Loose cannons

November 24, 2004
Issue 

Liberated health care

"Patients and hospital employees [at Fallujah General Hospital] were rushed out of rooms by armed soldiers and ordered to sit or lie on the floor while troops tied their hands behind their backs." — New York Times, November 9.

Well, that really clarifies it

"Claiming the city is secure does not actually mean that all the resistance is gone, it just means we have secured the area." — US Marine Captain John Griffin, November 12.

Operation Hopeless

"If anybody thinks that Fallujah is going to be the end of the insurgency in Iraq, that was never the objective, never our intention, and even never our hope." — US Joint Chiefs of Staff head General Richard Myers, November 12.

9/11 hijackers immortal

"The people who are fighting us here are the same as those who fight us in Afghanistan and attack us in Saudi Arabia and who strike at us in our homeland." — General John Abazaid, quoted by American Forces Press Service, speaking to the US 1st Marine Expeditionary Force Combined Operations Center outside Fallujah, November 14.

But those 20 really get around

"Only a tiny percentage of the more than 1000 insurgents detained by US forces in the Iraqi city of Fallujah over the past week are foreigners, a Marine officer said Monday. Col. Michael Regner, operations chief for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said in a conference call with reporters at the Pentagon that 1052 people had been detained at last count. Of that total, he said at least 1030 were Iraqis, meaning only about 20 were foreigners." — Associated Press, November 15.

From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, November 24, 2004.
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