BREAKING NEWS ONLY

Axis Kast · Post by **Axis Kast** » 2003-03-23 07:32am

Apparently, we're still fighting street-to-street in Umm Qasr. Not good, considering we were told it was in Allied hands by Friday. Same in Basra; "most" of the city is under allied control."

Two additional soldiers of support elements to the 3rd Infantry have been killed and wounded during a vehicle accident in Southern Iraq as well according to FOX news.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2003-03-23 07:38am

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/ ... index.html

U.S. Marines destroy pocket of resistance in Umm Qasr

RadiO · Post by **RadiO** » 2003-03-23 07:44am

Conformation on the RAF Tornado downed by Patriot:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2877349.stm

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-03-23 08:58am

Rumsfield confirms, US Plane is missing

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2003-03-23 09:07am

Poor sods...

Worst place on earth to eject...

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-03-23 09:10am

Warspite wrote:Poor sods...
Worst place on earth to eject...

No, the worst place on earth to eject would be roughly 5 feet above a boulderfield in the middle of oh, I don't know, Antarctica?

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2003-03-23 09:16am

weemadando wrote:
Warspite wrote:Poor sods...
Worst place on earth to eject...
No, the worst place on earth to eject would be roughly 5 feet above a boulderfield in the middle of oh, I don't know, Antarctica?

Yeah, but in Antarctica you only have the cold and penguins to worry about, not a mob willing to tow you naked about the city with a pickup truck.
Then again, those penguin bites are pretty bad... I wouldn't want to cross a pissed-off penguin...

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-03-23 09:22am

Warspite wrote:
weemadando wrote:
Warspite wrote:Poor sods...
Worst place on earth to eject...
No, the worst place on earth to eject would be roughly 5 feet above a boulderfield in the middle of oh, I don't know, Antarctica?
Yeah, but in Antarctica you only have the cold and penguins to worry about, not a mob willing to tow you naked about the city with a pickup truck.
Then again, those penguin bites are pretty bad... I wouldn't want to cross a pissed-off penguin...

Perhaps you missed the 5ft above a boulderfield bit.

And of course, once your helpless on the ground, you have to remember that seals are carniverous...

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2003-03-23 09:29am

weemadando wrote:Perhaps you missed the 5ft above a boulderfield bit.

And of course, once your helpless on the ground, you have to remember that seals are carniverous...

Wow, nobody mentioned any seals! As for the boulderfield, irrelevant, in fact, they would cushion the fall.

(I'm just kiding.)

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2003-03-23 09:40am

Sky News showed small footage of British night attacks in Al Faw.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2003-03-23 10:26am

weemadando wrote:
Warspite wrote:
weemadando wrote: No, the worst place on earth to eject would be roughly 5 feet above a boulderfield in the middle of oh, I don't know, Antarctica?
Yeah, but in Antarctica you only have the cold and penguins to worry about, not a mob willing to tow you naked about the city with a pickup truck.
Then again, those penguin bites are pretty bad... I wouldn't want to cross a pissed-off penguin...
Perhaps you missed the 5ft above a boulderfield bit.

And of course, once your helpless on the ground, you have to remember that seals are carniverous...

Even though Seals are carniverous, I've never heard of one eating a human. However, I live in Utah so that may explain it

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-03-23 10:36am

11 Americans taken prisoner by Iraqi forces, 50 wounded in fierce fighting in Nasiriya.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/worl ... 030323.htm

Compare to this, which was up many hours ago:

http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news074.htm (the controversial source from iraqwar.ru)

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-03-23 10:58am

Crazy_Vasey wrote:
Ted wrote:US Patriot Missile battery took out RAF fighter.
Wow. America must have some right geniuses in its army shooting down a friendly plane with an anti-missile missile that doesn't even hit anything normally...

Patriot was originally intended as a conventional surface-to-air missile. Anti-ballisitic-missile capability was added in the 1980s. In Operation Desert Storm, Iraqi SCUDs and derivatives were fired - but tended to fragment in flight. US Patriots scored hits, but were not powerful enough to knock the various parts off course. In the mid-1990s, the US developed the PAC-3 version of Patriot, which is optimized for anti-missile work and has done quite well (the batteries are currently mixed between PAC-2 and PAC-3 launchers).

