Iraq Archives

My Wkly Std tribute to Medal of Honor winner SEAL Mike Monsoor

By Michael Fumento

Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor (right) during a fight in the Mulaab, Ramadi

In fact, he was protecting me as well as his teammates. SEALs don't wear identification -- even on dress uniforms -- and I would never have learned his name if, six months later, he hadn't sacrificed all to save those same teammates.

Last week I looked on as President Bush, tears glistening on his face, presented the parents of Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class (Sea, Air, and Land) Michael Monsoor our nation's highest award -- the Medal of Honor. "Mr. and Mrs. Monsoor: America owes you a debt that can never be repaid," he said. "This nation will always cherish the memory of your son."

Read the rest (including photos and video of SEALs in action), by the only reporter to write about the ceremony who was in combat with Monsoor.

Erratum, albeit obvious, in blog on Wkly Std piece on Lancet Iraq studies

By Michael Fumento

In my original blog, regarding my "The Casualties of War" Weekly Standard article, I wrote that the number of Iraqi dead Lancet 2006 attributed to car bombs per day was "111 times higher" than those of the antiwar group Iraqbodycount. That would be extreme, even for The Lancet. Or maybe not. As it happens, Iraqbodycount found "111 more," not 111 times more.

Yes, Lancet lied about Iraq war deaths (My Wkly Std article)

By Michael Fumento

When The Lancet came out with its 2004 "pre-election surprise" study claiming a massive number of war-related Iraqi deaths since the invasion, I and others immediately poked so many holes in it that it resembled a spaghetti strainer. Undaunted, two years later the same journal published another pre-election surprise study alleging a drastically-higher 655,000 excess deaths over a longer period, with 600,000 directly from violence.

Naturally, the media cheered until hoarse, featuring Lancet's numbers on 25 news shows and in 188 articles within a single week. Likewise for the leftist blogosphere like Daily Kos and Tim Lambert at Deltoid - who began a vendetta against me over it.

But now, as I discuss in my current Weekly Standard article, "The Casualties of War," complete with a plethora of hyperlinks, a new study co-conducted by the World Health Organization (hardly an Iraq war booster) and appearing in America's most prestigious medical journal, directly compares itself with Lancet 2006. It also uses as comparison numbers kept by the antiwar group IraqBodyCount. The comparisons show the real carnage is whatever was left of the Lancet's reputation and that of its editor, who screeches about "Anglo-American imperialism" at anti-war rallies.

Perhaps most importantly, for the latest comparable reporting period, the new study found Lancet's numbers to be SEVEN TIMES its own.

The WHO's Iraq Family Health Study (IFHS) "found an estimated 151,000 excess violent deaths from the U.S-led invasion in March 2003 through June 2006, when compared to violent deaths in the prewar period," I note. "This is roughly one-fourth the war-related deaths found by Lancet in 2006."

Specifically, for the last comparable year, "the IFHS daily figure was 2.3 times higher than that of IraqBodyCount, (while) the Lancet 2006 daily figure was a stunning 7.3 times higher than that of the IFHS and 17 times higher than that of IraqBodyCount."

Nonetheless, the research leader for both the Lancet studies insists the IFHS findings are consistent with Lancet 2006! He's said the same of the only "study" to find a higher number than The Lancet, a British poll last year concluding over 1.2 million Iraqis had been "murdered." Die-never defenders like Lambert likewise assert that all three studies are consistent. In short, no study can possibly find so few or so many deaths that somehow it doesn't somehow support The Lancet.

Yet one hardly need to look at outside studies to find Lancet 2006 is B.S. Consider just this.

Lancet 2006 attributed an amazing 166 deaths on average per day to car bombings alone from June 2005-June 2006. These bombings are fastidiously reported in the U.S. media and Wikipedia keeps a list of the major ones. Yet the highest single-day car bomb total Wikipedia records (114) is 42 short of Lancet's alleged average. Lancet's daily car bomb victim average is also 111 more than Iraq Body Count figure for war-related deaths from all causes. How could IraqBodyCount miss all those bodies?

Are the MSM now admitting to having been duped - assuming "dupe" is the proper word?

Get real. "WHO Says Iraq Civilian Death Toll Higher Than Cited" screamed the title of The New York Times article.

ERRATUM: In the original blog, I wrote that the number of Iraqi dead Lancet 2006 attributed to car bomb victims per day was "111 times higher" than Iraqbodycount. That would be extreme, even for The Lancet. Or maybe not. As it happens, it's "111 more," not 111 times more.

CBS's Bogus Vet Suicide Epidemic Claim

By Michael Fumento

As you know, there are two federal holidays in November. Thanksgiving is one, "Exploit the Veterans Day" is the other. Say again? Never mind that we vets excel in measurable ways such as education, employment, and pay. Activist groups and the media always have fresh reports ready in November showing how wretched our lives are.

This year the goons were CBS News and a homeless activist group. I'll deal with homeless group in a later piece; but in the New York Post I take on CBS's claim that a study they conducted all by their lonesomes (Big red flag there.) shows an "epidemic" of veterans ending their poor miserable lives. (And if you don't believe that, CBS has some documents on President Bush's National Guard service they'd like to sell you. )

The CBS suicide claim goes against lots of detailed published reports regarding both active duty service personnel and veterans. For example, the suicide rate among Vietnam vets and Gulf War vets is no higher than among comparable civilians. Why would there be such a high suicide rate among vets in general then, most of whom served during peacetime? And while naturally CBS wants to blame its "findings" on PTSD, I also discuss studies showing that vets with PTSD are less likely to kill themselves. All CBS's "study" showed us was a crass way of raising ratings.

"Band of Bloggers," including Fumento footage, premiers on History Channel Friday

By Michael Fumento

Explore the impact of blogging as a new medium for immediate and raw information. In the midst of modern day combat examine the unfiltered and raw evolution of military blogs and bloggers. Listen as soldiers who during their recent Iraq deployments reflect on the important connection they had with their blogging and how the band of military bloggers has revolutionized the way we understand combat. Experience firsthand, unfiltered accounts of the pain, the hardship, and even the simple beauty found in Iraq; stories that often go unseen in the media's coverage of the war.

That's the History Channel's plug for its show, "The Band of Bloggers," which first airs Fri. Nov. 9 at 8pm. I'm told it will contain 56 seconds of my footage from Ramadi, including a near rooftop sniping of a soldier in 1/506, 101st Airborne Division and the subsequent ambush we endured. It may also include some of my firefight footage with Seal Team 3, including both Mike Monsoor and Marc Allen Lee, both later killed in action.

Subsequent air times are here.

If my 56 seconds aren't there, don't sue me.

Huffington Post ups Iraqi deaths past 1 million

By Michael Fumento

As of August 14th, 1,019,627 Iraqis "have been killed due to the U.S. invasion" according to Robert Naiman in a blog at the Huffington Post. His methodology, however, as you might guess, is a bit wanting.

He starts with a 2006 Lancet study that he says calculates 600,000 Iraqi civilians killed in the war as of July, 2006. (Actually, the study said 655,000 but then you can't expect Naiman to read actual studies or even their abstracts or conclusions.) He then updates that figure to the present by taking the estimated death figure at the website of an anti-war group called Iraqi Body Count at that time, the estimated figure now, and applying the percentage increase to 600,000. Comments on his blog express disbelief that the mainstream media has ignored this ingenious work and the horrifying conclusion - but there just may be a reason:

1. The methodology in the Lancet work has been shredded, most recently by yours truly just a week ago. It was sheer propaganda, as not just the study made clear but also separate comments from the lead author and the journal's editor.

2. While Naiman is happy to use the percentage increase in Iraq Body Count's data, he rejects their actual figures. Wonder why? As of August 24, the group's website provided a range of Iraqi civilian deaths due to the invasion of "70,359 to 76,873." You probably needn't go running for your calculator to see that's just a bit below the Lancet figure from last year and somewhat more below Naiman's estimate.

3. About 420 days had elapsed since the Lancet's cut-off and the publication of Naiman's estimate. Divide those 455,000 additional alleged deaths by 420 and you get over 1,083 deaths a day! How are these multitudes being killed and who's hiding the bodies?

4. Naiman claims he's using the Lancet research for his baseline, but the original Lancet paper, published in 2004, came up with a (still ridiculous) 180 deaths a day.

5. Therefore, while the only two datasets Naiman claims to rely on are from Iraq Body Count and The Lancet, his estimate is grotesquely higher than both of theirs. In sum, Mr. Naiman has merely illustrated the power of wishful thinking.

Burying the Lancet's "100,000 civilians killed" nonsense

By Michael Fumento

It was an October surprise courtesy of the Lancet medical journal. A report, rushed to the public via online publication five days before the 2004 election, claimed the American-led coalition had directly or indirectly killed about 100,000 Iraqi civilians since the invasion - most from air strikes. The media, with no great love for Bush and already turning against the war, went wild.

Tim Lambert: Lancet defender and infamous troll

There were critics, including yours truly. But now there's even more ammunition in the form of a statistical analysis by David Kane presented at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Salt Lake City. Naturally Kane's assessment is under vicious attack not by proponents of good epidemiology but rather opponents of the war, primarily a troll at the website Deltoid, Tim Lambert. Read my full article here.

