Halliburton Corporation defeated by rocket-launching donkey [View All]

[WilliamPitt]

A couple of things strike me here. First of all, and I know this is so 19th century of me, but I find it fascinating that a company supposedly geared towards plumbing for oil has such amazing capabilities in the development of blast walls and other seige defenses. Blast walls in Iraq, dog cages in Guantanamo. This ain't your great-grandpappy's wildcatter oil company.

I also find it fascinating that a donkey managed to defeat the formidable defenses of the Halliburton corporation. All of their billions of dollars could not deter an attack by pack mules. In Vietnam, the communist forces were able to resupply allong the entire length of the Ho Chi Mihn trail using bycicles, oxen, men and yes donkeys to pack supplies along several hundred miles. All of our magnificent technology could not stop the power of fighting men on foot with a cause in their hearts.

Paging Robert McNamara, your table is ready.

===

Missiles Fired From Donkey Carts in Central Baghdad
By JOHN F. BURNS

November 21, 2003

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/international/middleeast/21CND-BAGH.html?ex=1070082000&en=f9aad9009816c8ae&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

The Palestine and Sheraton hotels in central Baghdad were hit by a volley of five rockets fired from donkey carts at about 7:15 this morning. An American civilian in the Palestine Hotel was severely wounded and was being evacuated to a United States military medical center in Frankfurt, Germany. Just before the attack on the hotels, eight rockets hit the nearby Oil Ministry, setting off a fire in the upper floors that burned furiously for a couple of hours after the attack. There were no reports of casualties in that attack.

Three donkey carts covered in hay, a common sight in Baghdad in the early morning, were found loaded with home-made concrete rocket launchers with steel tubes. They were housing either 107-milimeter Soviet-made Katushya rockets or 122-milimeter Brazilian-made Aspro rockets, powerful weapons that can hit targets at a range of 10 miles. The donkeys attached to the carts were all tethered to trees and the rockets were set off by a home-made system using timer fuses and car batteries. One was outside the Palestine Hotel and another outside the Oil Ministry. A third cart, carrying 32 rockets primed to fire, was discovered near the Italian and Turkish embassies in the city's diplomatic area, but did not explode.

(snip)

The wounded American, who was not identified, is an employee of a Halliburton subsidiary company that is the prime subcontractor for the rehabilitation of Iraq's oilfields. The subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, is the company that erected 20-foot- high blast walls intended to protect against truck bombings around the Palestine and Sheraton hotels and many other military and civilian installations in Baghdad.