Noon Update . . .

This Reuters story has the following tidbits: "U.S. forces expect to be positioned throughout the last remaining guerrilla stronghold in Falluja by Tuesday. "They would then have the task of retrieving weapons caches throughout the city said to hold thousands of weapons, from anti-aircraft missiles to machine guns and land mines." [Note: no doubt many of these caches have been destroyed via sympathetic detonation by airstrike, artillery, or tank rounds. But this implies the US will be "retrieving" them, maybe moving them outside the city for destruction or storage. This will take a long time during the reconstruction phase. It may be tempting to blow them in place, but no doubt we don't want to destroy much more of the city -- people will be moving back in. Moving explosives in large quantities will take a long time - it requires a great deal of care.] " . . . Major Clark Watson, deputy commander of the 3rd Marines, 1st Battalion [1/3, from Okinawa] . . . estimated U.S. forces had killed about 100 foreign fighters in the offensive." "Iraq's minister of state for national security said more than 1,000 insurgents had been killed in the past five days of fighting." [The author's juxtaposition of these two claims is perhaps meant to discredit one or both of them. No doubt Maj Watson was referring to the kills his own unit has made, and not the entire coalition force.] "American tank commanders said they faced small teams of fighters with rocket-propelled grenades in the Shuhada district." [Note: This matches a Fox embedded report commented upon yesterday. He's with the Army's 2-2.] "They also said they had found pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns." [This could refer to a ZSU-23-2 Towed Anti-Aircraft System which could possibly be mounted on a truck bed. Would be quite lethal against ground forces if employed in that method, rather than against air. ZSU's seem to be common in Iraq, though perhaps not as many are left as were there a year ago.]