April, 2003

Iraq War - Fighting a War without Identifying the Enemy

11/19/2006

- April 1, 2003: Accidental deaths continued to be the hallmark of George Bush's mistaken war on terror. In Iraq today, Karl Shearer, 24, of the British Cavalry, was killed in an accident as his armored Scimitar vehicle overturned when it slid down a crumbling bank. He was married with a three-year-old daughter. Alexander Tweedie, 25, of Scotland was mortally wounded in the same crash but he would suffer through the end of the month.

Karl Shearer's parents joined 16 other British families who had lost sons and husbands in Iraq. They signed the following open letter of grievance to their government.

"When enlisting, servicemen and women sign an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty's government. All they ask in return is that their government acts in an honourable, truthful, and responsible manner, and only deploys troops into the theatre of war to risk their lives when absolutely necessary.

We now believe that our Prime Minister, Tony Blair, misled the people of this country as to the true reasons for the war in Iraq. We believe that there was no serious evidence for WMD. We also believe that the assurances given by the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, as to the legality of the war are highly questionable.

This is why we are calling for a full, independent and effective public inquiry into the decision to go to war in Iraq. We ask you to support our call. We must restore accountability to public life. Our loved ones deserve justice, and the people of this country deserve the truth.

Reg and Sally Keys Parents of Lance Corporal Thomas Keys
Rose and George Gentle Parents of Fusilier Gordon Gentle
John and Marilyn Miller Parents of Corporal Simon Miller
Tony Hamilton-Jewell Brother of Sergeant Simon Hamilton-Jewell
Peter Brierley Father of Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley
Anna Aston Wife of Corporal Russell Aston
George and Ann Lawrence Parents of Lieutenant Marc Lawrence
Tracey Pritchard Wife of Corporal Dewi Pritchard
Patricia Long Mother of Corporal Paul Long
Sharon Hehir Wife of Sergeant Les Hehir
Lianne Seymour Wife of Operator Mechanic 2nd Class Ian Seymour
Debbie Allbutt Wife of Corporal Stephen Allbutt
Theresa Evans Mother of Lance Bombardier Llywelyn Karl Evans
Roy and Eileen Shearer Parents of Lance Corporal Karl Shearer
Richard and Karen Green Parents of Lieutenant Philip Green
Beverley Clarke Mother of Trooper David Clarke
James and Rae Craw Parents of Corporal Andrew Craw"

- April 1, 2003: Joe Maglione, 22, was killed in a "non-combat weapon discharge" in Camp Coyote, Kuwait.

Jacob Butler, 24, an American soldier, died when Muslims fired a rocket-propelled grenade into his vehicle in Samawah, Iraq and then proceeded to unload their assault rifles on him. It was not the welcoming party George Bush had imagined.

As he was leaving his camp for the last time, Jacob told the guard, "Keep the gate open. We'll be back in five minutes." One of his comrades wrote: "I was there with you at the Alamo on April 1st. I saw many things that day that you should know about. Robert Morgan, a good friend of mine, was one of three who helped to carry you in to the CCP. Medic Kerns gave you air because you could not breath on your own. In the street, I watched one of your soldiers yelling for another Humvee to go back and avenge your death."

Jacob Butler's Infantry Battalion ran into heavy opposition near a bridge that crossed the Euphrates River. When scouts were sent out in unarmored Humvees they became easy prey. Jacob Butler was killed in his Humvee when he tried to rescue a wounded observer who had gone out before him.

- April 2, 2003: There is evidence to suggest that 500 pound laser-guided bombs and Cobra attack helicopters destroyed multiple Iraqi tracked vehicles near al-Taniyah and al-Aziziyah, killing 43 members of the Republican Guard.

- April 2, 2003: Nathan White, 30, is said to have ejected from his F/A18-C near Kerbala. White's family was told that their son, their brother, was missing. His status would remain that way for eleven days, but when his remains were finally found he went from missing to dead.

Nathan's family wanted to know: "how he had died, had he really ejected, did his parachute open, had he lived for hours after bailing out, had he been tortured by terrible people?" But they didn't want to hear the most stunning news of all. They were told: "his jet may have been brought down by a United States Patriot missile. He died instantly upon impact."

- April 2, 2003: Eric Smith, 41, Mike Pederson 26, Scott Jamar, 32, James Adamouski, 29, Mat Boule, 22, and Erik Halvorsen, 40, were killed when their UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed in central Iraq. The incident remains under investigation. Erik Halvorsen was considered a great pilot so the most likely cause of the crash was sand injected in the turbine engine. According to the Pentagon, the crash was not the result of hostile fire. It was as if this whole war was swallowed up in a blur of sand and darkness.

James Adamouski told his parents, "The Black hark is the safest helicopter the Army has." He was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and he had been accepted into Harvard Business School.

Mike Pedersen's parents were listed third on the stunning press release from Military Families Speak Out. We will review their concerns in a moment. Lila Lipscomb, Mike Pederson's mom, was the mother featured in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. While I am repulsed by Moore's politics, I found his documentary to be an accurate portrayal of the deceptions which led to the disaster we are witnessing. If you have not seen it, do the troops a favor and watch it.

- April 2, 2003: Chris Gurtner, 19, of Ohio City, Ohio was killed in a friendly fire incident when a weapon was accidentally discharged in Southern Iraq.

Brian Anderson, 26, of Durham, North Carolina was killed in a vehicle accident west of Nasiriyah. He was electrocuted while manning a .50 caliber machine gun on top of a 7-ton truck when the vehicle passed under a low-hanging power line, snagging it. He grabbed the power line to push it over the gun and his head. He lost consciousness immediately and died en route to a medical facility.

Friends said of Brian: "He was always willing to give a hand, his time, or his money. He just wanted to help." Since Anderson was an administrative clerk, he marveled that he was on the front lines of the war. I marvel, too, but not in the same way.

Inclusive of these needless tragedies, it means that 12 of the first thirteen troop fatalities in April were the result of accidents and friendly fire. Mishaps were now responsible 72% of coalition casualties. Mistaking Muslims for friends claimed the remaining 28%.

- April 2, 2003: Members of the fundamentalist Islamic gang terrorizing Northern Iraq, Ansar-al-Islam, killed George Fernandez, 36, of El Paso, Texas. When the master sergeant's small special operations team was surrounded by these Muslim militants, and hope of survival dimmed, Fernandez jumped into his Humvee and drove directly into enemy lines. The distraction created an opportunity for his comrades to escape. Reports from the battle suggest that up to one hundred mujahideen were killed.

George Fernandez heroism left his 16-month-old son without a father and his young wife Kathy a widow. Not one American in a million knows his name or what he did for his men.

- April 3, 2003: Russell Rippetoe, 27, of Arvada, Colorado, Nino Livaudais, 23, of Ogden, Utah, and Ryan Long, 21, of Seaford, Delaware were murdered by a suicidal Muslim car bomber who detonated himself at a checkpoint southwest of the Hadithah Dam. The severity of the trauma their bodies endured is almost unfathomable. Death by suicide bomber is unique to Islam. Moreover, it is a religious and civilian enterprise.

Captain Edward Korn, 31, of Savannah, Georgia was killed by "friendly fire" as he investigated the wreckage of an Iraqi tank. Most of the Iraqi troop transports, tanks, rocket launchers, and artillery pieces destroyed by the American military in this invasion were abandoned and sitting motionless before they were ultimately decommissioned.

Wilbert Davis, 40, of Hinesville, Georgia (or Alaska according to the DoD) was killed when his vehicle ran off the road and into a canal.

Chad Bales, 20, of Coahoma, Texas was also killed in a "non-hostile vehicle accident." He was part of a convoy east of Ash Shahin, Iraq. Details of the accident remain sketchy, but blowing sand and zero visibility were probably contributing factors. In his last call home, his mother said, "The wind was shipping up. Static crackled on the line. The last thing he told me was, ‘If you think we have bad sandstorms back home in Texas, you ought to see this.' Then the line went dead." She cried herself to sleep that night knowing that she never got to say goodbye.

- April 3, 2003: Erik Silva, 22, of Holtville, California died when his platoon was ambushed by armed Iraqi civilians. George Bush used a reference to Cpl. Silva's death in a speech, even though all his Defense Department would say about him was that he was "Killed in action in Iraq." That aside, if you'll consider George W. Bush's words carefully, you'll hear his confession: "Sometimes it breaks me up how much they sacrificed for us, or at least for me personally," Bush said in an emotionally charged speech.

- April 3, 2003: Randall Rehn, 36, and Don Oaks, 20, were "killed in action in Iraq" today but there isn't a hint as to where, how, or why from the officials who had sent them into harm's way. The Department of Defense announced that their bodies were identified and that an investigation was underway to determine what had happened.

The fact that the Pentagon's press release included Todd Robbins as one of the "identified bodies" associated with "this open investigation" strongly suggests that Randall Rehn and Don Oaks were killed in the same friendly fire incident that claimed Todd Robbins' life. Rehn, Oaks, and Robbins were all assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 13th Field Artillery Regiment, for Multiple Launch Rocket Systems out of Fort Still. They all died the same day and in the same place.

By reading Defense Department press releases you would think that Todd Robbins, 32, of Pentwater, Michigan was killed by the Iraqi military fighting for Saddam Hussein. But that is not accurate. While manning a Patriot missile launcher, Todd Robbins' Bradley Fighting Vehicle was bombed by an Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle. Sadly, Americans had killed three more Americans.

