U.S. Official: We May Not Storm Baghdad

ABC news ^

[hawaiian]

American forces might stop short of storming Baghdad and instead isolate it while the makings of a new national government are put in place, President Bush's top military adviser said Thursday.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated the coming days might bring neither an all-out fight for the city, as many have predicted, nor a conventional siege of the capital. Full Article

[eureka!]

Oh great, another pause, another quagmire, another rewriting of war plans, another failure by Rummy & Co., another blah blah blah....

[eureka!]

In truth, time for more spec ops and psy ops. Start spreading $$$ around for intel as the Feyadeen start joining Saddam in Hell......

[Keith]

brilliant....and Al Jazeera not there to lie for them...

[samuel_adams_us]

Put the city under siege and starve them out. The citizens will leave in buses and we can pop the others as they try to leave.

[DoughtyOne]

Yep and we're going to have two week pause. Zzzzz Zzz Zzzzzzzzz

They never stop.

This will stop when Baghdad is completely free from Hussein and his henchmen's influence, despit the claims of Helen Thomas/Eleanore Clift dominated media.

[Steel Wolf]

That's an interesting development. If they know that Saddam is dead, than they can just wait out the local government. At some point, they won't be able to deny the fact that Saddam is not appearing on television live because he's not appearing anywhere live. There is no reason to storm Baghdad if he's not in there, because the whole place will fall apart on it's own.

Strategery.

The downside of this is that we won't see 'thousands' of American casualties by laying siege to the city.

[MEG33]

Patience is required.

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

I believe special ops will infiltrate the city. Airstrikes will pummel the bunkers. Attempts will be made to get the citizens to rise up against their oppressors. This avoids loss of coalition soldiers and plays well in the Arab world.

[11th Commandment]

... but then again we may storm, or just blow the hell out it, or kick back, the point is the useful idiots in the press help us spread disinformation.

[MinuteGal]

Our commanders were never going to "storm" Baghdad. They're working sector by sector of the city and suburbs, employing different means and methods as the situations warrant.

The media just slavers at the mouth as it contemplates and desperately hopes for a repeat of the headlong, unsuccessful "Charge of the Light Brigade".

Leni

[Ditto]

"When you get to the point where Baghdad is basically isolated, then what is the situation you have in the country?" he said at a Pentagon news conference. "You have a country that Baghdad no longer controls, that whatever's happening inside Baghdad is almost irrelevant compared to what's going on in the rest of the country."

Remember what I told you last week Walt?

Or maybe Meyers must be a Freeper. ;~))

[Boundless]

From a forwarded thread:

> If it works for Yassir Arafat, why not make Saddam
> Irrelevant?

a. It's not really "working" in Arafat's case.
b. Too many people in Iraq need to be certain that Saddam
is gone forever.
c. There are too many tunnels and bunkers in Baghdad, full
of who knows what, that need to be dealt with.

A siege of Baghdad needs to be short and high-pressure.

Once Baggy is cut off from the world, we also need to
officially announce that Saddam is dead. Even if it's not
true, he won't be able to pop up and do anything useful at
that point.

[konaice]

"There is no reason to storm Baghdad if he's not in there, because the whole place will fall apart on it's own. "

Beg to differ.

The Iraqis must be beaten, and beaten badly. There must be no hint that they did this of their own free will.

That sounds brutal, but it is critical to the long term reformation of the Middle East. Without such a total defeat we will find our selves right back there in another country (Iran, Syria) in just a few years.

The entire culture must be totally discredited.

Steve DenBeste explains it best here: (its a long read but well worth it)
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/09/Whoisourenemy.shtml

[LS]

Ohhh, Gen. Myers. Veee are getting vize to your tree-kee Yan-kee vays. You say, "Ve not storm," then you storm vhile vhee seet around our goat soup dee-ners." You say, "Vee in an op-pur-a-shun-ul poz." Then you bomb hell out of us and keel all our vaunted Reee-pub-lee-can Guard. Veee getting vise to you!

[eureka!]

I'm with MEG, patience is good. A pause also refreshes and will allow other activities--wet work and the like. Also, I would bet there is a whole lot of negotiating going on with surviving non-war criminal types of the RG and the like....

[irish_lad]

This is exactly what I predicted. There is no need for our forces to get into an urban brawl. Surround the city and wait with special forces doing the psyops work on the inside. Time is on our side.

[eureka!]

LOL. They are probably of that mindset...

[Caipirabob]

BRILLIANT!

In essence, they can cut off the head of the snake and while the body is whithering create a new Iraq.

The city will fall in due time. Meanwhile they can do what the British did and infiltrate to gain and build intelligence. They can make surgical strikes to capture specific areas of concern. All the while the "New Iraq" is taking shape in the background. The holdouts will emerge to new found irrellevance.

Brilliant...

[SamAdams76]

We should just let the generals fight this war and not try to second guess everything. This plan sounds like it could work. If this is what they decide to do, it's fine by me. Who cares whether or not we "storm Baghdad"? Just so long as the Saddam regime is ended for good and casualties on our side are minimized. They've done a great job so far and I say let them finish the war the way they see fit. They're on a roll.