Nov. 7 2004: The 2nd Battle of Fallujah begins

Talking Proud ^

[Valin]

It was called "Operation Dawn - al Fajr." D-Day was November 7, 2004, 1900 hours (7 pm Baghdad time). The fighting that followed was to be among the fiercest urban warfare battles fought in American history. There is and has been a great deal of controversy surrounding this attack on Fallujah. This report will address none of that controversy. Our primary focus is on the American military people who participated in Operation Dawn. We want to help our readers understand the kind of environment our forces faced in this battle, what the strategy and tactics were, and what the fight was like. We are going to do this in as detailed a way as our resources permit. Know this. It all came down to that 18 -19 year old who led his fire team into battle. These young men "towered over their peers outside the military in maturity and guts."

[samtheman]

Too bad Kerry isn't president. He would right now be busy waiting for "assistance from the French" before making any military moves in Iraq.

A regular military genius, that Kerry. He really knew how to Bring It On.

[ZULU]

Thanks for that link. - I'll check it out.

[ZULU]

I understand your concern for innocent civilians. Nobody wants to create unnecessary civilian deaths - especially at the hands of Americans.

But we must weigh against that factor the other considerations here. As you stated, in the long run, the civilians there continued to suffer anyway from oppression by the insurgents. Americans suffered unnecessary causalities.

Some people seem to feel that a draconian destruction of that nature would have damaged American credibility and support among the general populace there. That is certainly possible.

But we should have considered our primary goal in going into Iraq in the first place. It wasn't to liberate the Iraqi people and deliver democracy on a silver pallet - something we will fail at. Our reasons for going in there were justifiable from a self-defence perspective.

And the average Middle Easterner doesn't really view our actions the way we do, or the way we think they should view them. They view it from their own cultural perspective and that is centuries older than ours. And in their cultural perspective, what we consider humane and fair minded, they view as vacillating and weak.

I think a draconian response to Fallujah would have resulted in fewer insurgents to prowl around later, killing American troops in roadside attacks, and would have impressed the Iraqis with the fact that we were not taking any bull from them, and any acts of resistance would result in instant termination.

I think our war direction over there currently is flawed. Most of the insurgents killing Americans and Iraqis are coming from other parts of the Arab world via Syria.

Syria may even be the depository of weapons of mass destruction sequestered there by Saddam before or during our invasion. It is a Baathist state like Saddam's Iraq. Attacking Iraq without pacifying Syria makes as much sense as attacking NAZI Germany and leaving Mussolini and Vichy France intact.

We should let the Syrians know that we not tolerate any longer these attacks from infiltrators coming from their border.

Then, if they persist, we should blow up as much as Syria as possible along the border with Iraq and mine the Syrian side of the border so nothing living can cross in from that direction.

We are at war now with a substantial part of the Islamic world. This is as bad as WW2 or worse. Unless we have the kind of resolve our grandparents did, we will loose.
You can't fight and win a war like this with half-way measures. When you go to war you must be committed to nothing short of total victory and have the kind of killer instinct necessary to achieve that. Our ancestors did. I fear we do not. The Muslims certainly do.

[jeffers]

"We are at war now with a substantial part of the Islamic world."

And you seem to want to change "a substantial part" to "all".

Sorry Zulu, I like the Bush strategy better. As stated in Woodward's "Bush At War", and just about no place else, as expected from an administration that plays them close to the vest.

"Pick them off one by one."

You don't see that we initiated covert activities in more than 80 countries, almost from the start, a figure that is probably higher now, not watching the MSM.

We, at least most of us, don't have issues with the buildings of Falluja. The buildings aren't making IEDs or sniping granades at Coalition choppers, or driving truck bombs into police stations. The buildings just sit there.

We have a problem with some of the residents of the buildings. We dealt with those problems by killing thousands of the bad guy, while losing a very few of our guys.

If you think that carpet bombing the buildings is a better way to go, then perhaps you should write the Field Manual that replaces FM 90-10-1/FM 3-06.11, The Infantryman's Guide to Urban Combat.

Before you write that, I suggest you assimilate the current version first, perhaps along with FM 3-21.98, Operations in a Low Intensity Conflict, FM 3-07.11, Counter Guerilla Operations, FM 3-05.109 SOF Urban, and FM 3-09 Doctrine for Fire Support.

Plug "FM X dash Y dotZ" into google, pick your download pipe and settle in with some popcorn, it'll take a while to read all that, longer still to pick out the mistakes and write them up.

Personally, I'm still amazed that our current force, a downgraded and withered Cold War structure, reduced under Clinton to marching in formation and making tank noises with their mouths because there was no fuel for FTX, has continually set records for holding friendly casualties to below projected minimums, all the while meeting and exceeding assigned objectives.

If you think they can improve on that record by bouncing mud bricks into fine silt, then get busy and write it up. Lives are at stake.

