Suicide bombing?!

Hi there Chris,

I think your last comment says it all. “How was this allowed to happen?” I ask myself that question on a daily basis as I rant at the TV (can’t talk back). We have known for some time that we did not have enough troops, supplies, armour and not exactly an anxious Iraqi Security Force.

I think the question is “Why did this take so long to happen?”

I never thought a pre-emptive war to spread “democracy” was a particularly good idea. I expect things to deteriorate more in the long term. Right now our “government” finds itself deep in uicksand and there is nowhere to turn to get out. I am grieved by the loss of American lives and limbs, but I feel for the Iraqi people who are suffering and had no hand in this MESS!

Connie, Shingltown, CA

The insurgents could not live and move around in Iraq unless they had their neigbors help. Either their neigbors have seen them and won’t give them up or they and the insurgents relatives are helping them. We should arrest either there relatives or neighbors or both and make examples of them. In that way, these insurgents or whatever you want to call them would have something to loose when they were identified either dead or captured. In short, they could not be moving around and bringing in all sorts of weapons and ammo without being seen.

I respect your opinion Al, but now is not the time for us to begin kidnappings and terrorism. Would you hold a gun to a childs head to get information? Enouh innocents are being hurt as it is.

Corrie

The truth is that there is no miracle nor imediate solution to this. it happens, it will keep on happening until most irakis have jobs, and a dream to believe in.

Fighting back is not an option, they are home, fighting back is just seen as further agression.

Good luck to the guys working on making this area peaceful again in the next twenty years. He will need it.

This is awesome! Apart from the actual dead, the breaking of trust between the American military and their Iraqi collaborator friends will be the real damage.

Great news in more than one way

I have to agree with Corrie, Al. Ask yourself what you would do if agents of a foreign force were to round up the friends and relatives of people associated with an insurgency in your country? I can only speak for myself, and I like to hope that I would find the guts to fight. I think your suggestion would lead to more insurgents, not fewer. Remember, we are guests in their country, and uninvited guests at that.

Remember also that the murdering bastards that pulled off this act want to increase the division and distrust between us Americans and the Iraqis. If we followed your suggestion, we’d be falling right into their bloody trap.

The posts of both Connie and Corrie struck a chord with me - we shouldn’t be there and we’re reaping the payback for what what Br. Bush has done. The deaths of our soldiers and the deaths of the Iraqi people are on his conscience - we the people, both here, in the rest of the world and in Iraq, are suffering, to one degree or another, the consequences of actions that no one (save for a few) wanted, supported or believed should be taken. Every day it becomes more and more clear what a complete obscenity this “war” (invasion) is.

The posts of both Connie and Corrie struck a chord with me - we shouldn’t be there and we’re reaping the payback for what what Mr. Bush has done. The deaths of our soldiers and the deaths of the Iraqi people are on his conscience - we the people, both here, in the rest of the world and in Iraq, are suffering, to one degree or another, the consequences of actions that no one (save for a few) wanted, supported or believed should be taken. Every day it becomes more and more clear what a complete obscenity this “war” (invasion) is.

Greetings Christopher, looks like your hard drive arrived. There are no words to describe my utter sadness and desperation in wanting a stop to the death suffering and pain of so many, both in Iraq and at home. How can the millions like myself unite and bring some sense to the nightmare? There are so many voices, where is the voice that will unite us and still the madness? There are no answers only questions until the above-mentioned voice is found. Take great care Christopher… . Alan.

I’m just stunned that insurgents were able to get inside and do this. This also makes the debate over whether the still-under-construction concrete dining facility was behind schedule moot. A concrete roof wouldn’t have made a whit of difference.

Actually, a concrete roof would have contained the explosion, increasing the blast pressures and probably leading to more casualties. Or, as Rummy might put it, even an armored dining hall can still be blown up. (You go to eat in the mess tent you have, not the one you would like to have.)

