{"id":814,"date":"2004-04-23T13:02:13","date_gmt":"2004-04-23T20:02:13","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2004-04-23T13:02:13","modified_gmt":"2004-04-23T20:02:13","slug":"fallujah-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2004\/04\/23\/fallujah-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"Fallujah watch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2004\/WORLD\/meast\/04\/23\/iraq.main\/\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s the latest on how the &#8220;heavy weapon&#8221; turn-in is going in Fallujah.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Marine Lt. Gen. Jim Conway, in Fallujah, said only about &#8220;a pick-up full&#8221; of weapons have been turned in.<\/p>\n<p>He agreed with a characterization that the weapons collected so far have been &#8220;junk,&#8221; saying the weapons are &#8220;things I wouldn&#8217;t ask my Marines to fire.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A Marine news release listed weaponry handed over so far: Six machine guns and two SA-7 missile launchers &#8212; all broken beyond repair; one sniper rifle and a flamethrower &#8212; neither in usable condition; seven rocket-propelled grenade launchers &#8212; some inoperable; 21 RPG projectiles that were not explosive and 113 corroded and rusted mortar rounds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think part of the problem is that the good General is confusing the Fallujah rebels with statements like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, an Army spokesman, said the handover so far &#8220;is not a serious expression of intent&#8221; and said<em> the minimum required is &#8220;a large field full of the heavy weapons that have been used against the people in Fallujah and been used against the coalition forces.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, they don&#8217;t actually have weapons that were used &#8220;against the people of Fallujah,&#8221; because they are the people of Fallujah so what should they turn in?  Very confusing.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, we get a reporter asking the CPA spokesman Senor what on earth they&#8217;re babbling about when they say stuff like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Senor said Fallujans must oust &#8220;foreign fighters, drug users, former Mukhabarat, Special Republican Guard, former Fedayeen Saddam, and other serious, dangerous, violent criminals operating out of Fallujah.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Drug users?  <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Asked by reporters about the drug remark, Senor said city leaders said &#8220;that many of the individuals involved with the violence are on various drugs. It is part of what they&#8217;re using to keep them up to engage in this violence at all hours.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Oh, so that&#8217;s why the Fallujah rebels have fought the Marines to a standstill!  Those cheaters are using drugs!  <\/p>\n<p>This stuff would be funny if it weren&#8217;t so deadly.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the latest on how the &#8220;heavy weapon&#8221; turn-in is going in Fallujah. Marine Lt. Gen. Jim Conway, in Fallujah, said only about &#8220;a pick-up full&#8221; of weapons have been turned in. He agreed with a characterization that the weapons collected so far have been &#8220;junk,&#8221; saying the weapons are &#8220;things I wouldn&#8217;t ask my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}