Marines fire indiscriminately in Iraq
'NASSIRIYAH, Iraq - U.S. Marines, moving through this still-contested city, opened fire at anything that moved Tuesday, leaving dozens of dead in their wake, at least some of them civilians. Helicopter gunships circled overhead, unleashing Hellfire missiles into the squat mud-brick homes and firing their machine guns, raining spent cartridge cases into neighborhoods. Occasionally a tank blasted a hole in a house. Several bodies fell in alleys.

'It was impossible to know which casualties were civilians and which were members of the Iraqi militias that have ambushed Marine convoys here for days as the Marines tried to cross the Euphrates River on a rapid march north to Al Kut, where they are expected to engage elements of Iraq's Republican Guard.'

This is an ominous sign. Perhaps from the first engagement of the Fedayeen the Americans have already lost the war.

Marines fire indiscriminately in Iraq
'NASSIRIYAH, Iraq - U.S. Marines, moving through this still-contested city, opened fire at anything that moved Tuesday, leaving dozens of dead in their wake, at least some of them civilians. Helicopter gunships circled overhead, unleashing Hellfire missiles into the squat mud-brick homes and firing their machine guns, raining spent cartridge cases into neighborhoods. Occasionally a tank blasted a hole in a house. Several bodies fell in alleys.

'It was impossible to know which casualties were civilians and which were members of the Iraqi militias that have ambushed Marine convoys here for days as the Marines tried to cross the Euphrates River on a rapid march north to Al Kut, where they are expected to engage elements of Iraq's Republican Guard.'

This is an ominous sign. Perhaps from the first engagement of the Fedayeen the Americans have already lost the war.