It is clear that part of him also exults in the thrills of war. “We’d be up on the roof and we’d be whacking guys dropping IEDs and it was a fucking rush!”
In late November 2004, Pat Dollard, a Hollywood talent agent whose biggest client was the director Steven Soderbergh, dropped everything, picked up a video camera, and went to Iraq.
The 40-year-old, who was suffering a drug-fuelled breakdown following the collapse of his fourth marriage, had never been near a war zone in his life.
After a brief stopover in Baghdad, he embedded at Camp Kalsu, a US Marine Corps base in an area known as the Triangle of Death.
The marines reckoned he would be gone within a matter of days. But Dollard stayed in Iraq for three months and returned a year later to spend an even longer stretch in Ramadi, one of the country’s deadliest, and most underreported, flashpoints.
May 6, 1986: Nick Popaditch arrives at the Receiving Barracks, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California.
April 9, 2003: An AP photographer captures a striking image seen around the world of the Gunny Sergeant smoking a victory cigar in his tank, the haunting statue of Saddam Hussein hovering in the background. Popaditch is immortalized forever as “The Cigar Marine.”
April 6, 2004: The tanker fights heroically in the battle for Fallujah and suffers grievous head wounds that leave him legally blind and partially deaf. The USMC awards him with a Silver Star for his valor and combat innovation.
At the same time the Bush administration was negotiating a still elusive agreement to keep the U.S. military in Iraq, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to convince Iraqi leaders in private conversations that the president shouldn’t be allowed to enact the deal without congressional approval.
Mr. Obama’s conversations with the Iraqi leaders, confirmed to The Washington Times by his campaign aides, began just two weeks after he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination in June and stirred controversy over the appropriateness of a White House candidate’s contacts with foreign governments while the sitting president is conducting a war.
Some of the specifics of the conversations remain the subject of dispute. Iraqi leaders purported to The Times that Mr. Obama urged Baghdad to delay an agreement with Mr. Bush until next year when a new president will be in office - a charge the Democratic campaign denies.
U.S. Marines fighting in Iraq have been issued low-power laser weapons designed to temporarily blind enemy forces, the Washington Post reported Monday.
“Dazzlers,” as they’re called, shoot green beams designed to “warn or temporarily incapacitate individuals,” according to a Defense Science Board report extensively quoted in the Post’s story.
Last week, the 174th Air Force Fighter Wing flew its last manned combat sortie over Iraq in F-16s, which have now been mothballed in favor of MQ-9 Reapers. This makes it the first combat-specific wing to ditch conventional aircraft entirely in favor of unmanned robo-drones piloted from the ground. Welcome to the Skynet era, everyone!
There are a few Wings currently manned by Predator UAVs, which can indeed carry Hellfire missiles, but unlike the Reaper, their main mission is reconnaissance. Quite the contrary, the Reaper is the first true hunter-killer UAV, and its 66-foot wingspan and the ability to carry up to 1.5 tons of laser-guided bombs and other ordinance makes the Predator look like a fluttering sparrow.
SAN FRANCISCO — Cindy Sheehan, an icon of the anti-war movement, has qualified to challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her seat in Congress.
Sheehan, 51, says Pelosi failed to persuade her party to end funding for the Iraq war after Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2006 midterm elections. She also accused the speaker of failing to hold the administration accountable for the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.
Sheehan, who lost her son in the war, is best known for beginning a vigil outside President Bush’s Texas ranch in August 2005.
BAGHDAD — Iraq has nearly doubled its police force to nearly 300,000 officers.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry under Jawad Bolani said that more than 200,000 police officers were hired since 2006. The ministry said police have taken security responsibility in 10 provinces.
“These steps have not come without great sacrifice,” Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, the ministry’s operations director, said. “We have had 10,000 police officers killed or injured trying to bring peace to our communities.”
If you haven’t browsed the DefenseLink Home Page Photo section of the U.S. DoD website, you should check it out. There are litterally hundreds of pictures dating all the way back to September 2005. Most of them are high-resolution and make for great wallpapers as well. I was clicking through them again today and came across this great shot (one of many):
Sen. Barack Obama has not been a fan of private police like Blackwater in war zones, and some news outlets even reported that they were spurned for his trip last week to Afghanistan and Iraq. But Whispers confirms that Blackwater did handle the Democratic presidential candidate’s security in Afghanistan and helped out in Iraq. What’s more, Obama was overheard saying: “Blackwater is getting a bad rap.” Since everything appeared to go swimmingly, maybe he will take firms like Blackwater out of his sights, the company’s supporters hope.
“It’s got infrared, so you can actually see somebody smoking a cigarette from about 25,000 feet”
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq — It looks more Star Wars than Iraq War, an unmanned aerial killer ready to fly its first combat mission in Iraq. But the MQ-9 Reaper is more than just a stunning sight — it may represent the future of combat aviation.
The Reaper’s streamlined form stands out in its hangar in Balad Air Base in central Iraq, now the busiest in the world for the Department of Defense, with F-16s and cargo planes taking off and landing every few minutes. Continue reading ‘Death from Above’
Iraq was today massing 30,000 troops in advance of an assault on one of al-Qaeda’s surviving strongholds that will be a litmus test of the country’s growing security forces.
Officials said a major clearing operation of the troubled central province of Diyala would be launched on Aug 1, spearheaded by Iraqi army and police personnel and backed by 10,000 American troops. If successful the operation will add to an impressive run of victories for the security strategy of the prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.
On his initiative, the country’s army has made major inroads in militia-controlled Basra and eastern Baghdad this year. The al-Qaeda presence in Mosul has been significantly eroded by operations overseen by a well-regarded local commander, General Riyadh Tawfeeq.
In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.
Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”
The transfer of secrets
By claire on November 6, 2008, 4:10 pm
wonder when how long before you (you=president elect) get to find out about the sekrit to turning thin air into...
May 6, 1986: Nick Popaditch arrives at the Receiving Barracks, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California.
