S2Focus

It also should be noted that the tipster was the owner of the house! So the military guys certainly had a good idea of what was in there.

I'm not about to fault the soldiers for doing what they did -- they were doing the job they were trained for, and they simply followed orders. IOW, they were being good soldiers. The kill vs. capture decision was almost certainly made at the very top of the food-chain (by one of Bush's bosses). I'll bet that Karl Rove was the one who told Bush to pass along the order.

(P.S. What a deal for the owner of that house!! He's stuck with a couple of annoying house guests from hell that he can't get rid of, and then along come some friendly folks who tell him that they'll pay him 30 million clams for the privilege of helping him evict his unwanted visitors!).

Zephyrus

Well, the thread had turned to the question of whether capturing them would have reaped an intelligence bonanza, and we had one poster arguing that they exhibited a great religious fanatacism and would have never have given up an ounce of information. In that context, I see my remark as appropriate, considering that it relates to demonstrating there was no evidence that they were as described.

However, I never attempted to make a larger judgement aside from the point of whether they were fanatics or not. Basically, I felt that yes, they would have provided a good deal of information such as the whereabouts of Saddam. I don't think anyone claims that it's a bad thing per se that they're dead (at least, I'm not)--just that we would have reaped far more if we had taken them alive. And even though their immediate demise might satisfy the emotional desires of everyone (Iraqis and Americans both), that does not reflect that for practical reasons taking them alive would have been better.

Loren Pechtel

And how do you propose to get close enough to throw a flashbang? Or to take advantage of the situation once you threw it? Flashbangs give you a second or two for an assault team to enter, that's it.

The SwampThing

Flashbangs can be fitted to a grenade launcher, just like tear gas grenades. You can shoot it thru a window, and while they are "knocked out", you can get a team in. Anti-terrorrist teams are experts in those tactics. Just as most special forces.
You can even throw in a sleeping gas, and leave them counting sheep!!
Just don´t over do it, like the russians did, in Moscow!!

If they wanted to get them alive, they were very well prepared and fitted to do so. But the order was "kill them", period.
:banghead:

Arken

According to the retired military advisors on CNN Sunday, this operation would not have been mounted without a lot of careful preparation and planning involving hours of strategy work which indicates to me that there never was a suggestion to take them alive.

Morat

The windows were covered. The only open route was up a stair. Which is why it was somewhat stupid to go up the stairs.

From what I understand, the military (certainly SWAT and Special Forces) prefers to enter via a route no one has thought of, and avoids entering through a heavily defended entrance at all costs.

So going up the stairs was a little odd. Blowing holes in the walls or ceilings, tossing through flashbangs, and dropping in that way....that's more the usual speed.

Darwin26

...them Israeli Swats coulda done it ....Oh what's that

They just wanted the pictures,

...if either one of them would have been hit by a 50 cal. i doubt they'd a shown it ... they used fragmenting devices to keep the carnage to a picturesque family show rating.

thank you Donald,

Those Corpes will look killer mounted up on the war room walls... or maybe in your home... i'm sure these pics will make it to the gradeschool classroom...but not the terrible suffering of the innocents, from 10 years of economic warfare.
Wonder why you can't show the faces of dead mothers from collateral damage...

CALDONIA

Is anyone naive enough to believe that the killing of the Hussein sons was an event confined to the battle scene, that the intelligence that revealed their whereabouts (in the villa) was not passed on to the HIGHEST LEVEL OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT? If our chief executive passed on the order that they be taken alive is there any doubt that such a result would have been achieved?

They were paraded as war trophies for domestic politics, the idea being that after three weeks of intensive criticism about the whole Iraq scene, "progress" had to be shown to quiet the uproar.

This administration considers NOTHING divorced from politics.

To speak of the assault against murderous Iraqi icons like the sons of Hussein as an issue of tactics and munitions is like comparing the capture of Hermann Goering to that of wiping out a Wehrmacht machine gun nest. Look at the big picture.

Loren Pechtel

What would be the point in a flashbang on a grenade launcher? They only give you a second or two, if you're not right behind them you just wasted the grenade.

The only reason I can see to use a grenade launcher is if the team shooting them is not the team doing the assault. The assault team still has to get right up there, though. Against a well-defended building this is impossible.

BDS

Here's a link to today's William Rasberry Column in the Washington Post, addressing this very issue:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jul27.html