Randy Rehn, who was one of them, yearned for what his country took from him. He wanted to come home and hug his wife Raelynn and their infant daughter Megan, just 7-months old. "I hope this is the last time I have to leave my family," he wrote in a letter. "See ya' in August."

Fortunately, Todd Robbins' family cared enough about their son to investigate the actual cause of his death. They joined an organization devoted to exposing the real murderer: George Herbert Walker Bush.

At the bottom of a press release which Dale and Anne Robbins coauthored on behalf of their son, Sergeant Todd James Robbins, you'll find that despite the personal anguish, they remain dedicated to awakening America to an ugly truth.

United States Senate Report Confirms: Iraq War Based on Lies.

Military Families Demand an Immediate End to the War and Ask: How Can You Ask a Soldier to be the Last to Die for a Lie?

7/12/2004

Military Families Speak Out:

While the Senate continues to debate the issue of blame for the false information that was used to justify the war in Iraq, the fact remains that the two primary justifications - Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq - have been shown by the Senate report to be without merit.

To date, 887 U.S. troops; 60 troops from the UK; 60 from other ‘coalition' forces and over ten thousand Iraqi men, women and children have been killed as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March, 2003.

Military Families Speak Out is an organization of more than 1,500 military families with loved ones who have been killed in Iraq, who are serving in Iraq, who have been wounded physically and/or psychologically by the war in Iraq, and who may deploy or redeploy to Iraq. The group demands an immediate and personal apology by the Bush Administration to all those whose lives have been damaged by this war, beginning with those families in the U.S., in Iraq, and around the world who have lost loved ones as a result of this war based on lies. Furthermore, funds must be made available to assist poor families whose loved ones have been killed or wounded physically or psychologically by this war based on lies. Finally, Military Families Speak Out demands an immediate end to the war and the return of U.S. troops to their home duty stations.

Through their grief, military families who have suffered unbearable loss say: ‘not one more family should suffer what we have suffered, for a war that should never have happened, for a war based on lies.' Military Families Speak Out asks the United States Senate: ‘How can you ask a soldier to be the last to die for a lie?'

The following Military Families who have lost loved ones in Iraq are available for interview. Please call Katya Kruglak at 202-641-0277 to arrange a meeting.

- Jane and Jim Bright, West Hills, Calif., whose son SGT Evan Ashcraft, age 24, was killed in an ambush near Al Hawd on July 24, 2003.

- Mike and Roxanne Kaylor, Clifton, Va., whose son 1st. LT Jeff Kaylor, age 24, was killed in an explosion in Iraq on April 7, 2003

- Lila Lipscomb, Flint, Mich., whose son SGT Michael F. Pedersen, age 26, was killed in a Black Hawk crash that killed all six on board on April 2, 2003

- Nadia McCaffrey, Tracy, Calif., whose son SGT Patrick McCaffrey, age 34, was killed in an ambush in Balad on June 22, 2004

- Bill Mitchell, Atascadero, Calif., whose son SSG Michael W. Mitchell, age 25, was killed in Sadr City (Baghdad) on April 4, 2004.

- Sue Niederer, Pennington, N.J., who son 1st. LT. Seth Dvorin, age 24, was killed in Iraq on February 3, 2004

- Audrey Player, Silver Spring, Md., whose nephew Lance Cpl Todd Bolding, age 23, died June 3, 2004 of wounds received in hostile action in Al Anbar Province.

- Annette Pritchard, Oregon City (Portland), Ore., whose nephew PFC William Ramirez, age 19, was killed on February 12, 2004 by an improvised explosive device while on night patrol in Baghdad

- Dale and Anne Robbins, Pentwater, Mich., whose son SGT Todd James Robbins, age 33, was killed in action in Iraq on April 3, 2003. SGT. Todd Robbins' sister Renee Stratton is also available for interview.

- Cindy Sheehan and Carly Sheehan, Vacaville, Calif. Cindy Sheehan's son and Carly Sheehan's brother SPC Casey Austin Sheehan, age 24, was killed in an RPG attack in Sadr City on April 4, 2004

- Fernando Suarez del Solar, Escondido, Calif., whose son Lance Cpl Jesus Suarez del Solar Navarro, age 20, was killed in Iraq on March 27, 2003 after stepping on an American cluster bomb.

- Celeste Zappala, Philadelphia, Pa., whose son SGT Sherwood Baker, age 30, was killed in Baghdad on April 26, 2004. He died in a munitions explosion providing security for a unit looking for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

Military Families Speak Out: www.mfso.org & Bring Them Home Now: www.bringthemhomenow.org."

- April 3, 2003: Now that the dust had settled somewhat in Nasiriyah, local hospitals assessed the damage. They reported that between March 20th and April 6th, that between 859 and 873 civilians had been killed in air raids and firefights.

- April 3, 2003: The Department of Defense acknowledges that Mark Evnin, 21, of Burlington, Vermont was killed in a firefight near Kut, Iraq but you'd have to look long and hard to know who was shooting at him.

Upon further study, I learned that Mark was the first of two dozen Jewish American soldiers to die in Iraq. The Department of Defense told his mother: "Two Marines were with him when he was shot in the abdomen." Their letter read: "Mark Evnin died of wounds received in action."

But there is much more to the story of how Mark died. One of the Marines with Mark at the time filed this revealing report: "On the outskirts of Kut, Iraq the Marines drove slowly along a hardtop road, looking for a fight. There was nothing. Tanks led the way, shooting abandoned Iraqi tanks and artillery pieces parked in adjacent fields. The column passed along a palm grove to the right, when all hell broke loose." Please, read this opening paragraph again before you more on.

No longer in hell, the Marine reported what happened in third person: "A large group of Iraqi militia [thus armed civilians and not uniformed soldiers] had dug in and were waiting in ambush for the Americans. Behind fortified positions, they fired machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the Marines.

A platoon of Marines tumbled out of an armored vehicle to take up the fight. The sergeant major, Dave Howell, told Mark to get his grenade launcher and fire at positions to the rear of the grove. Smoke filled the palm grove and explosions thundered. Mark fired and fired at the bunkers in the back, his 40mm grenades making bright flashes in the sand as they exploded.

Mark stepped up to get a better position behind a mound when a machine gun opened up and raked the area. Mark caught two rounds in his lower belly, an inch or two below the protection of his Kevlar body armor. Howell pulled Mark to safety and called for a medic.

The two men worked on the young corporal while a med-evac was set up. Howell said Mark didn't bleed much, but he was ashen and shaky. The Marines loaded Mark into a Humvee and took him to the battalion aid station. A doctor treated him until a helicopter flew in to transport him to a surgical hospital. He bled to death before they landed."

Mark Evnin, a Jew, was killed by the Muslims he was trying to liberate.

- April 3, 2003: The Davao Airport in the Philippines was attacked by the Islamic Liberation Front. Muslims will not stop terrorizing the Philippine people until freedom of choice is abolished and the nation surrenders to Islam.

- April 3, 2003: American cluster bombs and other air strikes on Baghdad killed 27 Iraqi civilians. The prior day, 29 were killed the same way.

During this same period, American cluster bombs killed 22 Iraqi civilians in the Manaria, Talkana, and Zambrania villages.

- April 4, 2003: Palestinians fired several Qassem-1 Iranian rockets at the Jewish settlement of Netzarim. The militant al-Qassem Brigades, a wholly own subsidiary of HAMAS, claimed responsibility.

- April 4, 2003: Sergeant, 1st Class Paul Smith, 33, of Tampa, Florida, an engineer, was shot in the neck and killed while manning a .50 caliber machine gun. He was fending off an attack by 50 Iraqi soldiers near the Baghdad Airport making Paul the first American to die at the hands of Saddam Hussein's military. For his bravery, Smith was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the third soldier to receive the nation's highest award for valor since the Vietnam War.

I have never and will never question the character, dedication to duty, or bravery of the men and women sent into harm's way. My condemnations are directed at the politicians who sent them there. Sadly, Paul Smith is dead and the man who sent him into Iraq is still infecting the nation's capitol.

Private Mike Seaman, who was right next to Paul Smith when he died, reported: "It was a down day for Bravo Company - a chance to do some wash and get a haircut. Then things started going crazy. Shots were coming from every angle."

He said that twenty members of Smith's platoon got pinned down by this surprise attack and that the shots were being fired by Republican Guard troops inside the Baghdad Airport. Private Seaman reported: "Sergeant Smith grabbed the.50 caliber machine gun and starting shooting. Inside the personnel carrier, I loaded him up with a couple of cans of .50 cal ammo. All I was doing was feeding the ammo, and loading him up. He just kept saying, ‘Give me more ammo. Give me more ammo. I've got to get these guys out of here,' private Seaman reported. Everyone got out alive. Everyone but Sgt. Smith."

- April 4, 2003: Ben Sammis, 29, died when his AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter crashed near Ali Aziziyal. Travis Ford, 30, died with him. They were returning from a mission near Baghdad.

- April 4, 2003: Left to military sources, we wouldn't know who was shooting at Brian McPhillips, of Pembroke, Massachusetts, who was just 25, or at 22-year-old Bernard Gooden of Mt. Vernon, New York. The same would be true of Duane Rios, 25, of Hammond, Indiana. All the U.S. Department of Defense would tell us about them is that they "were killed in a firefight in Central Iraq." And I suppose that is because if you knew the who and the why behind their deaths, illusions of victory in Iraq would evaporate. Knowing who killed these good men and why their killers were there is a matter of life and death, of winning and losing, of knowing the truth or of remaining befuddled and confused.

