Military response vowed in Fallujah
Fri Apr 2, 7:46 AM ET
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
U.S. officials vowed Thursday to bring overwhelming military might to the outlaw city of Fallujah a day after insurgents killed five U.S. soldiers and dragged the charred corpses of four American civilians through the city.
Describing the attacks against the soldiers and civilians as "bestial," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt promised the military would re-establish control of what has emerged as the center of Iraqi resistance.
"We will respond," said Kimmitt, the U.S.-led coalition's top military spokesman. "It will be deliberate and precise and be overwhelming ... We will kill them or we will capture them."
The warning sets the stage for a clash between newly arrived U.S. Marines, who have assumed control of the area, and anti-U.S. residents of a city that has resisted repeated efforts to bring it under control.
The U.S. warning appeared to reflect a growing frustration with the coalition's inability to break the resistance in the Fallujah region and rising anger triggered by the horrific images broadcast on international television of U.S. civilians being burned and mutilated by mobs only 35 miles from the capital. Officials said the bodies have been recovered.
Two of the victims were identified by family members as Jerko "Jerry" Zovko, 32, from Willoughby, Ohio; and Michael Teague, 38, from Clarksville, Tenn. Both were decorated Army veterans.
Paul Bremer, the coalition's chief administrator, said the deaths would not go unpunished and branded the attackers as "ghouls and cowards."
The Iraqi Governing Council's representative from the sprawling Anbar province, which includes Fallujah, said Wednesday's murders brought shame to all of Iraq "As an Iraqi, I feel as much revulsion as any American," Samir Shakir Mahmoud said. "It must stand condemned."
The separate attacks against soldiers and civilians Wednesday represented the bloodiest day for the coalition since early January. The five U.S. soldiers were killed when a convoy rolled over a roadside bomb.
The four civilians were killed when rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire hit their two-vehicle convoy. The vehicles were set ablaze and the victims' bodies were mutilated. Two were hanged from a bridge.
Kimmitt defended the military's decision not to charge into the city center Wednesday as jubilant mobs displayed the civilians' bodies. To have done so, he said, would have put soldiers at risk of ambush. He said the coalition was acting on the premise that all of the attackers were Iraqis and not foreign terrorists.
On Thursday, another military convoy was hit by a roadside bomb. The blast wounded four Marines.
Fri Apr 2, 7:46 AM ET
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
U.S. officials vowed Thursday to bring overwhelming military might to the outlaw city of Fallujah a day after insurgents killed five U.S. soldiers and dragged the charred corpses of four American civilians through the city.
Describing the attacks against the soldiers and civilians as "bestial," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt promised the military would re-establish control of what has emerged as the center of Iraqi resistance.
"We will respond," said Kimmitt, the U.S.-led coalition's top military spokesman. "It will be deliberate and precise and be overwhelming ... We will kill them or we will capture them."
The warning sets the stage for a clash between newly arrived U.S. Marines, who have assumed control of the area, and anti-U.S. residents of a city that has resisted repeated efforts to bring it under control.
The U.S. warning appeared to reflect a growing frustration with the coalition's inability to break the resistance in the Fallujah region and rising anger triggered by the horrific images broadcast on international television of U.S. civilians being burned and mutilated by mobs only 35 miles from the capital. Officials said the bodies have been recovered.
Two of the victims were identified by family members as Jerko "Jerry" Zovko, 32, from Willoughby, Ohio; and Michael Teague, 38, from Clarksville, Tenn. Both were decorated Army veterans.
Paul Bremer, the coalition's chief administrator, said the deaths would not go unpunished and branded the attackers as "ghouls and cowards."
The Iraqi Governing Council's representative from the sprawling Anbar province, which includes Fallujah, said Wednesday's murders brought shame to all of Iraq "As an Iraqi, I feel as much revulsion as any American," Samir Shakir Mahmoud said. "It must stand condemned."
The separate attacks against soldiers and civilians Wednesday represented the bloodiest day for the coalition since early January. The five U.S. soldiers were killed when a convoy rolled over a roadside bomb.
The four civilians were killed when rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire hit their two-vehicle convoy. The vehicles were set ablaze and the victims' bodies were mutilated. Two were hanged from a bridge.
Kimmitt defended the military's decision not to charge into the city center Wednesday as jubilant mobs displayed the civilians' bodies. To have done so, he said, would have put soldiers at risk of ambush. He said the coalition was acting on the premise that all of the attackers were Iraqis and not foreign terrorists.
On Thursday, another military convoy was hit by a roadside bomb. The blast wounded four Marines.
