Article

2004-11-10 Iraq-Jordan

Hard boyz may have fled Fallujah along 50-75% of the general population

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Posted by Dan Darling 2004-11-10 9:36:24 AM|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The fall of Falluja is not an end all to Iraq's problems, but it's a damned good start!

Keep the pressure on!

Posted by RJB in JC MO 2004-11-10 9:58:23 AM|| 2004-11-10 9:58:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 I suggest that the military has "an embarrassment of riches", insofar as enemy killed. They have proven themselves terribly adept at "disappearing" enemy dead before they can be photographed or otherwise turned into propaganda. Case in point: watching on a day-to-day basis, who would suspect that the US has already killed between 15-20,000 enemy in the Sunni Triangle? And yet, Gen. Sanchez testified to that number. I hardly believe that these numbers were inflated. But listening to news reports, the high end of an estimate for this time frame would be less than a thousand. Bottom line, the "Battle of Fallujah" will be described a failure because "only 200-300 enemy were killed", when in truth it is ten times that number.

Posted by Anonymoose 2004-11-10 10:02:06 AM|| 2004-11-10 10:02:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Amoose, I am confused. Are you suggesting that the military is disappearing bodies in an effort to support deliberate misleading statements that minimize the number of enemy KIA?

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-11-10 10:09:16 AM|| 2004-11-10 10:09:16 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Actually, I think it's likely the initial reports are low-balled just because it's a natural correction to the tendency to exaggerate. Plus it denies our most dangerous enemy -- the press -- some of its ammunition.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2004-11-10 10:14:24 AM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2004-11-10 10:14:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 My take is that during Vietnam the body counts were inflated when we saw a trace of blood but couldn't find the body. In Iraq we are probably insisting on finding the whole thing and I'll be damned if I'm digging through the rubble to figure out if there was 2 or 20 bastards in that mini-fortress.

Posted by RJ Schwarz 2004-11-10 10:23:00 AM|| [http://politicaljunky.blogspot.com] 2004-11-10 10:23:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 127 Jihadis captured in Fallujah hospital according to latest reports, so not all of them have fled.

Posted by Lux 2004-11-10 11:08:00 AM|| 2004-11-10 11:08:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Are you suggesting that the military is disappearing bodies in an effort to support deliberate misleading statements that minimize the number of enemy KIA?

Sounded more like a combination of low-balling body-counts, and removing bodies quickly so the media can't use them as grist? In all honesty don't see where they have time for the latter.

Posted by Pappy 2004-11-10 11:55:11 AM|| 2004-11-10 11:55:11 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Anonymoose, when you're doing a lot of your killing with 500 lb bombs, 155mm howitzer shells, and 120mm tank main battery rounds, a lot of the bad guys get vaporized, buried alive, or at a minimum have their various body parts subdivided and scattered across a wide area. It all adds up to making it very difficult to do a body count. Besides, the services got such a bad taste from the Vietnam era body counts that they just don't do that sort of thing any more. It's more important to kill all we find than to find all we kill.

Posted by RWV 2004-11-10 3:04:59 PM|| 2004-11-10 3:04:59 PM|| Front Page Top

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