So that you would know the truth, I found a contemporaneously crafted article (published 4/12/2003) by an embedded reporter who was actually on the scene when these three men were killed. Aptly entitled, "Thirty-five Minutes of Hell," the story of Hell's Militia was originally written by Jim Landers for the Dallas Morning News. His article forms the basis of what follows:

Dateline: TUWAYHAH, Iraq - There were dead dogs lying on the side of the road. Second Lieutenant Adam Markley peered at them from his tank. It was an odd sight. "It was like someone had used the dogs for target practice," he said. The scenery kept getting stranger as Charlie Company's tanks led the rapidly moving column of the Marine Corps' 2nd Tank Battalion into Tuwayhah, just a couple of miles south of Baghdad. Mounds of earth were piled along the highway. On the roofs of roadside shops sat the wrecked shells of cars, trucks, and even a bus. Their meaning was clear. They were intended as sniper nests, stretching the full length of the town.

As the column hit city center, an oil-filled trench boiled with flame and black smoke. Lieutenant Markley's tank, named "Devil's Advocate," was the first to pass through the smoke. It was high noon. "The fire pits were scary as shit," Adam said. "I didn't know what was on the other side."

It turns out that hell was waiting for them. A half dozen men - dressed in black robes and wearing black stocking masks - stood up on either side of the highway with rocket-propelled grenade launchers on their shoulders. When the first militant fired, his grenade hit Adam Markley's open turret hatch. The blast was deflected into the opening used by the tank's cannon loader. Corporal Bernard Gooden, a 22-year-old from Mt. Vernon, New York, was killed instantly.

That was how the ambush at Tuwayhah began. It would be the most difficult battle the 2nd Tank Battalion would face in the "war with Iraq." When it ended, three Americans were dead. Five others were seriously wounded, including the company's commander, Sam Houston.

The Marines' mission had been to find and kill the al Nida division of the Republican Guard. Masked gunmen in black robes was not what they had expected. Turns out, most of the robed men the Marines fought at Tuwayhah were not even Iraqis. The U.S. infantry who came into the town after the firefight found more than 100 bodies. They were Syrians, Egyptians, Yemenis and Lebanese. They had volunteered to fight with the Islamic terrorist organization Islamic Jihad. This enemy was Islam.

And this enemy, this religion, was well armed. There were enough assault rifles, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), machine guns, and other small arms in the town to outfit an entire Marine division. "There were 15 buildings' worth," said Lt. Col. Mike Oehl, the Battalion's commanding officer. "These were Islamic Jihad guys from all over the Muslim world. We have intelligence reports that they've been staying at the Sheraton in downtown Baghdad." Truth doesn't get any more relevant or obvious than this.

Fighting Muslim militias wasn't in the 2nd Tank Battalion's game plan. They were supposed to power through the liberated civilians of Tuwayhah in order to engage the Republican Guard divisions allegedly operating on the outskirts of Baghdad. However, the first Islamic Jihad RPG, the one that ricocheted off Lieutenant Adam Markley's turret hatch, and killed Bernard Gooden, changed all of that.

The first shot also blew away the lead tank's handheld GPS - their primary means of navigation. To make matters worse, the "Devil's Advocate's" radios failed, causing them to lose communication with the other tanks in Charlie Company. To add insult to injury, the tanks turret became inoperative because of a hydraulic-fluid leak. Then, just when it looked like nothing else could go wrong, Lieutenant Adam Markley was knocked senseless by another blast. As a result, he and the column following him missed their turn.

The men of the 2nd Tank Battalion call themselves "the Masters of the Iron Horse." Their preferred fighting strategy was to speed through enemy lines with guns blazing. So when the Iron Horse brigade hit Tuwayhah, they were flying.

Cruising along with the tanks were Marine Scouts and T.O.W.s - Humvees equipped with machine guns and wire-guided missiles. Intermingled among the tanks, they unloaded their .50 caliber machine guns on the Islamic Jihadists. A convoy of engineers brought up the rear.

Lance Corporal Billy Peixotto of McKinney, Texas, was driving Captain Houston's tank. It was named, "Let's Roll," as if there were a connection between 9/11 and this war. Billy reports that he personally witnessed the Scouts' Commander Lt. Brian McPhillips get hit, a mortal wound it would turn out. McPhillips was 25 years old, a Massachusetts native and a graduate of Providence College in Rhode Island. He had taken command of the Scouts platoon the previous day because the man he replaced had been severely wounded in another ambush.

"Scout Six is down," someone shouted over a battalion radio. Corporal Derric Keller, manning a machine gun in another Humvee, saw Brian McPhillips fall. Keller got his driver to speed up and pull along side the Lieutenant's Humvee and he jumped onboard. Derric Keller took over the vehicle's machine-gun post as the Scouts accelerated to get out of town.

By now there was trouble on Captain Sam Houston's tank. The fire warning light came on. "Keep on rolling," tank gunner Corporal Alfredo Ramirez hollered. But seconds later "Let's Roll" shut down. Uncle Sam's weapons of war hadn't been designed to fight a religion armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and suicide bombers.

The Islamic Jihad Muslims had pierced a fuel bladder hanging on the left side of "Let's Roll's" turret. The Marines use a JP8 fuel that doesn't explode like gasoline, but when the tank turret turned to fire, fuel poured from the bladder into the engine's air intake valve. That was all it took to bring the mighty high-tech machine to its knees.

Captain Houston's favorite war story involves his famed ancestor. That Sam Houston ordered a subordinate to pull an arrow from his leg so he could stay in command. Now it was time for this Capt. Houston to act heroically, too. "I've gotta go," Houston said. He jumped into another tank to keep the company moving. Lance Corporal Peixotto also climbed out, grabbing his 9 mm semiautomatic pistol. As they did so, Islamic Jihad fighters swarmed behind their mounds of dirt and beside the wounded tank.

Corporal Ramirez of Oceanside, California, went after them with the co-ax machine gun mounted beside the tank's cannon. Corporal Michael Ackerman, the tank loader from Riverside, California, fired the machine gun mounted on the loader's turret hatch. When that gun jammed, he picked up his M-16 rifle and his 9 mm pistol. It's hard to believe, but even in tanks, the U.S. Marine Corps was outgunned by a religious militia.

Captain Houston jumped back down from his adopted tank and ran to his original machine which was now inoperative. He grabbed a telephone housed in what's called "the grunt's box" on "Let's Roll's" rear and started talking. While on the phone, he was shot in the face. Lance Corporal Billy Peixotto ran to Houston.

Corporals Ramirez and Ackerman, busy trying to extinguish an engine fire, threw Billy Peixotto a compress bandage and some extra 9 mm clips for his pistol.

As Captain Dave Bardorf of Middletown, Rhode Island was driving past "Let's Roll" he saw Billy Peixotto working to protect his captain. "It was incredible," Bardorf said. "He was slowing the blood flow with one hand, laying fire on the enemy with the other, and directing fire from a radio another Marine held for him."

Corporal Peixotto said he went through eight or nine clips during the fight. "There was a lot of screaming, shooting and yelling," Billy said.

"It was one big firefight. It was like that game, you know, where the critter sticks his head up from one hole and you try to whack it before it comes back up in another one," said Lance Corporal Grant Hines of Marietta, Georgia who was driving "Devil's Advocate."

Inside that tank, Second Lieutenant Adam Markley regained consciousness. He slowly climbed out of his turret and tried to retrieve his maps. Corporal Julio Martinez of San Diego, the tank's gunner, helped restore the communications systems the RPG had knocked off line. He then tried to hand crank the tank's disabled turret so that he could aim and fire the co-ax machine gun using a manual trigger.

Without his GPS, Adam Markley had to ask another tank in his platoon to plot their location on the highway. When he realized where they were, he made an urgent radio call to Lieutenant Nicol. "We have to turn around! We missed our turn," Lieutenant Markley yelled. "We are only four clicks (kilometers) from Baghdad!"

The company's executive officer, First Lieutenant Charles Nicol, consulted with battalion command and ordered a halt. Now they had to accomplish one of the most complicated battle maneuvers a tank column can face - doubling back on itself while under fire.

It was then that an ambulance carrying battalion surgeon Bruce Webb reached "Let's Roll," Sam Houston's tank. Lieutenant Webb and others managed to get Houston inside the ambulance, but the Islamic Jihad militia didn't have any respect for their lifesaving attempts. They shot the ambulance driver, Cpl. Luke Holden, of Albany, New York through the hand he was holding on the steering wheel.

Navy Hospital Corpsman Thomas Smith of Brooklyn took over, driving the ambulance while holding a bandage on Luke's wounded hand. Some say that he was also firing his M-16 out the window, but that is perhaps the stuff of legend.

At the rear of Charlie Company's tanks was a platoon of Combat Engineers. Duane Rios, 25, from Hammond, Indiana was commanding a tracked infantry vehicle in this engineering platoon. Rios was firing from his turret when a bullet struck his M-16 rifle. "He was trying to clear the jam in his rifle when he was hit behind the ear by a sniper," said Combat Engineer Jonathan Derosier. He died quickly. Others say that the second shot only wounded Duane Rios, and that he was actually done in by a Muslim suicide bomber rather than the Islamic Jihad sniper.

