Marines Take Over Hospital from War Criminals
Charles Johnson
Wed Jul 5, 2006 at 5:10 pm PDT • Views: 243
The enemy we’re fighting in Iraq is a cold-blooded, utterly depraved enemy that does not hesitate to endanger its own people—even hospitalized women and children—to gain an advantage: Marines gain control of Iraq hospital.
RAMADI, Iraq - Hundreds of U.S. Marines stormed through dimly lit hallways of the largest hospital in western Iraq on Wednesday, taking control of a facility allegedly used by insurgents — and encountering a regional health infrastructure in serious decay.
Members of al-Qaida in Iraq had been using the Ramadi General Hospital, a seven-story building with some 250 beds, to treat their wounded and fire on U.S. troops in the area, the Marines said.
They said wounded Iraqi police officers who had been taken to the hospital were later found beheaded.
Though there was no resistance during Wednesday’s operation, the Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment said they found about a dozen triggering devices for roadside bombs hidden above the tiled ceiling of one office. They knocked down dozens of locked doors and searched medicine chests and storage closets for additional weapons.
Hospitals are considered off-limits in traditional warfare. In western Ramadi, however, insurgents have fired on Marines from the rooftop of a women and children’s hospital so often that patients were moved to a wing with fewer exposed windows.
Frank says: