The Ghost of Westmoreland

While Colin Powell was talking yesterday about the problems in Iraq being manageable because "we have a plan", the nightmare continues. Scores dead in Baghdad, as the United States destroyed a Bradley fighting vehicle by firing a missile into it while people (obviously sympathetic to the insurgents) surrounded it.

Juan Cole describes it further:

Now you have a burning Bradley fighting vehicle sitting there in the street, and a crowd gathers, many of them boys, to jeer and dance. Some of the young men haul out a banner of the Tawhid and Jihad terrorist group and hang it from a barrel sticking out of the vehicle.

Alarmed that the Bradley would now be looted for weapons and ammunition (and, some reports say, "sensitive equipment"), US troops now call in helicopter gunships. They arrive, but claim they took small arms fire from the area around the burning Bradley.

Now the tragedy unfolds. The helicopters fire repeatedly on the crowd gathered around the Bradley, killing 13 persons and wounding 61. Although some of the killed or wounded may have been guerrillas, it seems obvious that others were just curious little boys from the neighborhood. I am told some of the television footage, which I did not see, suggests that the helicopters fired into a civilian crowd.

In the street were television cameramen and Mazen Tomeizi, a Palestinian producer for the al Arabiya satellite network, He was among those hit by the helicopter fire. Reuters explains:

"The Palestinian died soon afterwards. Reuters cameraman Seif Fouad, recording the scene, was also wounded in the blast.

"I looked at the sky and saw a helicopter at very low altitude," Fouad said. "Just moments later I saw a flash of light from the Apache. Then a strong explosion," he said.

"Mazen's blood was on my camera and face," Fouad said from his hospital bed. He said his friend screamed at him for help: "Seif, Seif! I'm going to die. I'm going to die." '

I don't know if the helicopters actually took fire from the crowd or not. It is plausible, but given that mostly civilians appear to have been struck, it wouldn't be strange if the US side tried to put the best possible face on the matter.

It would also be interesting to know what exactly was in that burning Bradley that was so important it was worth 13 lives and scores of wounded.

And now more insurgents are created to replace those that died in spades. The relatives and friends of those civilians killed in that incident.

But Baghdad is not the only source of screwing up.

Back in April after the killing and mutilation of four private security officers in Fallujah, Bush personally demanded an attack on Fallujah in a scene that must have been right out of the LBJ playbook.

Well that wasn't exactly a move of genius (surprising huh?):

The outgoing U.S. Marine Corps general in charge of western Iraq said Sunday he opposed a Marine assault on militants in the volatile city of Fallujah in April and the subsequent decision to withdraw from the city and turn over control to a security force of former Iraqi soldiers.

That security force, known as the Fallujah Brigade, was formally disbanded last week. Not only did the brigade fail to combat militants, it actively aided them, surrendering weapons, vehicles and radios to the insurgents, according to senior Marine officers. Some brigade members even participated in attacks on Marines ringing the city, the officers said.

The comments by Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, made shortly after he relinquished command of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force on Sunday, amounted to a stinging broadside against top U.S. military and civilian leaders who ordered the Fallujah invasion and withdrawal. His statements also provided the most detailed explanation -- and justification -- of Marine actions in Fallujah this spring, which have been widely criticized for increasing insurgent activity in the city and turning it into a "no-go" zone for U.S. troops.

He would not say where the order to attack originated, only that he received an order from his superior at the time, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the overall commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Some senior U.S. officials in Iraq have said the command originated in the White House.

"We follow our orders," Conway said. "We had our say, and we understood the rationale, and we saluted smartly, and we went about the attack."

That is because the order DID originate in the White House.