At this point, with the Marine tank battalion in full retreat, and a hundred Islamic Jihadists dead, a CH-46 helicopter landed nearby to evacuate the wounded. But heavy fire continued. While waiting to be loaded into the rescue helicopter, the first ambulance driver, Corporal Holden, was shot again - this time in the other hand. Corpsman Smith helped treat that wound.

"It was probably the scariest moment of my life when our tank failed," said Billy Peixotto: "It was a near-death experience, I guess."

Duane Rios' life, like the others, was taken by an Islamic Jihadist who believed by killing him, he would be rewarded with multiple virgins in paradise. Duane's last words before he was blown up, were: "I just want to get out of here, go home and take a shower."

At Duane's funeral there was no separation between Christianity and patriotic fervor. In eulogizing Rios, the pastor said: "Sergeant Rios' stand is one that should make both lovers of God and lovers of liberty proud." Ignorant of the Word, he went on to claim: "Evil can never be banished by words and wishes. The only way to stop a bully is to stand up to him." The pastor, who was suggesting that the bully was Saddam rather than Islam, called the war "necessary," and "part of fulfilling God's plan." He said, "by dying in Iraq Duane made the world a better place." A Catholic priest sprinkled "holy water" on his body and "blessed Duane's spirit," not knowing that mortal men don't have spirits or that sprinkling holy water is a pagan ritual. I am saddened by Duane's loss but God has nothing to do with this war, their religion, or patriotism. Evoking God's blessing on such things has caused millions to die unnecessarily.

- April 4, 2003: The Pentagon had no interest in telling us how Edward Smith, 38, of Chicago, Illinois, died. All that they would say was "He died in Doha, Qatar on April 5th from wounds received in action in central Iraq the preceding day." Some say he was shot in the head in a firefight near Basra. A Marine with him at the time reported: "I held him when he was wounded. I will never forget what he said to me. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. Just go and whoop it up."

We do know that Ed had decided to retire from the Marines and to return to his job at the Anaheim Police Department, where he was a rising star. He had wanted to spend more time with his wife and three children. Four months prior to his death, Smith, a 20-year Marine veteran, submitted his retirement application. But the president of the United States would not allow this veteran of 20 years to retire. A few days after Ed Smith's letter, George Bush took the unusual step of forbidding any soldier, including Smith, to leave the service for 12 months. For those with their eyes open, the curtailment of freedom for America's soldiers dispelled the myth that U.S. troops were fighting for the freedom of others.

Ed's wife said, "All the Marines would tell me was that my husband was shot in the head in a firefight near Basra. He was the best man I've ever known and a great father.

Tristan Aitken, 31, and his mother often clashed when they discussed the merits of the war in Iraq. An Eagle Scout, Tristan simply said, "It's my job." Doing his job, Aitken was killed by those he was sent to liberate. A Muslim, rather than extending a hand in friendship, fired a rocket-propelled grenade at him. Tristan was in the lead vehicle of an artillery supply convoy. He had been married for 16 months.

Devon Jones, a 19-year-old for San Diego, California was killed when his vehicle fell into an Iraqi ravine. Also killed in the accident were Frank Cunningham, 33, of Lewiston, Maine and Wilfred Bellard, 20, of Lake Charles, Louisiana. The DoD says "the incident is under investigation. It appears that their Humvee was carrying munitions to the forces in Baghdad when it crashed into a ravine. While there were no eyewitnesses, some have speculated that there was an explosion, which could have been a roadside bomb, mortar fire, or an RPG which may have ignited the ammunition they were carrying, causing them to swerve. All we know is that their Humvee careened into a canal where the three men drown. Wilfred's wife gave birth to their second child on Easter.

- April 5, 2003: Demonstrating that Islam was a universal killing machine, Islamic terrorists in Iraq used suicide bombers to kill fellow Muslims who had gathered to prostrate themselves to Allah in Shi'ite mosques. They killed 19 civilians and wounded forty more.

- April 5, 2003: Coalition air strikes over Basra killed 17 Iraqi civilians. The same day American aerial bombardment of north central Baghdad killed 22 people.

The same day, air strikes and cluster bombs killed 85 Iraqi civilians in Rashidya.

- April 5, 2003: Stevon Booker, 34, of Apollo, Pennsylvania was "killed by enemy fire during a raid into Baghdad" according to the Department of Defense. While the odd's are against it, let's assume that he was killed by a member of Iraq's army and that the shooter was wearing a uniform. If so, Stevon was the second American killed by forces taking orders from the man George Bush sought to remove from power. His jaw was blown off by a machine gun blast.

While I was able to find out how Stevon died, I was not able to confirm who killed him. First, I discovered David Hendricks' letter. "I was there during the battle for Baghdad with SSG Booker, down highway 8. He was in the lead tank for the task force. His actions during our movement toward the airport eventually lead to our overall success. He was a real hero." I made contact with David and he said: "I can't tell you who killed Stevon. I rode behind his unit. There were a mix of uniformed and civilian fighters shooting at us."

Another soldier who was there, a military hardware expert, and Pentagon critic wrote: "Stevon Booker died needlessly. The U.S. Army had known that its vehicles needed shields on top for soldiers to fight from. The ACAV gunshield kits for the M113 Gavin Fighting Vehicles have been around for four decades yet the 3rd Infantry Division went into Baghdad without shields on its tracked GFBs."

He said: "I also learned that Booker's Ma Deuce (.50 caliber machine gun) jammed so he was using his M4 carbine from an open M1 Abrams turret hatch when he was shot and killed." That problem was epidemic according to soldiers who were there. "The reason why SSG Booker was on top of his M1 firing his M4 5.56mm carbine was because his M2 .50 caliber Ma Dauce wouldn't fire remotely anymore. I suspect the reason was that after shooting so many rounds its headspace slipped and its timing was thrown off. The Army has a solution for this but chose not to make it available."

So while we don't know if Stevon Booker was shot by a uniformed soldier or an Iraqi civilian, we do know that equipment failure and poor design lead directly to this brave man's death. Had his .50 caliber machine gun not failed, had the United States installed the required shields, he would still be alive.

- April 6, 2003: John Turrington, 18, was killed in Iraq. There is insufficient data from the British military to know how he died or who killed him.

Upon further investigation I learned that John Turrington's sacrifice was shades of Vietnam. Muslims in Basra set a booby trap which the teenager inadvertently sprung. The most credible report suggests that the "booby trap" was "an improvised explosive device," and that it killed three British soldiers, not one.

Ian Malone, 28, and Piper Christopher Muzvuru, 21, who were from Ireland and Zimbabwe, respectively, were in Her Majesty's Service. While some say they were killed by a sniper in Basra, it's more likely they were the victims of the same Muslim bomb.

The British press reports that their soldiers were "skirmishing with Iraqi paramilitaries on the outskirts of Basra." And that means that the gunners and bombers in Basra were Muslim civilians.

This article closed with the following quote: "Speaking before the three deaths were announced, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said, "American soldiers surrounding Baghdad may face a situation similar to what the British have encountered at Basra (meaning that they will be confronted by Muslim militias rather than by the Iraqi army). Baghdad may prove to offer the same kind of problem as Basra has, that is, the resistance will be from the militia. They will need to work hard to avoid significant civilian casualties," Hoon said on the British Broadcasting Corporation."

- April 6, 2003: American Larry Brown, 22, died in Iraq today. We don't know where, why, or how. "The Defense Department did not immediately release any details about Brown's death, except to say that he was killed in action Saturday."

An eyewitness wrote this to his parents: "At some point during the fight somebody decided to drop the hatch of his Bradley Fighting Vehicle. His unit jumped out at what I can only assume was an inopportune time. Those things are designed to shield their occupants from small arms fire.

I can't really tell you what happened more than then he was the one that got out of the Bradley at the wrong time and got shot. At the scene I talked to the medic who was in our unit who said that Larry would be fine. I believed him since he was a medic. And also as a soldier I thought he'd be okay since he was only shot in the leg. I didn't think he was going to die. I said, "He's not going to die because no one wants to die out there.

These soldiers are called dismounts because that's what they do. It's a dangerous job. As the firefight progressed, these guys went in ahead of the 101st and were drawing fire. They were using a .50 caliber gun to destroy larger targets. It just didn't go as planned."

- April 6, 2003: Cluster bombs in Karbala killed 35 Iraqi civilians.

The American armed forces did not keep track of or report casualty numbers of enemy soldiers killed in Iraq so we have no way of knowing that total. I suspect the reason is that it was embarrassing low - especially in the context of Gulf War One in which thousands of Iraqi soldiers were killed for every American lost.

- April 6, 2003: American Kelley Prewitt, 24, died in Iraq today. The Pentagon told Kelley Prewitt's father only: "Your son died when his convoy was ambushed." To which his father replied: "I just know that Kelley would really hope - and I do, too - that in the future, history will tell us that his death and the death of all these other soldiers was not in vain." It was, and his father knows it.

In his last letter home, Kelley Prewitt wrote, "It won't be long before I'll be calling you from the airport for a ride home." While we know that Kelley was killed by "enemy fire" the United States military still hasn't come to terms with who the enemy is. As a result, Jean Prewitt, Kelley's mom, joined Gold Star Families for Peace. Protesting near the entrance to George Bush's Crawford ranch, she said: "I voted for Bush in 2000 and supported the war until no weapons of mass destruction were found. Then I got angry. Gold Star moms gave birth to these boys and this administration killed them."