So much for the Lancet's "massive Iraqi civilian death" study

By Michael Fumento

Remember the Lancet study in 2004 claiming that "about 100,000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq," and that "Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths?"

I wrote on this as soon as it appeared, observing that several indicators showed it was a piece of crock. But others did much more in-depth analyses, including Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz. He has now found out via Michelle Malkin and Instapundit that a forthcoming study by David Kane, Institute Fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, shows just how wrong the original study was. Love notes among other things that that "if the Falluja cluster is included in the statistical calculations, the confidence interval dips below zero" meaning that it loses statistical significance. Without statistical significance, the findings mean nothing,

I claimed at the time the "100,000 death study" was pure politics (It came out right before the presidential election) and intentional deception on the part of the authors and the Lancet editor himself and there's no reason to think otherwise now.

Incidentally, as I was putting this blog together I accidentally posted it, making Love's words look like my own. Mea culpa.

"Tough Americans": My article on military amputees in the Weekly Standard

By Michael Fumento

In the film "Home of the Brave," a soldier who lost her hand in Iraq is asked if she underwent physical rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. "Yeah, Walter Reed," she says. "Talk about tough Americans." Tough Americans, indeed.

When I visited that same ward the first soldier I met was Sgt. Luke Shirley, who had stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED) blowing off his right side appendages and spraying him with shrapnel. "It kinda sucks not having an arm or leg," he told me, "but it hasn't bothered me like you'd think it would." Just offhand, I would think it would have devastated him. I was dumbstruck. What kind of person is this?

That's why I visited Walter Reed's Orthopedic Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Ward in Washington, D.C, along with the surgical inpatient ward at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. (At Bethesda the men and women aren't yet ready to be sent on to Walter Reed or elsewhere for rehabilitation.) I wanted to meet these tough Americans and tell some of their stories.

Read the entire article. I admit it's rather sensitive and compassionate for a Mike Fumento piece, but you've got to let your guard down sometime. For these guys and gals, anytime.

"Heroes Run" in Honor of Patriquin, McClung, Pomante

By Michael Fumento

Blackfive blogs that on July 28, 2007 there will be a 5 K Run "Heroes Run" in honor of Cpt. Travis Patriquin, Maj. Megan McClung, and Spc. Vincent Pomante, all KIA Ramadi Dec. 6 of last year. To be held in Lockport, Ill., it will benefit the Travis Patriquin Family Memorial Fund (3 girls left without a dad) and the Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund. If you live near there, you can join in (real men run in body armor); if not, you can donate.

A Depressing Day Visiting the Cops

By Michael Fumento

Courtesy of a small Romanian convoy, including the armored personnel carrier I traveled in, we visited four Afghan National Police (ANP) outposts along Highway One. Each had a complement of about 15-20 men and each outpost, to my mind, was pathetic.

An Afghan National Police Station with few defenses. Photo by Michael Fumento. Click image for larger view.

In fact, I saw little wire and the Hescos and sandbags protected only part of the perimeter. Some of the buildings had sandbags on the roofs for protection against light mortars, but some didn't. The Afghans for the most part seemed blissfully unaware that they should have these defenses, although at one station they did request of the Romanians more Hescos and wire because they had virtually none.

In terms of weapons and ammunition, they were no better off. I won't give exact numbers for security reasons, but for their AK-47s they couldn't have enough ammo to sustain a decent firefight. At one station they were delighted to inform us not just how many AK magazines but that the magazines were actually completely filled! Ah, the little things in life. It doesn't help that although they have a reputation for bravery and even ferocity, Afghans, like Iraqis, have a tendency not to fire in controlled bursts but to pull the trigger and let fly with all 30 rounds in the hope that God will guide their bullets.

Afghan Police Officer. Photo by Michael Fumento. Click image for larger view.

Each station had one 7.62 PK machine gun. These are inferior to the RBKs the Romanians use but at least they sometimes had a decent supply of ammo for them. I got the feeling that the PK was the one thing keeping the Taliban from overrunning the outposts. Yet, not being overrun seemed near the outer limits of what these outposts could do.

At one station they told us, "'We ask in the villages why are you helping the Taliban?' and then they say 'They take our sons and brothers' and there's nothing we can do.'" At another: "We see Taliban driving by on motorcycles but we don't have good weapons to shoot them." The outposts are intentionally positioned high on hilltops and while a PK might be able to hit a stationary target, it would take one heck of a lucky shot to pull off an "Easy Rider" shot from that hilltop in the day. At night it would be all the harder.

All the Romanians can say for now is, "We'll try to give you enough ammo and enough weapons." But for the time being it's a pipe dream, although it shouldn't be. Consider that an AK bullet might cost 10 cents. That's $3 a magazine. For a fifteen-man station, we could provide them each another magazine for $45. Meanwhile, we drop bombs that cost $27,000.

Obviously the ANP stations are in no position to project force, but neither are they overrun very often. The Taliban only carry light weapons, nothing heavier than a PK or RPG with a few rounds. Maybe a small mortar tube but with no base plate, so it can't be fired accurately. That's fine for harassment but not much else. If the fighting did get thick, some ANP stations have radios, some phones, and some both and can call the Romanians. But the Taliban have timed how long it takes the Romanians to arrive and are careful to be gone by then. So the potential of the Romanian firepower is what really counts.

"I'm under arrest." Photo by Michael Fumento. Click image for larger view.

A few of the police wore raggedy blue uniforms and some of the younger ones at one outpost wore winter thick gray uniforms that for all the world looked like what Johnny Reb wore. Even the caps looked like they were copied from civil war uniforms. But most of the police wore civilian clothes, which isn't good. A uniform gives a unit cohesion and it gives a man pride. Not for nothing did the British uniform used to be bright red with tall hats and all sorts of flashy trim. The fighting of that day called for marching straight into enemy muskets and the flashiness gave the soldiers courage.

But for all this, the most important deficiency is that none of the police we saw had been paid in three months. The most obvious problem with this from a tactical perspective is that it discourages recruiting and when those police do finally get paid it will encourage them to desert. Less obvious, except to anybody who knows the history of Afghanistan over the last several hundred years, is that bribes are more important than weapons.

They worked for the British, they helped the Russians greatly in winning support of many of the guerrillas to fight other guerrillas, and it certainly helped the Taliban in their near-conquest of the entire country. It was probably bribes that got Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar out of Tora Bora into Pakistan. For that matter, the conquest of the country from the Taliban began when the CIA flew in cache of $3 million (They would eventually spend many times that) to win over leaders to the Northern Alliance.

So the Taliban know that the most important weapon in their arsenal isn't that AK-47 or RPG, it's the wad of cash supplied by various Arab oil sheikhs, Islamic charity front groups, and Osama bin Laden himself.

Colorful binga truck. Photo by Michael Fumento. Click image for larger view.

Unless we want to stay in Afghanistan forever or risk turning the population against us if they start seeing us as an occupation force, we need to give the Afghan National Army and the National Police the material they need for protection, the weapons they need, the ammunition they need, and proper uniforms, but most importantly we need to pay them.

Camel crossing. Photo by Michael Fumento. Click image for larger view.

Then we had a potential SVBIED incident (Suicide Vehicle Borne IED). A couple of trucks by the side of the road simply wouldn't move and we kept our distance waiting. Suddenly one darted towards us and the turret gunner of the APC opened up with the 14.5 mm machine gun. Eight rounds, bigger than .50 cals. I don't know what Afghans wear for underwear but I'll bet that poor driver's was warm and wet.

Michael Fumento has paid for this trip entirely out of pocket, including roundtrip airfare to Kuwait, war insurance, and virtually all his gear. Please support him via PayPal Donate or Amazon Honor System via the logos below.

Short film of Zach Pentek, 1/506th, rated best Combat Video of 2006!

By Michael Fumento

From left to right: Me and SSgt. Bobby Statum checking out M-14 rifles while Sgt. Zach Pentek nervously ponders whether they were properly cleared.

An interview from an observation post in Ramadi with Sgt. Zach Pentek by Ritterby has been voted the best Combat Video of 2006 by the military. Although I wrote two articles about my embeds with 1/506th of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), part of Task Force Currahee, Zach's platoon in A Co. will always have a special place in my heart because we were all together in the manic dash I dubbed "the Ramadi Run." The video is only four minutes long and the fighting is visible but off in the background, but you can see why the military liked it. Zach gives more than a grunt's eye view to Ritterby, explaining the problem of seizing Ramadi from the insurgents and terrorists but presenting an optimistic view of what needs to be done and what probably will happen. Ultimately, he says, it's up to the Iraqis but the city can be pacified. And he was right. As more Iraqi Army were brought in and as the sheiks got off the fencepost and threw in their lot with the Coalition, Ramadi steadily improved between my first visit in April 2006 and my last in October. All indications are that while it still has claws and fangs it's now far safer yet; so much so that perhaps Zach wouldn't even recognize it even though his unit and he personally helped make it so.

