Drudgereport is starting to make noise:



Have to wait for a real source to confirm.

Drudge is a favorite outlet for misinformation from the government.

Especally as they don't even have a scoop.

Anyone with intrest in this region has been expecting this since Bush made his speech on the Palistine situation. That made it clear that he wasn't going to waste time with side issues anymore.
Which is why this morning we see this:
[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=535&ncid=535&e=3&u=/ap/20020704/ap_on_re_mi_ea/un_iraq_talks_18[/url]

As the Palistinian situation seems to have run its course and is no longer working as cover, Iraq has gone back to politicking with the UN, more stalling actions. However, whereas the Palistinian situation had the potential to be open ended, the deal with the UN has only a limited series of steps that Saddam can go through before that fails as cover...

don't know, there aren't any details [url]http://www.drudgereport.com[/url]

If you remember, back in February, after the "axis of evil" speech and before the Palistinains interfered we had a thread here making dibs on when Iraq would be invaded...

Those who picked anywhere between the Anniversery of the WTC/Pentagon attacks and the end of the year- should still feel comfortable with their bets..

Its not rocket science- just look at how awful the weather is there much before the first of October!

What has Bush done to make you think he wont?

Lets get it on. Every day he is still there is one day that we are closer to a nuke in the US.

congrats on the first post wdavis.  God, this is great news.  The sooner the better.

Keving67

Thanks Keving,

I hope to join the black rifle club in a couple of  days. I thought I would join the board after a long time of lurking.
Now, lets hope this thread is for real!

Maybe we're already in the north....

Saddam Sends Crack Troops
Against US Commandos and US-Backed Kurds in North
From Last DEBKA-Net-Weekly of June 28
2 July: On June 11, Saddam Hussein signed Military Directive 531 ordering commando units from the Republican Guards and special military intelligence combat units to head into northern Iraq. He had just received intelligence reports indicating that the US special forces and CIA personnel he knew to have landed in the northern region were making impressive strides in recruiting and training Kurdish fighters for their anti-Saddam combat units.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly ’s military sources, the presidential decree directed the commandos “to wage a secret, tenacious and sustained war to destroy enemy forces that have invaded the Iraqi motherland”, employing the following tactics:
1. Ambushes and night raids to attack and destroy Kurdish and US camps, communications bases and arms depots and inflict heavy enemy casualties.
2 . Seek the element of surprise.
3. Each unit was on its own in the field and must fight as though no outside help was available.
The average Iraqi commando squad is composed of five or six well- trained fighters. Five or six larger units have between 15 and 25 combatants each. Each unit was issued its operational and attack missions. They included terror strikes against civilians in the Kurdish cities, towns and villages where the population appears willing to cooperate with the Americans.
Their commanders were to break open the secret emergency stores located in Klar, in the oil province of Kirkuk; the Dahuk region north of Mosul in central northern Iraq; Rawandiz, in the northeast near the Iranian border; Amadiyah, near the Turkish frontier; and Zakho, close to the meeting point of the borders of Iraq,Turkey and Syria. Those stores contain supplies of weapons, explosives, ammunition, food, drinking water and medical supplies.
Iraqi military intelligence had moreover established three forward command centers near Siniar in western Iraq, across from the border with Syria; outside Summel, northeast of the Ayn Zalah oil field; and in the Rost area, very close to the Iranian border.
Saddam set up the command centers and commando units back in February, when he found out that a vanguard of US special forces and CIA agents were about to land in northern Iraq. He held back from striking then in order to lull his enemies into a false sense of security and the belief they were in full control of a friendly region. http://www.debka.com/

www.debka.com is rarely right...

However, this is, again, another easy assumption for them to make as the Bush commitment to a regime change in Iraq is actually older than the WTC bombings...

The CIA has been working there constantly since the end of the Gulf War.

The really amazing thing is getting the Kurds to trust us again after Bush Sr. abandoned them back in 91'.