[2nsdammit]

Are you an experienced MOUT commander? I'm not, not in actual combat, but I have read and studied it, and trained. Here's the FM: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/90-10/toc.htm Note that you won't read anything about "blowing up the town"... That's because it doesn't really help the tactical battle. "Blowing up the town destroys the people within it, and lets the people within that survive KNOW that we are superior." Of course, that provides a bit of a problem, when the majority of the people that live in a town are NOT our enemies, but are people who we are there to free. From the intro: "The decision to attack or defend an urban complex can result in massive damage and destruction. Constraints on firepower to insure minimum collateral damage within its built-up areas can be expected. Combat operations may be hampered by the presence of civilians in the battle area. Concern for their safety can seriously restrict the combat options open to the commander. The necessity to provide life support and other essential services to civilians can siphon off a substantial amount of military resources and manpower. A hostile population may also impose a serious security problem. Success may well be measured by how we accomplish our mission while minimizing destruction of buildings and alienation of the population. On the urban battlefield, advantages and disadvantages in the areas of mobility, cover, and observation tend to even out for attacker and defender. Initially, however, the defender has a significant tactical advantage over the attacker because of his knowledge of the terrain. "

[2nsdammit]

Probably a MICLIC:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m58-miclic.htm

[ZULU]

"Lives are at stake. "

Exactly. And that is why I feel that those "buildings" full of fanatic Muslims should have simply been obliterated.

I don't care what some politically correct military manual says.

You want to fight a war with fanatics and win? Use Genghis Khan or Patton or Sherman or Julius Caesar as a pattern.

[2nsdammit]

"Kill 'em all, let God/Allah sort it out" is a response for those who are frustrated and unable to do it right - which is killing your enemies and destroying their ability to attack you, while NOT killing those whom you are trying to help.

Patton, Julius Ceaser and Sherman didn't deliberately target innocent people (I'm not so sure about Ghengis Khan...). Sherman certainly destroyed civilian materials which could be used by his enemy, but that's a bit of a different thing, don't you think?

The "destroy, destroy, destroy" video game mentality doesn't work in the real world. You have to plan operations based on long-term goals, which, in this case, included giving the citizens homes to move back to whenever possible.

[2nsdammit]

Wow...

Make that Julius Caesar...

[dljordan]

"Probably a MICLIC: "

Nice article. So it's not 5 pound block but 5 pounds per linear ft. I remember seeing this on one of the military channels. Kind of like a really big det cord attached to a rocket.

[NerdDad]

While your argument worked well when we were at war with NATIONS such as Germany or Japan, we don't fight wars like that anymore. None of us has to like that and many of us would prefer to do the "and let God sort em out" thing. It's not our call.

What is our call is how we conduct ourselves when discussing these things. Let's all please remember that some of the people who read our comments have children involved in this battle. In the cube next to me sits a mom whose son (a marine stationed in Fallujah) told her Saturday that he had some work to do and that she and his 9 month pregnant wife might not hear from him for 10 days or so. Our focus needs to be on supporting the troops and their families.

[ZULU]

Patten didn't DELIBERATELY target civlians. But if a NAZI force was holed up in his path and were hiding in a town or city he would have wiped the city out - with minimal damage to his own men and I doubt if he would have been willing to sacrifice the lives of his soldiers to protect civlians in a house to house combat if he could have called in air and artillery support to blow the buildings up. Remember Hieroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden?

Sherman didn't deliberately directly kill southerners, but his wake of devastation and destruction must have caused many deaths from starvation and exposure throughout the south. In the process he destroyed the enemy's will to resist.

Genghis Khan called for any city in his path to surrender. If it didn't he wiped the city out and made towers of skulls. He sent some ambassadors to a Muslim City in Central Asia seeking a trade agreement. The Islamic ruler nailed them to the wall of his city. Genghis, in his 60's mounted a horse, and led a huge army hundreds of miles away, ln a giant circle AROUND the city to envelope it from the WEST and destroyed it. Genghis had remarkable success in dealing with Muslims in his campaigns.

Julius Caesar, faced with constant rebellions from the Gauls after he had defeated them and they surrendered, cut off the hands of all males in some revolted cities he captured. In the siege of a major city allied with Vercingetorix, he either killed or enslaved all the inhabitants when he captured the city.

I'm not advoacting actions as drastic as these. But when you are dealing with armed fanatics like we are facing in Iraq, we can't expect to win by Marquis of Queensbury Rules.

Saddam threatened US. He was OUR enemy. WE defeated and captured him and relieved the Iraqis of his rule. Just as in Nuremberg WE should be trying and executing him. The way things stand right now, the Iraqis are so much afraid of him, he could very well get off - incredible as it may seem. The new Iraqi government WE helped create and for which American boys died, has now decided to resume flights with guess who - IRAN. It was on the news today.

You have to taylor your tactics and methods to the enemy you are facing and sometimes, unfortunately, you have to be as brutal as them in combat to survive. At least that's my perspective and people like Genghis Khan, Patton, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and others would agree with me.