Kudos to Ritterby, to Zach, and Task Force Currahee at Camp Corregidor!

Will the Iraqi insurgent terrorist gas campaign work?

By Michael Fumento

Insurgents launched three more chlorine truck attacks in Al Anbar province on March 17, killing two and sickening an additional 350. Is this a disturbing new trend? No. Had those trucks been filled with high explosives, each could have killed around 100 people. Instead, combined, they killed two. Probably all those sickened will recover with little or no lasting damage, as opposed to losing limbs and eyes. Chemicals have never lived up to their reputation as weapons.

That's why even though the Germans invented Sarin gas, which is vastly more deadly than chlorine, they decided not to use it. Hitler didn't forego its use because he was a nice guy. Rather, his generals convinced him that high explosives are far more effective in causing deaths, not to mention that all the poison gas in the world can't destroy material objects. That said, gas is a good terror weapon because most people have a more innate terror of being gassed than of being blown up or shot. But that's primarily or exclusively because gas is such a rare threat. The more the terrorists use chlorine, the less the terror effect will be.

What I Saw at the Non-Revolution (photoset of tiny Iraq rally in DC)

By Michael Fumento

AP reported 10 to 20,000 people attended the march. But when I arrived shortly after the march ended, as this photo shows, there couldn't have been much over a thousand. Perhaps the rest were using invisibility cloaks.

According to the AP, "perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 anti-war demonstrators marched" in Washington, D.C. to protest the war on St. Patrick's day. That's funny, because I got there just after the march ended and I'd put it at hardly more than a thousand. Indeed, I was able to photograph the whole crowd - without benefit of a wide angle lens. Okay, so they were one zero off. It seems the MSM is no more capability of telling the truth about the Iraq war domestically than they are from Iraq itself. At least the Washington Post reported "attendance at yesterday's march was noticeably smaller than one held in Washington in January, police said."

As to the participants, they were exactly what you'd expect: aging hippies, representatives of all sorts of Communist organizations, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, illegal immigration supporters, Islamist extremists, and sufferers of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Boy, were they suffering! But don't take my word for it. Check out my photoset and see for yourself that four years into the war there's still no such thing as a true Iraq protest movement.

Iraq Experts who Don't Go to Iraq and the Problem of Boosterism

By Michael Fumento

A lot of people like Robert Kagan's reports on Iraq because he says what they want to hear. He's a booster. Thus, for example, the senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who resides in Belgium, writes in his latest column in the Sunday Washington Post that "NBC's Brian Williams recently reported a dramatic change in Ramadi since his previous visit. The city was safer; the airport more secure." Actually, I've seen that Ramadi is safer than it had been. Alas, it has no airport. It hasn't since the war began. It has landing zones for helicopters but not even a strip of runway on which C-130s can land. Brian Williams, having been to Ramadi, would know that and indeed a search of his writings turn up no mention of any Ramadi airport.

Okay, so Kagan committed a faux pas. But it doesn't enhance one's credibility to say a place that doesn't exist is "more secure." Nor does it help his overall theme as expressed in the title of his column "The 'Surge' Is Succeeding." It's way to early to make any such pronouncements. What we've seen so far is that as American forces increased, Sadr apparently just slipped across the border to a safe haven in Iran and has clearly told his men to lay low for the duration of the "surge." When the tide ebbs, he plans to reclaim the beach. It is a good plan, which isn't to say it will work. Our best hope is that his men can't take it anymore and defy Sadr, giving us the chance to kill and capture them. But that clearly hasn't happened yet and it may never.

Defeatism certainly doesn't help anything, but boosterism is just a temporary feel-good shot in the arm. It did not help that in May of 2005 Vice-President Cheney claimed the insurgency is "in its last throes." It did not help that Karl Zinsmeister, when he was editor of AEI's magazine, (and somebody who actually has been to Iraq), published an article in his own magazine a month later declaring "The War is Over, and We Won." Only realistic assessments of the war will lead to realistic actions, and only realistic actions can lead to salvaging something resembling victory out of this war.

[Apology: In the initial posting of this blog I confused Robert Kagan with AEI's FREDERICK Kagan. Actually, there is no mention of Frederick Kagan having ever visited Iraq and he's also a booster. But this does not excuse my mistake.]

Time Magazine's Aparisim is lying, by Ghosh!

By Michael Fumento

In my article on the Baghdad Press Corps and its perceived need to display faux bravado because it has no real bravado, I noted one way they did this was by grossly exaggerating the "terrors" of landing at Baghdad International Airport. This included Time Magazine's Baghdad bureau chief Aparism Ghosh. I wrote:

"In an August 2006 cover story, [Ghosh] devotes five long paragraphs to the alleged horror of landing there [in a Fokker F28 from Amman, Jordan].

It's "the world's scariest landing," he insists, as if he were an expert on all the landings of all the planes at all the world's airports and military airfields. It's "a steep, corkscrewing plunge," a "spiraling dive, straightening up just yards from the runway. If you're looking out the window, it can feel as if the plane is in a free fall from which it can't possibly pull out." Writes Ghosh, "During one especially difficult landing in 2004, a retired American cop wouldn't stop screaming 'Oh, God! Oh, God!' I finally had to slap him on the face - on instructions from the flight attendant."

I then quoted a reporter saying it was a bunch of nonsense. "The plane just banks heavily," he said.

Recently I heard from a pilot who does the Amman-Baghdad run:

Well done for taking on Aparisim Ghosh about his report on the descent into Baghdad in the Fokker F28.

I too feel he overplayed the drama excessively. It may well be the world's scariest civilian landing, but as for him claiming he was instructed by a flight attendant to slap a hysterical passenger - no truth to this at all.

How do I know? I have done about 250 descents into Baghdad in the Fokker - I fly the thing. And I have asked all of our flight attendants if any of them have ever told a passenger to slap another passenger, and all have replied no.

During descent one of the flight attendants sits in front on the forward bulkhead with his/her back to the passengers, and the other sits right at the back next to the toilet!!

Truth is, most times into Baghdad it's pretty straightforward, we come overhead at anywhere between 9000' to 29000' and once cleared for descent we must remain within a 3 mile radius of the airport center point which requires a maximum bank of about 45 degrees. Under normal circumstances we pitch down about 10 degrees.

He concludes: "Keep up the good reporting!" I'm sure Ghosh and his Time crew will keep up their BS reporting, as well.

Ollie North and Fox continue coverup of North's role in Ramadi deaths

By Michael Fumento

Oliver North: Remaining Unfaithful

On December 6, Marine Maj. Megan McClung, Army Capt. Travis Patriquin, and Army Spc. Vincent Pomante were killed instantly in Ramadi when their Humvee was ripped apart by an IED. At the time, they were accompanying Fox TV's Ollie North and his crew plus a Newsweek reporter to their embed positions. Newsweek never even mentioned their deaths. North subsequently noted McClung's death, while ignoring that of the soldiers. He also made no mention that any of them died helping him. Fox went even further, falsely claiming on February 7th that they "died while supporting combat operations." Sorry, embedding is not a combat operation. North had a chance to change this during his "War Stories" broadcast of Feb. 11, when he mentioned the deaths. But all he said was they occurred, "while War Stories was embedded with 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division."

These three people, including the top female Marine to perish in Iraq, died helping North with his mission and he refuses to acknowledge it. Obviously "Semper Fidelis," for all of his grandstanding, means nothing to him.

New video from the two firefights in "The New Band of Brothers"

By Michael Fumento

I'm not sure why he took so long, but SSgt. Bobby Statum, who works for Army Public Affairs, has finally released video on YouTube he shot last April of the two firefights I wrote about in "The New Band of Brothers." The video switches back and forth between the actions. The one in Ramadi's Mulaab region features Capt. Joe "Crazy Joe" Claburn, commander of C Co., 1/506th, 101st Airborne and SEAL Team Three. Posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor nominee and SEAL Michael Monsoor makes his first appearance at the 36-second mark. His machine gun is readily identifiable by the bipod. (All the SEALs are easily recognized by their sand-colored camo uniforms with no helmet covers.)

The fight the next day in the Industrial Area, including OP Hotel, involved A Co., 1/506th and what I dubbed "the Ramadi Run" through a hail of bullets as we departed relatively safe rooftops and sprinted to our rendezvous point. Yours truly makes cameo appearances (khaki uniform and black camera bag) at the 6:20 and 7:40 points.

As with me, these were Bobby's first two firefights and he handled himself bravely. Good on him for finally making this video public.

Ramadi Video from 1/506th: "God's Gonna Cut You Down"

By Michael Fumento

Spc. Andy Johnson from A. Co., 1/506th, 101st Airborne sent me this video montage he put together from his vacation at Camp Corregidor this past year. It includes a couple of video clips of mine and some other good action shots - though I don't understand why he left out a great clip of an F-18 ground attack. (Betcha he inserts it when he reads this.) Among the most interesting is footage of a Humvee he and two others from his platoon were in when the back end was hit by an RPG-7. It knocked the whole back off and nobody inside suffered more than a bad case of nerves. Best of all, it's not set to heavy metal music - which I cannot stand - but rather a nice tune from The Man in Black.

