Navy Unit Discovers Perils In Task of Rebuilding Fallujah

[Rose Siding]

FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 16 -- The green Humvee rolled up to the mangled railroad line on the northern edge of this city Tuesday, where thousands of U.S. and Iraqi forces had launched an offensive more than a week before in a shower of bullets and mortar shells. Pen and notepad in hand, Equipment Operator 1st Class William Seado of the U.S. Navy jumped out and started to inspect the tracks.

As he walked around a tanker car, Seado, 31, of Custer, S.D., noticed a black wire strung across the metal rails. He followed it to the tanker, where he found two sandbags filled with mortar rounds. Seado, a member of the Navy's elite Seabee Engineer Reconnaissance Team, raced back to the Humvee, which was parked only a few feet from the tanker -- well within what is called the kill zone of the improvised explosive device, or IED
.............
Military engineers said they planned to begin making repairs to the city's infrastructure as soon as Fallujah was secure. But McCoy said those first repairs would amount to first aid, and that making Fallujah livable for its 250,000 residents, most of whom fled before the military operation, could take up to a year.

"If you leave them a mess like this with no running water, living in sewage, they are just going to be disgruntled," McCoy said. "We're going to have anti-American sentiment that's just going to breed. Reconstruction is as essential as the actual purging of the insurgents."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55574-2004Nov16.html

[MO_Dem]

1. "they are just going to be disgruntled".....

do ya think this could qualify as the understatement of the year? century?

[JohnOneillsMemory]

3. I can't imagine why they hate us. Ungrateful. that is.

Freedom is on the march. Look out for the sewage.

[caught on a limb]

6. disgruntled to say the least...

Ahhh yes, SEABEEs; true masters of the well turned understatement in the face of absolute disaster! I think we should run with it.
The citizens of Fallujah are now 'extremely' disgruntled.
I wonder if * needs that train station up and running for this years' Thanksgiving Homestyle Plastic Turkey Give-Away Extravganza ?

:toast:

[VegasWolf]

2. Halliburton calls this opportunity!!!!

[high density]

5. Absolutely!

Millions spent bombing it followed by even more millions spent rebuilding it! Damn fine neocon economics.

[purduejake]

4. This is fighting terrorism how???

What in the hell are the leaders of this country thinking? We are creating more terrorists than we can kill. When we leave Iraq, they are gonna come for us at home. I have no doubt.

[saigon68]

7. "We're going to have anti-American sentiment that's just going to breed

WELL SAID MORAN

WHEN YOU KILL THEIR MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER THEY WILL HATE YOU FOR A LONG TIME.

NO MATTER HOW MANY SEWER PIPES YOU REPAIR.

These people are bigger idiots than I thought.

In Nam it was said

"WE HAD TO DESTROY THE VILLAGE TO SAVE IT".

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[thebigidea]

9. I'm getting real tired of this "IED" crap. Its a fucking BOMB. Enough!

Cue George Carlin routine.