Kelley Prewitt's parents, and other Gold Star families, signed the following open letter to America:

WASHINGTON, October 21, 2005 - On the eve of the next horrific milestone, the 2,000th troop death in Iraq, families with loved ones who are serving in Iraq, families whose loved ones were killed in Iraq, and families whose loved ones may deploy or re-deploy are calling on the Bush Administration, Congress and decision-makers at all levels to honor the fallen and prevent future deaths by ending the occupation of Iraq, bringing our troops home now and taking care of them when they get here.

These families, members of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) and of Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP), are asking local, state, and national politicians to speak oppose the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Two and one-half years after the war began, the violence continues to escalate, with almost three U.S. servicemen and women dying each day, along with countless Iraqi children, women and men.

Gold Star Families, in speaking out about their loved ones who have been killed in Iraq, demonstrate the true human cost of this war. Military Families with loved ones currently deployed to Iraq, show the urgency by which it must end. "Each day I wake up is a potential nightmare, as I dread that knock on my door that far too many families have already received," said MFSO member Anne Roesler, whose son in the 82nd Airborne Division is serving his third deployment to Iraq. "The fear I live with is a fact of life for military families with loved ones deployed in a war that should never have happened. It is a reality that far too few politicians understand."

The following families and others whose loved ones died in Iraq or are currently deployed to Iraq are available for interview. For a complete list of families who are available for interview, go to www.mfso.org.

Vickie Castro of Corona, Calif. whose only child, Cpl. Jonathan Castro, age 21, was one of 14 service members killed in a suicide bombing at a mess tent in Forward Operating Base Marez in Mosul, Iraq on Dec. 21, 2004.

Melanie House of Simi Valley, Calif., whose husband, Petty Officer 3rd Class John D. House, age 28, was killed in a helicopter crash near Ar Rutbah, Iraq on Jan. 26, 2005.

Dede Miller of Bellflower, Calif., whose nephew, Spc. Casey Sheehan, age 24, was killed in action in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq on April 4, 2004. She is a co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace.

Jean Prewitt of Birmingham, Ala., whose son Pvt. 2nd Class Kelley S. Prewitt, age 24, was killed in action on April 6, 2003 near Baghdad. He served with the 103rd Infantry based out of Ft. Benning, Ga..

Annette Pritchard of Oregon City, Ore., whose nephew, PFC William Ramirez, age 19, was killed in action in Baghdad. He was the 538th US troop officially killed in action in Iraq.

Diane Davis Santoriello of Penn Hills, Pa. whose son, 1st Lt. Neil Santoriello, age 24, served in the Army's 1 Division 34th Armored A company and was killed in action near Fallujah, Iraq on Aug. 13, 2004.

Mimi Evans of W. Barnstable, Mass. whose son serves with the U.S. Marine Corps and was newly deployed to Iraq in August 2005. He is expecting his first child in April 2006.

Elizabeth Frederick a student in Washington, D.C., whose boyfriend of 4 years, a former Marine, is currently serving in Iraq under forced stop-loss orders with the New York National Guard. His New York National Guard unit had not deployed overseas since the Korean War until this deployment to Iraq.

Dexter and Gretchen Kamilewicz of Orr's Island, Maine whose son is in the Vermont National Guard and has been serving in Ramadi, Iraq since July, 2005. Their son's unit was going on missions with unarmored Humvees; his notification of his Congressional delegation resulted in the unit being provided with armored Humvees, which recently saved his life as well as the lives of others in his unit.

Deborah Regal of Pinckney, Mich., whose son is a Marine, currently serving his first deployment to Iraq.

Anne Roesler of Saratoga, Calif. whose son, a Staff Sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division, based at Ft. Bragg, left on Aug. 31, for his third deployment to Iraq.

Gold Star Families for Peace (www.gsfp.org) is an organization of families whose loved ones died in war who are seeking an end to the occupation of Iraq; Military Families Speak Out (www.mfso.org) is an organization of over 2,600 military families opposed to the war in Iraq, with loved ones who are serving, or have served in Iraq, may deploy or re-deploy, or have died as a result of the war in Iraq.

- April 6, 2003: American, George Huxley, 19, died in Iraq today but, once again, we don't know where, why, or how.

Commenting on George Huxley's death, Neil Postman used the opportunity to compare Huxley and Orwell, Brave New World and 1984. He said: "Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an external oppressor. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, "people are controlled by inflicting pain." In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate would ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us." His insights are not only profound they are directly applicable to the circumstances which led to the Iraq war and which maintain it.

- April 7, 2003: Bill Watkins, 37, of Danville, Virginia and Eric Das, 30, from Amarillo, Texas, were killed when their $40 million F-15E Strike Eagle fighter crashed in Iraq. Since the Iraqis didn't engage a single fighter it is not clear why an F-15 was being flown.

- April 7, 2003: Thinking they had Saddam Hussein and his son's in their sites, American missiles killed 9 Iraqis in a residential area of Baghdad.

- April 7, 2003: George Mitchell, 35 and Anthony Miller, 19, were killed by "enemy indirect fire in Iraq" according to what Army officials told the family of George Mitchell and what they wrote in a press release. According to Anthony Miller's family: "The Army representative who visited our home did not provide any details regarding the nature of Anthony's death, saying only that he was killed in action by indirect fire." Lt. Col. Eric Wesley, the brigade's executive officer said: "There was a lot of fire, smoke, and dust. You couldn't see very well."

In this blast, five people were killed, three soldiers and two civilian journalists. They all believed they were safe, hunkered down seven miles distant from the fighting. Seventeen soldiers were wounded and 22 vehicles were destroyed. A ten-foot deep crater is all that remains. In fact, George Mitchell was so relaxed at the time, he borrowed a reporter's phone to chat with his wife about what he would do after the war. Thirty minutes later he left his 3-yr-old daughter Bailee and 1-yr-old son Joshua fatherless.

The Pentagon is unwilling or unable to explain what caused an explosion this massive. As a result, reporters have speculated that the enormous fireball and accompanying shrapnel was caused by an artillery shell or missile which slammed into the tactical operations center south of Baghdad where they had been stationed. But there was no Iraqi missile that accurate nor any artillery shell that powerful. While it could have been a roadside bomb, the resulting crater was too deep. If I were to speculate, my best guess is that American munitions stored in a truck at the base ignited when they were being prepared for the upcoming battle, and they cause the carnage. All we know for certain is that five more good men died in a bad man's war.

Henry Brown, 22, a Humvee driver from Natchez, Mississippi, would die the following day from injuries suffered during the same blast. If, Stevon Booker's death is attributed to Iraq's armed forces rather than a jammed gun, and if George Mitchell and Anthony Miller were killed by an Iraqi missile or shell, rather than a Muslim's improvised bomb, or the more likely accidental detonation of a truckload of American munitions, then they were the third, fourth, fifth, and final casualties of Saddam Hussein's military.

- April 7, 2003: The Islamic terrorist's weapon of choice, the rocket-propelled grenade, was used to kill Lincoln Hollinsaid, 27, an engineer from Malden, Illinois in the streets of Baghdad as he was driving a construction crane over a berm.

And RPG also killed Jesus Medellin, 21, and Andy Aviles, 18, of Tampa, Florida, when their amphibious assault vehicle was hit on the Euphrates River near Baghdad. The Department of Defense claims that it was an "artillery round" but the only way that is possible is for Americans to have misfired. Iraqi artillery and tanks were abandoned, and then destroyed, in the first two weeks of the invasion. Moreover, to believe that the Iraqi army was capable of directing a shell from a hidden cannon into a moving target on a river takes a lot more faith than I have.

Militants killed Jeff Kaylor, 24, of Clifton, Virginia with a grenade tossed the old-fashioned way - at least according to some accounts. You will find Mike and Roxanne Kaylor's names, Jeff's parents, listed second on the Military Families Speak Out press release. Their open letter against the war in Iraq calls for the immediate withdrawal of American troops and an apology by George Bush for deceiving the nation into fighting an unjustifiable war.

"It's awful. I have so much anger," said Roxanne Kaylor. "I really blame the lean forces and the rapid race to Baghdad. This was straggler stuff. He was killed by civilian militants using weapons in villages along the way that hadn't been cleaned up. My son was on a reconnaissance run with his driver. They were all by themselves with no one to provide cover for them. That's how they were grenaded. The driver lost his arm. Jeff wasn't so fortunate. I hope whoever set up these plans thinks about it every day of their lives. Their bad decision killed my son." Jeff's father, Mike Kaylor, lieutenant colonel retired, said: "You can't make sense of it."

- April 8, 2003: The Al-Kindi Hospital in Baghdad was shut down and evacuated today as a result of American bombings and the coalition's assault on electrical facilities in the city. During the chaos that followed the toppling of the Ba'ath Party regime, looters robbed the hospital of most everything useful, including all medical supplies. Thirty-five patients and other civilians caught up in the turmoil died.

Over the period of March 20th through April 9th, 19 Baghdad hospitals reported that 1,473 Iraqi civilians had died of wounds that were sustained during the bombing and subsequent influx coalition forces.

One of the Iraqi's killed this day was a 10-year-old boy who was blown up by an American grenade thrown at him because he couldn't get his donkey to stop at a checkpoint in Karbala.

- April 8, 2003: Bob Stever, 36, of Pendleton, Oregon, was killed when Muslim militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade into his fuel and ammunition convoy, hitting him in the face as he road atop a M113 Gavin.

John Marshall, 50, was also killed in the same ambush when Muslim civilians fired another rocket-propelled grenade into his unarmored Humvee. He was leading the fuel and ammunition convoy.

