http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2941727.stm From what he says, I don't see how our plan gets any credit (even if you're inclined to think the Iraqis were ever likely to hold out for an appreciable period.) According to this guy, the Iraqis couldn't stand up to the air assault. Another interesting insight is a possible answer why the Iraqis didn't do what we all feared, namely, force the US to fight block by block in the cities. The colonel says that the soldiers didn't want to fight in the cities because they didn't want to see their homes destroyed.
But when this Iraqi colonel talks about receiving few orders from high command, and Brigadier Brooks talks day after day from Doha about severing command and control...gee, I wonder if there's a connection here???
Karl, that's not what I was saying. The way we used air power wasn't smart or innovative...it was obvious. Seriously, is there anything we did with air power that made you go, hmmm, I would't have thought of that?
What do you reccomend, Professor Sneaky? Geez, why does everything have to be innovative? We use air power to win, people know that. So what?
Airpower, even with the B-52 carpet bombings didn't break the enemy in Viet Nam, right? Is there some Godwin Law violation for that "war"? IIRC, many were saying that the "house to house" fighting in Baghdad would be Nam-like. Besides, a colonol? Yea, not a general and what exactly did he command? A unit? A region that had been left for lost by Saddam? A region that Saddam wanted to keep, thus required more air attention. This war effort is (was) a total package and can be fully appreciated when taken in full context. I am glad you had nothing to do with war plans as you fail to see the big picture. Nice link and perspective, but you can't be serious to extrapolate that "personal interest story" into the general war plan. I know, as war causes death, aren't you at least happy that air power has allowed the coalition to save many of our troops' lives? Unless you are Bill Maher and think air power is the work of a coward. Yea, them 9/11 guys was real brave!
I doubt you would recognize smart or innovative, even if walked right up and slapped you in the face. There were many things that were innovative in this plan. * The integrated use of air & ground forces. (But I guess to many that is, "oh so 2002".) This allowed Gen. Franks to lighten up his 3rd inf. division without the slow moving artillary/rocket force and advance faster against Baghdad. * Starting the gound assult even before the air campaign started, caught many off guard. * Having the spy/tapped phone line to pinpoint Saddam's bunker for the attack on the first day of the war. * The Psy-ops war of leafletting, e-mailing, calling Iraqi officials/generals on their cell phones. * The "Shock & Awe" widely publisized before the war was a feint to make everyone think we were going to start off with a massive air campaign. It even fooled our media which took about a week to figure it out. * The apache recon-in-force deep into Iraq, which was apparently one of the few failures. * The sprint from the red-line to the Baghdad airport in less then 24 hours. * The thunder-runs and holding of palaces in the center of the city,to avoid the steet-to-street fighting that could occured in the city. * Allowing France to keep talking to the Iraqi leadership about the possibility of a cease-fire until we occupied the airport. * Special Ops forces taking the air-fields on the West of Iraq, and many other things that probably haven't been reported yet. Dave, I need to go dig-up some of your posts from before this war predicting this as another Vietnam. Our flip-flop from "this will be a disaster", to "the three weeks to victory was so predictable" really is laughable. If you want to see a bad use of air-power in a campaign, go back and read about the beginning of the Kosovo campaign where they forced pilots to stay above 20,000 feet looking for targets through thick cloud cover, had target selection-by-commitee and as a result accomplished very little in the first few weeks. Nothing except a smart and innovative military campaign would have produced this result in under three weeks, and unless you are more delusional than the Iraqi Minister of Misinformation you would at least acknowledge that. I now inform you that you are too far from reality. -last known quote from Saeed al-Sahaf before disappearing.
