Eyewitness: Defiance amid carnage

[takumi]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3999899.stm

As US forces battle insurgents in streets strewn with rubble and corpses, Iraqi sources question the claims that the US controls much of Falluja. The BBC News website spoke by phone to Fadhil Badrani, a journalist in the city who reports for the BBC World Service in Arabic.

I went for a walk around the city last night after the Americans pulled back. It was very quiet - often the only sounds coming from the movement of fighters along streets and rooftops. In places, it was also very dark, with only the occasional rocket or flare lighting the way. Wherever I went, I found broken buildings and bodies - local people and fighters killed on the streets.

Clutching weapons

I also saw four crippled US tanks and three abandoned Humvees.
In the Hasbiyyah area, I counted the bodies of at least six US soldiers lying on the ground.

. . .

[ewagner]

1. I tend to discount

this because the Marines NEVER leave their dead on the battlefield.

[alevensalor]

2. May not be the same anymore, though

These aren't our father's Marines, either. They're fighting a holy war according to their superior's wishes, remember. How do we know how much has changed?

~A!

[amber dog democrat]

4. Sometimes they have to come back for them.

Don't forget the Marines broke and ran from the field during the battle of the First Bull Run.

All I know is I can not believe the reports from the media and embedded reporters - and I imagine this can be worse than we are being told.

They are being used to clean out the resistance in advance of the elections - we need to legitimize our war for resoruces.

[Inland]

6. Does he say where he saw them, ie, were they taken behind lines?

[DrWeird]

8. The US has abandoned corpses...

both in Somalia and in Iraq.

[Dissent Is Patriotic]

3. unless they are all dead.

sorry but there is another thread about this, the journalist is reliable, and has been reporting for bbc for a long time. e

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. They control Falluja the way the LA police control gang

violence. They don't.

[heidler1]

7. Please explaine to me the objective in this?

Is it to increase or decrease the percentage of Sunni types that vote in the Jan. election? Do the Shites with Sistanie's blessing think that it is possible to have absolute control over the new Government? The way it's told don't make sense to me.

[DrWeird]

9. Pff.

Where are you getting the idea that the "election" will be honest and even take place in Fallujah? Fox News?

[Politicub]

12. That's a riot

Trying to use logic in the Iraqi world of chaos.

[grumpy old fart]

10. Marines left behind??

Look, if it was quiet enough for this journalist to be wandering about, it would be quiet enough for the Marines to recover their dead. I'm not buying it at the moment.

[htuttle]

11. So you think the BBC reporter made it up out of whole cloth?

Why would he do that? He's had a respectable career so far -- what would be the point of risking it?

Just wondering how someone can completely discount a credible news source with no proof but 'their gut'?