Having a ball with the 1/506th (101st Airborne) at Ft. Campbell

By Michael Fumento

I was delighted to receive an invitation as a special guest to the annual (usually) ball of First Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. I had spent two embeds with these soldiers at nasty Camp Corregidor in Ramadi and had already come to feel like I was a member of their "Band of Brothers." Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Ron Clark extended the invitation to me and confirmed that, unlike at Corregidor, body armor and Kevlar helmet were not required at all times - or indeed at all.

My photoset of the ball is posted here. (Participants please feel free to offer corrections on names or providing first names where I only have last.)

I'd never been to Ft. Campbell and was delighted to find it was a far nicer place than where I spent my time, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina - but then, I'd guess virtually any base would be. We didn't refer to it as "the armpit of the south" for nothing. The town next to Campbell, Clarksville, also beat the living you-know-what out of Bragg's civilian neighbor Fayetteville, North Carolina. (Fayetteville we referred to fondly as "Fayettenam" and "Fatalburg.")

First we attended an officers' reception at Clark's house, where I got a chance to become reacquainted or acquainted with many of those men. (There was also a woman officer, 1st Lt. Jennifer Wynn, executive officer (XO) of Easy Company.) The last time I'd seen these people they were wearing ACUs and, yes, armor and helmets. It was strange seeing them in their brilliant dress blues with cascades of ribbons and awards. Almost all of them wore the paratrooper's silver wings, I'm happy to report, even though the 101st hasn't been an airborne unit for decades.

I thought it possible that Clark was a closet tee-totaler; in fact, to my delight he's quite the beer connoisseur and all attendees benefited thereby. (But I'll bet he also drinks tea.) There was a long series of unofficial awards given out to the many officers who were leaving or had already left the unit, although I couldn't see much because I was stuck behind a Navy SEAL who, like all SEALs it seems, was built rather like a redwood tree. Or to put it another way, SEALs look like you'd expect them to look. Both this ceremony and the ball weren't actually so much 1/506th but rather "Task Force Currahee, which includes anybody who served at Corregidor while Clark was in charge. That's why we there were men there from SEAL Team 3 and at least one Marine.

The ball was an absolute kick. I admit to feeling great pride as they played the "New Band of Brothers video," drawing the title from my first article about them. It included written excerpts from the piece and a few of my photos in the montage that followed.

But the choice part of the evening was seeing the guys with whom I was in combat. I introduced myself to a SEAL and asked if we'd been together on that roof in the Mulaab. Indeed, we were. He was the one of whom I wrote:

A SEAL near me has an old wooden-stock M-79 40mm grenade launcher (affectionately called a "Thumper") that was phased out late in the Vietnam war in favor of the M-203, a 40mm tube attached below an M-16 rifle. I had wondered why he'd chosen to carry this but now found out. Another vehicle is spotted, a flatbed with four jihadists bearing AKs. [Joe] Claburn and others bring it to a screeching halt with a fusillade of bullets to the engine block; then the SEAL with the Thumper smoothly extracts it from a strap around his waist as if it's just another appendage and drops the grenade dead center on the jihadists' truck. One shot; one kill. Those SEALs fight like machines.

Lots of guys were there from the next day's firefight with A Company as well, the ones I joined on "The Ramadi Run" through an ambush. We still laughed over it. They sure made us dance with their machine guns and AKs, but we made it through with nothing more than a great story to tell. Andrew Johnson was there, the guy who looked so young I asked if his mom knew where he was. Alas, Corregidor ages you. He almost looks old enough to be in the Army now. Almost.

And yes, "Crazy Joe" Claburn was in attendance. He left partway through the deployment to join an airborne pathfinder unit, first in Iraq and then back at Ft. Campbell. And yeah, he's still nutty. Where his name should have been on his dress blues he had "America" imprinted instead. Oh well, God Bless America. He said I made him famous "for five weeks" when I reported on his comments on the Mulaab rooftop as we were taking fire. "Hear them cracking over your head?" he shouted. "That'll get your peter hard, huh?"

He told me that some time later somebody stopped him a chow hall and said, "You're Crazy Joe aren't you? The guy who said being shot at makes your peter hard!" Guilty, guilty, guilty. Later anti-war and ultra-lib talk show host Al Franken commented on that while I was on his show as if show there was something seriously wrong with Claburn - and perhaps the Americans fighting in Iraq generally. But if so, it's not that comment that proves it. As CJ pointed out to me, and as I had no need to hear, in situations like that you've got to do things besides just firing back to keep your head about you. My own videos show me laughing and singing ("We gotta get outta this place . . . ") during the next day's fight. Is that crazier than dwelling on the possibility of a round taking off the top of your head off or an RPG making you go splat? I think not.

In any event, Claburn brought his girlfriend of two years who was gorgeous flesh on the outside and titanium on the inside. Her husband had been killed early in the war by an IED and she later actually took a slight demotion from Captain to Chief Warrant Officer 2 in order to become a Kiowa Scout pilot. "That's because it's one of the few combat slots open to women, right?" I said. "That's right!" she answered. It's a terribly dangerous job, as well. Maybe she's crazy too. But dating all of America will do that to you.

My wife, not incidentally, was delighted. She had come to know these men through my writings, my pictures, and my stories. But meeting them was something else entirely. Yes, Ron Clark really is that professional and yet affable. Yes, she could see why XO Matt Keller and I became buddies in a grand total of four days at Corregidor. Andrew Johnson really does look like a kid, but then so do so many of these elite warriors. I think she was perhaps most delighted to meet Rob Killion, who became the "star" of my article by virtue of popping an exceptional number of bad guys in front of my camcorder and still camera and his down-home sense of humor in a deadly situation.

One of the few somber points of the evening included unveiling a flat stone carving by a local firefighter and a plaque to the names of the 11 fallen of Task Force Currahee. It included the battalion's original XO Lt. Col. Paul Finken who was sent to Baghdad to oversee the training of Iraqi soldiers and died in an IED explosion with less than two weeks left on his tour. SSgt. Michael A. Dickinson II was providing his PSYOPS expertise to Currahee when he was killed by small arms fire. At bottom center of the plaque was Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor, the SEAL who died when he threw himself on a grenade to save his three buddies. He's now up for the Congressional Medal of Honor. I'd like also to mention Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Marc Alan Lee who, while not part of Task Force Currahee, fought alongside its men and became the first SEAL to die in Ramadi and Iraq. Part of the plaque's inscription, from John 15:13, reads: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his fellow friend." That applies to all the fallen.

But let me say this. Eleven men lost is exactly 11 too many. Especially men like these. But there were out of about 1,000 soldiers in Task Force Currahee fighting in the worst conditions in Iraq. By rights, far more should have died but for the leadership of Clark, Finken, Keller, Crazy Joe and Justin Michel and the other company commanders, Command Sgt. Major Michael Catterton, and indeed each individual member of Currahee who fought desperately to accomplish their mission and keep their buddies alive.

Alas, the 1/506th as I knew it is already passing into history. Clark and A Co. Commander Justin Michel are coming to my town, specifically the Pentagon. Matt Keller is off to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. But this unit, and what it accomplished in its tour in Ramadi, like its illustrious forebears who dropped behind the lines at Normandy, will pass into glorious history.

Patriquin Police Station to Open in Ramadi

By Michael Fumento

Travis Patriquin

Multi-National Corps -- Iraq has announced a Patriquin Iraqi Police Station will soon open in Ramadi. Before his death in an IED explosion on Dec. 6 of last year, Army Cpt. Travis Patriquin, a hero of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, played a vital role in getting Ramadi sheiks to send their young tribesmen into the police to provide Iraqi firepower and intelligence-gathering in the fight against insurgents and terrorists. (He was also very helpful to me in understanding the current situation in Ramadi, and I quoted him at great length.)

Patriquin left behind three small children. Donations to help his family may be made to:

Travis Patriquin Family Memorial Fund
Harris Bank
111 W. Monroe Street 111/1C
Chicago, IL 60603

If you have a PayPal account, you may email a donation to his father at: gary112251@aol.com.

GI Malkin to report for duty in Iraq

By Michael Fumento

Michelle Malkin has announced she's heading for Iraq. I've known of this for a little while and have had mixed feelings. On the one hand, she's an old friend dating back about 13 years. She can seem hard-edged in her blogs and columns, but some of her worst enemies would take a liking to her if they knew her in person. Put another way, I don't want to see her butt zapped. Conversely, I have repeatedly exhorted that nobody can understand Iraq or the war who hasn't been there. The vast majority of self-styled Iraqi experts at the think tanks and in the media have not in fact been there. Some have called them chicken hawks and "Chairborne Rangers;" I will simply say they are ignorant. Michelle has blogged constantly on Iraq, but mentally I gave her a pass because she's not exactly natural embed material. She has no military background, she has two small children at home, and she's so small both in height and frame that she may constitute the lightest embed ever to go over. When I gave her my body armor and helmet on Christmas Day I honestly thought she might tip over. I wear an X-Large while she's a Super-Tiny. Hopefully once she arrives at her duty station she can swap it for something smaller and more protective (I have no side ceramic plates).

