Falluja this morning

After nearly 16 hours of fighting, 1st Sgt. Ronald Whittington, with the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, appeared stunned after five of his men went down in a single moment after dashing through machine-gun fire to cross the road in front of the mosque.

"It was bad, bad," Whittington said. "I don't know where the shooting was coming from."

By evening, there was a lull in the fighting, and American tanks and other units were patrolling along the main east-west road through Fallujah, variously called Main Street, Highway 10 and, by the Americans, Route Michigan. Relentless airstrikes and artillery fire abated, at least momentarily.

1st Lt. Lyle L. Gilbert, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said American and Iraqi forces controlled at least a third of the city.

Military officials said the invading force also quickly overran Jolan, the northwestern sector thought to hold as many as 1,000 of the most hardened resistance fighters.

  Duluth News-Tribune article (NYT report)

U.S. forces, facing booby-trapped buildings, snipers and roadside bombs, seized a third of Fallujah on Tuesday after fierce overnight fighting that left 10 Americans and two Iraqi soldiers dead and much of this Sunni Muslim stronghold in ruins.

...Insurgent gunmen, running from rooftop to rooftop, rained machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades down on advancing U.S. Army and Marine units. Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles responded with heavy shelling that left buildings in flames.

In the city's southeastern factory district, soldiers with the Army's 1st Infantry Division reported being fired on by women and children armed with assault rifles.

...American commanders said early today that they had not fully secured the northern half of Fallujah. Still, they said the operation involving as many as 15,000 troops was running on or ahead of schedule, and the central government in Baghdad designated an Iraqi general to run the city once resistance is broken.

  Knight Ridder article

History repeats, and all that.

As insurgent fighters shot mortars, Spc. Kelly Licon of the 1st Infantry Division screamed, "Forfeit! You're just wasting your ammo. You've woken up Godzilla."

How old is Kelly? Apparently, this is the mentality of the whole operation, though. The whole U.S. army. Remember the pamphlets dropped in Afghanistan warning people that our missiles are so powerful and smart they could target right through a window? So give up. I watched a video clip the other day where a young marine was crowing that the 'insurgents' didn't have any guts - he wished they'd come out and fight like men - stand and fight, and instead they come out and shoot at us and then run. Dufus. Here are some comments on the subject from a post at Under the Same Sun about our ridiculous psy-ops (An Iraqi translator from the group said through a loudspeaker: "Brave terrorists, I am waiting here for the brave terrorists. Come and kill us."):

It is weird to watch isn't it? The army with vastly overwhelming firepower, high-tech armor, fantastic medical-care for the wounded, the ability to call for air-strikes, etc. still employs this come let's fight mano-to-mano rhetoric as if there's this level playing field upon which some personal, primitive battle is being fought.

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I'm reminded of Japanese forces in WWII trying to sap our Marines' morale by hollering "F_ck Babe Ruth."

Christ. Men. Go figger. In fact, judging by our tactics, the Japanese taunts probably worked. And for all I know, the stupid juvenile taunts work on the Iraqis, too. Probably, though, they don't need taunts to get them to come out and take shots at us. Just guessing. And probably, they're keenly aware of what's at stake for them and so aren't inclined to do it foolishly - like "stand and fight". Just guessing.

[T]he U.S. military has sent up to 15,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops into the battle, backed by tanks, artillery and attack aircraft.

...Earlier, as many as eight attack aircraft - including jets and helicopter gunships - blasted guerrilla strongholds and raked Fallujah's streets with rocket, cannon and machine-gun fire ahead of U.S. and Iraqi infantry as they advanced just a block or two behind the curtain of fire.

  Canada.com article

Yeah! Come out and fight ya cowards!

U.S. forces battled south through Fallujah's narrow lanes and alleys Wednesday to take control of 70 per cent of the insurgent stronghold and rebel fighters were bottled up in a strip of land flanking the main east-west highway that splits the city, the military said.

Major Francis Piccoli, of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, characterized fighting overnight as "light to moderate" and said U.S. casualties were "extremely light." "There's going to be a movement today in those areas. The heart of the city is what's in focus now," he said.

...The U.S. military said at least 71 militants had been killed as of the beginning of the third day of the intense urban combat. The number was expected to rise sharply once U.S. forces account for insurgents killed in air strikes.

Militants, which includes women and children who are now firing on the U.S. troops, and anyone in the vicinity when the bombs drop.

Although U.S. troops have punched into the center of the Iraqi city of Fallujah, they might later encounter many more insurgents who have escaped, perhaps to fight another day in another place.

"I personally believe that some of the senior leaders probably have fled," said Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the multinational ground force commander in Iraq.

  article

Surprise.

Well, we'll just have to flatten every city in Iraq. And after that, bomb the entire countryside, laying a veritible carpet of depleted uranium throughout the country. Or maybe some of those biologicals we have. And then we'll have to take the Lord's wrath to neighboring unfriendly countries into which the "insurgents" will no doubt have escaped.

A nine-year-old Iraqi girl recovers from a skull fracture and two broken legs in the 31st Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad. A U.S. Army Bradley fighting vehicle crashed into her family's car. (AP /John Moore)

An Iraqi boy walks near a burning oil pipeline on the outskirts of Fallujah, Iraq, on Wednesday. Insurgents set off the fire using rocket-propelled grenades Tuesday night. (AP/Asaad Mohessin)

Photos courtesy Canada.com