Kimmitt: Fallujah will be just like Baqubah
On the killing of the US security personnel in Fallujah on Wednesday: ‘ GEN. KIMMITT: What I’m suggesting is that there is an incident that happened yesterday. It’s going to color the way that the town of Fallujah is looked at by the military authorities responsible for that region. They’re going to sit down, they’re going to plan the appropriate actions. It will be a combination of what we call kinetic and non-kinetic options. Kinetic — combat operations. Non-kinetic — rebuilding, civil military operations. They’re doing that planning now. I don’t know at what point, and it probably doesn’t matter at what point in the near future that goes in — they go in, but they will go in, and just as they have done in so many other towns like Fallujah — six months ago Samarra was a hotspot, Tikrit was a hotspot, Baqubah was a hotspot, and patient application of kinetic and non-kinetic combat power over time has proven to be the best measure for bringing these cities along. ‘
Baqubah? Pacified? Just a quick Lexis search turned up some evidence to the contrary.
Bloomberg Mar. 31: ‘ Two bodyguards for the governor of Diyala province and three bystanders were hurt in Baqubah in a car bombing today that killed the attacker, the U.S. said. The governor wasn’t hurt, when the bomb went off next to his vehicle. ‘
AP Mar. 27 ‘ On Friday the Pentagon announced that Spc. Adam D. Froehlich, 21, of Pine Hill, N.J., died Thursday in Baqubah from injuries sustained when his patrol was hit by such a bomb, which the military calls an improvised explosive device. ‘
Wire Services Mar. 18 ‘ Meanwhile north of Baghdad in Baqubah, an unidentified group killed three Iraqi journalists working for the new television channel created by the U.S. occupation forces ‘
AP Feb 26: ‘ A bomb planted in a police vehicle that was parked outside a restaurant killed an Iraqi police officer and wounded eight other people north of Baghdad on Thursday, the latest deadly attack on Iraqi security forces. A group of policemen were having lunch in the restaurant in the city of Baqouba, 50 kilometers north of Baghdad when the explosive was apparently slipped into the vehicle. ‘
AP Jan. 29: ‘ A roadside bomb exploded Thursday in a central Iraqi city in the volatile Sunni Triangle, wounding five people, police said. The bomb was placed on a road near a sports stadium in Baqouba and exploded during the morning rush hour, Iraqi police Capt. Mohammed Saleh said. He said five Iraqi civilians were wounded. ‘