As to that duty station, those with Malkin Derangement Syndrome (her hate mail makes mine look positively quaint) are already blogging that this will be just another celebrity tour. They couldn't be more wrong. The Celebrity Tour, as exemplified recently by Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and others who aren't of Irish extraction comprises flying into Baghdad International and bedding down in comfy-cozy celebrity quarters in one of the three huge bases right next to the airport. These bases receive virtually no shelling and are literally safer than most American cities. Once there they schmooze with troops, the overwhelming majority of which have never seen combat. The result is that these people get all the celebrities; the guys doing the fighting and dying in the real Iraq just get grunt reporters like Mike Fumento.

Michelle is not taking that route. OPSEC forbids revealing her destination, but suffice to say it's a camp that's actually smaller than my Forward Operating Base of Camp Corregidor in Ramadi. That makes it likely to be shelled. It has perhaps no more than half a dozen women and she'll probably sleep in a crackerbox -- hopefully sans rats. It's not like the Anbar, but outside the wire IEDs await, and quite possibly snipers. Ambushes are possible. Yes, Michelle will be a celebrity and I've urged her to bring as many photos as she can to sign for the troops; the men will never forget her visit. But she's going as a true embedded reporter. She's got a lot of guts in that tiny frame of hers. We should all wish her Godspeed.

Lt. Col. Paul J. Finken, XO of 1/506th, RIP

By Michael Fumento

According to Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Ron Clark: "Paul's efforts as our XO contributed directly to the success of our battalion in combat and saved the lives of our Soldiers in Ramadi. Paul was an outstanding officer and an even better husband and father." Adds Clark:

He is survived by his wife Jackie and 3 young daughters who miss him dearly. Paul and I were close personal friends as well as comrades in arms. We also shared a common bond as USMA graduates (Paul graduated in the Class of 89, while I graduated in 1988 with Paul's twin brother Pete). Paul served the 506th Regimental Combat Team, our Army, and our nation with distinction. He was a tremendous leader and a warrior who took care of Soldiers and their families. His loss has been tremendously hard on the members of our battalion staff and he will be missed by all whom he touched.

He was laid to rest near his family in Earling, Iowa.

A memorial trust has been established for his three children.
Farmer's Trust & Savings Bank
c/o Paul Finken Memorial
PO Box 285
Earling, IA 51530-0285
Or Call (712) 747-2000

Currahee! Lt. Col. Finken

Memorial fund for children of Capt. Travis Patriquin, KIA Ramadi

By Michael Fumento

TRAVIS PATRIQUIN FAMILY MEMORIAL FUND
HARRIS BANK
111 W. MONROE ST. 111/1C
CHICAGO, IL 60603

Anti-terror group analyzes video I retrieved from Ramadi

By Michael Fumento

"The Ramadi Inn" as it looks today.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has analyzed the video I brought back from Ramadi and posted (in part on my website, in full elsewhere) showing the jihadist attack on OP Hotel, now called "the Ramadi Inn." They claim it actually shows explosions from three different attacks, whereas I assumed it was all different angles from the same attack. On the other hand, they also claim the first attack was on a factory. A hotel is not a factory. That this was indeed an attack on OP Hotel has been confirmed by members of 2/69 Armor who were there. With this caveat in mind, you may find their analysis interesting.

This shows the value of anti-terror groups having employees in the field, rather than operating entirely out of Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, I have yet to convince any such group or think tank of this value and hence remain unemployed.

Funeral of Maj. Megan McClung, USMC

By Michael Fumento

You don't need photos to picture the procession of white horses drawing the open wagon carrying the flag-covered casket; the removal of the casket and placement next to the grave, the moment of silence; taps; then the three-volley salute. Then came the expert withdrawal and folding of the flag that is then handed to the parents. The parents appeared quite shaken, as you would expect after a violent and sudden death which every military parent knows may happen but can never truly be prepared for. I cannot pretend to know how they felt. But they bravely kept their composure, even as many a handkerchief dotted the crowd. They also showed their courage in what Mrs. McClung told an LA Times reporter last week. "Please don't portray this as a tragedy," she said. "It is for us, but Megan died doing what she believed in, and that's a great gift . . . . She believed in the mission there -- that the Iraqi people should have freedom."

It was strange to be greeted by two officers in my hometown whom I met in al Anbar, one on my first trip and the other -- who worked with Maj. McClung -- on my second. Strange for me to see them in Dress Blues; strange for them to see me in civilian clothes. After the ceremony I approached the casket, laid my hand on it and thanked Megan McClung for all she'd done to help me. Then I stood back and saluted.

They don't come any more Irish-looking than she was, and I had kidded her about the inherent conflict between her Celtic skin and the Iraqi sun. So I find it fitting to conclude with an Irish funeral prayer.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow;
I am the diamond glints on the snow.
I am the sunlight that ripened grain;
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush,
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there; I did not die.

Semper Fidelis, Megan.

Burial details for Maj. Megan McClung

By Michael Fumento

Maj. Megan McClung will be interred on Tues. 19 Dec. at 0830 at Arlington Cemetery. If you wish to attend, be at the Administration Building at 0800.

Directions to the cemetery

Map showing parking and Administrative Building

Broader Interactive Map

I have no new information on Capt. Patriquin, who died alongside Maj. McClung, and assume he will be interred near his family in St. Charles, Missouri.

Video memorial to Maj. Megan McClung, KIA Ramadi

By Michael Fumento

The Marines have put together a lovely and fitting 5-minute video tribute to Maj. Megan McClung, who died from an IED explosion in Ramadi on Dec. 6. There are also short clips of Capt. Travis Patriquin and Spec. Vincent Pomante, both of whom died with her.

Said one Marine of the long-distance runner and triathlete, "The ability to run was a metaphor for the way she lived her life."

Navy narration of circumstances surrounding the death of SEAL Mike Monsoor

By Michael Fumento

Michael Monsoor with MK-48 medium machine gun at right

On 29 September, Monsoor was part of a sniper overwatch security position in eastern Ramadi, Iraq with three other SEALs and eight Iraqi soldiers. They were providing overwatch security while joint and combined forces were conducting missions in the area. Ramadi had been a violent and intense area for a very strong and aggressive insurgency for some time. All morning long the overwatch position received harassment fire that had become typical part of the day for the security team. Around midday, the exterior of the building was struck by a single rocket propelled grenade (RPG), but no injuries to any of the overwatch personnel were sustained. The overwatch couldn't tell where the RPG came from and didn't return fire.

A couple of hours later, an insurgency fighter closed on the overwatch position and threw a fragment grenade into the overwatch position which hit Monsoor in the chest before falling in front of him. Monsoor yelled "grenade" and dropped on top of the grenade prior to it exploding. Monsoor's body shielded the others from the brunt of the fragmentation blast and two other SEALs were only wounded by the remaining blast.

One of the key aspects of this incident was the way the overwatch position was structured. There was only one access point for entry or exit and Monsoor was the only one who could've saved himself from harm. Instead, knowing what the outcome could be, he fell on the grenade to save the others from harm. Monsoor and the two injured were evacuated to the combat outpost battalion aid station where Monsoor died approximately 30 minutes after the incident from injuries sustained by the grenade blast.

Monsoor is being submitted for an award that is appropriate for the level of his actions that has yet to be determined.

[Since then he has been submitted for the nation's highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor.]

Digg this!

Maj. Megan McClung and Capt. Travis Patriquin, RIP

By Michael Fumento

Megan McClung

I only heard Marine Major Megan McClung yell once, but it was righteous anger. If this were fiction, it might be considered foreshadowing. It was at Camp Ramadi headquarters outside of the city proper and away from the hostilities. The 34-year-old McClung, head Public Affairs Officer (PAO) for Al Anbar Province, was barking at a public affairs sergeant. "Ramadi is the most dangerous city in Iraq and you're going to get your men out there to cover it!"

This was in October and the previous spring I had been angry with McClung, though I'm glad I didn't tell her. She was a captain then with her headquarters at Camp Fallujah. I had made it clear I wanted to spend my entire embed in Ramadi because that's where the action was and because on my first Iraq trip a year earlier I had seen Fallujah but been denied Ramadi when I wound up "embedded" on a surgical bed in Baghdad. Yet when I returned this spring to Baghdad to renew my press credentials and expected to fly straight from there to Ramadi, I was dumbfounded that McClung had routed me right back to Fallujah and its environs. When I saw her in person, she explained that she wanted me to spend time with Military Transition Teams (MiTTs) in the area to see how well their training of the Iraqi Army was progressing.

It was a prescient move on her part, especially considering that a tremendous increase in MiTT teams embedded in indigenous units has become a major part of all plans to ultimately turn the war over to the Iraqis. In any case, the trip did end in Ramadi where during just a few short days I saw and reported on more combat, more courage, and more camaraderie than you might see elsewhere in Iraq in a year.

For my last embed, I was in Ramadi the whole time. But again McClung guided me so I saw what I needed to see rather than what I thought I needed to see. After each embed she diligently provided information that I'd been unable to gather in the field. I have two dozen emails from her on my computer, the last dated November 30. The lady I once begrudged I grew to have great respect for.

