These Pictures Are A Protest Against Geraldine Kennedy and Ed Mulhall

by drunk as a rule Sun May 08, 2005 16:26

3. (U) Route Irish. Route Irish is an East-West road along south Baghdad. It is approximately 12 kilometers long and runs from the International Zone in downtown Baghdad to BIAP. The highway is a four-lane road with a 50 meter wide median. (Annexes 8E, 144K).

(U) Route Irish has six major intersections. Each of these has been assigned a corresponding checkpoint number by Coalition Forces to facilitate command and control. Entry Control Point 1 (ECP 1) is located at one end of the highway near BIAP. Checkpoints 539-543 follow the road east going into downtown. (Annex 141K).

(U) Checkpoint 541 refers to the intersection of Route Irish with Route Vernon (also known as Route Force), which runs North-South. (Annex 142K).

(U) Route Irish is commonly referred to as “the deadliest road in Iraq” by journalists, Soldiers, and commanders. There is no corresponding alternative route from downtown Baghdad (and the International Zone) to BIAP, which gives the route a heavy traffic flow and causes Coalition convoy movement to become more predictable. These conditions make Route Irish a lucrative target area for insurgents to employ improvised explosive devices (IEDs) of varying types and to achieve effects in terms of casualties. Soldiers in 1st Cavalry Division and 3d Infantry Division have come to refer to Route Irish as “IED Alley.” (Annex 8E).


4 UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED

(S//NF) Between 1 November 2004 and 12 March 2005, there were 135 attacks or hostile incidents that occurred along Route Irish. These included 9 complex attacks (i.e., a combination of more than one type of attack, e.g., an IED followed by small arms fire or mortars), 19 explosive devices found, 3 hand grenades, 7 indirect fire attacks, 19 roadside explosions, 14 rocket propelled grenades (RPGs), 15 vehicle borne explosive devices, and 4 other types of attacks. (Annexes 1E, 8E).

(S//NF) The attack density for the period 1 November 2004 to 12 March 2005 is 11.25 attacks per mile, or a minimum of one attack per day along Route Irish since November. (Annex 8E).

(S//NF) The highest concentration of IED attacks occurs at 1000 hours, with the second highest concentration of attacks occurring at 1600 hours. These times correspond to convoys departing from or arriving at the Victory Base complex, the largest Coalition military facility in Baghdad. (Annex 5E).

(S//NF) Approximately 66 percent of all night time attacks along Route Irish occur between the hours of 1900 and 2100. (Annex 8E). The incident at BP 541 occurred between 2030 and 2100 hours on 4 March 2005.

(U) The majority of IED and VBIED attacks occur in and around three overpasses (CP 540, CP 541, and CP 543) and the turnoff to the International Zone. As mentioned earlier, CP 541 is the location where the incident occurred on 4 March 2005. (Annex 3E).

by Mr. Plow Sun May 08, 2005 20:52

Ah Bertie, you bastard.................

by teddyboy Tue May 10, 2005 02:05

"Route Irish" is a military nickname - due to the fact that it's the Irish Brigade Fighting 69th who guard it.

So what if they don't use US Military terminology in their reports. There's no copyright on the use of the word "Irish" - is there?

by Statin the obvious Tue May 10, 2005 02:16

Well they're doing a great job of guarding it...sounds like pretty bad stats!

Could you suggest a name change...as the understandbly occupied, invaded, pissed off locals might think it's got something to do with where all these invaders are comming from and follow the trail to Shannon!

by redjade Tue May 10, 2005 12:14

re: 'US Military terminology'
Lieutenant General James T. Conway, Director, Operations, Joint Staff usues the tem in Defense Department briefings - with Rummy by his side

Route Irish Blog
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68521#comment107026

'Irish Brigade Fighting 69th'
very interesting - there are a few references to the 69th on 'Route Irish' - but I'd like to see a reference say that's why its called such.

Either way it does not explain the reluctance of the Irish media of refering to 'Route Irish'

Kinda hard to write about Calipari and Sgrena without mentioning the name of the road.

by Ciaron Tue May 10, 2005 14:13

David Hackworth died this past week.

