Division Street

Army needs to do the math

By DENNIS ANDERSON
Valley Press Editor

Fallujah is a crummy suburb of Baghdad on the way out from Baghdad International Airport, formerly Saddam Hussein International. Tirkit is, of course, Tikrit, the home town of the monster.

The monster is dead or nearly dead, but not quite.

If alive, Saddam is groaning around somewhere, the equivalent of Hitler staggering around in the bunker.

His nasty offspring Oudai is trying to figure out how to surrender but keep his perks, like teenage rape victims and all the nose candy he snorted while torturing athletes who didn't measure up to his high standards.

Meanwhile, the rump Nazi holdouts for this thug regime are taking shots at, and too often killing GIs who have the thankless duty of trying to settle the dust of war in the crappiest neighborhoods in Iraq.

Right now it is something of a scandal that "higher command" hasn't shut this problem down.

The idea that a dozen GIs have been killed by thugs in Iraq in the last two weeks is, or certainly should be, a national scandal.

Tikrit? What can we say about Tikrit?

It's a hometown for thugs and spawned the likes of Saddam Hussein.

Fallujah?

It is a spot on a map that U.S. soldiers must pass through.

The National Guard troops from the Antelope Valley convoy through Fallujah almost daily.

They have arrived and departed just before and after the ambushes that claimed the lives of other American soldiers.

Imagine being the mother or father who gets an official telegram saying "We regret to inform …"

A couple of solutions come to mind on Fallujah and Tikrit. About 98% of the land mass and populated area of Iraq is in solid U.S.-U.K. coalition custody.

The U.S.-U.K. coalition is administering a just peace as we help the people of Iraq dig out from the war that Saddam brought down on their house.

It is the henchmen and minions of Saddam who are still killing GIs.

These henchmen are not soldiers but they are ambush artists.

Of course, if we can, we should catch 'em and kill 'em all, not necessarily in that order.

But other things come to mind.

Not one U.S. Marine has died to hostile fire since so-called "major combat" ended in Iraq.

Neither has one British "Desert Rat."

The U.S. Army "higher" should take a page from the book of these other services. Also, if the trouble is coming from two quite specific places, it is those two places that should receive the greatest amount of attention.

If Fallujah cannot abide peaceably with a just peace, we might consider issuing an evacuation order, then crater the place and pave it over.

The peaceable citizens of Iraq want what Americans want. They want enough food, water, electricity and gasoline to live a decent life. Freedom, most important of all.

Those who have no need of a decent life should get their next fair shot at fun in the next life, but not at the expense of the lives of our GIs. Anyone who fails to give this the highest priority in Central Command should get the duty of having to deliver the telegrams.