In a Pentagon news briefing yesterday with Joint Chiefs Chairman General Peter Pace and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, more information was provided on the "no mosque entered" incident.  Gen. Pace showed slides of the main target areas.  Here is an excerpt from the briefing (Rumsfeld's quip about those not being "religious instruments" refers to a slide of some of the captured weapons found inside):

"The target area is here.  And this complex is an old school complex, I believe to hold, among other things, the hostage ring, people who grab people off the street for money.  The Iraqi special operators came into this area here and here to cordon off.  These areas in red, over the course of the operation, are buildings from which the Iraqi security forces' cordon took fire.  And the Iraqi forces themselves went into the main target areas —— the one with the red dot —— into the main target area.  This is the building inside of which, once they got in there, they found a small minaret and a prayer room.

Next picture, please. 

These are some of the things they found inside of that compound —— some RPGs —— 

 SEC. RUMSFELD:  Those are not religious instruments.

GEN. PACE:  —— and the like. 

Next picture, please. 

And these are parts of IEDs.  So inside of this compound that they went into looking for hostages —— and oh, by the way, they did find a hostage bound inside this facility.  When the hostage was released, he pointed to two of the individuals who the Iraqi security forces had detained as being his kidnappers.

So this is a very good operation on the part of the Iraqi Special Operations forces into a compound that turned out to have other than religious pilgrims in it."

John B. Dwyer   3 29 06