19 U.S. Troops Lost -- not to a Car Bomb!

12/23/04 EDIT---
But by a suicide bomber!

Pentagon officials acknowledged that the attack was likely carried out by a suicide bomber who infiltrated the camp’s dining tent as soldiers ate lunch.

(*the rest of the ramble has been fine tuned, I had been operating on the guess that it was a missile or rocket used*)---

If anyone thought the widespread insurgency would just keep doing small on-foot stormings of police stations, masquerades as checkpoint personel to murder whomever, or use roadside bombs or car bombs (with or without a brainless "martyr" inside), the devestating attack on a mess tent in a compound housing U.S. troops is a grim realization for some (presuming they're not in denial that it could be more persistent) that its getting nastier, and the enemy is more compitent and - no doubt through the use of infiltrators and sympathizers - well informed about their enemy (us and those Iraqis dismissed as decent human beings for being collaborators).

In April 2003, as the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was ending, the Pentagon projected in a formal planning effort that the U.S. military occupation of the country would end this month.

Instead, December 2004 brought the deadliest single incident of the war for U.S. forces, with more than 80 casualties suffered yesterday by U.S. troops, civilian contractors and Iraqi soldiers when a U.S. base near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was blasted at lunchtime.

At least 19 of those killed in the attack on a mess tent at the city's airport were American soldiers -- more U.S. troops than have been lost in any other major incident in the fighting, even during the spring 2003 invasion. Before yesterday, the worst incidents were the deaths of 17 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division in the November 2003 collision of two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, also in Mosul, and, two weeks before that, the loss of 15 soldiers when a CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter crashed west of Baghdad. All three occurred after President Bush's May 2003 declaration that major combat operations in Iraq had ended.

The major difference between the latest attack and the earlier incidents is that it was an attack on a U.S. base, rather than on troops in transit in vulnerable aircraft. That difference appears to reflect both the persistence of the insurgency and its growing sophistication, as experts noted that it seemed to be based on precise intelligence. Most disturbingly, some officers who have served in Iraq worried that the Mosul attack could mark the beginning of a period of even more intense violence preceding the Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30.

I seem to recall an incident earlier in the occupation before the installment of the Interim government, while Bremer was the de facto Governor of Iraq, that a hotel or something of that nature was hit by insurgent rockets fired from what was presumed to be a truck while one of the Deputy Defense Secretaries were there I think? Or was it Rummy? That bits a little hazy from how long it's been, over a year I'd imagine, but if I remember right a high ranking field officer (either a Lt. Colonel or a Colonel) was killed in the attack.

Several experts noted that insurgents appear to have acted on accurate intelligence. Kalev Sepp, a former Special Forces counterinsurgency expert who recently returned from Iraq, noted that the attack "was carried out in daylight against the largest facility on the base, at exactly the time when the largest number of soldiers would be present."

"This combination of evidence indicates a good probability that the attack was well-planned and professionally executed," Sepp said.

A byproduct of such a strike is that it tends to drive a wedge between U.S. personnel and the Iraqis who work on the base. "I think that this tells us first that our base facilities are totally infiltrated by insiders who are passing the word on when and where we are most vulnerable to attack," said retired Marine Col. Edward Badolato, a security expert.

>> Source Article [MSNBC]

Not vert far fetched. That's already been the obvious case for the IGN and the Iraqi police forces at times.

Maybe what happened to the mess tent in Mosul won't be a common occurance, but I doubt it'll be the last of its kind to where its not the insurgencies favored car bombs (which one killed twenty people at a funeral the other day in Najaf) -- but the next best thing -- idiotic zealots led to believe by chief zealots that blowing themselves up is the way to do it.

From a tactical standpoint, attacking bases is more effective than bombing the Iraqi civilians, mainly because we here in the states only give a damn about the body counts when its our people, if its a dozen or two Iraqis dead (like it seems to be everyday) it doesn't even affect us. Its got relevance in the field as a battle tactic, and sure as hell a type of psychological weapon that could have a profound impact on the publics opinion on the situation.

Seriously, it was only sooner or later before they made an actual hit on a base. (Hold on a sec.... didn't a base come under fire right before or during the first Battle of Fallujah in April? I just had a memory flash of an attack in Samarra where something like 70 insurgents on foot mounted an attack on I think a U.S. facility of some kind. Again, details are lacking and hazy because of the time that's passed.)

However long the "calm" between these "major" strikes on U.S. forces (quotes used cause as I mentioned above the Iraqi body counts, even of the fifty something ING troops found dead in Mosul weeks ago or the dozens that get blown away in car bombings daily, don't matter at all it would seem to most), it seems inevitable (regardless of method of attack used) that another one as bad or worse is bound to happen sooner or later in this run up to the election and possibly after if by February or March there is such discord in the PR and ground battles that the country officially breaks out into civil war.