Pass the ammunition...

I hope that Wretchard is right about current events.

And prophetic about future ones:

In the future many observations will be made of this battle: that the Al Qaeda timed their assaults to coincide with US unit rotations through Iraq; that they chose the moment when the baton is passing from US soldier to Iraqi policeman. But if the Iraqi nation goes on to live another hundred years, it will remember this:

Officers from the 82nd Airborne Division stationed a 10-minute drive away could hear the battle clearly. They offered help but the Hammad said it wasn't needed. The Americans did provide additional ammunition and weapons, including light machine guns. After the battle, soldiers at the civil defense base proudly displayed a light machine gun and a pair of rocket propelled grenade launchers they had captured from the attackers.

That when dying and bleeding, beset by the flower of terrorism, with pistol to set against automatic rifle and grenade, the Iraqi police did not ask for help from 82nd Airborne.

They asked for ammunition.

We have given the Iraqis a chance. The question now - and the most important question of the whole war - is whether they will take it and run with it.

I pray that they do. For their sake and ours.

- posted by total @ 2/15/2004 06:49:00 AM .