What did Frank Rich mean by the cover-up of the Marines deaths?

Rich wrote

"The fictional scenarios concocted for Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman also unraveled quickly, as did last weekend's Pentagon account of 10 marines killed outside Falluja on a "routine foot patrol." As the NBC correspondent Jim Miklaszewski told Don Imus last week, he received calls within hours from the fallen's loved ones about how the marines had been slaughtered after being recklessly sent to an unprotected site for a promotion ceremony."

Does anyone have any information as to what really happened to the Marines? Thanks. I haven't seen anything that suggested these Marines were out for a "promotional ceremony" but Rich would be nuts to make this up.

on friday (?) I think. There were a couple of really bad judgment calls made there:

One was to hold the damned promotion ceremony in f-Inga Falleuja for cryingoutloud....

Another was to hold the ceremony in a courtyard that the Marines routinely used as a staging area for their operations in and around Falleuja. The place was unsecured so the insurgents could booby-trap the place at their leisure and just wait for the marines to assemble. The error of the commander was to keep using the same, unsecured courtyard as a staging area.

clusterf**k unlimited...and it cost the lives of 10 young marines. Somebody will be court-martial ed for this...deservedly so...I think.

And yes, the military did call it a "routine foot patrol" at first.

from the git go. They spun a false story to hide the abject stupidity that led to the death of these Marines.

BushCo & Cronies are a failed lot.

and didn't see that anywhere. Why wasn't there a bigger story on this? It was Bush playing politics with the lives of the Marines. If true, this is something Murtha would have spoken up about or at least I would hope he would have.

is correct...

Not that I have links or anything but just putting the word out it didn't come just from Frank Rich.

a courtyard for a promotion/medal ceremony.

The surrounding area had been swept and secured but nobody thought about the interior.

There was a web of artillery shells buried inside.

A guy evidently stepped on a strategically placed pressure plate and that was that.

Besides the deaths that kind of contained concussion causes devastating injuries to the survivors.
Turns dense organs (liver, spleen, etc) to jelly.

The only reason this current account is out is because families started calling media with the truth.

for which the commanders should be busted. I wonder if there was a "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background.

I am sure the enlisted guys were raising hell going into what they new damned well was a hot area.

Same shit I was up against 35 years ago.

Sounds like a ploy to make Bush look good, the day after his everything is going better speech. If it was a photo op for the Bush Administration that would be the kind of news that could take him down. Even pukes wouldn't stand for that.

Marines killed in Fallujah were at ceremony
Military initially reported that troops were killed while on patrol

Reuters
updated: 3:37 a.m. ET Dec. 8, 2005

BAGHDAD - Ten U.S. Marines killed near the Iraqi city of Fallujah last week had been at a promotion ceremony and were not on foot patrol as initially reported, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

The Marines were in an old flour mill on the outskirts of the city to celebrate the promotion of three soldiers, a military statement said.

As the ceremony ended, the Marines dispersed and one of them is believed to have stepped on a buried pressure plate linked to explosives that caused the devastating blast.

Full story here: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10351538/