US attack belies Bremer's Falluja 'truce'

[JCMach1]

Friday 09 April 2004, 12:17 Makka Time, 9:17 GMT



US occupation forces have bombed the Iraqi city of Falluja belying administrator Paul Bremer's announcement that his forces were suspending military operations in the town.

"As of noon today coalition forces have initiated a unilateral suspension of offensive operations in Falluja," Paul Bremer told reporters on Friday.



But, the US-led occupation's deputy director of operations, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, denied the reports of a ceasefire.



Minutes after Bremer's announcement, US forces carried out a fresh offensive on Falluja bombing the town from the air. Scores of residents were injured in the attack, reported our correspondent.



"There is no brokered agreement for a ceasefire in Falluja," Kimmitt told AFP. "There is no agreement between the rebels and the coalition forces."... http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C1FC177A-9A9F-4933-9F33-73CD512990A0.htm

DOESN'T LOOK LIKE IT'S OVER YET... :(

[leftchick]

1. CNN quoted kimmett quite differently a few moments ago...

WTF is going on?

[JCMach1]

2. other interesting bits from the report

At dawn on Friday, US forces asked the residents of Falluja to evacuate the city, reported our correspondent.

On Thursday, the US marines tried to enter the neighbourhoods of Zubat and Nazzal but the Shia militia pounded them with anti-tank rockets and Kalashnikov and mortar fire, forcing them to retreat...



The fierce confrontations have left more than 300 people dead and in excess of 500 wounded, our correspondent reported, citing hospital sources...

[Quetzal]

3. what is going on over there?

Cease-fire, no cease-fire!!!

Will the US say the fighters are in violation of the truce? Or will the fighters say the US is in violation of the truce? Is there even a truce?

[JCMach1]

4. That may be it... tied to the REQUEST TO LEAVE

in the above story...

However, I'm as baffled as anyone right now...

[Quetzal]

9. I think they are going to do a clean sweep of the city

A lot of people are going to fallujah to donate blood - what is happening to them?

[JCMach1]

10. Not even that... just a few hours this morning

to get out...

Read the full story above... the scope of casualties is about to be multiplied X10

it's going to be utter destruction...

they are going to raze the city.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Have heard right-wing loons screaming for complete destruction for days

at odd moments on local radio talk shows.

Of course this is going on, unfortunately, all over the country, I'm sure. Looks as if they're going to get their wish.

Mission accomplished even more?

[floda]

5. operations in Fallujah resumed

I just heard on BBC that the supension is off and operations resume:(

[Imperialism Inc.]

7. So they ceased cease-firing?

Probably trying to get people to go back to their homes. Not enough high value targets.

[JCMach1]

8. Damn them, they have NO CLUE what they are doing!!!!

:argh:

[Imperialism Inc.]

12. I heard it too on BBC latest headlines. They are only reporting

the al Jazeera report.

"It has been reported that a military spokesperson..."

[Imperialism Inc.]

14. They dropped that part now. (It is on a loop)

They dropped the "it has been reported" part, adding the Kut story instead.

You'll need real player but here is the stream.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/homepage/int/news/vi/-/newsa/n5ctrl/tvseq/n24.ram

[0007]

6. Buffoonery double speak, the only language these yahoo's know

of course they know how to twist the truth a little also.

[leftchick]

13. AP: Suspension of Fallujah Offensive Ends

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040409/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_fallujah&cid=540&ncid=1480

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. Marines briefly halted offensive operations in Fallujah on Friday, but the suspension ended after only 90 minutes, a Marine commander said, apparently after negotiations with a city delegation fell through.

Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, said his forces were given the go-ahead to resume offensive operations.

The halt was called at noon to allow a delegation from the city to meet with U.S. commanders, let humanitarian aid into the city and give city residents a chance to tend to their dead.

Byrne did not know why the suspension was called off but believed the negotiations with the delegation never took place. It was not immediately known if offensive operations had actually resumed.


.... Do you get the impression they do not know WTF they are doing? :grr:

[Imperialism Inc.]

15. Operation Spin Around In Cricles.

[0007]

17. Spin cycle -

like a washing machine trying to wash blood from clothes.

[tlcandie]

16. It seems and sounds to me that evidently some in the IGC .. who have

a wee bit of conscious have been trying to broker negotiations to suspend the assault, but evidently Bremer will not have any of it; hence, the confusion? :shrug:

[tlcandie]

18. Bush and Blair have lit a fire which could consume them /Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1188142,00.html

<snip>
Others, to judge by the performance of the neocon writer William Shawcross and Blairite MP Ann Clwyd, have been reduced to a state of stuttering incoherence by the scale of bloodshed and suffering they have helped unleash. Clwyd, who regularly visits Iraq as the prime minister's "human rights envoy", struggled to acknowledge in an interview on Monday that bombing raids by US F16s and Apache helicopter gunships on Iraqi cities risked causing civilian deaths, not merely injuries. The following day, 16 children were reportedly killed in Falluja when US warplanes rocketed their homes. And yesterday, in what may well be the most inflammatory act of slaughter yet, a US helicopter killed dozens of Iraqis in a missile assault on a Falluja mosque.