Capt. Patriquin's famous desk

I also developed that respect for 32-year-old Captain Travis Patriquin of the Army's First Armored Division. (McClung was with the First Marine Division.) I photographed Patriquin's desk, which was covered with bumper stickers such as George Orwell's observation that "We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence upon those who would do us harm." When I published my photo set from the trip, that desk quickly became a blogosphere celebrity.

Patriquin was exactly the sort of officer we need in Iraq. He spoke at least five languages including fluent Arabic, and was a major player in getting Ramadi sheiks to start supporting Coalition operations by sending men into the Iraqi Police and urging civilians to expose al Qaeda terrorists. He fought in one of the fiercest battles of the Afghanistan war, Operation Anaconda, later receiving the Bronze Star. Patriquin also provided a terrific inbriefing, giving an overview of a city that seems slowly to be improving but is still too much like the local graffiti states: "The graveyard of the Americans." I quoted him at great length in my major article about the trip in the Nov. 27 Weekly Standard.

While most journalists heading into Ramadi require no PAO escort, for some reason on December 6 both McClung and Patriquin, plus 22-year-old Army Specialist Vincent J. Pomante III decided to jump into a Humvee to accompany Oliver North and his crew from Fox plus some journalists from Newsweek downtown. A tremendous blast from an improvised explosive device (IED) ripped apart their truck, killing all three. Mercifully, it appears all died instantly. I heard about Patriquin his cousin, then left a message for McClung asking for verification and offering her my condolences. Then I found out about her. McClung has the dubious honor of being the first female Marine officer and highest-ranked female officer overall killed in the war.

Travis Patriquin

Why, people who have never been to war ask me, do I actually like being in a combat zone? Partly it's the feeling of being responsible for the lives of everyone else and they for you. Partly it's that you never feel more alive than when you know you're so close to death. You develop the bond that Shakespeare marvelously described as a "Band of Brothers." And when you leave the killing fields behind, that bond remains and is something that nobody who hasn't experienced it will ever appreciate. You accept that some brothers will die, but that doesn't make it easier when it happens.

Given the season, it seems appropriate to quote from Michael Marks's haunting poem, "A Soldier's Christmas:"

"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

Note: This blog will be updated as more information becomes available. "A Soldier's Christmas is copyright 2000 by Michael Marks.

The real Ramadi HAS stood up

By Michael Fumento

In a Nov. 29 blog, "Will the real Ramadi please stand up?" I observed that three articles on conditions in Ramadi and al Anbar Province had appeared within a week of each other giving entirely different points of view. Mine and one in the Times of London said we're winning the war in Ramadi; a Washington Post A1 story co-authored by "Fiasco" author Thomas Ricks claimed exactly the opposite. The difference, I said, could be explained simply. I and the Times writer reported from Ramadi. Ricks and his co-author have not only never been to Ramadi, they wrote their piece from Washington. Well now the WashPost has printed another article on the city, this time an upbeat one. What gives? You guessed it.The second one was reported from Ramadi. Case closed, thank you very much. Unfortunately, it's little solace knowing how few journalists ever leave their safe little hovels in Baghdad hotels or Washington, D.C.

A SEAL Team 3 dad comments on Mike Monsoor and Ramadi

By Michael Fumento

SEAL with M-79 (not the writer's son) on left and Mike Monsoor on right

Dear Mike,

My son was Mike Monsoor's roommate in Iraq. He was in the action where Mike died. Today, I telephoned him in Coronado [near San Diego] about the November 27th issue [of the Weekly Standard, containing my article Return to Ramadi] with Mike on the cover.

I personally appreciate seeing you honor Mike on the cover. He was a fine young man. He was humble and well mannered. A good observer might have spotted the fact that Mike was exceptionally fit, and guessed he was a professional athlete. From my daughter's comments, I know the young ladies thought Mike was exceptionally handsome, with "dreamy eyes." Whatever. Otherwise, Mikey looked like a lot of other American guys. There was a quality in Mike that could not have been guessed by his appearance.

I have a copy of the Weekly Standard in hand. I read your excellent article. I was able to spend some time with my boy after he returned from Iraq. He talked about his experience a little at first. As time goes on, he talks more. Recently, we sat down with Google Earth and brought up a satellite image of Ramadi. He briefed me on the different areas of the city and a bit about the situation in various parts of town.

I think the point you made about each soldier knowing only part of the elephant is a very good. This is where a good reporter or journalist like you can provide a great service to not only the public but the soldiers themselves. You gave facts about the progress our soldiers are making. I know my son will read it carefully. No one else has told the public as much about Ramadi as you have in this latest article. To tell the truth, if a reporter from my local New York Times owned newspaper called me up for an interview about my son, I would tell her or him to go fuck themselves. I literally despise the mainstream media because they want our soldiers to lose.

My boy was with a platoon of SEALs that spent most of their time in Mulaab. Actually, only four or five guys spent the whole deployment there. Mike Monsoor was one of them. They saw more combat action than SEALs have experienced since Vietnam. You were out with my son and took film of him a while back. [Here's the video though I blurred it at the request of the SEALs to protect their identities.] He was the guy who used the old style M-79 grenade launcher [Whom I photographed earlier this year with Monsoor during a Mulaab firefight.] He is an Alabama boy with lots of experience with guns, especially high powered rifles. He told me his instructors in the SEALs used exactly the same techniques for shooting I had taught him. So you are a good observer, when you said he was handy with a weapon.

He commented to me about the proficiency of the 1/506th. He has great respect for their commander and would serve with him anywhere any time. My boy and his platoon worked with the 1/506th quite a bit. One day a sergeant brought the SEALs some spades for their helmets. [The spade is the symbol of the 1/506th.] They will never take them off. My boy thinks the 1/506th is one group of bad dudes. He also had good things to say about other Army and Marine units, combat teams of all kinds. These are dudes who take on the bad guys eye to eye. They jump out the back of a Bradley [fighting vehicle] and go get them. My boy says they don't get the credit they deserve. He does not like the way the media sometimes glamorizes the SEALs when other American soldiers are doing the same work. I can tell you from experience that real SEALs do not talk about themselves. In civilian dress, these guys look like any other American. Most of them are very humble about their accomplishments. Like most everyone else, SEALs are in awe of good soldiers. According to my boy, some of the guys from the Pennsylvania National Guard were as good at soldiering as SEALs, Marines, or 1/506th. He said some of these National Guard guys were very bad news for the enemy. In fact, guys with families at home are very determined to get back to their wives and kids. They do not mess around with the enemy. They kill him quickly and with great determination because they are planning on going home.

You are right about our soldiers winning in Ramadi. You do a great service getting this truth out.

[Name, rank, and service omitted], retired (I have not used my son's name and would appreciate your withholding my last name from publication if you were to use any part of this email in your writing. Thanks.)

Fumento interviews on Ramadi and the media - TV, radio, print

By Michael Fumento

C-SPAN's Washington Journal

The Mike Rosen Show on 850 KOA Denver
Part One
Part Two

John Hawkins' Right Wing News

Will the real Ramadi please stand up?

By Michael Fumento

"The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq [Al Anbar Province] or counter al Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report," began a front-page article in yesterday's Washington Post by Dafna Linzer and Thomas E. Ricks. It concerned the so-called "Devlin Report," a five-page document allegedly filled with gloom and doom. It contrasts completely with my article Return to Ramadi, in the Nov. 27 Weekly Standard, in which I write that the largest city in the province is slowly being reclaimed from al Qaeda. By coincidence, the day my article hit the stands the Times of London published an extensive article coming to the same conclusion as mine. But for the timing, you'd practically think one of us had plagiarized the other.

Why such different conclusions between our articles and the Post's and whom to believe?

It helps to know that the Times writer and I both went to and reported from Ramadi. We didn't summarize classified documents or quote unnamed sources. Linzer and Ricks stayed home and reported from Washington, relying entirely on an unpublished document in addition to quoting a "senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity." I have recently ripped the media's "Baghdad Brigade" for pretending it can cover a country the size of California from a single Iraqi city. What does that say about those who think they can cover Al Anbar from Washington?

All of this illustrates a point I and others have desperately tried to make, that you cannot understand the Anbar if you haven't been there. That's why I went three times to the province and twice to Ramadi itself. It wasn't to attend a beerfest. It may also help explain things that Ricks has a recent book declaring the war a "Fiasco," and hence is already inclined towards a pessimistic view. Top-notch milblogger Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail declares, "Military and intelligence sources that I spoke to who have read the [Devlin] report indicate that they largely agree with [it] . . . but not as presented by the Washington Post." (Emphasis his.)

Alas, as much attention as my article has gotten it's hard to compete with a Post A1 article. Further, as Vietnam's Tet Offensive proved, guerrilla wars are as likely to be decided in the media as on the battlefield. It's looking like Iraq will prove no exception.

(Michael Fumento maintains a hybrid website at Fumento.com with blogs from his last two trips to Al Anbar, photos from all three trips, and two major articles from his trip earlier this year. Especially recommended is "The New Band of Brothers," which contains links to much combat video.)

