By surrounding his military with a human shield, Saddam has effectively neutralized the ability for the US to use their Airpower to soften Baghdad. Killing civilians is bad — it has two effects; making Iraq harder to occupy and contain, and increasing the likelihood of a confrontation with Muslims worldwide. Coalition aircraft cannot effectively attack any targets in Baghdad without collateral damage. Even precision bombs cannot effectively soften the forces within and around Baghdad; not without civilian casualties anyway.

And the anti-aircraft guns have stopped firing in the city; presumably for two reasons — to conceal their positions, and to save ammunition for incoming Blackhawks and Apaches. They did fire three days ago at a flight of 30 Apaches, damaging all of them and downing one, however.

The US Army and Marines are faced with the prospect of entering into an Urban Guerilla War with no ability to use strategic bombing or artillery , and very risky close air support. They will have to walk and drive their way into an uncertain battleground in Baghdad, and even then there will be collateral damage, which will propagate to Al Jazeera, which will further incense the Arab world.

Iraqis are firing at citizens leaving their cities because they are the key to the defensive strategy. If the civilians abandon the cities of Iraq, then one can presume that all of those left will be combatants. This makes the US task vastly simpler.

All of which makes this situation eerily similar to a small country called Vietnam. The difference is Vietnam was a jungle, not a dense city; and the Viet Cong didn’t have Al Jazeera on their side.

But as the article I forwarded earlier today says, the Bush team’s strategy is self-perpetuating. There is no going back.

The only practicable option from my standpoint is to strip Saddam of his human shield. This tactic would involve laying siege to Baghdad and Basra, effectively starving out the citizenry. It will be up to the Iraqi citizenry to choose whether to die from lack of water, food, electricity, and medical supplies; or to risk death by their own soldiers as they flee the cities. If you can get the populace to leave the cities, then perhaps you can lay waste to anything that remains…. though that leaves a lot of rebuilding to do, may take months, and may result in Arab revolt anyway. I also doubt the UN and Red Cross would tolerate this.

I suspect that Arab Revolt is what the coalition really wants.

-Ian.

On Friday, March 28, 2003, at 04:33 PM, Daniel Berninger wrote:

> FoIBer’s,
>
> It seems this list has some strategic thinkers. Does anyone have
> suggestions for Mr. Rumsfeld?
>
> The article below (and others) note the current dilemma. Vulnerable
> supply
> line and insufficient troops in Iraq to get the job done regarding
> Bagdad
> (and no northern front) while reinforcements one month away.
>
> Option A. Press ahead and see what happens.
> Problem – troops exhausted, outnumbered, technology vulnerable,
> supply
> line unreliable
>
> Option B. Wait for reinforcements.
> Problem – troops vulnerable to continued Iraqi attacks. Likely
> worn
> down by the time reinforcements arrive.
>
> I don’t see anything that works except a retreat back into Kuwait to
> regroup. Anyone else?
>
> Dan
>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/27/1048653806667.html
>
> Months to victory, US warns
> By Marian Wilkinson in Washington, Christopher Kremmer and agencies
> March 28 2003
>
> A radio transmission operator from Weapons company-2nd Battalion/8th
> Regiment receives information on the radio about Iraqi movements at
> the east
> and west of their camp in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah. Photo:
> AFP
>
> Senior Pentagon officials believe the Iraq war could take months, not
> weeks,
> to win amid indications that the assault on Baghdad may have to be
> delayed.
>
> The United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said in a radio
> interview yesterday the war “may take a little bit longer, [we] don’t
> know
> how long”.
>
> His comments came as the Pentagon ordered another 30,000 troops to
> Kuwait
> for eventual deployment in Iraq.
>
> As the US President, George Bush, met Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony
> Blair,
> at Camp David, the Washington Post reported that a debate was raging
> in the
> Pentagon over the future course of the campaign.
>
> Vital to their deliberations was whether to delay the final assault on
> Baghdad until reinforcements arrive to bolster units within 60
> kilometres of
> the capital.
>
>
>
> advertisement
>
> advertisement
>
> Some elements already in Kuwait, such as the 82nd Airborne Division,
> could
> be deployed within days, but others – including the 4th infantry –
> could
> take a month or more to arrive.
>
> Unexpectedly strong resistance and appalling weather have stalled the
> rapid
> advance that marked the early days of the campaign.
>
> US officials say Iraq has adopted a defence strategy that combines
> guerilla
> strikes, regular military assaults and suicide attacks using fuel
> tankers
> and buses carrying civilians.
>
> Nervous Baghdad residents were kept awake by more than 30 big
> explosions on
> Wednesday night, with the bombardment continuing after daybreak.
>
> US Army officers have been reported as saying that Iraqi forces
> continue to
> stream south from Baghdad to confront the coalition, apparently trying
> to
> exploit the vulnerability of advance units because of their insecure,
> 400-kilometre supply lines.
>
> US forces near Najaf and Karbala have run low on water and food, army
> sources said.
>
> In one move, several hundred vehicles believed to be carrying
> Republican
> Guards approached the US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division near Karbala,
> about 90
> kilometres south of Baghdad, prompting US commanders to call in air
> strikes,
> which they said wiped out much of the convoy.
>
> Another contingent of 2000 guards moved south-east from Baghdad towards
> elements of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force advancing toward Kut.
>
> Fearing a suicide attack, marines fired on a bus that sped towards
> them on
> Highway Seven, killing 20 Iraqis. They were wearing what were
> described as
> makeshift uniforms and had two pistols between them.
>
> Washington and Baghdad have accused each other over the deaths of up
> to 15
> Iraqi civilians when a bomb or missile hit the city’s Al Sha’ab market
> district, the worst civilian casualties in the capital since the war
> began.
>
> Rejecting responsibility for the mounting civilian toll, the Pentagon
> is
> blaming all civilians casualties on Saddam Hussein.
>
> But the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, rejected this and
> voiced increasing concern about the casualties.
>
> President Bush, during a visit to Central Command headquarters in
> Florida,
> pointedly praised the commander of the coalition forces, General Tommy
> Franks, and the military strategy.
>
> He also praised the role of allies, including Australia, which he said
> was
> providing “naval gunfire support and special forces and fighter
> aircraft on
> missions deep in Iraq”.
>
> But Mr Bush dropped a line that said the military plan “is ahead of
> schedule”, saying instead that he could not forecast the final day of
> the
> Iraqi regime, but “that day is drawing near”.
>
> Despite the obstacles elsewhere, about 1000 US paratroopers were
> dropped
> into Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq, opening a new front the coalition
> hopes will force the regime to redeploy some forces now defending
> approaches
> to Baghdad. They may also deter Turkey from carrying out its threat to
> occupy parts of the area.
>
> In the south, US and British commanders said they had destroyed much
> of a
> column of up to 120 Iraqi vehicles moving south from Basra.
>
> Iraq fired a missile at Kuwait, but it was intercepted by a Patriot
> battery,
> a Kuwaiti Defence Ministry spokesman said.
>
>
>
>

