Was Fallujah worth it?

Are you kidding?

'Stunning' weapons cache found in Fallujah.

What does this mean?

U.S. Marine officers said Wednesday that U.S. and Iraqi troops sweeping Fallujah have uncovered enough weapons to fuel a nationwide rebellion and that clearing the former insurgent bastion of arms is holding up the return of civilians.

What did they find?

"The amount of weapons was in no way just to protect a city," said Maj. Jim West, a Marine intelligence officer. "There was enough to mount an insurgency across the country."

A huge store of weapons and explosives was discovered at the mosque of Abdullah al-Janabi, a Muslim cleric and insurgent leader, according to a report on The New York Times' Web site. Al-Janabi is thought to have fled the city.

The Times said the mosque compound in a residential area had sheds stacked with TNT, mortar shells, bombs, guns, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition. A naval mine was in the street outside, it added.

So it looks like the benefits of taking Fallujah will be much greater than was envisioned.

Here's more about what was found.

Marines clearing houses in Fallujah have found Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery shells and heavy-caliber cannon – with weapons caches often marked by a brick hanging by a string on homes' outside walls.

U.S. and Iraqi forces moving into the city smashed much of the insurgents' weaponry, bending gun barrels to prevent future use. Many large weapons caches were blown up quickly with only a cursory attempt at inventory.

West noted that insurgents stashed arms in mosques. "Even gravesides were used to bury weapons," he said.

West said U.S. forces turned up a "cook book" with instructions on using mercury nitrate and silver nitrate and descriptions of nerve agents. He didn't elaborate.

West said the majority of the weapons caches were in the south, as the insurgents likely expected the attack to be initiated from there.

As you can see, even though we gave the terrorists plenty of warning that we were coming, we still managed to fool them with regard to where we were attacking from. This gained us many benefits, not least was the overrunning of areas before the terrorists could remove vital documents and weapons.

All of this will accrue to us great benefits in the coming days and weeks and should go a long way toward ensuring that elections take place as planned.