The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 4 of 12)

p>I must reiterate that the quality of the reporting in this instance is critically important. The American public needs facts, not journalistic opinion -- we get plenty of that. Report it straight. Good and bad. Tell the truth. BR>-- Doug Santo BR>Pasadena, California p>In one dispatch Bill Tucker mentioned that everyone he saw, American and Iraqi, carried machine guns. They're not; they're magazine-fed automatic rifles. Iraqis carry the 7.62 mm fully automatic AK-47, although perhaps every tenth one will indeed have a 7.62 belt-fed machine gun. Americans carry either the 5.56 M-16 or a shortened version, the M-4 carbine. Both fire either single shots or three-round bursts. Again there will be the occasional machine gun, either the 5.56 mm M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) which uses a belt carried in a box or the belt-fed 7.62 mm M-240B. p>As to the weight of body armor, it's not 40 pounds but rather with ceramic plates front and back about 16.5 pounds. Add side plates, which few journalists do, and it's 25 pounds. That said, I don't doubt it FEELS like 40 pounds to Bill! But you get used to everything. BR>-- Michael Fumento BR> www.fumento.com p>Re: "Patrolling Tikrit" by William Tucker. p>To redo John Lennon regarding Iraq: p>All we are say-ay-ing, is give Pace a chance. BR>And for Petrae-ay-us, give him a chance." BR>--

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