IMAGES TO EXPLODE THE MYTHS OF WAR

Mar 24 2003

BRIAN READE on why these pictures will lead to more horrors closer to home

THE men in suits assured us it would be swift, precise and decent. Those in khaki, such as General Tommy Franks, boasted the military machine was so efficient it would be “a campaign like no other in history”.

But, as we have seen in the images thrown up by the most televisual war ever, it’s the same old dirty, nasty game.

SUFFERING: An Iraqi man wounded during attacks on Basra

The elderly riddled with shrapnel and drenched in blood, babies with half their faces burned and mutilated soldiers lying in the trenches, expose how Baghdad and Basra today are simply modern equivalents of Dresden and Coventry.

No matter how smart your bombs are, war is about laying waste to cities and people. It is about pain and suffering and the kind of blind panic that has you firing into a river to kill what you think is a stricken pilot.

And this time the world is seeing it played out 24 hours a day on a dozen TV channels. Which might be not only the undoing of Bush and Blair but also the fuse which sets the anger of the Arab world alight.

SHOCKING AND AWFUL: Allied forces blitz Baghdad on Friday night

Because this highly-addictive TV coverage has exploded the myth of the precise and blood-free war. It has reminded us that war should always be a last resort – and in this case it is nowhere near it.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The propagandists at Allied command gave unprecedented access to journalists and camera crews in the hope of showing how merciful their mission was.

But the many sickening sights we have seen have only strengthened the belief held by the majority of the world, that this is a futile and immoral attack on people who currently threaten no outsiders. Where are the chemical attacks? Where are Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction?

Where are the links to international terrorists? Where are the millions of oppressed Iraqis defecting en masse to their liberators? Where are all the Iraqi lies?

INNOCENT: A child burned during the bombing of Baghdad screams in pain

BAGHDAD has been as honest or dishonest as Washington. Following Friday’s cataclysmic attack you might have expected them to claim hundreds of dead civilians.

Instead they said there were three.

What of our side? The Americans claimed to have taken Umm Qasr two days ago, with their sickeningly triumphal raising of the Stars and Stripes. Yesterday they were still fighting. We were told the people of the south, Shi’ite Muslims who despise Saddam, would surrender without resistance. Some have. But many others are trying to repel the invaders.

SLAUGHTER: Bodies of Iraqi soldiers huddled dead in a trench in Southern Iraq – their white flag couldn’t save them

We are not being given the full truth. We see screaming babies in ramshackle hospitals, stripped bare of supplies by a dozen years of medicine sanctions, and we despair at the lie that this war is a humanitarian mission to help a stricken people.

We see innocent civilians killed and maimed in their dilapidated homes, and we just don’t know why it is happening in our name.

All we can conclude, especially after the astonishing blitz of Baghdad, is that Iraq is the testing ground for a devastating show of American might, aimed at warning enemies that if they step out of line they will be next. You cannot understate how dangerous this situation is for the leader of a Labour government. If Tony Blair loses the propaganda war it will destroy his credibility and possibly his career. The British will be tough on his war crimes and tough on the causes of them.

TRIUMPH?: the Stars and Stripes go up over Umm Qasr

But that is the least of our worries. You see, we are not the only ones following this war through a close-up lens. So too are the Arabs.

And they saw something the other day that our propagandists do not yet admit to. The carnage in Basra’s Jumhuriya hospital following coalition bombing which Iraq claims killed 77 civilians.

Al Jazeera TV beamed images across the Arab world of the dead and wounded, including a child with the back of its skull blown off. “It was a massacre,” wailed one woman.

Imagine what effect that had on an already raging Arab world. Then imagine what future images of shock and awe we might soon see on our own doorstep.