I'm not quite sure how PAC-2 GEM does against ballistic missiles.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-03-23 10:59am

Vympel wrote:11 Americans taken prisoner by Iraqi forces, 50 wounded in fierce fighting in Nasiriya.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/worl ... 030323.htm

Link is now dead.

Post by **Rob Wilson** » 2003-03-23 11:24am

phongn wrote:
Vympel wrote:11 Americans taken prisoner by Iraqi forces, 50 wounded in fierce fighting in Nasiriya.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/worl ... 030323.htm
Link is now dead.

It's just missing the 'l' from the html tag. The page does exist.

I've seen the POW interviews, they will upset a lot of civilians. One of the detainee's is a woman, and the raw footage contained dead and injured bodies. Hopefully the news agencies will edit the dead and injured part out for main broadcast, as it will no doubt distress a lot of people. The POW's appear to be confused (understandably), possibly in Shock, and as they are not frontline troops they are not sticking to the Big 4 (Name, Rank, Serial No. and DOB) though I presume they'll get a grip fast (if 'medication' hasn't been given to them). Hopefully they will be treated properly as time goes on.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2003-03-23 11:28am

Just posted the wahsington post link as well.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2003-03-23 11:46am

Rob Wilson wrote: I've seen the POW interviews, they will upset a lot of civilians. One of the detainee's is a woman, and the raw footage contained dead and injured bodies. Hopefully the news agencies will edit the dead and injured part out for main broadcast, as it will no doubt distress a lot of people. The POW's appear to be confused (understandably), possibly in Shock, and as they are not frontline troops they are not sticking to the Big 4 (Name, Rank, Serial No. and DOB) though I presume they'll get a grip fast (if 'medication' hasn't been given to them). Hopefully they will be treated properly as time goes on.

Treated properly? Darius III's first move after rather brilliantly blocking Alexander's line of retreat by marching through the Amanic Gates and seizing Issus - and Alexander's hospital and baggage train - was to cut off the hands of all the prisoners he took on seizing said train. It's their culture over there and always has been to laugh at the idea of treating prisoners properly.

Those five who were killed - They aren't KIAs. They were murdered by the Iraqis. Each one was shot through the head, rather neatly. I have no illusions about what will happen to our POWs in this war and I have no illusions about what we should do to these barbarians. Civilization is best taught from the barrel of a gun.

BoredShirtless · Post by **BoredShirtless** » 2003-03-23 11:46am

The mainstream media are operating in an "information vaccum" according to this article:
http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news075.htm

BoredShirtless · Post by **BoredShirtless** » 2003-03-23 11:54am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:
Rob Wilson wrote: I've seen the POW interviews, they will upset a lot of civilians. One of the detainee's is a woman, and the raw footage contained dead and injured bodies. Hopefully the news agencies will edit the dead and injured part out for main broadcast, as it will no doubt distress a lot of people. The POW's appear to be confused (understandably), possibly in Shock, and as they are not frontline troops they are not sticking to the Big 4 (Name, Rank, Serial No. and DOB) though I presume they'll get a grip fast (if 'medication' hasn't been given to them). Hopefully they will be treated properly as time goes on.
Treated properly? Darius III's first move after rather brilliantly blocking Alexander's line of retreat by marching through the Amanic Gates and seizing Issus - and Alexander's hospital and baggage train - was to cut off the hands of all the prisoners he took on seizing said train. It's their culture over there and always has been to laugh at the idea of treating prisoners properly.

Those five who were killed - They aren't KIAs. They were murdered by the Iraqis. Each one was shot through the head, rather neatly. I have no illusions about what will happen to our POWs in this war and I have no illusions about what we should do to these barbarians. Civilization is best taught from the barrel of a gun.

You have any proof of POWs getting shot in the head? The Iraqi's are not barbarians, they just don't have KFC which probably pisses you off.