As for the implications, I should think it’s obvious by now that Colin Powell knew of what he spoke when he said the “army” and security services of the New Iraq have been thoroughly penetrated by the resistance. As has been the case all along, they know a hell of a lot more about the occupiers than the occupiers know about them.

I have to think there are at least a few grizzled old Viet Cong double agents kicking back in Ho Chi Minh City, watching this fiasco on TV and laughing their asses off. Like the Bourbons, it seems that Americans forget nothing and learn nothing …

“He must have had help from inside”— No, Chris, “he” (or she) actually WAS inside.

I am surprised it was a suicide attack; but knowing that it was, well then, of course there was inside assistance.

The question the US armed forces in Iraq needs to ask is if any of their ‘friends’ really are friendly.

As this sad story unfolds along with all the other stories, I wonder how much longer it will be before we say “Out Now.” I have heard people argue that we can’t just up and pull out, leaving the mess we created. I used to feel this way; I used to think we had a moral responsibility to try to right at least some of the wrongs we created. Now I think there never was anything right about the US invasion of Iraq. Nothing can correct the wrongs that have been committed. All we can do is try to keep things from getting worse and the only way I can see to do that is to get out now.

Too damn convenient for the Pentagon. If insurgents had that kind of reach, wouldn’t they go for a bigger prize ?

Methinks it’s Pentagon BS speak to cover their Criminal Negligence:

Soldiers at the Mosul base knew it was only a matter of time.

CNN personnel who have visited the base said the dining area is a tent-like facility with no hardened protection — and that soldiers had specifically raised concerns that they could be targeted by insurgents at meal time.

One had told CNN it was only a matter of time before there was an attack on the mess hall.

Being a Veteran albeit not this war. I keep thinking about “Red Dawn”. Are these guys causing trouble really terrorists or insurgents or “Freedom Fighters”. At this point I am not sure. I know how difficult it would be to “occupy” the US….any thoughts anyone?

Mr. Allbritton, I’ve been reading your blog for the past year and a half. ( & have read the archive too).

The story you went to cover has ended.

You are no longer covering an invasion, or liberation; you are not a witness to reconstruction, or occupation; you are in a war.

And, you have been “in country” longer than the men and women in uniform. There’s no shame in going home to write a book. It would be bad to loose you - but, if you loose yourself … that would be a pity.

ABC Nightline reports that the men you see in Iraqi uniforms receive two weeks training before they are deployed. This means that you don’t have to worry about their loyalty - they’re dangerous if they’re holding a weapon.

Adapt. Kitchens can do take-out and delivery - keep away from the peacetime army that’s camped out in Iraq. Don’t get paranoid, just keep asking yourself, what would alibaba/charley/jerry do with what I’m seeing ?

Learn. Sixty years ago, it was the Battle of the Bulge. Google the Yankee Division, read what a survivor named Rinfret saw. Apply any lessons learned.

Careful with the drugs. A little drunk can keep you sane, but a hangover = slow and unseeing and bleeding. Beware of pills ! Imodium is good, go pills and such are deadly. Chemical confidence is worse than a stupid hangover.

Be careful with water - but drink lots. Cold and dry can dehydrate you as bad as summer does.

And finally, spare batteries go under your coat, not in your pockets.

Wishing you as Merry a Christmas as possible, under the circumstances, I am sincerely yours : Jean Poutine

Well this is just the start. It’s better they hit the invaders directly than blowing up innocent civilians. Mr. Bush did overstretch the empire :D

If people wanna get a bigger picture they should read Chomsky’s “What Uncle Sam Really Wants.” It is a good collection of what is really the plan.

How could this be allowed to happen? Because our Congress, including Kerry and other weak-kneed legislators, allowed Bush free rein to invade Iraq in response to the 9/11 attacks.

We’ve made an awful mistake, monumental in its consequences for a lasting peace in the world. The US must admit the error, apologize to the Iraqi people, drop bundles of dollars on street corners (up to $200 billion) and get the hell out of their country.

I really want to believe Gen Myers below…..

