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Iraq-Jordan

'Fifty wounded' in Abu Ghraib attack

2005-04-05

The US military has claimed that about 50 Iraqi fighters were wounded in a failed attempt to enter the infamous Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. Al-Qaida in Iraq posted a second Internet statement boasting that its fighters carried out the bold attempt on Saturday to force their way into the prison. The statement said two fighters were injured and 10 more were killed in battle, including seven bombers. The statement was impossible to independently verify, and it conflicted with the US account of the assault. US military officials said on Monday that only one bomber was used in Saturday's attack, along with gunfire, mortar rounds and rocket propelled grenades. At least one fighter was killed. More than 40 US service members and 13 prisoners were injured in the attacks.

Posted by:Fred

#6 The military doesn't count them because it doesn't want to get into the idiocy of Vietnam, where the body count was all and the mission was secondary.

It always seemed to me that the body count WAS the mission. Kill more of them than they can kill us. There was never an invasion of North Vietnam by American forces, so absent the traditional indicator of ground taken as progress, some other measuring stick ended up being used.

Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-04-05 2:33:27 PM

#5 "Body count syndrome" is over-reliance on body counts, not the avoidance of body counts. The military doesn't count them because it doesn't want to get into the idiocy of Vietnam, where the body count was all and the mission was secondary.

We have a military that gets the mission done, not one that stops to count (enemy) heads. I happen to like it that way, and I think a lot of people agree.

The press, of course, is still locked into a body count mindset. Mainly because they're still locked into Vietnam.

Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-04-05 10:20:23 AM

#4 I am not sure it is just body-count syndrome at work here.

Colin Powell cut off GWI early becasue of his fear of the civilian reaction to the photographs of the Highway of Death which was really a Highway of Wrecks.

However, in other actions we have been getting casualty ratios of 50-1 and higher. If the frequency of these lopsided battles becomes general knowledge, the media will protray them as bullying and butchery. Or if we don't hit that ratio, the media will portray it as a defeat and incompetence.

The combat enemy knows how may they lost even if they don't have a good breakdown of killed, captured, and deserted. The media enemy does not need to know. And the media enemy can do a lot more damage to our military than the combat enemy.

Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-04-05 10:05:42 AM

#3 Most of the US WIAs were slightly injured and returned to duty almost immediately. The first stories on the attack mentioned no enemy killed/wounded -- that took 24 hours to get out. There's a major dysfunction here in getting out the basic facts on engagements. Take body-count syndrome (i.e., the refusal to report enemy body counts, almost regardless of the circumstances), add some internal malfunctions, and you've got the superpower unable to give out even basic info on its invariably successful engagements against a pathetic, losing foe.

Posted by: Verlaine in Iraq 2005-04-05 9:54:50 AM

#2 That aptly handled Slo Slo, seems to a have problem reading English.

Posted by: phil_b 2005-04-05 9:34:55 AM

#1 Now its 'wounded' without disclosing whether such a wound required evac. Spin, spin, spin.

Posted by: Slomorong Slomoger5393 2005-04-05 9:08:19 AM

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