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U.S., Iraq Launch Massive Air Assault

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces and Iraqi troops launched what the military described as the largest air assault since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion Thursday, targeting insurgent strongholds north of the capital.

The U.S. military said the raid, dubbed Operation Swarmer, was aimed at clearing "a suspected insurgent operating area" northeast of Samarra and was expected to last several days. The
Pentagon said 41 people were arrested but it was not clear if suspected insurgents put up any resistance.

Residents in the targeted area said there was a heavy U.S. and Iraqi troop presence and large explosions could be heard in the distance. The U.S. military said there was no firing or bombing from the air and the source of the blasts was not known.

"More than 1,500 Iraqi and coalition troops, over 200 tactical vehicles, and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation," the military statement said.

The U.S. command in Baghdad said it was the largest number of aircraft used to insert troops and the largest number of troops inserted by air, although larger numbers of troops overall have been involved in previous operations.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060316/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_air_assault

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Some good news from the warfront:

I want to see this every day. Massive daily bombing campaigns until the terrorist attacks stop. This is the road to victory over the insurgency. We should not send our men over there to fight with their hands behind their backs to fulfill the ridiculous politically correct whims of the liberals who want the US to lose. They do not need to be sitting ducks for IEDs and snipers. We must stay on the offensive.

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We should not send our men over there to fight with their hands behind their backs to fulfill the ridiculous politically correct whims of the liberals who want the US to lose.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Some good news from the warfront:

I want to see this every day. Massive daily bombing campaigns until the terrorist attacks stop. This is the road to victory over the insurgency. We should not send our men over there to fight with their hands behind their backs to fulfill the ridiculous politically correct whims of the liberals who want the US to lose. They do not need to be sitting ducks for IEDs and snipers. We must stay on the offensive.

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Originally posted by Star Wars Fan:
It's called the Geneva Coventions (you know, not torturing people. no indiscriminate bombardment of citis like Fallujah, no civilian massacres, etc.)

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Originally posted by dead_people_killer:
Good idea, bomb them every day....make even MORE people pissed at the US, thus swelling the insurgent ranks.

Smart idea, ass clown.

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whew! Good thing Geneva convention doesnt apply to enemy combatants!

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Originally posted by ArgonPlasma2000:
whew! Good thing Geneva convention doesnt apply to enemy combatants!

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Originally posted by dead_people_killer:
Good idea, bomb them every day....make even MORE people pissed at the US, thus swelling the insurgent ranks.

Smart idea, ass clown.

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Originally posted by vazilizaitsev89:
Area bombings is how the allies won WW2, why not try it now?

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Originally posted by dead_people_killer:
Good idea, bomb them every day....make even MORE people pissed at the US, thus swelling the insurgent ranks.

Smart idea, ass clown.

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Originally posted by Tarnak:
All we need to do to end the insurgency is to effectively patrol Iraq borders and stop the supply line. The terrorists are funded by other countries and groups operating out of other countries. We've stopped a lot of the Syrian gun flow, but the insurgents are still getting their AKs, C4, etc.

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Originally posted by Hacker:
There is already a report that some civilians were massacred during the operation.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Some good news from the warfront:

I want to see this every day. Massive daily bombing campaigns until the terrorist attacks stop. This is the road to victory over the insurgency. We should not send our men over there to fight with their hands behind their backs to fulfill the ridiculous politically correct whims of the liberals who want the US to lose. They do not need to be sitting ducks for IEDs and snipers. We must stay on the offensive.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
jb "its a mig" mcqueen: military expert.

Yeah right.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
That is an outright lie.

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They detained 48 people, of whom 17 were freed without delay. Officials said they did not believe they had captured any significant insurgent leaders.

"Any leaders there must have seen the forces coming and escaped," said one senior Iraqi security source.

By the middle of Day Two, the operation had already been scaled down to 900 men.

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The use of the phrase "the largest air assault operation" was clearly crucial, raising visions of a massive bombing campaign.

In fact, all the phrase meant is that more helicopters were deployed to airlift the troops into the area than in previous such operations.