We do not know how Scott Sather, 29, was killed, only that he was sent to Afghanistan and then to Iraq as a young man with hopes and aspirations and that he came home in a body bag. He had earned seven medals, including the Bronze Star, during his stellar Air Force career in Afghanistan. His uncle was Michigan State Representative, John Gleason. What is interesting, however, is that Scott was said to be the first airman killed in the war, meaning I suppose that Marine, Navy, and Army pilots aren't airmen. Scott was serving with a Special Tactics Squadron and had been tasked with setting up makeshift runways and heliports in Iraq.

Here is how his Bronze Star Medal of Valor citation reads: "He led this reconnaissance task force on combat operations into Iraq on the first day of the ground war, breeching enemy fortifications during the Iraqi border crossing. During the next several days Sergeant Sather covered countless miles conducting specialized reconnaissance in the Southwestern Iraqi desert supporting classified missions. With only minimal sleep he assumed a leadership role in the reconnaissance of an enemy airfield opening up the first of five airheads used by a joint task force to conduct critical resupply of fielded troops, and provide attack helicopter rearming facilities enabling deep battlefield offensive operations. Sergeant Sather was then employed to an area of heavy enemy concentration tasked to provide critical reconnaissance and intelligence on enemy movement supporting direct action missions against enemy forces. Exposed to direct enemy fire on numerous occasions he continued to provide vital information to higher headquarters in direct support of ongoing combat operations. His magnificent skills in the control of close-air support aircraft and keen leadership under great pressure were instrumental in the overwhelming success of these dangerous missions. Sergeant Sather's phenomenal leadership and bravery on the battlefield throughout his deployment were instrumental in the resounding successes of numerous combat missions performing a significant role in the success of the war and complete overthrow of the Iraqi regime."

I'm sure Scott Sather was a hero, but how is it that in a war to "overthrow the Iraqi regime" that "overwhelming success" can be claimed when 99.9% of American fatalities were caused by accidents, friendly fire, and mistaken assumptions regarding who the enemy really was?

We know that Jason Meyer, 23, was killed by friendly fire after returning from a skirmish in Baghdad. Juan Garza, 20, was shot by a sniper as he was patrolling the Baghdad airport.

- April 8, 2003: In an orgy of looting in Basra, Muslims temporarily bereft of authority roamed the streets with knives, crowbars, and guns, stealing whatever they could find. In the anarchy, rival Islamic gangs fired automatic weapons at each other and indiscriminately at civilian targets. Those who worked at the Basra Hospital claim 140 civilians were killed in the mayhem.

Health care workers in the hospital said that coalition bombings and the consistent loss of electricity led to the deaths of another 201 patients during this time.

- April 9, 2003: The Department of Defense announced an increase of Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps reservists being called to active duty to support the Iraqi war. The total number of reservists on active duty at the time in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve was 148,607; Naval Reserve 11,275; Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves 36,567; Marine Corps Reserve 20,721; and the Coast Guard Reserve 4,016. That brought the total Reserve and National Guard on active duty status to 221,186. So much for the "one weekend a month and two weeks a year" recruiting hype.

- April 9, 2003: On this day, Baghdad fell to American forces. The city would become a killing zone and would never recover. A recent poll taken by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense explains why: two out of every three Iraqis support attacks on coalition forces. Seventy percent of the people support Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric whose Mahdi militia has been responsible for slaughtering American troops. Only four percent of those living in Baghdad see Americans as liberators.

Even the symbolic toppling of the giant bronze statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square by the "Iraqi people in joyous celebration" was a charade. American Marines used an M1 Abram's tank to pull down the statue and only loaded curious Iraqis aboard for photo ops. When the Marines draped an American flag over the head of the statue, animosity quickly arose and the U.S. flag was removed, replaced by an Iraqi flag emblazoned with "Allah is the Greatest." Iraq and 9/11 were connected for the first time. Allahu Akbar was the battle cry and confession of the 19 September 11th suicide bombers.

- April 9, 2003: At this same time, Islamic students at Baghdad University opened fire on a convoy of tanks and personnel carriers from the 1st Marine Division, 7th Battalion. The very instant the secular dictator was toppled without a fight, American soldiers came under withering fire from assault rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers wielded by Islamic students.

- April 9, 2003: With Saddam symbolically toppled, Muslims throughout Iraq became thieves, looting government buildings and stores alike. They continued to loot everything that wasn't tied down until there was nothing left to steal. And then they complained to the Americans that there was nothing to eat.

The rioting was so bad, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that it was halting work in Baghdad because of the "chaos in the Iraqi capital." They reported: "Getting from one place to another involves incalculable risks." For example, a Canadian Red Cross staffer, Vatche Arslanian, was wounded by the rioters. Continuous crossfire prevented ambulances from helping him, and as a consequence, he died. Twelve others lost their lives in this one incident.

Doctors in Baghdad's hospitals reported: "Civilian casualties increased sharply after the arrival of coalition forces. In the first day our hospitals have received 30 bodies and over 250 wounded."

Riots and looting also broke out in Basra, in southeastern Iraq. Frustrated, some Iraqis took the law into their own hands and began hurling stones at those selling stolen humanitarian aid to crowds on the black market.

In this vacuum of power, Muslim clerics, the only remaining authority in Iraq, filled the void. It was a giant leap backward - 1300 years backward.

- April 9, 2003: Private first class Keith Maupin from Batavia, Ohio was just 20-years-old when Muslims ambushed his supply convoy using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. Rather than killing him initially, they kidnapped him. He was attached to the 724th Transportation Company, U.S. Army Reserve. He is still missing, which means he is not counted among America's war dead.

We know that Maupin's fuel convoy was attacked by Iraqi civilians near the Baghdad Airport. And we know that a videotape broadcast by Al-Jazeera on April 16th showed Maupin being held by fundamentalist Iraqi Muslims. More than a year later, on June 28th, 2004, Al-Jazeera, the propaganda arm of Islam, reported that they had received a statement and a videotape from Iraqi militants who claimed to have killed Keith. Their murder was so gruesome, U.S. officials were unable to identify the young man in the video so he remains listed as "captured."

Sergeant Elmer Krause, 40, from Greensboro, North Carolina was part of the same convoy. He was abducted by the same gang of Muslims who captured Keith. But unfortunately, Elmer is no longer listed as "Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown." His mutilated remains were recovered on April 23, 2004 - a year after his capture.

Personally, I am appalled that the American media refuses to show any of the Islamic beheadings. If they were broadcast the nation would be forced to acknowledge the vicious and uncivil nature of this enemy and they would recognize that the enemy's name is Islam.

- April 9, 2003: The United States and Great Britain had lost149 troops from the beginning of the "war against the Iraqi regime" to the "triumphant liberation" of Iraq's people. While Saddam Hussein's head wasn't worth the life of one American or British soldier, the real war, that of the mosques and Muslims, was just beginning. Over the next three years America would lose more than 2,500 sons and daughters and have 20,000 more come home with broken, burned, and bullet-ridden bodies.

The breakdown of those who had already been sacrificed in this winless political game was as follows: 87 (or 60% of the known casualties) died as the result of friendly fire and accidents, 54 (or 37% of the known casualties) were murdered by civilian Muslim militants, 3 deaths are unaccounted for, and 5 men (or just 3%) may have died at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Had America left Iraq on this day 2,500 dead Americans would be alive and 20,000 more would whole. Moreover, Iraq's fate would be no different. But President Bush's mistake would go on to haunt and divide America. It would ultimately cost taxpayers $500 billion in a failed attempt to fix what the nation had clearly broken.

Of the 2,818 coalition deaths at the time of this writing (August 2006), 2,588 were Americans. Another 125 American civilians have also been lost during this failed campaign. And let us not forget the 422 coalition deaths in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, of which 319 were Americans. (Of the American deaths, 165 died in hostile action and 154 died as a result of accidents.)

As a foretaste of what was to be expected in Iraq, the Afghani campaign had been a failure. The "liberated" nation was now the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. It was governed by Sharia Law. And Islamic warlords sympathetic to the Taliban continued to control all of Afghanistan outside of the City of Kabul. The country was so dangerous, Doctors Without Borders, one of the most courageous organizations on the planet, would no longer work there.

- April 10, 2003: Terry Hemingway, 39, of Willingboro, New Jersey was murdered by a Muslim suicide bomber who drove his car up to Terry's Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Baghdad and detonated himself.

Staff Sgt. Terry Hemingway's family did not have to learn the details regarding his death from the military officials who came to their home in Willingboro. His mother, Eva Hemingway Shannon, had already seen much of what had happened on television the day before. The one detail that she had not known, as she watched live reports on a car that had exploded beside a Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Baghdad, was that her son had been the soldier inside. Sergeant Hemingway was a father of three with 19 years in the Army. He had been planning on retiring.

Riayan Tejeda, 26, from the Dominican Republic was killed northeast of Baghdad by "enemy forces." He wasn't even an American citizen. But that is not that uncommon. There are 31,000 non-citizens serving in the United States Armed Forces. Tejeda left two children fatherless.

His dad said, "The military would not even tell us how it happened. All they said was your son has been killed in Iraq." Julio Tejada, Sgt. Tejada's father, went on to say, "We need to know more about what happened, who was he fighting, where was he fighting, why was he fighting, who killed him? The most the officers ever gave us was that he was killed by a gunshot wound. We don't know if it was in Baghdad or even in combat."

