<http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20041220&fname=fallujah&sid=1
>
from which...
Now consider that these are equipped with only say RPG 7s as well as say RPG 9s, a few dozen Strellas, a few thousand modified versions of the S5K rocket, basic antiaircraft guns, a few hundred tonnes of say c4/semtex (it is quite cheap), a few thousand fin stabilised rockets (52 mm to 152 mm), basic artillery and mortar (say 60mm, 82mm, and 120mm shells), a few SAMs (say SAM7 and SAM 9), a few thousand grad rockets, faithful ole Kalasnikovs, a few hundred sniper rifles with say .50 mm explosive ammo. It may also be possible that few Samud and Abgail missiles (range of 100 km) are available.These are not very large missiles. Add a few more, nothing fancy again--say, the Tariq and Katyusha, very very basic indeed).
There is more, but you get the idea. Not very state of the art weapons, far from it. But very very functional. Now, consider the sheer amount of counter offensive power these represent.
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It's difficult for many Americans - even among the most critical and radical in outlook - to imagine the US military being in a truly bad spot.
We see the jets and the tanks and the troops with all their killingry and we conclude, very reasonably it seems, that no one can withstand all this massed metallic power.
So there's been a tendency to dismiss Iraqi resistance in all its forms as a sideshow, as "militarily insignificant" to borrow a Pentagon phrase.
But there are clues that the situation in Fallujah (as elsewhere in Iraq) is very dicey for US forces despite Marine claims of 'mopping up' and 'control' and impending reconstruction and biometric ID cards.
...
You have to take the bare information offered by corporate media outlets - for example, a sparse statement that bombing has resumed in the "industrial quarter of the city of Fallujah" - and walk a little further towards a logical conclusion:
If you're still bombing you don't control the city.
You have to note the spoken, yet de-emphasized elements of a news report and think it through just a bit to assemble a plausible picture of the situation.
Such as a radio report I heard on National Public Radio over the weekend -- the embedded reporter, attached to a US Marine division, spoke from outside the city. He reported seeing jets flying overhead towards their targets and hearing continuing artillery barrages.
If the city is firmly under your control, why is your propaganda agent reporting from outside town?
And on and on it goes.
The main point of the Outlook India article is that the US military has run up against a brick wall in Iraq; one that has, so far, proven to be resilient in the face of showers of metal.
I believe events are confirming this view.
.d.
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