The 50 "aircraft" that had been deployed were not combat jets blasting insurgent targets but helicopters ferrying in the forces. There was no rocketing or bombing from the sky.

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In this instance, key terrain may have been seized but no enemy forces were apparently engaged.

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Unusually, high-quality photographs and video footage of the initial deployment were made available to the press towards the end of Day One of what was billed as a campaign that would last several days. Some international media were given unusually swift military "embeds" to the area.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Typical apeasement attitude. The idea is to kill the terrorists, not make friends with them. Your logic is ass backwards. Staying on the offensive not only kills more terrorists but also shows our determination and strength.

Your ploy to conceed to the terrorists would make us look weak and give greater encouragement to them. You have a defeatist attitude because you want the US to lose. Why should we take advice on how to win from someone who wants us to lose? You're weak and pathetic and your illogic represents the entire anti-war movement.

Its just ridiculous that how out of control the left is. If you would shut the fuck up and let the professionals fight the war without your 24/7 incessent whining it would make things a lot easier. I shit on you and everything you stand for. You are trying to destroy my fucking country and I'm not going to take it.

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Originally posted by StillArmedStillAngry:

I don't see why angering insurgents bothers you - any anger they have over and above the anger that makes them shoot our soldiers is pretty irrelevant. Once they're shooting at us, their feelings aren't really my concern.

Now, if it comes out that we're hitting some kind of built-up civilian area that also has some insurgents in it... well, that's a problem. But if we're limiting the strike to insurgents, then this is the right way to go. Patrolling obviously isn't doing us any good - we need to bring them to open battle. IED's and snipers nip at us, but poorly-trained cells with AK's simply can't match the US military when it's applied with focus, force, and discretion.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Some good news from the warfront:

I want to see this every day. Massive daily bombing campaigns until the terrorist attacks stop. This is the road to victory over the insurgency. We should not send our men over there to fight with their hands behind their backs to fulfill the ridiculous politically correct whims of the liberals who want the US to lose. They do not need to be sitting ducks for IEDs and snipers. We must stay on the offensive.

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On Scene: How Operation Swarmer Fizzled
By Brian Bennett and Al Jallam
Time Magazine

Friday 17 March 2006

Not a shot was fired, or a leader nabbed, in a major offensive that failed to live up to its advance billing.

Four Black Hawk helicopters landed in a wheat field and dropped off a television crew, three photographers, three print reporters and three Iraqi government officials right into the middle of Operation Swarmer. Iraqi soldiers in newly painted humvees, green and red Iraqi flags stenciled on the tailgates, had just finished searching the farm populated by a half-dozen skinny cows and a woman kneading freshly risen dough and slapping it to the walls of a mud oven.

The press, flown in from Baghdad to this agricultural gridiron northeast of Samarra, huddled around the Iraqi officials and US Army commanders who explained that the "largest air assault since 2003" in Iraq using over 50 helicopters to put 1500 Iraqi and US troops on the ground had netted 48 suspected insurgents, 17 of which had already been cleared and released. The area, explained the officials, has long been suspected of being used as a base for insurgents operating in and around Samarra, the city north of Baghdad where the bombing of a sacred shrine recently sparked a wave of sectarian violence.

But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. ("Air Assault" is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no air strikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What's more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the US and Iraqi commanders.

The operation, which doubled the population of the flat farmland in one single airlift, was initiated by intelligence from Iraq security forces, says Lt Col Skip Johnson commander of the 187 Battalion, 3rd Combat Brigade of the 101st Airborne. "They have the lead," he said to reporters at the second stop of the tour. But by Friday afternoon, the major targets seemed to have slipped through their fingers. Iraqi Army General Abdul Jabar says that Samarra-based insurgent leader Hamad el Taki of Mohammad's Army was thought to be in the area, and Iraqi intelligence officers were still working to compare known voice recordings and photographs with the prisoners in custody.

