/18troops.html?hp&ex=1100754000&en=aa37de207d4fc376&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Zech Marquis]

1. I'm shocled!

dumbstruck! amazed! utterly bewildered by this display of some common sense in the DoD, the House that Rummy fucked up...:wow:

[RyomaSakamoto]

2. Bring'em On! - GWB

“There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on,” Bush said. “We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.” George W. Bush, October 2003

http://news.globalfreepress.com/flash/

peace

[daleo]

3. Key phrases - it was just a killfest for Bush public relations

"despite taking heavy casualties in the weeklong battle, the insurgents will continue to grow in number"

"expectations for improved conditions have not been met"

[Journeyman]

4. Obviously, the Marines are unclear on the concept. . .

behind "Whack-A-Mole."

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. They could put a jarhead in every toilet and it wouldn't be enough

A Darth Vader marine out of the bradley and his suit of armor wouldn't last 2 seconds in Fallujah yet.

[saigon68]

6. KILLERS AND THUGS

[rooboy]

7. Is this the same Falluja that was "pacified"?

Time to roll out that "Mission Accomplished" banner again...

[Rose Siding]

8. Yes! In fact one Gen TODAY says "Falluja Breaks the Back of Iraq Rebels"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The offensive in Falluja led by U.S. Marines has "broken the back of the insurgency" in Iraq (news - web sites), disrupting rebel operations across the country, a senior U.S. commander said on Thursday.........

The comments by the top Marine commander in Iraq came as insurgents in Mosul attacked the governor's office and amid bloodshed elsewhere in the north, while U.S. forces and Iraqi government troops continued house-to-house sweeps to find remaining insurgents in Falluja.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041118/ts_nm/iraq_falluja_sattler_dc&cid=564&ncid=1480