“We have had a suicide bomber apparently strap something to his body… and go into a dining hall”

Gen Richard Myers

Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff

But I struggle to see that this jpg supports that explanation

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/149/2076/640/pict347.jpg

Actually Chris, if the bomb was carried inside, the reinforced concrete mess-hall would have made a difference… for the worse, that is.

In a closed concrete room the damages would have been even worse. (Overpressure from blast in secluded space, secondary schrapnel from walls, richochets, possibly a collapsing roof. Not to mention the difficulties of the rescue work in a smokefilled room with all the lights blown out.)

So in this case they were very lucky the new mess hall wasn’t completed on time.

I understand danro and Billmon’s point about the concrete structure. But what I meant was that a concrete structure wouldn’t have helped in protecting them. I would have thought that was obvious, especially since early on there was a bit of “blame Rumsfeld!” in the broadcast media the night this happened. While Rumsfeld certainly has much to answer, I don’t think in this case he — or Halliburton or anyone else who didn’t get the mess hall completed on time — bears special blame.

By the way, good to see you Billmon. Miss your blog, man.

I’m suspicious. A blast like that, well, you’d think it would blow the entire tent down instead of a hole in the roof - if it came from the inside… How much explosive would one have to strap to oneself to do that much damage? I mean, why the hole in the roof? It seems to me that a blast would create pressures more easily relieved through doors than a canvass roof…

I dunno what advantage there would be to claiming suicide bomber versus lucky strike mortar (perhaps minimize Halliburton criticism for KBR not having the other dining hall done? maybe to portray it as a ‘terrorist’ event rather than a military defeat?), but I’m tired of having to question everything… WMD, mass graves, Jessica Lynch - the list is endless. It’s a shame that even after an event like this we can’t feel confident that we are getting the truth from our gov.

I subscribe to this definition of insanity:DOING THE SAME THING OVER AGAIN AND EXPECTING A DIFFERENT RESULT.

How soon we forget Vietnam. Recall the

Tet Offensive 1968? How could that have

happened?

It happened because 1) if a man is willing to give up his life to accomplish something, there’s a good chance he’s going to be able to find some way to do it 2) the US forces, from the beginning, have underestimated the opposition.

Mike:

Heat rises. Hence the fireball and hole in the roof…

There is no consiracy theory ok… sigh

Well, the generals failed in leading and making security a strong issue, the administration failed in providing armor, supplies, ammo, and more. The only ones supporting the troops are the public and their families. All the rhetoric surrounding the course of the fiasco is BS. Why are we staying there? To grant democracy on the iraqi people at which point they will shower us with flowers and candies? That myth was blown up long ago. They promised they would greet us with bullets and bombs, well they did. How surprised are we? Shocked, shocked and saddened. Here is an idea, declare victory, pack up move out and wish them a happy democracy. We did it, and now we will regroup and go and thug on some other third rate power. Or better yet, let’s take on China in a ground war, that is right up the alley of the emeror with no clothes. Wait until we take on a capable military, like Iran, or even better the Chinese, then you will see how great this military as expensive as it is functions. Probably run out of ammo the first week. Duh, HOmer simpson would have been smarter than this.

This is a war, this happens in a war. People who are complaining that this is the turning point on how we need to get out are clueless. Just clueless. You are the same people that would never have partook in D-Day in WWII after learning that two months prior, two US training lST ships were sunk with a loss of 749 us soldiers. You are the same people who have NO IDEA of what is happening in our own country today. Did you know how many himicides took place in 2000, 2001 and 2002? 15,586, 15,980 and 16,110. I am not discounting the ultimate sacrifice our troops have suffered, but just reminding people that this is what war is about. It will be long, hard, and people will die, however, the long term outlook (which some of you cannot even fathom) is a more stable Iraq, and a beacon for other mideat countries to follow.

Arthur:

Is it possible to keep your “war” to yourself?

Keep your “beacon” as well.

Plainly, STOP MEDDLING.

That’s right, Arthur’s committed to staying the course in Iraq, no matter how many people besides himself have to die to do it.

