A Convoy Of Assorted Iraq Stories

***Another similarity of Iraq to Vietnam:

[FOX News military analyst and retired Colonel David] says while visiting Iraq recently, he observed rules of engagement that required seven separate steps before a soldier at a guard post could engage the enemy. The last step, he notes, states that if the enemy runs away, the soldier does not have to go after him.

While the rules of engagement are "outrageous," Hunt says, one cannot completely blame the military's lawyers because they only wrote the document explaining the rules. "The lawyers work for a commander, who signed that document," he contends. "They were signed for and approved by people that were in charge."...

[The existing rules of engagement] have hamstrung our soldiers to the point where you've got the British, who had to ask permission to fire on Iranians who are taking captive their soldiers, and were told no. ...

The Marines have got this problem in Al Anbar Province ... and the Army's got this problem all over the place, from Afghanistan to here. ... We have forgotten how to fight. This is nasty business we're in, and we seem unwilling or unable to do that.

Former Corporal David Retske, a squad leader and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle operator with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq in 2006, gave NRO's W. Thomas Smith a teeth-grating example:

A perfect example of problems arising from ROE was when a buddy of mine was guarding a section of the exterior of one of the forward operating bases in Iraq from which we were operating.

While he was on duty, he was getting shot at. But rules of engagement say, you can't engage without permission. So he radioed the sergeant-of-the-guard and said, "Hey, I'm getting shot at. May I return fire?"

The sergeant asked, "Are you in any immediate danger?"

My buddy responded, "No, not as long as I'm ducking behind the concrete [barrier]."

The sergeant said, "OK, don't return fire until you are in immediate danger." [emphases added]

Getting pinned down by automatic weapons fire doesn't constitute "immediate danger"? What would - the "insurgents" climbing the concrete barrier and taking aim straight down at him?

You can imagine the incredulity in this soldier's voice:

My buddy said, "Yeah, but what if they pull out an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade]?"

The sergeant said, "Well, in that case, return fire." [emphasis added]

Before or after they launch it?

Hey, I'm not the one indulging in facetiousness here. Consider its source:

My buddy was absolutely, positively, not allowed to return fire, even though he was in what I considered to be immediate danger.

And the rules are getting more restrictive because of all the Hadithas and those kinds of things.

Thank you, Enemy Media. It's just one more brick on the road to another self-fulfilling prophecy of unnecessary defeat.


***Speaking of Haditha, that media-celebrated (tried, convicted, and executed) "war crime" case is falling apart at the seams:

Yesterday, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports:

The Marine officer who will help decide whether Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt should face trial expressed doubt yesterday about the prosecution's assertions that Sharratt killed defenseless Iraqis execution-style.

Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Ware said he was having “a great deal of difficulty understanding the prosecution's theory” that Sharratt and another Marine led four Iraqi men into a house, then executed them November 19, 2005, in the city of Haditha. Ware is scheduled to make his recommendation on whether to court-martial Sharratt by the beginning of next month.

"The prosecution's arguments aren't supported by forensic and other evidence," Ware said during the final day of Sharratt's preliminary hearing at Camp Pendleton.

This flows neatly into the defense's rather obvious argument:

[Defense attorney] Culp also suggested that the prosecution of his client is colored by politics surrounding the civilian deaths in Haditha, which generated worldwide condemnation when first reported by Time magazine in March 2006. Until then, the Marine Corps maintained the civilians died when caught up in a bombing and in crossfire from a small-arms attack on the troops.

"This is a new kind of war, and this case is a result of the new kind of warfare," Culp said, referring to insurgents who do not wear uniforms and mix within the civilian population. "There's also politics involved here, and the politics of the war is tearing at this nation."…

"He charged into that room at great risk to his own safety and killed those men before they killed him. He deserves a medal," the attorney said.

Instead, Corporal Sharratt has been railroaded based on the dubious testimony of terrorist sympathizers in Iraq and American newsrooms - the latter of which evidently do not consider all leaks to be of equal worth.


***Yet despite all this dolorous morony, the Surge is slowly but steadily working, according to the man who doesn't know which party is best for him:

I recently returned from Iraq and four other countries in the Middle East, my first trip to the region since December. In the intervening five months, almost everything about the American war effort in Baghdad has changed, with a new coalition military commander, General David Petraeus; a new U.S. ambassador, Ryan Crocker; the introduction, at last, of new troops; and most important of all, a bold, new counterinsurgency strategy.

The question of course is - is it working? Here in Washington, advocates of retreat insist with absolute certainty that it is not, seizing upon every suicide bombing and American casualty as proof positive that the U.S. has failed in Iraq, and that it is time to get out.

In Baghdad, however, discussions with the talented Americans responsible for leading this fight are more balanced, more hopeful and, above all, more strategic in their focus - fixated not just on the headline or loss of the day, but on the larger stakes in this struggle, beginning with who our enemies are in Iraq. The officials I met in Baghdad said that 90% of suicide bombings in Iraq today are the work of non-Iraqi, al Qaeda terrorists. In fact, al Qaeda's leaders have repeatedly said that Iraq is the central front of their global war against us. That is why it is nonsensical for anyone to claim that the war in Iraq can be separated from the war against al Qaeda - and why a U.S. pullout, under fire, would represent an epic victory for al Qaeda, as significant as their attacks on 9/11. [emphasis added]

Meanwhile, Dirty Harry Reid sits on his bony ass in Washington, D.C. and tells General Petraeus in Baghdad that he "doesn't know what's going on on the ground" in Baghdad.

'Tis a pity that our commitment to the Iraqis isn't as bafflingly stubborn as Joe Lieberman's refusal to carry out the withdrawal that needs to happen - i.e. Lieberman's switching Senate caucuses, and Senate control with it. That might actually lend some seriousness to his "seriousness."