Lots more on that video of attack on OP Hotel in Ramadi

By Michael Fumento

OP Hotel, a.k.a., "The Ramadi Inn," some months after the attack

In an earlier blog post, I presented part of a video I got off a laptop in Ramadi showing the 2005 suicide vehicle attack on OP Hotel in the city's Industrial Area. Noting that it was taken from a jihadist propaganda production, I wondered aloud at their depicting it as a great victory over the infidels even though the objective remained intact and only jihadists were killed. None of which deterred a large number of jihadist websites from not just using the link to the video but rather linking to the blog entry as a whole, in which I'm basically calling them buffoons. In fact, it was so popular among terrorists that my host company was forced to take the clip down from its server. So I just gave it a new URL and reposted it, figuring the terrorists were too dumb to see if the link was broken. They were.

I also wondered about its source. Terrorism expert Adam Badder wrote in saying to the best of his knowledge the video had not previously been broadcast on jihadist websites. "Sometimes al Qaeda in Iraq sells VCD/DVDs of some attack videos in the markets of al Anbar and never puts them onto the net so the discs they are selling are exclusive," he said. "This is possibly the case with this video, but after watching it I believe it must have been captured at an al Qaeda media 'studio' by American forces. The reason I say this is even though the music is done and the al Qaeda in Iraq bug is in the top corner there are no opening credits and no ending as the last 2:32 minutes are just black screen."

Then I heard from a Capt. Chas Cannon. "I noticed you have the OP Hotel car bomb attack on your site. That attack was against our Able Company, 2-69 Armor. The initial explosion knocked the entire platoon out cold." He went on: "It was interesting the way we received the video, however. An informant of ours, whom we knew to be playing both sides, was given a copy as part of a recruiting drive by the insurgents. One night on our regularly scheduled meetings, he passed it on over to us. I don't think the insurgents knew that it failed....they just knew it was one helluva explosion." That it was!

Finally (I think finally), I heard from Spc. Scott Ray, who says he was in 3rd Platoon, A Co., 2/69 when the attack hit. "We never shot the driver or the dump truck. He ran into a Jersey barrier. There was another VBIED [vehicle-borne IED] that was suppose to exploit the breach the dump truck left but we guess the driver split. When we were exfiling [departing] after being relieved by our other two platoons we found the driver's body and the cab of the truck on the east side of the hotel, by where we would park the Humvees. We did have one critical wounded, Spc. David Morrow. He had major shrapnel wounds in his left thigh and was unconscious for seven hours. We continued to receive fire for about 20 minutes after the explosion until the first quick relief force showed up. it was a long twenty minutes.

More of the Baghdad Press Corp's Egocentric View of the War

By Michael Fumento

According to CNN, "A U.S. Air Force F-16CG fighter jet crashed at 1:35 p.m. (5:35 a.m. ET) Monday outside Baghdad while making a "strafing run" - firing on targets at a low altitude - an American military official in Baghdad said." Where outside Baghdad? Turns out it was "operating near Fallujah . . . " In other words, it was "outside Baghdad" like Washington, D.C. is outside New York City.

Mike on C-SPAN's Washington Journal

By Michael Fumento

And it's with Brian Lamb! It concerns my Ramadi piece in the current Weekly Standard. 9 AM EST on Friday but I think after a few days you can watch it on your computer.

Cover story on Retaking Ramadi in Weekly Standard

By Michael Fumento

I assert that by any measurable standard, including lots of insight you couldn't possibly pick up if you hadn't been there and been there at least twice, we're are making progress in pacifying Iraq's worst city. As Frank Sinatra might have sung: "If we can beat them here, we can beat them anywhere!"

Lots of photos (including my first cover photo) and some neat video. Finally, it has a tribute to Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor, KIA in Ramadi's Mulaab area when he threw himself onto a grenade. I hope it's used as part of a campaign to have him awarded the Medal of Honor.

Fumento photos posted from latest Iraq trip

By Michael Fumento

I hope you'll find these photos interesting, but they aren't particularly numerous or spectacular because circumstances simply didn't lend themselves to it. Probably my would-be best shots got away from me when my camera followed me into an irrigation canal.

And this smaller set is for friends and relatives of men in A and C Companies, 1/506th. Normally these guys can go through a year-long deployment without having a single photo of them taken.

My photos from Anbar earlier this year are here, and from last year here.

Sig Christenson's (failed) attempt to blame military for embed shortage

By Michael Fumento

Below is an exchange with Sig Christenson and another fellow in which I am castigated for claiming that the lack of embeds in Iraq just may be the fault of something other than the military. Apply Occam's Razor, that the simplest solution is probably the best. We don't have more embeds primarily because journalists don't want to be embedded. (Also, judging by my mail, lots of vets would like to be embeds but have no media outlet to support them.) Embedding is tough on those used to the luxurious American lifestyle and depending on where you go you it can be dangerous. Far easier to just label yourself a war correspondent and work out of the International Zone in Baghdad or a Baghdad hotel, using phones and emails and letting Iraqi stringers do the real work. It still looks great on your resume and you don't have to worry about having shrapnel dug out of your rear end. Note (as I should have in my response, that Christenson admits he was only embedded once in Iraq, back in 2003, and since then has worked out of Baghdad hotels. He is thus a member of the "Baghdad Brigade," of which I have been so critical. As to his references in his online bios about being voted "reporter of the year" by his peers, he means the small group of reporters at his own newspaper. Little wonder that he doesn't specify who his "peers" are.

Christenson:
Michael Fumento's piece on embedding is the product of sloppy research and should have been better vetted. As it stands, it contains several errors, the first of which is that I am president of Military Reporters & Editors. I was president of MRE until 5th annual conference last month in Chicago. He'd have known that if he had bothered to check the MRE website,

Mr. Fumento is correct in calling the small number of embeds in Iraq grotesque. But he wrong in saying "the MSM Baghdad press corps," as he refers to the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Cox and the major broadcast networks, among others, "bizarrely believes it can cover a country of 26 million people" by relying on stringers, e-mail and phones. I know a few of those mainstream media people and none of them has ever suggested such a thing. So just where did he come up with this notion? Did Mr. Fumento interview any of those reporters now working on their own in Baghdad?

If so, he ought to share their comments with us to support his case.

It is my belief that the media must do better than the bombing-of-the-day story if Americans are to have any idea of the dimensions of this war in Iraq. That is why MRE is working with other war correspondents and military officers to develop a better embed process. But I take exception to his suggestion that these Baghdad journalists "may as well be back in the States" is idiotic. It implies that they never get out and that they and their Iraqi employees never take risks. Anyone who has worked as a unilateral damned well knows better.

A careful look at my views on the subject of the media's problems with embedding, including a read of my blogs on www.mysanantonio.com, will reveal that I have never placed the blame for the lack of embeds in Iraq solely on the military. There are many factors, particularly the belief among some editors I know that the benefits of reporting on Iraq either as embeds or unilaterals is not worth the risk. Cost is another critical factor. If you work on your own in Baghdad, you now will need a security team and, perhaps, an armored vehicle. While Mr. Fumento underestimates the cost of flying to Kuwait and Jordan by using a Washington-to-Amman/Kuwait flight model (many reporters who might go there live far from National and Dulles), he skips right over the most expensive parts of such a tour for non-embeds.

I'm familiar with those costs because I have run up the bills.

The embed process is laborious, and could be much improved, and the Rhino Runner armored bus to the Green Zone - as the Iraqis have long called it - does indeed run only at night. It ran during the day in July 2004, but did not during my tour last summer. For more on how we got from the airport to the Green Zone because of the Rhino's odd hours, go the San Antonio Express-News' Military City blogs. There's a good story on what photographer Nicole Fruge and I had to do in order to meet the U.S. adviser to Anbar province's governor.

And as to the CPIC identification badge, it was not accepted on numerous occasions at dining halls at Balad Air Base in August and early September. The armed Ugandan guards who control entry to the dining halls consistently refused to allow us in, referring to a large white binder that included all of the badges that were accepted, and then pointing out that ours was not. They were sticklers for the rules in that regard, but in one case a specialist ordered the guard to let us in. Mr. Fumento might have known that if he had called or e-mailed me.

That's the real problem here. In sharing his opinions with us, he failed to do his homework.

His many errors are the only reason I am responding to his column at all.

I've been to Iraq four times and know something of life as both an embed, first with the 3rd Infantry Division during the invasion, and also as a unilateral working out of several hotels in Baghdad. I also know a little something about journalism and the issues there. The next time Mr. Fumento writes a column about me, he ought to do the bare minimum and read some of my work. He might also call me. That would be a good start in offering an informed opinion.
- Sig Christenson
Immediate past president and co-founder,
Military Reporters & Editors
Military writer, San Antonio Express-News

Another writer:

I wish to correct an error in the Fumento story.

"Christenson even insists that once an embed receives his press pass, 'The problem with going through hell to get that card is it won't get you into the KBR dining hall on any forward operating base in Iraq.' Wrong again. That press pass gets you into any chow hall in Iraq."

