>>> The News: JAY KAY!
By staff writer Amir Blumenfeld
October 29, 2003
Welcome to my column, “The News: JAY KAY!” You'll have so much fun reading my article you won't mind the educational factor! Not since The Daily Show have kids been so inadvertently informed on the issues. Real news is in bold and what you really need to know follows. So gather 'round boys and girls, today's article is called:
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
BAGHDAD, Iraq – The U.S. occupation authority retreated from its headquarters Sunday after Iraqi insurgents, using a “science project” of a rocket launcher, attacked the heavily guarded hotel with a missile barrage that killed an American colonel, wounded 18 other people and sent the visiting deputy defense secretary scurrying for safety.
If you're anything like me, you couldn't even get through this “lead” sentence because it was too long. Allow me to break it down: shit went down in Iraq. What else is new. Nobody's dead, so don't sweat.
Paul Wolfowitz, the shaken-looking but unhurt Pentagon deputy, said the strike against the Al Rasheed Hotel, from nearly point-blank range, “will not deter us from completing our mission” in Iraq.
The guy in charge is all “we're still gonna fuck shit up. I don't care how many of our soldiers get hurt, we're still gonna fuck shit up.”
But the bold blow at the heart of the U.S. presence here clearly rattled U.S. confidence that it is defeating Iraq's shadowy insurgents.
Though we seem confident we're now scared. Probably because these primitive ayrabs are learning to use the weapons we gave them. Good going Davey Crockett!!
“We'll have to get the security situation under control,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told NBC's “Meet the Press.”
“Killing Americans isn't the best thing… as an American,” Colin Powell said.
The Bush administration knew postwar security would be a challenge, but “we didn't expect it would be quite this intense this long,” he said.
“We thought they would be all, like, tired and stuff. But they're, like, still killing our troops…and stuff…”
The assault was likely planned over at least the past two months, a top U.S. commander said, as the insurgents put together the improvised rocket launcher and figured out how to wheel it into the park just across the street from the hotel.
Basically, three fourth-graders with baking soda and an imagination could have plotted this attack and it still wounded 18 American soldiers. Our bad.
The effect of the 6:10 a.m. volley of rockets was dramatic: U.S. officials and officers fled from the Al Rasheed, some still in pajamas or shorts to a nearby convention center. The concrete western face of the 18-story building was pockmarked with a half-dozen or more blast holes, and windows shattered in at least two dozenrooms.
How proud was the author of this article that he got to use the word “pockmarked.” Webster doesn't even know what that word means. Granted he's dead, buuuuuut still.
The modern, 462-room Al-Rasheed, housing civilian officials of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority and U.S. military personnel, is a symbol of the occupation. The assault highlighted the vulnerability of even heavily guarded U.S. facilities in Iraq, where American forces sustain an average of 26 lower-profile attacks daily, and where Wolfowitz came to assess ways to defeat the stubborn 6-month-old insurgency.
Indeed.
A day earlier, a rocket-propelled grenade forced down a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter north of Baghdad, the 4th Infantry Division confirmed Sunday. The incident occurred just hours after Wolfowitz left that area on the second day of his three-day visit. One soldier was injured.
Why are they still calling helicopters “black hawk”!?!? That's like calling every blimp “The Hindenberg” or every black person “Whoopi Goldberg.” Not cool. Also, “Eddie” was an okay movie.
The U.S. command said the wounded included seven American civilians, four U.S. military personnel and five non-U.S. civilians working for the coalition. Two Iraqi security guards also were hurt. The command did not immediately identify the dead American, but Wolfowitz said he was a U.S. colonel.
I mean like it was an “okay” movie in that I like basketball and stuff, it just wasn't very believable is all.
A senior FBI ( news -web sites ) official said the bureau, the Defense Department, the State Department and Iraqi police were all involved in the investigation. Wolfowitz and his aides were very close to the area of the hotel that was struck, but there was no indication the attack was directed at Wolfowitz, the Pentagon said.
Yes, I'm sure the Iraqi's are plotting right now to attack “Wolfowitz.” They figure if they get Wolfowitz our entire nation will crumble under they very fabric of security Wolfowitz has provided for all these years. Also, WHO THE FUCK IS WOLFOWITZ?!?!
Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey of the 1st Armored Division said he believed the insurgents timed the attack with the lifting this weekend of an overnight curfew in Baghdad and the reopening of a main city bridge.
Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey of the 1st armored division to some. But to me, he will always be Marty.
Iraqi police said the attacker or attackers boldly drove a white Chevrolet pickup to the edge of the city's main Zawra Park and Zoo, just 400 yards southwest of the hotel, towing what looked like a portable, two-wheeled generator.
A Chevrolet pick up!? Now it's personal. Do they have license plates in Iraq? How ridiculous would that be? Very.
A police commander said on condition of anonymity that when security guards approached, the assailants drove off, but rockets within the blue trailer apparently had been set to fire via a timer and suddenly ignited, flashing toward the hotel, a clear shot looming just over the treetops.
You gotta give it to those Iraqi's. I mean, I also have seen Oceans 11 like twenty times, but I guarantee I wouldn't be able to build a timered rocket. But sometimes life isn't fair, and I'm just going to have to deal.
“When he saw us, he fled,” guard Jabbar Tarek said of the driver. The guards weren't armed, Tarek said, or “I would have fired on him.”
Jabbar? Ahahha! Was his name Jabbar the hut!? Or like… Kareem Abdul Jabbar! I've had it up to here with his Jibber Jabbar! Jabbar the talking elephant!? Ahahah, oh man, Iraqi's have wacky names.
In conclusion, Iraqi's aren't as stupid as we take them for. I bet even the dirty ones can build cooler looking rockets than you or I. *wipes tear* “Jabbar”…oh man that's gold.