- April 10, 2003: Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jeffery Bohr, 39, of Ossian, Iowa died from multiple gunshot wounds he received during a seven-hour battle outside a mosque in Baghdad. Twenty-two other American soldiers were wounded during this religiously inspired firefight. Americans were able to kill 30 Muslim militants.

Frank Thorp from the U.S. Central Command said: "Jeff Bohr's unit was shot at from inside the mosque compound." And yet in denial of this grim truth, Americans have been prevented from destroying mosques - the enemy's headquarters.

- April 11, 2003: The aerial bombardment of Ar-Ramadi, 60 miles north of Baghdad, killed 22 Iraqi civilians.

During this same period, 78 Iraqi civilians in Hillah were killed by coalition bombings and ground fire.

- April 12, 2003: Jesus Gonzalez, 22, of Indio, California was killed. All the Marines told his family was: "Corporal Gonzalez was killed on April 12 while manning a military checkpoint in Baghdad." According to his mother, "the Marines would not tell us if he was killed by a gunman, in an accident, by a suicide bomber, or something else altogether." His father said, "Then to make maters worse, when we press the Marines for more information they change their story - telling us something different."

Jesus had almost finished his two year term of service when he was sent off to Iraq. I checked forty or more sites to see if I could learn what happened but I learned little more than he leaves a wife and 2-year-old daughter.

David Owens, 20, of Winchester, Virginia, died of the wounds he received in battle in a firefight in Baghdad two days before.

- April 13, 2003: Gil Mercado's life was cut short at 25 years when he was killed by "a non-combat weapon discharge in Iraq." He had been a cook for the 101st Airborne Division. His father was so devastated, he could not speak.

Joe Acevendo was also killed in a non-combat incident. Fortunately, Joe was nearly twice Gil's age.

- April 14, 2003: Jason Mileo, 20, of Centreville, Maryland was shot and killed near Baghdad by an American soldier after he was mistaken for an Iraqi soldier. The problem was: there were no Iraq soldiers to fight and the very people Americans were told they were liberating were the ones shooting at them. Emergency personnel were dispatched to the scene, but Mileo died before he could be transferred to a field hospital.

On the same day Joe Mayek, 20, of Rock Springs, Wyoming was killed when he was struck by an armor-piercing round fired by a U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicle. "We are devastated," his Father said. "We don't know how to deal with this."

Also on this day, Richard Goward, 32, of Midland, Michigan, was killed when his truck entered a dust cloud. Unable to see, he rear-ended the truck in front of him.

Continuing the accidental carnage resulting from the mistaken war, Armando Gonzalez, 25, of Hialeah, Florida was killed while working beneath a commercial refueling truck which had broken down. In the soft sand, it collapsed on him, crushing him to death. His beautiful wife of seven months was four months pregnant at the time of his death.

The two Americans who it initially appeared not to have died as a result of mistakes on this day, were killed by a grenade tossed inside of their Humvee. They were John Brown, 21, of Troy, Alabama and Tom Foley, 23, of Dresden Tennessee. All the Defense Department said to these men's parents was: "A grenade detonated while they were performing maintenance of a vehicle at a checkpoint south of Baghdad."

Eyewitnesses have told John Brown's family: "He had been inside the Humvee and three others, including Tom Foley were standing beside it. They were looking at a cone-shaped object someone had found and they began to pass it around. Then, suddenly, it exploded."

Foley's mom explained: "At first we were told that it was friendly fire and then that that there were some shots fired and a grenade was accidentally thrown into the vehicle." This accident left Tom Foley's 6-month-old son fatherless, his wife a widow. His mother was devastated: "We don't know what to believe, or who to trust. We can't find out anything. The first night they came and told us that he was killed by friendly fire. I want to know if my son was murdered. I want to know if it was an accident. How was it that he was killed by his own country? I just want to know why my son died."

- April 15, 2003: During the period of March 20th to April 15th, three Najaf hospitals claim that between 224 and 358 Iraqi civilians were killed by American air raids, especially by cluster bombs.

- April 16, 2003: One of the problems inherent in dealing with Muslims is that their sense of values is opposite of those deployed in the West. For example, in Jenin, Israel a Palestinian Muslim emerged from an ambulance and fired at a border policeman, injuring him. The Muslim militant then climbed back into the ambulance and sped away.

- April 16, 2003: The Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq displayed its power in Kut today, when senior SCIRI leader, Sayyid Abbas Fadhil, declared himself mayor and welcomed Abdelaziz al-Hakim in his triumphant return from Iran. The current Chairman of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was greeted by a crowd of 20,000 cheering residents.

The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was established by Shiite clerics in Iran in 1982 with the express purpose of toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein and replacing his secular government with an Islamic one modeled after their Islamic theocracy. America's invasion of Iraq facilitated what they were unable to achieve on their own. Today, the SCIRI has become Iraq's most popular political party, effectively controlling the Iraqi government.

The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was founded by Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al Hakim. He was the son of the late Grand Ayatollah Muhsin Al Hakim, who was the spiritual leader for all Shi around the world from 1955 to 1970. It would be an accurate assessment to say that the SCIRI was an Islamic religious organization created to influence politics through fatwah and mujahideen.

Under the tutelage of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq established a military wing in 1983, called the Badr Brigades. This force quickly grew into a large militia and joined regular Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard forces on the front lines during the Iran-Iraq war.

The relationship between the SCIRI the IRCG (the mullahs who control Iran) has persisted and deepened recently. For example, the main Badr Corps training center, located just west of the Vahdati Air Force base in Dezful, and most of its other facilities in Western Iran and Tehran are located on IRGC property. Today, the Badr Corps is believed to have between 10,000-15,000 militia fighters. They are used by the current government in Iraq to terrorize Sunnis into submission.

The West first came to know the SCIRI at the conclusion of Desert Storm. It was then that Iraqi Kurds in the north and the Iraqi Shi'a in the south launched an armed revolt against Saddam Hussein. Iraqi government troops tried to crush the movement, reportedly razing mosques and other Shi'ite shrines and executing thousands.

Prior to the fall of Saddam's regime, the Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq operated out of a large headquarters in the Manoochehri district of Tehran. The SCIRI opened embassy-like offices in three Islamic states neighboring Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, as well as in London, Paris, Vienna and Geneva. The Damascus office, headed by SCIRI's foreign and Islamic affairs chief Bayan Jabr, coordinated relations with other Iraqi opposition groups, while the London office, run by Hamid al-Bayati, served as a liaison with Western governments and media.

The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an organization funded, controlled, and armed by the Iranian mullah's in Teheran, established formal links with the United States in 1992 during the Clinton Administration. But the ties between Islamic fundamentalism and America were forged in steel when George Bush began relying upon the mythology of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. He extolled the merits of the Shi'ite religious, political, and militia group, touting the benefits of using their popular support within Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, this president and his administration were either too ignorant or immoral to recognize the consequence of empowering a militant and religious Iranian Shi'ite organization.

In August 2002, a SCIRI delegation headed by Abdelaziz al-Hakim (the current chairman of the SCIRI), Ibrahim Hamoudi (a senior political advisor) and Mamid al-Bayati visited Washington and held marathon meetings with Bush Administration, State Department, and Pentagon officials to discuss the overthrow of Saddam and their subsequent empowerment.

In the months prior to the war, however, relations between the United States and SCIRI cooled because the Bush administration was laboring under they myth that it would administer Iraq directly after Saddam's overthrow, rather than handing power to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Hakim accused the George Bush of planning a colonial occupation and threatened that his Badr Brigade would attack American troops if they outstayed their welcome - a promise he has fulfilled.

In mid-February 2003, a detachment of 1,500 Badr Corps mujahideen crossed the Iranian border into northern Iraq and set up a base near Darbandikhan, an area under the control of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). About a week before the American invasion, the Muslim militia staged a provocative military parade, prompting the Bush Administration to warn their SCIRI ally that their mujahideen would be considered enemy combatants.

Being smarter than the American president, Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq Chairman Muhammad al-Hakim told his militia to stand down temporarily and allow U.S. troops to sacrifice their lives bringing down the Ba'ath government. After the collapse of the secular regime on April 9th, tens of thousands of Badr Brigade Muslim militants crossed from Iran into the Iraqi province of Diyala. For reasons only the Bush Administration knows, US forces desisted from entering this region for four weeks, allowing Badr Corps jihadists to take control of strategic population centers, including Khanegheyn, Mandali, Moghdadiyeh, Shahraban and Khalis. Baqubah, the capital of Diyala Province, was the scene of intense fighting for nearly two weeks between the Badr Corps and a collection of Sunni militias led by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq. Although American officials worried aloud about what was essentially Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel crossing into Iraq under the guise of the Badr Brigade, the die was cast and the war was lost.

In late April 2003, a force of 3,000 U.S. Marines arrived in Baqubah and set upon dismantling the SCIRI Badr Brigade presence. The Pentagon claimed that U.S. troops seized significant amounts of arms and killing a Badr fighter in a skirmish on the town's outskirts. Nevertheless, the SCIRI remained in control of the region as evidenced by the de facto political clout it exercises over the Muslims who live there.

Upon his return to Iraq in May 2003, Ayatollah al-Hakim told a large gathering in Najaf: "The U.S. needs to leave Iraq to its own people. The Iraqis [read SCIRI Shia clerics] are capable of providing security and protecting Iraq." When that did not occur, in July the SCIRI Ayatollah called for the United States to hand control of Iraq over to the United Nations. "If the goal was to free Iraq, and not exploit it afterwards, why not let the UN handle it as it has been in Bosnia [where Muslims were given the upper hand over the Orthodox Christian Serbs who they had murdered in great numbers].".

