It is a sad story, but even more sadly, it is one among many in a land where heinous deeds seem to be culturally acceptable. I feel that Ayad Allawi should have been a little more circumspect in making those comments about this one incident when one considers the sacrifice of our military there. I personally found his comments disappointing.

Almost?

How about not cleaning up stockpiles of weaponry?

;The real question is: why in hell were 50 of our allied troops driving through the countryside with no weapons? its a friggin' war zone! G. Gordon Libby pointed out the other day that when he was in the army in 1952, officers wore their .45s all the time [here in the USA] and that it was common to see a soldier in uniform in line at a train station carrying an M-1. We don't need to spread pussification to the Iraqi forces.

Harry

"How about not cleaning up stockpiles of weaponry?"

If you are referring to the story in the New York Times from yesterday about the missing explosives etc, the story now is that those explosives were moved before the war started. (at least as reported by NBC). The obvious deduction from either the Times or NBC stories would be that maybe Bush didn't lie about WMD.

I also want to agree with DL Meadows above about the inappropriate remarks from Allawi. I'm less than overwhelmed by the aggressiveness of Allawi in fighting the Sunni.

DL:

More Iraqis are dying than Americans.

Wretchard's good on this one:

That Missing RDX

Speed is life.

Harry: I've never dealt with explosives, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that the Corps of Engineers is detonating the stuff as fast as they safely can.

Iraqi storage methods look to be rather slip-shod (understatement) and there is always the possibility of "booby traps for booby troops". That would encourage a "go real, real careful" mindset in anyone who intends to go home in an airline seat and not a cigar box.

Give the pros a little bit of a break as they dismantle Saddam's war machine.

A U.S. senior officer in Diyala Province, where the massacre took place, was profiled flatteringly only last week in an AP article claiming he was winning the hearts & minds of Iraqis there.

Little did Col. Pittard know that Zarqawi would make an utter fool out of him...and of U.S. policy in Iraq.

Pls. visit my post covering the massacre and Col. Dana Pittard's foolhardy optimism by clicking the URL link "Richard Silverstein" attached to this comment.

h-man, no that's not at all what I was referring to.

There are, according to reports, ammo dumps all over the country (as good a reason to invade a country as any I can think of, too), and some cover acres, maybe hundreds of acres and are, perforce, unguarded.

To hell with fixing the sewers. First things first.

It's been over a year.

Somebody's priorities are all screwed up

I'm somewhat with Harry on this one.
I wrote in this blog a year ago we should have used B52's, if necessary, to bomb the dumps where little collateral damage would occur and perhaps get a few of the looters as a bonus. WE lost an opportunity to test and develop bunker busters. I'm sure that sounds extreme but some sort of comparable option could have been worked out.

On the other hand we probably were thinking the existing ordinance might be saved for the new Iraqi Army. Additionally we were hunting for WMD and didn't want to destroy the evidence.

Gordon Liddy's comment on sidearms are questionable in my 1949,50,51,52 experience unless under orders (specific assignments requiring sidearms or for troops in transit).

Allawi was firing for effect with his constituency but he also was probably correct. Really sad.

How much damage would have been done to civilians had we bombed a dump as big as this one with B-52s?

This one just south of Bagdhad? a lot. However, for sites in heavily occupied areas a couple of Hercules Gunships could have closed things up tight against the looters for a long time. Another alternative might have been mining the entire site by air and leaflitting the civilians nearby to stay out. My guess is that for the site in question Saddam had the good stuff relocated.

WMD's? That would have been a risk factor to be considered.

I'm not perhaps as well as I should be on ammo dumps etc., but if what Harry says is correct then I agree with him.

above should have read "as well informed as I should be"

A friend of mine spent two years guarding a Nato (mostly US) ammo dump at Bar-le-Duc from the Secret Army.

His was huge, I forget how many square miles of rugged country, and they rode around the perimeter in Jeeps.

This was useful only if an infiltrator was not very determined.

I'm not sure what the plan should have been, but there should have been a plan. Just letting the stuff lie around is a proven non-starter.

It turns out the US military (or perhaps its Pentagon minders) hasn't gotten any smarter since Vietnam.