Suspiciously Improved Aim
BAGHDAD (AP) - The U.S. military has noted a “significant improvement” in the aim of attackers firing rockets and mortars into the heavily fortified Green Zone in the past three months that it has linked to training in Iran, a top commander said Thursday.
Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top day-to-day U.S. commander in Iraq said networks continue to smuggle powerful roadside bombs and mortars across the border from Iran despite Tehran’s assertions that it supports stability in Iraq.
His remarks came two days after the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq met in Baghdad and agreed to establish a security committee to jointly address the violence amid Washington’s allegations that Tehran is fueling the violence by support Shiite militias. Odierno said the military also believes training of extremists is being conducted in Iran.
“One of the reasons why we’re sitting down with the Iranian government … is trying to solve some of these problems,” Odierno said at a news conference in the Green Zone, which is home to the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government headquarters.
“We have seen in the last three months a significant improvement in the capability of mortarmen and rocketeers to provide accurate fires into the Green Zone and other places and we think this is directly related to training that is conducted in Iran,” Odierno said. “So we continue to go after these networks with the Iraqi security forces.”
Iran has denied the U.S. allegations about its activities in Iraq.
Attacks against the sprawling complex along the Tigris River in the center of Baghdad have increased in recent months, adding to the concern over the safety of key Iraqi and international officials and thousands of U.S. soldiers and contractors who live and work there.
On July 10, a barrage of more than a dozen mortars or rockets struck the area, killing at least three people, including an American, and wounding 18. In a report last month, the United Nations office in Baghdad said the “threat of indirect fire”—meaning rockets and mortars—into the Green Zone had increased, adding that the barrages had become “increasingly concentrated and accurate.”
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I am really surprised that the U.S. military has so soon forgotten the lessons learned in Vietnam…
Yes, the insurgents are being better trained and can lay out better fields of fire with their mortars but someone forgot this one little thing, you have to have coordinates…
And yeah, you guessed it, those come from sources INSIDE the Green Zone, infiltrators, traitors…
The NVA/VC could drop a round in your hip pocket, they had their infiltrators stepping off every square foot of every fire base camp or installation they were working in, and every day there are people in and out of the Green Zone doing the exact same thing…
And the Army never bothers to mention that little fact, the Iraqis army and police are so seriously infiltrated they are practically worthless, that’s why everything we do in Iraq is met with counter measures almost BEFORE we do it…
July 26th, 2007 at 6:02 amI see Iran is trying the same advertising campaign that Hizbollah uses with Israel. Bet you my next paycheck, I can still knockdown that fucking sign with a single 81mm mortar round?
July 26th, 2007 at 6:18 amI bet I could kill that sign with a cigarette lighter and a bottle of lighter fluid. Why waste a mortar round?
July 26th, 2007 at 6:12 pm