Mosul Rocket Attack Kills At Least 19 American Soldiers - Single Package Bomb Blows Up Tent Halliburton Maybe Was Supposed To Replace By Christmas
by Steve
An attack using rockets and mortars at lunchtime upon a joint US/Iraqi forward base in Mosul has killed at least 22, and injured at least 51 more. The Pentagon, in its usual “let’s withhold as much bad news as possible” mode refuses to be specific about how many Americans were killed in the brazen attacks, carried out by the Muslim group Ansar al-Sunnah. The attacks took place on the same day as a surprise visit to Baghdad's Green Zone by Tony Blair. Blair, it should be noted, actually visited Baghdad and Allawi, whereas Bush on his earlier visit only made a drop-in at the airport. Of course, Bush also served the phony Thanksgiving meal when he did his "morale building" visit.
It’s pretty disconcerting to see that the insurgents could get so close to strike a mess tent with precision with rockets and mortars, but we will see more and more of this as we approach the election. Our forces have been placed in forward areas to try and beef up security in advance of the elections, and when our attempt to "clean out" Fallujah took place in November, we lost control of Mosul. This is another symptom of not having enough troops to do the job, and results also from following a flawed plan in the first place.
It looks like Rummy will be busy doing regrettable tasks for a while and won't get the chance to play as much squash as he has.
Update: At least 19 of the dead from this morning’s attack against a joint US/Iraqi forward base in Mosul are American soldiers. Halliburton is also reporting that seven of the dead are Kellogg/Brown/Root employees, which means that the death tool is at least 26, not counting Iraqis.
And why was KBR and Halliburton there, you ask? Possibly to build a permanent concrete mess hall, which was supposed to be done by Christmas. Soldiers have apparently felt vulnerable eating in the mess tent all this time, and they paid for it with their lives today, just days before Christmas and perhaps when the permanent building was to be completed by the notoriously late and overpaid KBR. One only hopes that we don’t find out that KBR was overdue in completing the mess hall, and that this tragedy could have been avoided if KBR was on time with their work. But you can also see that the insurgents seem to know that they had to hit this tent now, just days before the permanent structure was to be completed.
More troubling however is the fact that the military is now saying that it wasn’t a rocket or mortar attack that destroyed the mess tent, but rather a single explosion, perhaps from a package that got inside the base.
Although officials initially said rockets or mortar rounds struck the camp, Hastings said it was still under investigation.
"We do not know if it was a mortar or a place explosive," he said, describing it as a "single explosion."
Bill Nemitz, a columnist with the Portland Press Herald embedded with the Maine National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion, told CNN there was a concrete dining hall under construction that was supposed to be finished by Christmas. He said he heard "a lot of discussion" among the troops about the vulnerability of the tent.
Hastings told CNN that "there is a level of vulnerability when you go in there and you don't feel like there's a hard — hard roof over your head, and when there's mortar attacks and explosions that happen, there is a level of vulnerability."
A huge hole was blown in the roof of the tent, and puddles of blood, lunch trays and overturned tables and chairs covered the floor, Redmon reported.
Near the front entrance, troops tended a soldier with a serious head wound, but within minutes, they zipped him into a black body bag, he said. Three more bodies were in the parking lot.
Oh, and while this carnage occurred in Iraq today, destroying the lives of countless American families just before Christmas, the stock market closed at its highest point in three years. It’s good to see that Wall Street has its priorities straight.