A press ID most certainly will not grant access to ANY chow hall in Iraq -- KBR or otherwise. The originators comment was about DFACs on the FOBs, and a press pass may very well gain them that access...but only if they're allowed on post. In the north, if you don't have a CAC card, (DoD ID card), then you're not getting past the front door of the main DFAC - all the contractors scurrying about have to make their own arrangements for food (KBR being the exception of course).

However, a lot of KBR "chow halls" (and the best) aren't located on the FOBs and those are the places that the press would love to gain access. The REOs. For two years I watched press personnel try and scheme their way into the main compound in the IZ [International Zone in Baghdad] only to find they had to be under watch 24/7 and even then - no chow hall or accommodation. Now I'm at another location serviced by KBR and again, Press passes aren't acceptable forms of ID to the soldiers at the entrances.

Likely because no one wants the press around. War is the business of kills - for both trooper and contractor alike. The media makes it socially unacceptable to like what you're doing out here.

Anyway, I'm off the soapbox now, but I would like to say that I do very much like the article.
- James H.

Michael Fumento replies:

Let's start with this press pass-chow hall thing, which really makes me wonder if we aren't talking about two different Iraqs. I have eaten at chow halls at six different bases and two major Forward Operating Bases (FOBs). Three of the bases were in the north. On my last trip, I forgot my pass at FOB Blue Diamond in Ramadi but it was enough to have a sergeant vouch for me. I did eat at the main compound in the IZ last year by simply flashing my press card - no scheming necessary. I also ate at the Baghdad embassy compound in the IZ and stayed in a transient tent in the IZ before I got credentialed. It should go without saying that you have to be allowed on post to be allowed in the chow hall.

Nor have I heard any other embed I've met in Iraq complain about access to chow. A frequently embedded reporter in Iraq whom I met this last trip, Andrew Lubin, told me the only time he was turned away from a chow hall was because he wasn't wearing a collared shirt. As I write this, I've just received an email from Spc. Jon Hernandez at Camp Victory, near Baghdad's airport. "As a member of a convoy team here in Iraq it is my duty to transport people and equipment around Baghdad and to guard the Dining Facility (DFAC)," he writes. "Our favorite mission is the airport because [the airport road] is indeed safe, and we have never denied a member of the press access to our dining facility - to say otherwise is outright deception."

Regarding Christenson's side of this complaint, he originally wrote: "The problem with going through hell to get that [press] card is it won't get you into the KBR dining hall on any forward operating base in Iraq." (Emphasis mine.) That means nowhere, from nobody, at no time. Now he changes that to "not accepted [from him, that is] on numerous occasions at dining halls at Balad Air Base in August and early September," blaming it on the Ugandan guards. Yes, the Ugandans are a pain in the butt and they've stopped me. I grabbed an officer to vouch for me and in I went. Embeds without that much initiative don't belong in a combat zone.

Mea culpa on not catching that Christenson is no longer MRE president as of a few weeks ago. But since I quoted Christenson's statements from the MRE site, it's rather obvious I did read it.

My "notion" about the MSM Baghdad Brigade was the subject of a 5,000-word article I wrote and to which I linked in the TAS article. It speaks not well of Christenson that he either didn't click it or ignored what he read. I not only made my case separately, but offered the following: "The London Independent's Robert Fisk has written of 'hotel journalism,' while former Washington Post Bureau Chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran has called it 'journalism by remote control.' More damningly, Maggie O'Kane of the British newspaper The Guardian said: 'We no longer know what is going on, but we are pretending we do.'" I also noted the New York Review of Books did a whole article on Baghdad hotel journalism.

Christenson says I "underestimate the cost of flying to Kuwait and Jordan" because I use D.C.-area airports as the starting point. Never mind my noting that he said it cost $2,000 to fly commercial from the States into Baghdad when there are no U.S-Iraq commercial flights. In the event, a one-stop from LAX to Jordan or a two-stop from Christenson's San Antonio are both still less than $1,500 and some fares are below $1,000.

Yes, the Rhino only runs at night. If you get in early and don't catch a helo, it's a long wait. But as with those allegedly monstrous embed applications, again if you haven't got what it takes to put up with this why go to Iraq instead of staying home and eating bon-bons? Sherman was certainly right: War is heck.

Military Unfairly Blamed for Embed Problem

By Michael Fumento

All Americans, whatever their views on the Iraq war, have an interest and a right to know what's really happening there. Embeds provide a unique perspective, going in with the troops themselves rather than trying to cover a country the size of California from hotels in Baghdad. Yet Iraqi embeds have almost become extinct. Some recently have blamed the military for this, but much of the blame actually goes to the media itself. Read about it in my new American Spectator article, "Military Unfairly Blamed for Embed Problem."

Did bin Laden win the election?

By Michael Fumento

In Mark Steyn's new column, "Hyperpower hiatus," he writes "What does it mean when the world's hyperpower, responsible for 40 percent of the planet's military spending, decides it cannot withstand a guerrilla war with historically low casualties against a ragbag of local insurgents and imported terrorists?" Let's be more specific. In the taking of the small island of Iwo Jima in 1945, the subject of a current film, the U.S. suffered almost 7,000 dead in a few weeks. The country had half the population it does now, therefore this was equivalent to 14,000 dead back then. In the Battle of Normandy the U.S. alone lost 29,000 men or today's equivalent of 58,000. In the Iraq conflict to date, fewer than 3,000 Americans have died over a period approaching four years. Therefore, says the new party in power in Congress, we must withdraw soon and with no chance of victory by anybody's definition except, of course, the Islamists'. Thank God we didn't have our present gutlessness during World War II, else the Germans and Japanese would have divided up the world. God help us that such gutlessness has descended upon us today. The Islamists have made it clear that they, too, would like to own the world.

Photo tribute to fallen SEAL Mike Monsoor

By Michael Fumento

Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor (right) during a fight in the Mulaab, Ramadi

"When you did your patrol with SEAL Team 3 a few months back I was really pleased to see some of the great pictures and accounts that you brought back with you. I even put one of your pictures (2 SEALs kneeling against a graffiti littered wall, one with a 10" M4 and one with a machine gun) on my Blackberry to have a constant reminder about my comrades in combat. A few weeks ago, I attended the memorial service for Michael Monsoor who shielded a grenade blast from hitting 3 other SEALs. His platoon put together a photo/video tribute to him and right in the middle of it flashed your photo of Mike with his MG kneeling beside that wall. I pulled my Blackberry out of my belt and showed it to my buddies sitting with me and they were astonished. That photo had really been an inspiration before Mike gave his life, but it means so much more now. Good on ya for making those embed trips to Ramadi, I'll probably be heading over sometime next year myself."

Here's a clip of Monsoor in action, though I blurred the video at the request of the SEALs to protect their identities. View the video.

And here's another photo of Monsoor, again at right.

Sometimes I really wonder why I go to Iraq. Other times, I know.

They're not real war correspondents but they play them on TV

By Michael Fumento

I've posted an extended version of my article in the current National Review on "The Baghdad Brigade," reporters who pretend they can and are covering the war throughout Iraq from the IZ and hotel rooms in Baghdad. It shows the incredible lengths they go through to show that they really are rough and tough war correspondents when in fact they may as well be covering the war from New York or Washington. It shows why, political bias aside, the media CANNOT properly cover the Iraq war.

(I'm working on other Iraq articles as well, including the main one tentatively titled "Retaking Ramadi.")

Michael Fumento has paid for this trip entirely out of pocket, including roundtrip airfare to Kuwait, hotels in Kuwait, war insurance, and virtually all his gear. Please support him via PayPal Donate or Amazon Honor System via the logos below.

Navy close air support in Ramadi

By Michael Fumento

A Navy F-18 Hornet provides close air support to A Company, 1/506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division at ECP-8 in eastern Ramadi. It fires two missiles, comes around, and fires two more. Video is courtesy of Sgt. Steve Campbell of A Company.

Michael Fumento has paid for this trip entirely out of pocket, including roundtrip airfare to Kuwait, hotels in Kuwait, war insurance, and virtually all his gear. Please support him via PayPal Donate or Amazon Honor System via the logos below.

Video of Attack on "The Ramadi Inn" or OP Hotel

By Michael Fumento

In my "New Band of Brothers" article in the Weekly Standard I wrote of the attack on OP Hotel, now jokingly called "The Ramadi Inn," in the Industrial Area, one of the sectors for which 1/506th is responsible. "In a video a soldier showed me on his laptop, enemy soldiers attacked observation posts on the building. They poured in fire as a diversion, while a dump truck packed with explosives sped towards the structure. The tactic failed. The GIs (from 2-69th Armor of the 3rd Infantry Division) shot up the truck, which exploded in a massive ball of orange flame. Concussions all around, but no Americans were seriously hurt. To look at the hotel now, though, it seems like one good hard breath would knock it over."

"The Ramadi Inn" as it looks today.

Michael Fumento has paid for this trip entirely out of pocket, including roundtrip airfare to Kuwait, hotels in Kuwait, war insurance, and virtually all his gear. Please support him via PayPal Donate or Amazon Honor System via the logos below.