With all due respect to our fine soldiers, does BushCo think we don't remember the last couple of times on
this:
Thousands of American and Iraqi troops laid siege Saturday to this town near the Syrian border in one of the largest military assaults since American-led forces stormed the guerrilla stronghold of Falluja last year, Marine Corps officials said.
I swear I think they used the exact same lead the last time.
The sweep, aimed at shutting down the flow of foreign fighters along the Euphrates River, began early Saturday as 2,500 American troops and 1,000 Iraqi Army soldiers, all led by the Marines, cordoned off roads around Husayba before rolling into town in armored vehicles and marching in on foot. Insurgents armed with Kalashnikovs opened fire down alleyways and from windows. Fighter jets streaked overhead, dropping 500-pound bombs. Explosions resounded throughout the day as the invading troops advanced house by house, searching each one.
Read this before.
American commanders say Husayba has become a bastion for cells of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that claims credit for many of the deadliest suicide bombings of the war. Husayba is one of the first and most vital stops for foreign jihadists who enter Iraq through a series of desert towns along the Euphrates River corridor, the commanders say.
Yep. Read this before too. This next part is sort of new.
The marines responsible for securing that vast desert region in Anbar Province have conducted a dozen or so operations along the corridor since spring, with mixed success.
But this time will be different:
The Saturday offensive was the most ambitious of those, partly because the American military seems intent on minimizing any chance that insurgents disrupt the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, the final stage in the process of establishing a full-term sovereign government.
See? They weren't really trying before. Now's the time:
"It's a cesspool; it's time for this area to get cleaned up," Col. Stephen W. Davis, of the Second Marine Division, said of Husayba. "Foreign fighters are the most virulent threat."
This time will be different:
In virtually all the previous offensives along the Euphrates River corridor, marines found that the insurgents had largely moved away by the time the Americans invaded the towns. The operations took several weeks to plan, and commanders suspect that the guerrillas somehow received leaked information, subverting any chance of surprise. Often, marines kicked down doors along dusty streets to find that homes had been abandoned.
But Marine Corps officers said Saturday that they were encountering resistance in Husayba. In the first hours after the operation began at 4 a.m., when infantry units pushed in from the west, there was little shooting. But by dawn, insurgents were firing Kalashnikov rifles and an occasional rocket-propelled grenade.
See meeting resistance is a GOOD thing now. We surprised em.
Honestly, I feel for our soldiers. They have been given an impossible task. But I hope they know better than this nonsensical spin.