manny...my point is, praising our war plan is akin to praising Arsene Wenger for Arsenal beating a conference side it happens to meet in the FA Cup. There's been some insta-revisionism going on, advancing the notion that we had a great war plan. We had a substandard war plan, but luckily for us, the Iraqis' was worse. Garcia, you're right, he's just a colonel (which I unconscionably misspelled in the title ), but that's all we've got right now. Mostly, I started this thread because it touched on an issue that came up in another thread, namely, why didn't the Iraqis do what we'd feared (turn this into an urban war)? They certainly had time and opportunity to do so. Also, it gives one reason as to why we didn't see any resistance when we re-started the offensive. We'd killed everything or caused it to desert. I don't think I'm picking on semantics when I say this integration is part of our war doctine. It's nothing specific to this war, not part of the war plan. Anyway, like I wrote above, pretty much anything works in a mismatch like this. Only those without access to CNN. Dude, we said before the war we were going to start the ground assault a couple of days after the war began, it wasn't going to be a replay of GW I. Using spies is innovative??? Using psy-ops is innovative??? I have no idea what you're talking about here. S&A started a day or two late because we thought we might have killed Saddam on Day One. OK, I already touched on this above, but seriously...what is innovative about attacking the enemy capital??? Well, if this strategy was the reason the Iraqi remnants didn't resist, then this is a good point. But I haven't seen anything to indicate the cause-effect you're implying is correct. I'd be very interested in any links you have to that effect. Alan, it comes down to this...I don't think we did very much that couldn't have been predicted by all of us armchair generals 3 months ago. Our force was one division too light, or else the war would have ended quicker, and we could have done a better job policing the cities. Further, remember when Rummy said we didn't really need the Brits??? Can you imagine how this would have gone if we'd had to allocate soldiers to take Basra? You've got me confused with someone else. All along, I thought we'd control everything in the open (which in Iraq, is practically everything except the cities) in a matter of days. Our air superiority guaranteed that. My only fear was that the units that were closest to Saddam would get into the cities in reasonable order, and make taking the cities hell. To me that was a variable, I didn't really have a guess which way that would go. A week and a half into the war, it looked like this is what would happen, and hell yeah, I was getting very nervous. Not that we'd lose the war, but that we get bogged down, and in order to win the war, we'd have to create so much destruction and ill-will that our political goals would be impossible to achieve. (In fact, I quoted something that talkingpointsmemo found to the effect that we might be forced into a negotiated settlement, and said I didn't think that would happen.) But we got lucky. For some reason, the RG came ~40 miles out of Baghdad where they were sitting ducks for our air power. They did exactly what we hoped they would do. And that was that.
Bottom line - this was the contemporary equivalent of horsemen charging tanks. Industrial warfare is efficient mass killing. For better or worse, we are the world's best at the enterprise.
Better as far as I am concerned. Let's not take this victory lightly. IN 1991 this was probably the fourth best army in the world. We won that war quickly (or at least strongarmed our settlement) and cleaned up pretty quickly this time. This time it was a commanding defeat of the Iraqi army. Was it sneaky? Only that the 3rd Inf. Div rolled straight to Baghdad before the "setting the battlefield" period with the air force. I think the other part of the battleplan that went extremely well and was somewhat sneaky was how we protected the oil assets and the bridges. With regards to air power, was it innovative? So-so. Our smart bombs are getting much smarter as far as I am concerned. The image of our air power that will stay with me as long as I can remember is the image of the tank hiding under the bridge. We (with our not too innovative air power) hit the tank, but don't do any damage to the bridge. That was amazing. There was enough awe for me in that one period as there was for the entire war. Our military is now and has been for the last 20 years extremely amazing. Our air superiority can allow a bunch of frigging horseman (Afghanistan) to win a war against a rogue state. We have the big stick, no one else is close.
Coaching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a victory over a high school team doesn't take cleverness, brilliance, or innovation.
Superdave, We'll use the time machine and android soldiers when we attack Syria. Our soldiers will also be debuting their "Modern Dance Formation". Signed, Tommy "The Innovator" Franks.
I see where you're coming from, but, using your reasoning, there is no way for this war plan to be praiseworthy. If we clobber 'em, its only because Iraq's military sucked, not because of anything we did. Sort of like when we play Barbados in qualifying. If we win, its because Barbados sucks, and says nothing of our performance on the field. If we lose? Its time for regime change in the USSF and the boards crash.
The plan can be praisworthy for those aspects that are unique to this war, and there are several. The attack was conducted by a very small number of troops. There were low casualties among the US and UK troops. There were also a pretty low amount of civilian casualites.
KISS The key to the modern military action as presented by the current coalition is coordination. Yea, we have cruise missiles, stealth aircraft, unmaned drones, patriot defense missiles, tanks that can travel 40/mph and still fire from a safe distance...I could go on but Mr. Cam would get angry if I make any mistakes. Friendly fire brings this point to light best. That said, what makes this all work? OK, the key guys coordinate the chess peices, but it comes down to the men and women who didn't have to ask the "4 to 5 Supreme Court" or wonder if Bush actually was a bastard who went AWOL. These guys, many young and with so much life ahead of them, gave their lives on the orders on the Commander in Chief, no matter who was in office or what party was in control. Professional military serves best. You are only as strong as your weakest link. The human element is important to consider. I bet Foos could tell you about Human Factors. We could make even faster aircraft or whatever, but the human body couldn't withstand the G's... The greatest victory, as eluded to by the administration, was won from the inside. Baghdad was lost from the inside. Not due to internal problems of the Iraqi government alone, but the silent factor, the US special forces who were "inside" before the first bomb hit Iraqi soil. There are many things that lead to victory and since I am not a military man myself, I will be happy to know at least that these cats are on our side.
dave, you're really stretching for things to criticize. ...not that there's anything wrong with that.