Mike Stark’s comment should not be dismissed out of hand as conspiracy theory. Remember there was the Tillman friendly fire coverup as well as the Lynch lies.

Halliburton as a public entity might not be immune from civil actions for acts of negligence. After all, they inherited a multi-billion dollar liabiltiy from a products liability judgement not too long ago that would have bankrupted them if Chaney hadn’t stepped into give them the war contracts.

I hope that DH’s ridiculous “heat rises” argument was only a joke. The fireball overhead is definitely an inconsistency and the blowout through through the roof is probably inconsistent. Shrapnel raining down from above is another issue, although fragments could have bounced back down off the roof, I suppose. Fragment analysis would quickly determine if the explosion was from a mortar round or an artillery projectile. Finally, the lethality seems disproportunate to an explosives-laden suicide bomber.

Chris’s kneejeck defence of Rumsfeld and Halliburton is premature. The base had been under mortar fire in the past so the work should have been done on time or ahead of schedule, if anything. Building materials could have been airlifted in by CH-47s or Hurricranes if ground transport was a problem. If a hardened building had been completed there would have been monitored doorways into the mess hall, and an Iraqi with a napsack would have been spotted more easily; sneaking underneath the canvas walls of a tent is not much of a challenge.

From Newsday: “Insurgents have fired mortars at the chow hall more than 30 times this year. One round killed a soldier with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, in the summer as she scrambled for cover in a bomb shelter .”

The commander should be relieved of his command for having a hundred soldiers clusterfucked together in a tent in an area that had repeatedly been under mortar attack. In Vietnam our mess facilities had adequate ‘“cover” as well as concealment. Was Halliburton, a civilian contractor with no military expertise, calling the shots? I doubt the the commanding officer could be that incompetent.

“A number of senior military officers blame the U.S. decision to contract out for food and other services to private companies: “If the military were in charge of this it would not have happened,” one military officer told This Is Rumor Control. “But when you contract out for these services it means that everyone eats together and at the same time — to save money. The proper way to do this is to stagger the eating times, for security reasons. It is a reasonable precaution that simply wasn’t followed.”

Can we start calling them the Iraq-Cong now?

They are not dead enders, they are not isolated cells, they are not fanatical terrorists. They are a force that is beating our butts from Mosul to Falluja, to Baghdad to Najif and have the popular support of a significant portion of the Iraqi population.

We have lost. GET OUT-NOW.

Here is a snippet from Andrew Cordesman on the admins failure to see the insurgency coming:

“Such US estimates of the core structure of the Iraqi insurgency also understated the

problem, even if the figures had been accurate. From the start, there were many part-time

insurgents and criminals who worked with insurgents. In some areas, volunteers could be

quickly recruited and trained, both for street fighting and terrorist and sabotage missions.

As in most insurgencies, “sympathizers” within the Iraqi government and Iraqi forces, as

well as the Iraqis working for the Coalition, media, and NGOs, often provided excellent

human intelligence without violently taking part in the insurgency. Saboteurs can readily

operate within the government and every aspect of the Iraqi economy.”

You can read the whole article here:

http://www.csis.org/features/iraq_deviraqinsurgency.pdf

US prisoner abuse examples from ACLU:

Two soldiers who were ordered to kill a prisoner named Yasir Ahmad Al-Haddi in Camp Bucca, a detention site in southern Iraq, in April 2003. An investigation found the soldiers committed no offence.

On August 2003, US forces arrested Ubaid Raddad during a raid in the city of Tikrit, just north of Baghdad. Days later a US soldier shot and killed Radad. The soldier was demoted and discharged from the army before a murder investigation could get under way.

In December 2003 one Lutfi Abd al-Karim was found dead in his cell four days after he was detained in apparent good health. A medic that examined the body found multiple wounds, but the on-site commanders ordered not to perform an autopsy, then failed to interview anyone involved or collect physical evidence.