[Great Caesars Ghost]

I will go along with you to a certain point. I can't go so far as firebombing the city into destruction because they ay-rabs lives aren't worth the life of a single one of our boys.

1) I would say that the first thing they should have done is declare a closed military zone and kick out the embedded photographers. This embedding crap has got to stop. It's a breach of security and it endangers the personnel involved in the operations.

2) If shots are being fired from a building, I agree that the building has to come down. There is no valid military reason to send troops into a building that is known to contain hostiles when a tank, a helo, or an attack aircraft can do the job just as well. No excuse for that.

I also believe that if we have to kill hostages, let it be on the heads of the enemy. These are the horrors of war. War is a horrible thing. That can't be changed by wishing it away, and to try to reduce it by allowing your own troops to take more casualties reduces it not one iota, but destroys the morale of your fighting force.

Airpower was not used advantageously. For this I give the operation no more than a B-

[ZULU]

I agree with everything you say.

ESPECIALLY the reporters. I remember reading somewhere that Sherman had all the reporters kicked out his army.

[Great Caesars Ghost]

Ah yes, Sherman... He had my all time favorite quote regarding the media in wartime:

"Reporters -- I would shoot them, but then there would be despatches from hell before breakfast."

[Great Caesars Ghost]

One other thing -- I think the war is best done when I see the commanders standing around a Bradley contemplating the battle as if it were a construction, or in this case destruction, project. I had rather see more of that and less of our guys running across an open field of fire hunched over and diving behind a wall. Or driving through IED Alleys for that matter. We have better tactics than that. Get the reporters the HELL out of the way and start making these people talk.

Notice nobody is talking about the recruiting problems anymore? Is that all fixed? It would be hard for me to counsel a youth to join a military that would use him/her as a sacrifice on the altar of Political Correctness.

[ZULU]

"It would be hard for me to counsel a youth to join a military that would use him/her as a sacrifice on the altar of Political Correctness."

Well said.

Political correctness is a POX on the face of America.

ALL political correctness should be banned along with revisionist history and the purveyors of the same.

[2nsdammit]

Wrong. If a Nazi force had been holed up in Patton's path, he would have bypassed them and driven forward, to accomplish the strategic aims of destroying the enemy's government.

The whole problem goes back to what the strategic aim is. If you are trying to stop crime in a neighborhood, for example, you don't do it by killing everyone in the neighborhood, and "letting God sort it out". If you are trying to defeat an insurgency who is hiding out among the "good guys", you do it surgically.

Your comments about "politically correct manuals" tells me that you really don't understand how our military works....

[2nsdammit]

" I had rather see more of that and less of our guys running across an open field of fire hunched over and diving behind a wall. Or driving through IED Alleys for that matter. We have better tactics than that."

Really? What tactics are those?

Do you have any idea how soldiers are trained to close with and destroy the enemy? You think they just stand back and click mouse buttons, and the bad guys disappear?

I appreciate both of your patriotism and support for our fighting men. How about letting them do the jobs they are trained for, and know how to do far better than you?

[Common Tator]

With respect to this posting, I saw several posting on this forum during the Fallujah incident in which it was stated that the American military forces on the ground were preparing to do exactly what I just suggested, until a plane load of bureaucrats from Washington - perhaps from the U.S. State Department arrived and stopped it.

Once again you reveal your ignorance. The military does not take orders from the State Department or bureaucrats. All military operations are conducted by commanders. They are commanders not administrators. They issue commands and those below them carry out the commands.

Orders to alter any military operation would have to come from commanders in Washington. Commanders in Washington do not fly to the theater of operations to submit orders to field commanders. They call them up and follow up with written commands. In the military subordinates go to superiors not the other way around.

Commanders never take orders except from their superior commanders. They never have .. and they never will.. not under any circumstance.

Any field commander who took orders from the State Department including the Secretary of Sate would be dismissed and removed from command before he or she could carry out the task.

There is no way our military would destroy a city by bombing it to rubble. Every officer who has attended a war college knows it and an officer does not command operations with out attending the war college.

We are trying to teach a nation how to justly self-govern. That can not be accomplished by blowing a city and its population to rubble.

We found out during World War II that bombing population centerse of German cities did not turn Germans against Hitler as expected. It actually caused Germans to support Hitler. It was very counter productive and prolonged the war. Churchill was wrong about the effects of carpet bombing cities, and we have never done it since. We carpet bombed supply routes in Nam but never population centers. WE bombed troops and convoys in Desert Storm. We did not bomb cities.. It is very counter productive and everyone with even a tiny bit of knowlege knows it.

The state department did not learn bombing cities was counter productive .. The army under Dwight Eisenhower learned it. It has been taught in the war colleges of all US services ever since.

No branch of our services or commander would do it. It is a stupid dumb move.. promoted by ignorant people who don't know what they are doing.

Did you ever notice that to people who have their heads up their rump, everything smells like crap!