He was the model for Robert Duvall's Colonel Kilgore in "Apocalypse now" and the most decorated U.S. soldier in Vietnam. He moved to my hometown Brisbane in the early '80's when many of us thought that nuclear was an inevitably in North America & Europe.. He was active in the anti-nuclear weapons movement in Australia in the 1980's. I remember an anarchist meeting where we nervously volunteered each other to go out and debate this guy on campus. He had a lot of kills.

He returned to the U.S. in the '80's and had a good access to his generation who were running Gulf War 1, which he covered for Newsweek. He had a soldier's criticism of the civilian cheerleaders enthusiastic to send others to war (see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield et. al.)

Last February he wrote, "Most combat vets pick their fights carefully. They look at their scars, remember the madness and are always mindful of the fallout...the White House and the Pentagon are run by civilians who have never sweated it out on the battlefield"

Guardian obitiuary on the link below.....

by Big Irish from the USA Wed May 11, 2005 02:25

if they use it or not. It's like saying don't use the word "Paddy Wagon" when you write a story about the cops busting someone, in case the Irish people are offended. FACT: 99.9% of irish people wouldn't care one whit whether it's called "Route Irish" or "Bono's Underpants". The war is a NON-issue in Ireland. YOUR real problem is that you're anti-american and support the terrorists and any harrasment you can offer our boys in the Fighting 69th you will. Go tell your sympathies to the folks of Margaret Hassan.

by Go figure Wed May 11, 2005 07:48

1600+ Americans in bodybags, 10,000+ who have left arms, legs and minds behind have left already.. It's just a question of how many you will kill before you go and how many of you will die doing the killing on behalf of your elite who won't risk themselves or their kids.

"Paddy wagon", "Nigger wagon" we know where those names come from. I'm sure those who who are having their children butchered in Iraq will find out why it's named "Route Irish" (the American route in and out of Iraq goes through Shannon) whether the war will come home to Ireland like it did in NYC, Madrid, Bali tourist bars, we'll just have to wait and see.

by Robert Thu May 12, 2005 10:27 robert.mckenna at gcd dot ie 353 86 8744413

I must admit that I cackled a bit when I heard about this. So I went and checked the numbers, and you're right - no mention in the entire Irish file of LexisNexis for 'route irish', I went to follow up the US sources and only found 2 in the NYT, and 3 in the WP. I searched the US news file in LexisNexis and found 47 references, 44 if you remove references to the St. Patrick's parade, beginning in June 22 2004 with an Associated Press wire.

The full list of US news outlets that mention route Irish to get us the grand total of 47 is-

Associated Press Online
Associated Press
Knight Ridder Washington Bureau
Philidelphia Enquirer
Contra Costa Times
Boston Globe
Montgomery Advisor
Washington Post
USA Today
Charlotte Observer
The State
The Seattle Times
Philadelphia Enquirer
Miami Herald
Business Wire
Washington Times
The Oregonian
The Tennesean
Army Times
The Frontrunner
The White House Bulletin
New York Times
Investor's Business Daily
The Houston Chronicle
US Department of Defense Information
Newhouse News Service
Newsday
UPI
Christian Science Monitor
State Department

30 sources, 47 mentions. Most multple reports are from the AP. Many of the others are colour stories about local GIs and the like.
The NYT ran 393 stories about Iraq in the past month, the IT 137, we might, therefore expect one story to mention Route Irish, except that I would expect the larger number of US articles to deal in greater operational detail. So, I'm afraid I don't see any great deliberate cover up. If any editor is looking though they might like to run a colour story on Iraq sending an Irish journalist down route Irish, with the fighting 69th. I think that would be a good idea, and maybe if the Irish Times hadn't downscaled their foreign bureau and become a drab PD mouthpiece whose idea of relevance and stimulating debate is to publish intellectually bankrupt fraudsters they might have been the organisation to do it.

by eeekkkkk Fri Jun 24, 2005 12:59

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by eeekkkkk Fri Jun 24, 2005 13:02

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by eeekkkk Fri Jun 24, 2005 13:05

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by eeekkkkk Fri Jun 24, 2005 15:32

"A suicide car bomber slammed into a 7-ton U.S. military vehicle in Fallujah on Friday, and military sources told NBC News that five female Marines were killed and 10 others wounded."


If any of them are from Democrat/Liberal families he and bush are toast or dictators by monday.

