Green Zone blast had inside help / Bridge blast threatens to cut off US retreat

[ribonucleic]

<< Initial reports from AP suggest it was a suicide bomber. If so -- and even if the bomb was planted and detonated remotely -- that means someone in a uniform had to wave the bomber into the parliament building. I didn't visit the parliament, but getting into a facility like the U.S. Embassy chow hall requires passing through several tiers of security. You are scanned and frisked. Your papers are scrutinized. Your companions are questioned. Items on your person are confiscated, even without suspicion of their use for terrorism. It's a likely bet that someone guarding the facility, and quite possibly a beneficiary of our training, equipping and mentoring efforts, wanted the attack to occur.

Making matters worse, a massive truck bomb collapsed the al-Sarafiya bridge in the north of the city. This is the first successful attack with real military significance since the beginning of the surge. There aren't too many ways across the Tigris in that area, and it's bound to have something of a deterrent effect on either resupply or the mobility of U.S. or Iraqi forces who need to get from one side of Baghdad to the other. It may not be major, but it'll be a factor: No one wants to introduce predictability to his or her movements, and the loss of the bridge takes away an option. Add to that the cost of hardening the rest of the city's bridges to ensure that further access doesn't get lost -- which has the effect of frustrating Iraqis who already endure massive traffic snarls at the city's numerous checkpoints -- and we see an insurgent/terrorist strategy developing that displays real military sophistication. >>



http://toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/2007/04/street-by-street-block-by-block-taking.html

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Let me hear it now!

SURGE! SURGE!

[240 is Back]

So we know that mathematically, more soldiers die per day from the Surge.
And we know the insurgents are now bringing down bridges and setting off bombs INSIDE the US green zone?

This is getting ugly.  I pity the fool who says things are getting better.

[ieffinhatecardio]

That bridge was DESTROYED. That must have been one hell of a bomb.

When is this insanity ever going to end, these attacks are growing more and more brazen. I fear these attacks are just going to keep getting worse and worse.

What a mess.

[240 is Back]

shit yeah, i thought that was a missile strike or something.  They leveled a bridge.  Insane.

[24KT]

I wonder if they used thermite?

[ribonucleic]

So how many months until Tết?

[240 is Back]

So how many months until Tết?

explain.

[ribonucleic]

explain.

Yeah, that was one my more Michael Stipe-y posts. 

I was looking at the picture of that trashed bridge and wondering if it - in conjunction with the Green Zone bombing - would come to be seen by historians as the "Tet Offensive" moment in this Vietnam-all-over-again. The dramatic, unexpected counterblow that made the hopelessness so obvious that even the most-trusted person on TV would be moved to say from their media pulpit that the war is unwinnable. [Imagine the impact of Oprah saying it today - that's what it was like in the 60s when Cronkite said it.]

Then I thought, "Well, no - that doesn't hold up. A lot of American soldiers were killed in the Tet Offensive. And no Americans were even wounded this time...  No, the equivalent of the Tet Offensive in this war would be something like a successful urban ambush of an American patrol - followed by a Somali-like defilement of the American casualties by the neighborhood Iraqis in an eruption of hatred after suffering years of arrogant occupation."

And then I thought, "Well, that could definitely happen at this point, couldn't it."

And finally I thought, "Well, it probably will happen sooner or later if we stay there long enough."

So my earlier post was a cryptic way of wondering when that might be.

Is anyone here old enough to remember the late 70s when the word "Vietnam" was too depressing a word to be used in polite conversation?

That's what the word "Iraq" is going to be like for us for the next 20 years.

[240 is Back]

Good details and analysis.  Yeah, i'm watching full metal jacket and they're going thru the tet, so this post tied in well.

[24KT]

Ribo, I remember soldiers weeping buckets recalling what they did in Vietnam, others so traumatized they were unable to be any good to themselves and their families. Men who literally lost their minds in that conflict, ...and those who managed to come back without being too fvcked up by it all, were those who were already fvcked up going in.  I also remember the hostility visited on the vietnamese boat people who were forced to go to America. This time around, I wonder how many Iraqi boat people this conflict is going to bring to your shores. HH6 says he fears the type of low morale that existed in the Armed Forces after Nam, ...but given the current state of things, it's inevitable, ...and at an even greater scale, because this time around... the victims aren't all "those" people.

I also remember part of that legacy was a $USD worth less than a Cdn one.
Those days are quickly approaching again, ...and it makes me want to cry. 

[The Enigma]

So we know that mathematically, more soldiers die per day from the Surge.
And we know the insurgents are now bringing down bridges and setting off bombs INSIDE the US green zone?

This is getting ugly.  I pity the fool who says things are getting better.

It's worse than you'll ever know.