[Marxism] US forces report heavy fighting, little local support in Ramadi

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As US troops get more spread out in their battles against the resistance
in Iraq's cities, the resistance gets into a stronger position to
attempt to hold its grounds.  Note that the officers quoted below seem
to differ with the optimistic assessments coming from most of the top
brass and the Pentagon.

The Militant newspaper, probably the only newspaper in the United States
to unconditionally take the Pentagon's victory claims against the
resistance "rats" for good coin, has begun to warn that such speaking
out of turn represents "politicization of the officer corps" and a
threat of fascism and dictatorship.  A year ago, they were singing a
different tune -- asserting that the "Vietnam syndrome" had been
abolished among the officers, and that the unity and enthusiasm of the
officer corps had been assured  by the creation of the Rumsfeldian new
model volunteer army.
Fred Feldman




No end in sight to Ramadi's urban war ordeal
        
        
RAMADI (AFP) - The bomb blast lifted the armoured vehicle into the air
and sent flames licking around it. The US Marine yelled "push, push" and
accelerated the Humvee, named Whiskey Six, down war-torn Ramadi's main
boulevard.

One minute, men in grey dishdashes had been standing on the trash-heaped
sidewalks, vendors sold nuts and soap, and the next, Whiskey Six, one of
a half-dozen armoured Humvees punching a supply convoy through Al Anbar
province's capital city, came under attack.

A mix of chuckles and curses filled Whiskey Six's four-seat interior,
crammed with green ammo cases, a giant radio box and a rocket tube as it
sped ahead, past slabs of flattened buildings dynamited by insurgents.

The vehicle raced past a mural of a US flag, emblazoned with a swastika
instead of stars, and a caption "This is the true America."

The armoured Humvees, belching gas fumes, reached one combat outpost and
then quickly turned to clear a return route for the supply convoy when
two fireballs hit Whiskey Six's right flank.

Bullets snapped and crackled, violet-coloured tracers lit up the gray
sky. Two mortars fell within 50 metres of Whiskey Six, one of them
shooting off a cloud of white smoke as two men used the distraction to
dart from an alley.

The Marines found themselves bogged down yet again in a two-hour street
battle in the city, considered the axis of Iraq's Sunni Muslim
insurgency, along with Fallujah to the east.

"A big fight like that takes a toll on the insurgents. Because it takes
time for them to regroup," said Captain Patrick Rapicault, the commander
of Whiskey Six and the rest of the 2-5 Marine battalion's weapons
company.

Ramadi has been torn by almost daily street battles since April.
Ferocious and brutal in nature - reducing parts of the city to rubble -
neither side appears closer to a decisive victory today than they did
seven months ago.

The Marines have avoided a repeat of Fallujah, a virtual no-go zone for
US forces, but the city has still become an urban battlefield,
reminiscent of Mogadishu or Beirut at the height of Lebanon's civil war.

"I don't know anyone is winning," the 2-5 battalion's commander
Lieutenant Colonel Randy Newman told AFP.

"The people of Ramadi I talk to they don't want them [the insurgents]
here, but they don't feel they can do anything about it."

A high-ranking American official in Baghdad told AFP a key indicator for
the US military that they are beating the insurgency will come when
Sunnis finally start to provide significant intelligence on the
resistance.

And this clearly is not happening in Ramadi.

"There's definitely a feeling it would be dangerous to be associated
with the United States," said Major Mike Targos, the battalion's
executive officer.

Recent cases of intimidation include the murder of an Iraqi who cleaned
the latrines on a US base, and the month-long kidnapping of the dean of
Al Anbar University, located in Ramadi.

The dean now attends the campus sporadically and is spending a large
amount of time in therapy. The current Anbar Governor Mohammad Awad
replaced a predecessor who resigned and fled to Jordan after his three
sons were kidnapped in August.

The Marines praise Awad, but the regional government has been hobbled by
constant reshuffles. "It's hard to track who is doing what job. It makes
effective government that much more difficult," one Marine officer said.

The military has also received reports that some government members'
relatives are linked to the insurgency, the officer added.

A lack of trust in the local police and Iraqi national guard has also
burdened the Marines.

"The police are so corrupt, if they [insurgents] started to assassinate
them, they'd probably be killing some of their own," said Captain Sean
Kuehl, an intelligence officer.

So far, no action has been taken to import police and national guard
from outside the western Iraqi city as part of a major overhaul to help
restore law and order.

Despite the shaky security situation, Newman said he believes it is
possible to hold January elections in the 400,000-strong city,
considered a breeding ground of Iraq's insurgency.

The effort will be buoyed by a US army battalion being deployed in
Ramadi, set to take control of the city's eastern half within days, and
raising the US military presence in the capital to around 2,000.

Election hopes could also be boosted by a US offensive in nearby
Fallujah.

Even so, some Marine officers are sceptical that they could deliver a
knockout blow to insurgents before the January elections.

One called the poll date "stretching it."

"It may take a little longer," said another.

The two officers seemed certain the insurgency will rage on well into
2005 and thought its outright defeat was not yet in reach.

"Ramadi will always have an insurgency but we can bring it to a level
where people feel it is safe enough and local Iraqi forces and police
can deal with it," another officer said.

Tuesday, November 2, 2004
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