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May 11, 2005
Wednesday Live-blogging Commences
[This post will be updated through the evening. All times US Central.]
12:22 pm New map will be up in a new post in a few moments.
12:08pm This is frustrating. There is little news at all coming out of the battle. I don't think it is quite over yet. If it is, then we should see a deluge of final, wrap-up accounts. There may be a news lull right now while things are happening. Only one new story, from WaPo: Demise of a Hard-Fighting Squad. The story, while fundamentally interesting, is flawed in two accounts. First, it paints a particularly defeatist attitude. Sure, it is factual, but where are the stories about the dead enemy? Has the author not been with the Marines as they inspected fighting positions and bodies, possibly even weapons caches, etc? This is caused by the second flaw: the reporter was nearly killed herself:
This correspondent had just gotten off the Amtrac and the reconstructed squad from 1st Platoon was rolling toward the Euphrates in a row of armored vehicles, headed for more house searches, when the vehicle rolled over the explosive.Understandably, she wants to focus on the deaths of those whom she has spent some length of time with. But such "human interest" memoirs are best told by the Marines themselves, and are best at the end of the battle -- when they might be contrasted against its outcome. As it is, the battle is still underway and she focuses solely on friendly casualties. Since she's only with one small unit, we can't expect her to give a bird's eye view of everything, which is fine, but friendly casualties are certainly not all that is happening to Lima Company.
11:50pm Here's an RFI for folks out there: Is New Obeidi the same as Obeidi? And is Q'aim right on the river or removed a bit, as plotted below? Knowing those two things would help a great deal.
11:33pm Milbloggers are highlighted in this story in tomorrow's USA Today: 'Milbloggers' are typing their place in history. It would be interesting to see what kind of traffic these folks get from readers who normally use USA Today online for news.
11:18pm Fox had a report that said the US was denying two rumors going around Iraq. First, that two Blackhawk helos had been shot down in the battle at Q'aim, and second that over 40 Marines had been killed there by roadside bombs. Perhaps spreading these types of rumors is the way the terrorists hope to inflluence the Iraqi populace. See the below from the Word Unheard.
10:42pm Just released from CentCom: Last week the Poles and Iraqis completed Operation COBWEB.
10:26pm The Word Unheard: Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq Calls Rout by Marines "Good News" calls attention to a "Baghdad Bob"-like press release by some element of the insurgents in Iraq. Interesting . . .
9:59pm On All Things Considered today, NPR covered the car-bombings in Baghdad during their top of the hour news, but said nothing at all about Matador. This is sad. The terrorists are hoping that enough car-bombs and the resulting coverage will give them their Tet moment. NPR is only abetting them when its coverage is not balanced . . . where do those car-bombers and bombs come from? Al Q'aim, where we're raking the sand with their bodies.
This raises an interesting question: the MSM in the US has agenda-setting power and still largely influences public debates . . . but what about the populace of Iraq itself? Several articles in the past year have mentioned the explosion of news outlets over there . . . Chrenk's roundups have sometimes mentioned such growth. Is Al-Jazeera dominant, or have some of them made it to the top of the heap in the resulting news competition? In other words, how can the terrorist insurgency adopt their message to the reigning media outlets in Iraq itself?
Aljazeera.Net currently has a large story about the car-bombings, but only a blurb about Matador, and it leaves out key details.
I wonder what some of the Iraqis over at the Carnival of the Liberated would say about terrorism and manipulation of the media?
9:49pm Could be some issues with Hosting Matters. I'm having trouble posting and you're having trouble loading. Nothing from bandwidth from what I can see. If things go south, I'll start posting at my old site: The Adventures of Chester, though some housecleaning over there will be needed.
9:46 pm Fox reported a moment ago that US KIA now number 13. Said one of them was a Lance Corporal who was a pallbearer at Reagan's funeral last summer and then requested to be sent to the sandbox.
9:45pm A couple of Alert Readers tell me there are issues in loading this page. Bandwidth is ok from what I can tell, so it may take a couple of tries.
9:26pm Thoughts about Zarqawi: This was the article that sparked a lot of speculation today: IRAQ: AL-ZARQAWI SERIOUSLY INJURED, SAYS IRAQI OFFICIAL:
Baghdad, 11 May (AKI) - The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is "serious injured, possibly dead" according to Colonel Fouad Hani Hassan, commander of the fifth division of the Iraqi armed forces, cited by 'Elaph', a popular website in the Arab world. Al-Zarqawi, considered al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, is believed to have been injured in the major offensive US-led forces have been carrying out in the western Anbar province over the last few days.That's the whole thing. Several issues jump out in terms of credibility: First, the source is an Iraqi Colonel. No Iraqi forces are participating directly in Matador. How would he know? What sources would he have there to tell him? If we've got his body, the US might be slow in releasing that info in order to verify, but it seems unlikely that people other than the verifiers would know enough for rumors to leak out. Another small red flag is that they demoted LtGen Conway to a BrigGen Conway. Not a huge mistake, since this is a foreign press service -- Italian, perhaps? -- but still raises an eyebrow. What else are they wrong on?
Operation Matador is centred around the town of Qaim, just a few kilometres from the Syrian border, and is aimed at destroying the strongholds of foreign fighters coming over the border into Iraq to join the insurgency. It's the fourth day of violent fighting around the town, which has been surrounded by troops since Saturday night. Bombing is said to be heavy in Qaim, where there has been house-to-house fighting between troops and insurgents.
The satellite TV channel Al-Arabiya reported on Wednesday that two US military helicopters were brought down during clashes in villages near Qaim, where military aircraft had been carrying out bombing raids to root out Islamic militants from their hideouts.
On Tuesday, Raja Nawaf, the newly-appointed governor of the Anbar province was kidnapped near Qaim and his family was told he would only be released if US troops pulled out of the town. A US military spokesman responded to the news by reiterating that they do not give in to terrorist demands.
While Operation Matador is not specifically aimed at catching al-Zarqawi, Brig. Gen. James Conway told a Pentagon news briefing on Tuesday that "it would be a welcome event to come across him or his body."
This is the biggest US military operation since the offensive on the rebel-held town of Fallujah in November last year. More than 1,000 troops are involved and at least 15 US soldiers are said to have died in the fighting so far. The US military claims some 100 militants have been killed, but inside sources have admitted that they have encountered strong resistance in the town, with the insurgents demonstrating a high level of training.
9:20 pm If anyone out there is interested in opting-in to my email list, email me at "terrier_manchester@yahoo.com" with "subscribe" in the subject line. You'll get one to three emails a week with one hyperlink each to something interesting here at Adventures. That's it. You can opt-out anytime.
9:13pm My goodness! There's little wisps of steam coming out of my browser now . . . Welcome LGF readers!
This evening I'll be creating a significant events log and attempting to tie it to the map I used yesterday. I'll also offer whatever else I can in terms of commentary . . .
Posted by Chester at May 11, 2005 9:11 PM
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