Incredible 60 MINUTES report from Ramadi (heads up, West Coast)

[alcibiades_mystery]

Reporter rides with Marine 2/5 in Ramadi. Incredible footage, incredible interviews, incredible story arc. Stunning report. Don't miss it.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Ok, describe, please

I don't get CBS.

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. A little bit of description (with a "spoiler")

The reporter is on operations with Whiskey Company 2/5 when an RPG hits one of their humvees. They drag the wounded Marine back to shelter, but the chaos of the event is obvious. They can't tell whether its coming from north or south. Everyone acts professionally. We then meet the battalion commander (Lt. Col something or other) who seems like a nice enough guy, definitely semper fi and squared away, makes some points about having to stay the course, but strangely justifies it on the basis of previously lost troops. The report shows a poll on which they hang dog tags of the KIAs - 1 during the invasion, and at the beginning of the report14 through the insurgency. We're then taken to Hurricane Point, the palace camp just outside Ramadi, and down Michigan Avenue, the main road to the fortress-like Province Capitol building (Ramadi is the capital of al-Anbar Province), which is constantly lined with IEDs. We meet W Company Commander Captain Pat Rapaceau, a French immigrant to Mississippi, who describes the dangers of the city and "leads from the front." We then see an IED attack on a humvee that looks just awful. Then we meet an Iraqi photographer who embedded with the insurgents, and who has stunning photographs of the insurgents planting IEDs and waiting on American patrols. The local kids sometimes spot for American "tanks" and call it in. Rapaceau then says - in his Mississippi-French accent - that it would be better to win over the city block by block than to flatten it "like they did in Fallujah." Sadly, Rapaceau, who I think most watchers would come to like and respect, is killed by a suicide bomb attack at the close of the segment. Just incredibly sad and chaotic. 2/5 returned to the US this spring.

[knowbody0]

2. thanks alcibiades_mystery

is this what Rather was excited about?

[KharmaTrain]

3. Older Report Updated

A tour through Ramadi...originally done last November. Shows how hunkered down the Marines were then...and how dangerous their mission is/was. Yes, very good video.

Some is updated. Sadly, a couple of American soldiers interviewed became victims of the killing. Wonder how that irony sits on the wingnuts out there.

What never ceases to amaze me when I see pictures from Iraqi cities is the high level of existing infrastructure. This video showed the city having a lot of existing electrical wires, a large water tower, street lights and the likes...and I've seen this in other Iraqi towns. The corporate media attempts to make "our mission" appear as something humanitarian, yet you see an infrastructure being destroyed, not being rebuilt.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

5. Made my husband so angry he was cursing bush left and right.

I think these reports should be part of the nightly news. Do you think some of our soldiers assume that they are?

[kentuck]

7. perhaps the most honest and accurate report I have seen yet....

people need to understand what these guys are experiencing..

[kentuck]

6. That was last November...it is probably worse by now...

And these were our best troops, the Marines. Think about the National Guard that are stationed over there. They are like sitting ducks. Most do not have the necessary training. As a Vietnam vet, I knew what they were talking about when they said everybody got off the street 'cause the VC/Arab insurgents were coming. Cell phones are being used by the children to let the "insurgents" know the location of the American troops. It's a real bad scene...