MICHAEL YON posts more blogging from Iraq. Lots of cool photos, too, and a bit on Rules of Engagement:
The “White Apartments†in Ramadi are not white, and none of the soldiers seemed to know why they are called the White Apartments. What the soldiers did know is that they get into a lot of shootouts at the White Apartments, that al-Qaeda and local thugs use the place as digs; that they had kidnapped and murdered university students there, and that our people and the ISF were not out to capture these terrorists, but to kill them. And they would say it: we are here to kill the terrorists.
The soldiers said they had just burned up a bunch of cars they knew belonged to troublemakers at the White Apartments. When I mentioned that I knew a commander who was not allowed to burn enemy cars even when he found weapons in them (he burned them anyway, which I never reported because he was winning ten dollars for every two he gambled), the soldiers in Ramadi said they do it all the time. And they said they are winning despite the chaos and continuing losses.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Hmm. Speaking of Rules of Engagement: “Bush’s words will lead to more pointed questions than ever before — especially the part about U.S. troops operating under ‘too many restrictions.’ Why did he allow that?”
Why, indeed? This might be titled “Bush: Bill Quick was right.”