The attack on a mosque during afternoon prayers will, without doubt, swell the ranks of what has become a nationwide uprising against the US-led occupation. By launching a crackdown against the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr - and, in an eloquent display of what it means by freedom in occupied Iraq, closing his newspaper - the US has finally triggered the long-predicted revolt across the Shia south and ended the isolation of the resistance in the so-called Sunni triangle. Bush, Blair and Bremer have lit a fire in Iraq which may yet consume them all. The evidence of the past few days is that the uprising has spread far beyond the ranks of Sadr's militia. And far from unleashing the civil war US and British pundits and politicians have warned about, Sunni and Shia guerrillas have been fighting side by side in Baghdad against the occupation forces.

This revolt shows every sign of turning into Iraq's own intifada, and towns like Falluja and Ramadi - centres of resistance from the first days of occupation - are now getting the treatment Israel has meted out to Palestinians in Jenin, Nablus and Rafah over the past couple of years. As resistance groups have moved from simply attacking US and other occupation troops to attempts to hold territory, US efforts to destroy them - as an American general vowed to do yesterday - have become increasingly brutal. Across Iraq, US soldiers and their European allies are now killing Iraqis in their hundreds on the streets of their own cities in an explosive revival of the Middle East's imperial legacy.
<snip>

[Judi Lynn]

20. Excellent article. Powerful. Thanks. n/t

[Cooley Hurd]

19. Kimmitt on CNN now says there's a cease-fire...

But, the US-led occupation's deputy director of operations, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, denied the reports of a ceasefire.

These guys scare me - they have no idea what they're doing! :scared:

[Judi Lynn]

22. Another Kimmett quote

09 Apr 2004 10:40:51 GMT
US offensive not resumed in Falluja - general


"The suspension is still in place. The reports that offensive operations have resumed are false," he told Reuters.


http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAR937640.htm

[kentuck]

23. Until we can reload and resupply our lines.....

But the convoy was just hit near al Graib, a town near Fallujah. One can only guess where the fuel and supplies were headed?

[leftchick]

24. excellent catch kentuck!

Good lord things are going to hell fast for everyone!

[Lindsay]

21. Facts and truth have become

inoperative.

[tlcandie]

25. Another interesting piece from someone in Pakistan ...

http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en60554&F_catID=&f_type=source

Making a mess of things - By Masud Akhtar Shaikh
<snip>
One does not have to be a genius to make a mess of things. That is as far as small matters of a local nature are concerned. To make a mess of things on a grandiose scale at the international level, one still does not have to be a genius but the minimum requirement for performing such a miracle is that one must be at least the head of a state. And mind you, the head of a petty state listed in the comity of nations as Tom, Dick, or Harry would also be no good for this purpose. The person must be no less than the one holding the reins of power of a country as powerful as the United States of America. That may perhaps appear to be an exaggerated requirement that could unnecessarily disappoint a person like Tony Blair, who would be ready to bet that he is as good at creating a major mess as George Bush has proved himself to be. Well, we certainly cannot ignore the important role that Tony Blair has played in creating the mess, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. His only limitation is that he always waits for a nod from George Bush before taking a decision on all-important matters. Nevertheless, we may agree to place his name also in the list of those who are good at creating an imperial mess. That will not have any adverse effect on the reputation of George Bush whose added advantage is that he has a very strong ego. A person with a strong ego always has a pair of thick blinkers readily available to him for covering his eyes, so that he may avoid seeing things in their true perspective. Also, a strong ego equips a person with a pair of earplugs that helps him avoid listening to simple logic. Thanks to these two gadgets, the blinkers and the earplugs, every confusion created by the person concerned automatically becomes worse confounded. And this is exactly what has been happening in Iraq, ever since the allied forces launched a massive attack against that unfortunate land, over a year ago.
<snip>

<snip>
Although the worthy President of America has made himself completely immune to any sane advice, it would be in the interests of mankind, and surely in the interest of America, if somebody makes a last attempt to show George Bush the way out of the present imbroglio. Since he has been kind enough to bestow upon our motherland the unique distinction of being a strong non-NATO ally of the US, maybe he listens to a piece of sincere advice rendered by a Pakistani who has no axe of his own to grind. The bit of advice that follows is being offered in that hope.
<snip>

<snip>
He should know that Iraq belongs to the Iraqis and not to the Americans. He should also know that he has not been given a divine mandate to police the entire globe, to impose his political will on self-respecting small nations, or to indulge in naked aggression against countries that are not strong enough to defend themselves against the demons of modern science which America has under command for shooting at human partridges. He should feel content by nourishing his strong ego on the fact that his country is the sole super power of the world that has got all the necessary resources to help mankind overcome disease, eliminate ignorance and poverty, and conquer all the undiscovered realms and secrets of nature for the prosperity of fellow human beings. Imagine the shape of things in the world when mankind would be living in peace and prosperity with the kind courtesy of the "reformed" American leaders. That is when Al Qaeda would be buried forever!
<snip>

[ZR2]

26. ~~posting through the tears~~

getting too emotional about all this, must go now.