With the Interior Ministry's Samarra commando battalion, the soldiers had found some 300 individual pieces of weaponry like mortars, rockets and plastic explosives in six different locations inside the sparsely populated farming community of over 50 square miles and about 1,500 residents. The raids also uncovered high-powered cordless telephones used as detonators in homemade bombs, medical supplies and insurgent training manuals.

Before loading up into the helicopters for a return trip to Baghdad, Iraqi and American soldiers and some reporters helped themselves to the woman's freshly baked bread, tearing bits off and chewing it as they wandered among the cows. For most of them, it was the only thing worthwhile they'd found all day.
[URL=http: //www.trut hout.org/d ocs_2006/0 31806A.sht ml]http:// www.trutho ut.org/doc s_2006/031806A.shtml[/URL]

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Originally posted by marty:
Buttthrax, I've been reading your stuff for the past year and I agree with most of what you say. However, you're way of looking at the war is too focused on the aspect of killing terrorists.

I'm not saying that killing terrorists is a bad thing, absolutely not, but when innocent civilians are dying, the Army loses trust amongst the civilian population.

You're saying the Americans should constantly bomb Iraq and kill terrorists> Well that will only create more terrorists and eventually start a vicious cycle where Arabs will be honored to take the place of the guy that just died.

The trick is to not only kill terrorists, but become friends with the locals. Let them trust you so they can give you any information they know.

That way, you kill the source, and you're left with constantly decreasing numbers of insurgents.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Gotta love how the anti-war fairy-types are whining because there wasn't enough violence for their taste.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
They found 300 insurgent weapons in 6 different places. Did they really need 1500 troops to do it? Sure, why not. There was no resistance because of the overwhelming number of forces. So they kept some 24 of the terrorists? Great. It takes less than that to make for a really bad day in Iraq.

Sounds like a goddamn success to me. They cleaned house and threw the American people a bone. We want to see this type of thing daily on TV, not the liberals pissing and complaining about Bush. No Time Magazine article or leftist internet user can alter reality, but you sure as hell can lie and change the facts. So you just do that, you lying piece of shit.

Gotta love how the anti-war fairy-types are whining because there wasn't enough violence for their taste.

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Cry whatever, you little bitch. That offensive was pathetic.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Typical leftist bullshit. I will give you that the American people would have liked to see more action, but don't try to paint it as an unsuccessful operation. Even if they killed 5000 people you would be whining about the "poor, innocent" terrorists. You will find a way spin any situation around and find the United States at fault for something. Same bullshit, different headline. This shows that we are making progress in Iraq and thats why you don't like it.

Pathetic is the anti-American protestors like you, not the military.

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Originally posted by great_sage=heaven:
It almost sounds like you don't think these raids just target really general area's where they believe terrorists to be, and as such, obviously kill a fair amount of civilians.

But no, that would just be stupid.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Was it an unsuccessful operation? Answer. Pronto.

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Originally posted by ShqipTAR:
I have a hard time beleiving you could ever escape from a large plastic bag.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Thanks for not answering the question, dipshit. If you say it was unsuccessful, then what would you prefer those soldiers have done that day? Sit out in the desert and do nothing? There is 300 fewer weapons the enemy can use to kill our troops and dozens of terrorists on the way to Abu Gharib. Sounds good to me.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
You're just a fucking douchebag, bottom line. If you can't understand that it does help to win the war to stage an offensive then you don't know shit. Either that or you do understand it but actually want the US to lose. You demented terrorist piece of shit.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Interesting. Earlier Hacker claimed that civilians were killed in the operation. Then he claimed that not a single shot was fired. I don't believe either of these egregious claims.

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Originally posted by ShqipTAR:
I have a hard time beleiving you could ever escape from a large plastic bag.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Can't take the fact that I called out your bullshit?

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Anything that makes you look like an asshole is suddenly a conspiracy, no?

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
I was speaking to Hacker. Now kindly go fuck yourself.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
I was speaking to Hacker. Now kindly go fuck yourself.

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Originally posted by buttthrax:
Interesting. Earlier Hacker claimed that civilians were killed in the operation. Then he claimed that not a single shot was fired. I don't believe either of these egregious claims.

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