Re: A Russian view of the war (April 6)

["Ed C." <bronterre@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Farmelant" <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: A Russian view of the war (April 6)
>
> April 6th, Morning
> Baghdad
the airport. At 10am it was attacked by 3 Republican
> Guards battalions enforced with militia troops. Americans
> requested artillery and aviation support. The battle lasted for
> almost 6 hours. After several unsuccessful attacks Iraqis
> managed to drive Americans back from the second runway to the
> airport building. Currently the coalition forces control the
> building itself and the new runway bordering to it. During the
> day the foes had to increase their strengths and deploy
> reinforcements. By the evening up to 2 regular Iraqi brigades
> and 2 thousand militiamen were fighting for the airport.
> Americans had to use all available forces of the 3rd Mechanized
> Division and 101st Airborne Division to repulse the attacks.
> Only assault aircraft and battle helicopters made more than
> 300 operation flights to this region.
>
> During the fight Iraqis lost up to 20 tanks, 10 APC, about
> 200 men killed and up to 300 wounded. The American losses
> were up to 30 men killed, about 50 wounded, at least 4 tanks,
> 4 APC and 1 helicopter. But it is impossible to obtain the
> exact data yet. By this hour there have been more than 20
> flights for evacuation of killed and wounded coalition
> soldiers and the command have requested ambulance aviation again.

I'm sure this question has been asked before, but is there
any way we can get at least an inkling of another source to
verify this material?  In some ways it simply 'rings true' because
it isn't the rosy scenarios of the U$ War Dept. & its PR firm
known as "the media," while it also isn't the hyperbole of
the Ba'athist Information minister about how Iraqi forces
have cleared out the enemy from the airport and have recaptured
it, etc etc.  The reports on Al-Jazeera are not specific about
the above assault by Iraqi forces but simply suggest that
there is more resistance than is reported by 'coalition' forces.

In solidarity,
Ed C.