BoredShirtless · Post by **BoredShirtless** » 2003-03-23 11:59am

A little background on the Russian agency collating these reports:
http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news072.htm

Post by **Rob Wilson** » 2003-03-23 12:01pm

Vympel wrote:11 Americans taken prisoner by Iraqi forces, 50 wounded in fierce fighting in Nasiriya.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/worl ... 030323.htm

Compare to this, which was up many hours ago:

http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news074.htm (the controversial source from iraqwar.ru)

OK, well it mentioned a firefight around Nasiriya, but it claimed that 10-15 tanks were destroyed and that 30 other vehicles were hit. Yet pictures of the fighting in Nasiriya show... small fire from buildings (reminiscent of Umm Qasr) and the reporters on the scene make no mention of destroyed armour.

Lets look at the rest of it.

Elements of the US 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Infantry Division ended up in an exceptionally difficult situation. While attempting to encircle Basra from the north and to block An-Nasiriya elements the 3rd and 1st infantry divisions found themselves wedged between the defending Iraqi forces. The Iraqi command used this situation and delivered a decisive counterattack with up to 80 tanks in the open flank of the US forces, slicing through their combat orders. As the result of this counterattack these US units are now at risk of being separated from the main coalition forces and being surrounded.

Except that 3rd Infantry and 1st Marine are both currently outside An-Najaf and the reporter with them managed to completely miss out on this 80 tank counter-attack that apparently had them in danger of being cut off.

By 1100hrs MSK Iraqi units advanced into the US attack front by 10-15 kilometers and Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of the coalition forces, ordered his troops to switch entirely to defensive operations. At the same time he issued orders to the forward-deployed coalition tank units to halt their reconnaissance operations in the directions of Es-Samaba and An-Najaf and to move immediately to support the defending US forces. However, the situation is complicated by the fact that a part of the coalition tanks are currently disabled due to the lack of fuel and are awaiting the arrival of fuel convoys. Thus the tanks are able to gradually rejoin combat in small numbers as the fuel becomes available

All those watching the broadcasts from the lead units will be astounded by that bit of news as they went striaght from Basra to An-najaf without stopping/turning to rush back to defend their other units. Also the lack of fuel is news to everyone, including the Tank commanders no doubt.

The top US military command is planning to enhance the coalition command. During the Joint Chief of Staff meeting its Chairman Gen. Richard Mayers expressed strong criticism of the actions by the coalition commander Gen. Franks and proposed to strengthen his headquarters with several other senior military commanders.

How do Russian journalists know what was said in a JCOS meeting, pray tell?

At best this is them embellishing any facts they do get, to make it sound more newsworthy (Nasiriya), at worst they're just making shit up (the bits I quoted).

And as to them printing news of resistance to the advance ahead of the reputable news sources, this was online several hours beforehand

Elsewhere, the US 3rd Infantry Division has pushed into the centre of the country before running into resistance at the city of Nasiriya - a key crossing point over the Euphrates river on the way to Baghdad.

The BBC's Gavin Hewitt, who is travelling with the division, says the enormous convoy of tanks and armoured vehicles has engaged Iraqi forces with artillery and rocket launchers.

Strange how he left out the enemy armoured thrust through the lines.

So yes, I still take everything from the Intercept site with a small mountain of salt.

Post by **Rob Wilson** » 2003-03-23 12:03pm

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: Those five who were killed - They aren't KIAs. They were murdered by the Iraqis. Each one was shot through the head, rather neatly. I have no illusions about what will happen to our POWs in this war and I have no illusions about what we should do to these barbarians. Civilization is best taught from the barrel of a gun.

Having seen th pictures of the dead, I don't recall the precise headwounds. Lots of shrapnel and bullet wounds to the torso's and one guy with burn wounds. But no real headshot only.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-03-23 12:29pm

You can always count on Marina to inject talk of western cultural superiority into any discussion

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-03-23 12:32pm

Yea, only FNC was reporting that they were killed after being captured, IIRC, and I'll take that with a few grains of salt.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-03-23 12:33pm

phongn wrote:Yea, only FNC was reporting that they were killed after being captured, IIRC, and I'll take that with a few grains of salt.

I'd consider that this is Iraq. They're certainly willing to kill captives out of spite. I take it with a grain of salt but I would put it past them either.