I really don't think the Kurds will stand in our whey. [;)]

New York Times confirms Iraq invasion plan in works: [url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20020705/ts_nm/iraq_usa_dc_1[/url]

Now the bad news


In which case, this should have never seen the light of day.

We have already had one fuck up like this in the last couple months- the Taiwan Submarine Deal. We publicised that we would get 8 diesel electric subs for Taiwan, although WE don't build any anymore. The British, Dutch, and Germans who DO build them now say they wont sell them to us because they weren't consulted first and because the deal wasn't made behind closed doors.

Well, how about CNN:

[url]http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/07/05/iraq.usa.reut/index.html[/url]

Here's what tickles me:

"Citing a person familiar with the document, the newspaper said the [b]highly classified plan[/b] calls for air, land and sea-based forces to attack from three directions in a campaign to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein."

Yeah, I'd say it's pretty damn highly classified.  At this point my 2-year old Black Lab knows about it. [rolleyes]

If you really want to know when we're going into Iraq just follow the reserve call-ups. Specifically, look for the Navy Reserve Cargo Handling Battalions to be recalled first. The majority of the CHB units are reserve units. They'll be the first to be recalled to active duty in order to start loading the massive amounts of equipment needed to send overseas for an impending invasion. When the CHB units get called up en mass an invasion is not too far away.....

Not allowing our troops to kick ass in Afghanistan? What more could they be doing?

Classified? We don't need no classified plans here!

So would I, but you cant kill what you can't find. And Al Qaida didn't have more than 4-5000 people at its peak to begin with...



The British go home this week. But while embarrasing we had to have them. Our troops outside of Special Forces have NO alpine training or experience, the RMs do. The Mountain in 10th Mountain division is just a honoriffic from WWII. They don't have any mountain training. The 10th Mountain units had to be pulled after Anaconda. They had people getting hurt getting sick from altitude and cold everywhere and were just not being effective.

The three battalions of the 187th in 3rd Brg, 101AAD, did better because they apparently HAD been to Colorado just before going to Afghanistan and were better acclimated to the altitude. The 10th Mountain Div guys got sent strait from upstate New York to Uzbeksitan, where they sat guarding airfields with nary a mountain in sight for a couple months while we bombed. And with no permission to leave the perimeter to do training even if there had been, and then got shoved into the mountains.

Its embarrasing, and if the media knew enough about what was going on to broadcast it there would be a scandle. But our Army just doesn't do mountains, REAL mountians, we have a training blind spot here because we never have had to fight in real mountians. Korea and Italy were rugged, but there are almost no peaks above 7000 feet. In Afghanistan the valley floors began at 7000 feet. Thats totally foreign to our military experience, so we don't even have training plans for our Line units for such conditons.

Its showing up in other areas too. We have a primary military helicopter, the Blackhawk, that cannot operate in Afganistan. Maximum altitude for hovering is only 10,800 feet by the book, and the recent televised crash of the HH-60 on Mount Ranier, which occured at the 10,400 foot level shows that that might be generous.  Sikorsky was never asked to build a craft with better altitude performance, this operational scenerio was never considered.

There will be changes, but how fast and how thorough when there is no outcry?

This story is the biggest piece of propoganda that I have ever seen.  I can't believe you guys actually believe it, it's not even written well.  What did they do ask a fourth grade class how they would remove Saddam and then publish it claim it was an offical plan?

I can just see little Jonny sitting in class and the teacher asks him how he would remove the evil people.  I can see him respond by saying I would use boats and tanks and airplanes and missles and surround the whole country and then everyone would go at once to make sure the bad guy couldn't escape.

Come on guys, even with the massive build up of a coalition in Desert Storm we didn't have enough combined power to attack Iraq from 3 sides!  Never mind getting permission from the countries to launch such an attack.  Hell Saudi Arabia won't even let us launch bombing runs from our bases in their country.  Do you really think they will let us stage Desert Storm 2 from there?

This story was just propoganda to get Saddam to agree to the UN weapons inspectors and to help the US get more support from the other countries when he refused.  That way when the CIA takes out him and all his top officials and relatives, the world won't object as much.