(i am exaggerating a little for effect here above)

Yesterday he more or less said those not supporting Iraq lunacy ar traitors.

by eeeekkkkk Fri Jun 24, 2005 15:45

I'd say the stock market is not a pretty sight today

by redjade Fri Jun 24, 2005 15:55

Gavin Quotes CNN:

In Britain, almost two-thirds of Britons, 65 percent, saw China favorably, compared with 55 percent who held a positive view of the United States.

In France, 58 percent had an upbeat view of China, compared with 43 percent who felt that way about the U.S. The results were nearly the same in Spain and the Netherlands.

The United States’ favorability rating was lowest among three Muslim nations which are also U.S. allies — Turkey, Pakistan and Jordan — where only about one-fifth of those polled viewed the U.S. in a positive light.

Only India and Poland were more upbeat about the United States, while Canadians were just as likely to see China favorably as they were the U.S.

from an Irish Blog:
http://www.gavinsblog.com/?p=2242

by eeekkkkkaaabbbbbbooooo Fri Jun 24, 2005 15:58

O'REILLY: And when he [Durbin] went out there, his intent was to whip up the American public against the Bush detainee policy. That's what his intent was. His intent wasn't to undermine the war effort, because he never even thought about it. He never even thought about it. But by not thinking about it, he made an egregious mistake because you must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq war and the war on terror and undermining it. And any American that undermines that war, with our soldiers in the field, or undermines the war on terror, with 3,000 dead on 9-11, is a traitor.
Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care, couldn't care less.

by fox the master Fri Jun 24, 2005 17:11

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by iraqi vet Mon Sep 26, 2005 09:34

All this butchery in Iraq for the freedom of a people generates a whole lot of protest. To those of you that want to protest a true waste of human life, I suggest you got to your local Department of Motor Vehicles. 41,000 people were killed in motor vehice accidents in the US last year. No one pickets GM or Ford or Chrysler or Toyota. Why are you folks not enraged over this loss of life? Dying to get to the store???? Dying to go to the movies? Dying to drive to work???
Don't any of you hypocritical bastards that oppose helping these people open your mouth until you raise hell about the slaughter on the highways.
SGT S.

by iraqivet Tue Sep 27, 2005 06:04

A road full of bombers being referred to as Irish??????? Impossible!!!!!!!!! I think the road was nicknamed after the Notre Dame "Irish" American college football team; Many of the roads have sports nicknames.

The Sarge

by Mark C - Teacher Tue Sep 27, 2005 14:52 mark at markconroy dot net

But because Route Irish is the only way in and the only way out, it's a terrorist's gift, a ready-made shooting gallery in which there are few dud ducks. Virtually everyone is a trophy - senior military officers, busloads of Western coalition staff and their baggage wagons, lumbering supply convoys, Western businessmen or a journalist going home, and all the coalition and Iraqi military patrols sucked into an exhaustive and grinding security operation along the road.

by eeekkkkkk Tue Nov 29, 2005 21:09

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%27camp+dublin+baghdad%27&meta=

by eeekkkkk Tue Nov 29, 2005 21:13

LONDON — A video appearing to show private security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the Internet.

The video, which first appeared on a Web site that has been linked unofficially to Aegis Defense Services — one of the biggest security companies operating in Iraq — contained four separate clips, in which security guards open fire with automatic rifles at civilian cars.

All of the shooting incidents apparently took place on “route Irish,” a road that links the airport to Baghdad.

The road has acquired the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous in the world because of the number of suicide attacks and ambushes carried out by insurgents against coalition troops. In one four-month period earlier this year, it was the scene of 150 attacks.

In one of the recorded attacks, a Mercedes is fired on at a distance of several hundred yards before it crashes in to a civilian taxi.

by eeekkkkk Tue Nov 29, 2005 21:15

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6604


"In a letter my mother (RL: Possibly Westhusing’s sister?) sent to me over a month ago regarding Ted, it mentioned that he was frustrated with all the distrust, lying and killing by the contractors and also by the Iraqi police amongst each other and in police cases where they were supposed to be protecting people.

He felt it was unsolvable. He had asked for prayers, saying they were "really needed now". The letter mentions that he was fed up with the Army and was getting out. I read this and then put more facts together ...one bullet, non-combat, closed casket, no info from military to the public and it seems like the worst may have happened. "

by eeekkkkk Tue Nov 29, 2005 21:17

- Censored In The Irish Media - Begins at Sheridans Bar