[« New, from Ford....] [Our Favorite Torturers... »]
12/06/2005: We learn from Reuters....
that the ten Marines killed in Fallujah last week were killed during a promotion ceremony, not while on patrol.
Ten U.S. Marines killed near the Iraqi city of Falluja last week had been at a promotion ceremony and were not on foot patrol as initially reported, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.The significance of this, as noted by Steve Gilliard:
The Marines were in a disused flour mill on the outskirts of the city to celebrate the promotion of three soldiers, a military statement said.
As the ceremony ended, the Marines dispersed and one of them is thought to have stepped on a buried pressure plate linked to explosives that caused the devastating blast.
Which means that the Marines couldn't secure a place they thought was safe and the resistance had a very good idea of when and where a large group of Marines would be. They might not have known about the ceremony, per se, but they knew they could kill a group of Marines in that spot.
Len on 12.06.05 @ 12:10 PM CST