Being duplicitous Muslims, even as Hakim was condemning the American presence, his subordinates were busy negotiating with the coalition authorities to secure a controlling role for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq in shaping the new political order in the wake of the secular government's overthrow. Unable to recognize what was being done to them, Bush Administration officials worked with the SCIRI while the Suprem Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq's militia attacked American troops. For example, in early June 2003, coalition forces arrested 20 Badr Corps fighters who were, according to an American military spokesman, involved in "planning, supporting, financing and executing at least rocket-propelled grenade attacks on U.S. forces." And yet all 20 SCIRI militants were released. Today, the Badr Brigades are so entrenched in Baghdad, their headquarters is the home of former Ba'athist Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq Chairman Muhammad al-Hakim was killed, along with over 100 of his associates, by Sunni militants in an August 29th, 2003 bombing in Najaf. But his assassination did nothing to diminish the influence of the most powerful and best organized political and religious force in Iraq. Hakim's brother, Abdelaziz al-Hakim, quickly became chairman of the party and militia, serving as a surrogate for the Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani. To see what al-Sistani would do with his opportunity, turn to the June 28, 2003 entry and weep.

- April 19, 2003: During the period of April 10th through 19th, 83 Iraqi civilians were killed by unexploded ordnance southeast of Kirkuk.

- April 21, 2003: Cluster bombs and unexploded ordnance killed 52 Iraqi civilians in Kirkuk during the week of April 14 to 21.

- April 22, 2003: The next four Americans to die after the rash of accidents on the 14th were Andy Arnold, 30, Alan Lam, 19, Bob Channell, 36, and John Rivero, 23. Andy, Alan, and Bob were killed when a rocket-propelled grenade launcher they were firing for familiarization malfunctioned at a firing range near Kut, Iraq. John rolled his Humvee in Kuwait.

On this same day, Russ Buckley, 24, died when he left the passenger compartment of a M818 truck he was riding in while the convoy was underway. He tried to climb into the trailer but didn't make it.

- April 22, 2003: During the two weeks prior to this date, 21 Iraqi civilians were killed in the Ghazaliyah district of northern Baghdad as a result of American cluster bombs.

- April 24, 2003: Three of the next four America fatalities in Iraq were the result of accidents. Narson Sulivan, 21, was killed by a non-combat weapon discharge. Osbaldo Orozco, 26, was killed when his vehicle accidentally crashed into a civilian car. Some say that Orozco was part of a quick reaction force and that he was responding to enemy fire when his vehicle rolled over while traveling through rough terrain at a rapid speed.

Joe Garza, 43, was struck by a civilian vehicle in what authorities said was an accident. Other reports have Garza swerving in his Humvee to avoid a collision with an Iraqi car. In this account, Joe tumbled out of his military vehicle and was then struck by a civilian driver.

The fourth victim, Troy Jenkins, 25, was murdered by a roadside bomb planted by a Muslim believing that he was serving his god. The attack occurred five days earlier when he was on a "dismounted patrol." The U.S. military put Troy in harm's way without protection or purpose.

- April 25, 2003: Two American soldiers, Ray Losano, 24, and Jerod Dennis, 19, were killed a firefight with militant Muslims in Afghanistan today.

- April 28, 2003: In a case of Muslims killing Muslims, rival religious factions in Fallujah went on a rampage, killing 13 civilians in a firefight, some of whom were young children.

- April 28, 2003: Today, following the advice of his Imam, an Iraqi threw a hand grenade into a parking lot, injuring 20 civilians.

Now that power in Iraq had been transferred from Saddam Hussein's secular government to militant Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims, religiously inspired terrorism was erupting. Those in contact with Iraq's hospitals, morgues, and cemeteries estimated that an average of thirty Iraqi civilians were initially murdered per day in 2004 by Muslim militants and suicide bombers. That number grew to just shy of 100 per day in 2005. Estimates are now as high as 200 to 300 on the worst days in 2006.

Since the news only reports major explosions in Iraq, in which an average of 30 or so civilians die per day, there is the sense that the carnage is less than that required to officially say that Iraq is in a state of civil war. But at the rate of 30,000 dead civilians a year, it's getting pretty hard to ignore the obvious. With America's help, Muslim clerics in charge of Iraq have made their country even less civil than it was under the deposed dictator.

- April 29, 2003: James McCue, 27, from Scotland, was killed after being wounded in an explosion in southern Iraq. He was part of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. The cause of the explosion remains under investigation.

As we close out the month of April another 82 coalition troops had died. The blood of 140 dead American and 35 British soldiers stained the Iraqi sands. While all of these men and one woman were noble, the cause for which they died was not - nor was the way most of them died. Had their sacrifice of these 175 brave men been for a noble cause, that of protecting American and British freedoms for example, by dismantling a foreign regime poised, capable, and desirous of attacking the nation, it wouldn't be so overwhelmingly sad.

We can be certain that at least 104 soldiers were killed by friendly fire and non-combat accidents (62% of the known total). And we know that at most, only 5 soldiers (3%) were killed by the armed forces of the regime they were sent to depose. The lives of 58 coalition soldiers (35% of the known total) were confiscated by those they thought they were liberating. The blunders in the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon had been mirrored on the battlefield.

The number of wounded Americans was now 543. For every one American who came home from Iraq in a body bag in April, ten more were removed from the battlefield on stretchers.

If you want to support America's troops, pull the yellow ribbon off of the bumper of your car and demand that U.S. troops be pulled out of Iraq.

Yes, I know all of the slogans, that America won't retreat and that cutting and running isn't a plan. I've heard Bush say that the best way to honor those who have fallen is to stay the course. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon said the same thing of Vietnam. I've also heard the most recent presidential excuse: if America were to withdraw now from Iraq all sorts of horrible things will happen.

But I'm going to tell you the truth: a horrible result cannot be adverted no matter how long the troops remain. It is therefore suicidal to stay. It matters not if Americans fight on in Iraq for a century and loose a hundred thousand souls; Iraq will be controlled by Islamic clerics in league with Iran when the troops finally leave. The worst possible scenario is unavoidable - it has been since the beginning. There is no rational or moral reason to squander more money or spill more blood in pursuit of an impossible dream. Wake up America before a bad dream becomes your worst nightmare.

A year before America invaded Iraq I wrote and published a warning, saying that Iraq would be a winless war not unlike Vietnam. I was right and the president was wrong. I predicated that Saddam Hussein's regime would not fight but that Muslims would. I was right and the president was wrong. I predicted that America would manufacture more terrorists than it would kill in Iraq. I was right and the president was wrong. I predicted that America would replace a secular government with a fundamentalist Islamic one under the auspices of Shiite clerics in Teheran. I was right and the president was wrong. I even predicted that Iraq would become an Islamic republic and impose Sharia law, just like Afghanistan, enslaving the nation Americans had tried to liberate. I was right and the president was wrong.

Mostly I predicted that by engaging in Iraq, American soldiers would be placed in a situation where it would be impossible to distinguish between friend and foe. The last of my predictions was fulfilled in August 2006, when the U.S. military ordered American troops to stop assisting Iraqis. You see, the Iraqis Americans thought they were liberating were feigning accidents to lure good-natured soldiers into assisting them. But when help arrived, these Muslim civilians blow themselves up and Americans along with them.

My predictions are not new, they were not secret, nor were they vague. I conducted more than a thousand talk radio interviews to boldly proclaim the consequence of fighting a war that could not be won. I am not a prophet, just informed. I seek nothing other than the awakening of my nation and the salvation of its people.

But now that you know that the nation's political and media leaders have deceived you and to the nation's military, and that the nation's political leaders have so bungled this bloody affair as to be guilty of manslaughter, if not murder, please consider joining me in holding them accountable for what they have done. Support our troops by bringing them home. Support our troops by impeaching their Commander In Chief.

For those new to my research on Islam who are now are holding on to the final remaining justification for staying the course in Iraq, that being "we just can't allow them to attack us and do nothing about it," I suggest you do some reading. Come to understand who actually attacked America on 9/11 and why by reading Prophet of Doom - Islam's Terrorist Dogma in Muhammad's Own Words. If you aren't willing to invest the time required to review the evidence it contains then there is nothing I or anyone can do to transform you from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.

For those who desire a workable solution, read Tea With Terrorists - Who They Are, Why They Kill, and What Will Stop Them and discover the three things America must do to free itself and the world from the curse of Islamic terrorism. While this plan is clear, simple, and achievable, I don't want to mislead anyone. There is no chance that it will be implemented. Americans will continue to reject all three requirements, and as a consequence, the nation will lose its freedoms, prosperity, and citizen's lives - millions of them.

While you may, out of optimism, want to bet against my rather pessimistic conclusion, in that it is so inconsistent with the president's unfounded optimism, recognize that he has been consistently wrong in his predictions and I have been consistently right. The lack of pride, a moral compass, and facts are what separates me from him. Hopefully they will do the same for you.

Finally this word of warning, the three-point plan I articulated in Tea With Terrorists is the only possible solution, and while it would prevail in a matter of months, it has to be implemented in its entirety and in order it is laid out to eliminate the threat of Islamic terrorism. The book's heroic character presents this solution in his speech to Congress if you are interested in learning what I have concluded must be done. That oratory is offered in the context of a novel because the creation of a fictional society was required to credibly present the truth - something to which Americans have become allergic.