And thats only the tip of the iceberg. I don’t waste a tear for US terrorists when they get blown up by Iraqi insurgents.

i was just thinking:

the only people/country that has the budget and manpower to help reconstruct iraq, that does not have a recent history of killing arabs- is china.

most likely china will mop up all over as the empire recedes

very good “just thinking,” … . Alan.

The mops already wet! … Alan.

Al & Arthur,

Go enlist, Right Now. Comparing homicides in the US to Troop Casualties in Iraq? Hello, this shit was thrown back in your faces back when Rush “Hillbilly Heroin” Limbaugh was blathering about car accidents. (Hint: Absolute numbers versus per capita numbers normalized for demographic trends make your comparison scientifically, statistically and demographically assinine).

As for China, I was suggesting that a year ago…but think about it for a sec: China owns a massive block of US currency, T-Bills and Bonds…they have us by the manufacturing, currency, and economic short hairs. We are engaged in a treasury, morale, and military-strenght sapping nightmare of our own making. It is alienating us from our allies, inflaming and emboldening our enemies, and dividing our nation right down the middle….

Why on Earth would they want to help us out?

They can see 100 years down the road…Taiwan - theirs again, Japan? Their storefront and waypoint in the Western Pacific. North Korea? Cheap labor and minerals. South Korea? High tech…All they need is a couple more deals with Iran and Russia about the oil and they are good to go.

No, China is loving this business way way too much to every help us out.

i never ever said it would be to “help” america out.

which countries ever try to “help” the other out, without another motive?

just thinking: isn’t that what we’re doing in McIraq? Helping them out via our altruistic spirit of brotherhood!

I wanted to clarify that Connie and Corrie are the same person. I’m sorry for the confusion, it was inadvertent.

I usually use Connie as my legal name but I was born in Holland and people call me Corrie which is my Dutch name. I know, I know, who cares. Just wanted to set the record straight

Corrie

I too doubt the suicide bomber story.The guardian reported that there had been 30 mortar and rocket attacks on that base previously,that is why the concrete dining hall is being constructed.

After all the lies about WMDs,lies about attacks on wedding parties,lies about jessica lynch,lies about torture at guantanamo bay-why would you believe anything from the pentagon?

But why the crocodile tears about american deaths in Iraq?

After all didn’t the commander in chief say-“bring it on”.

marklatham,

We need to view the Ansar-al-Sunna tape, which sounds authentic as described. The eight second “flash-boom” translates to around 2k meters, which sounds right.

The roof was not canvas but, rather, plastic, so it could tear easily. Mortars don’t make fireballs, so it might be other explosives that were carried in. The video would clear things up.

Bush, the tough guy, couldn’t make it past the airport without turning and running. Blair was on the ground last week and Hillary Clinton was there last year. Mr. “Bring em on” turns out to be a yellow coward and a petulant sissy.

It seems to me like an Israeli sort of doing things…

It seems to me like an Israeli sort of doing things…

from the video:

One of the lions from our martyrdom-seeking brothers will infiltrate the defenses of the enemy at the Morez base in Mosul. He will slip through a hole in the camp's wire, exploiting the changing of the guard,'' the gunman said.We have been observing their schedule for a long time.”

This lion will then proceed to his target, and he will take advantage of lunch time, when the dining hall is crowded with the crusaders and their (Iraqi) allies,'' he said.The operation will then be carried out.”

“Let Bush, Blair and Allawi know that we are coming and that we will chase them all away, God willing,” he said, referring to President Bush and prime ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Ayad Allawi of Iraq.

The two men then embrace the one wearing the explosives belt.

An image then shows a map of the base, as one of the gunmen points out locations using a military knife. One location is marked “the dining hall” in Arabic.

A later outdoor video image shot on Tuesday, when the attack occurred shows a fireball rising from the distance with the accompanying sound of the explosion. A final image shot from a vehicle driving past the base shows the torn white tent that served as the base mess hall.

well since people just want to state thier oppinion on what happen and most werent there and dont really know what happen which is fine. but if you would like to know the real story let me know i was there.. you can contact me at ursuperman516@yahoo.com