NYT: In Western Iraq Fundamentalists Hold U.S. at Bay

[Halliburton]

<snip>
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 28 - While American troops have been battling Islamic militants to an uncertain outcome in Najaf, the Shiite holy city, events in two Sunni Muslim cities that stand astride the crucial western approaches to Baghdad have moved significantly against American plans to build a secular democracy in Iraq.

Both of the cities, Falluja and Ramadi, and much of Anbar Province, are now controlled by fundamentalist militias, with American troops confined mainly to heavily protected forts on the desert's edge. What little influence the Americans have is asserted through wary forays in armored vehicles, and by laser-guided bombs that obliterate enemy safe houses identified by scouts who penetrate militant ranks. Even bombing raids appear to strengthen the fundamentalists, who blame the Americans for scores of civilian deaths.
<snip>

There also appears to be an error in this article:
<snip>
"Among militants in Falluja, there has been one point of agreement with the Americans - that many of the bombing raids have hit militant safe houses, and with pinpoint accuracy. A clue as to how this has been possible is given in the tapes of the beheadings of Mr. Mar'awi, the national guard commander, and of the Egyptian, a man in his mid-30's who identifies himself on the tape as Muhammad Fawazi. Both men confess to having planted electronic homing "chips" for the Americans. As they speak, the tapes show a man wearing a red-checkered kaffiyeh headdress holding a rectangular device, colored green and encased in clear plastic, about the size of a matchbox."
<snip>
Pinpoint accuracy? I don't call killing civilians and blowing up homes "pinpoint accuracy." Everytime one of these bombings have occured everything I have read from AP and Reuters say that the bombings only killed or injured civilians.



http://nytimes.com/2004/08/29/international/middleeast/29province.html?hp

[DeepModem Mom]

1. Important story -- front-paged --

[bemildred]

2. "Precision bombing" is an oxymoron.

These assholes are just proud because they hit somewhere
near what they were aiming at. An argueable point, since just
dropping bombs randomly about the landscape has little to be
said for it either.