対イラク武力行使

・参加人員
　 ・米兵：650
　 ・イラク兵：800

・50機のヘリ：アパッチとブラックホークとチヌーク（兵員輸送用）

・車輌200台：装甲車輌、戦車

・場所：サマラ市街地ではなく、近郊の農村地帯；四つの村
　 「「群雄割拠」というべき地帯」(ED WONG;The New York Times)

・41人を拘束（その後17人を解放）

・空爆は行っていない

・死傷者は今の所、出ていない。
　 （銃撃戦すら、あったとも、なかったとも定かではない）

・「捕獲物」；武器庫が見つかった
　 ・砲弾
　 ・爆発物
　 ・リード線
　 ・起爆剤
　 ・IED作成マニュアル
　 ・旧イラク軍の制服


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june06/iraq_3-16.html

First of all, Colonel Sepp, to follow up on what Ed Wong was telling Ray
just now, an air assault -- it means taking troops to certain places on
helicopters. It isn't bombing raids and strafing and that sort of thing,
correct?

空からの作戦というのは、空爆ではなく、部隊をヘリで
ある特定の場所に運ぶことを意味するんですよね。


COL.KALEV SEPP,(Ret.),Army Special Forces:Correct.It's a major operation
probably intended to take advantage of the surprise that a sudden
movement by helicopter would give the American troops.

その通りです。
大規模な作戦ですが、おそらくヘリの奇襲攻撃で、
米軍を優位にしようとしたという作戦ですね。


JIM LEHRER:But the use of very few fixed-wing aircraft and what
we would normally call a bombing raid or anything similar top that.

固定翼の航空機をほとんど使用していないのですよね。
いわゆる空爆ではないのですよね。


COL.KALEV SEPP: That's what I understand,and that means that probably
the insurgents that they're hunting aren't in strongholds,but in
hideouts. And that kind of application of fire power isn't necessary.

そう思いますね。
掃討しようとしている武装勢力は拠点を構えているというのではなくて、
潜んでいるので、大規模な空爆をするということではないんですね。


JIM LEHRER: All right. Now, Captain West, how do you read the military
purpose here, based on what you know is going on over there
on the ground? What do they want to get done here?

お持ちの情報から、軍事作戦の狙いをどのように解釈されますか。
何を達成しようとしているのでしょうか。


CAPT.BING WEST(USMC):Well,I think, first, they're sending a very strong
signal that the group that may have attacked the mosque in Samarra,
that they'd kicked off what some say was a tiny bit of a civil war
in Baghdad, or maybe a little bit more than a tiny bit of a civil war,
they want to go after those people.
And they're not in Samarra. They appear to be in a series of villages
outside.
So they want to disrupt them.
And I think that the reason they were using helicopters is not just
because the 101st Airborne happens to have them, but also, as Kalev said
the element of surprise, to see if they couldn't seize some of these
guys before they can get on the highways and get away.
Because it's been, to use a colloquial term, a game of whack-a-mole,
that it, we don't have enough troops on the ground in Anbar Province --
it's a huge area -- and in the other province north of Baghdad, so that
when we begin to move toward one place, the insurgents get in their cars
on the highways, and move out, and move somewhere else.
And by using the helicopters this time, I think they were trying to
surround them before they could get in their cars and get out of there