Retreat, Hell! (Analysis of Fallujah situation and tactics)

Belmont Club ^ | May 1, 2004 | Wretchard

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the Hudna link.

[Light Speed]

Posted this to Freeper PhilDragoo last night..a few tid bits from some intel googling.

Bremer marked that Iranian action brigades were in country...bringing with them Irans mod RPG 7 85mm..with 93 mm and 105mm HEAT warheads.
Shoulder fired missiles too.
Truckloads came accross the border.
Iranian agents...sent to assissinate..set up assassinations... in country ..hundreds of them.

Sistani has to be looking over his shoulder....the demon of Najaf waiting in the wings.

Geostrategy reports that Iran is networking with Hizbullah and Hamas....the action in Lebanon is pinging..something is comming down soon. The Whitehouse has served Damascus,Beruit and Tehran a warning...this is recent to last week.

Recently photos of M1A1/A2's have appeared..burning..gutted.
The Higher scale RPG 7's..the 93 to 105mm are most likely the reason.

I guess a certain percentage of losses will still occur in relation to what weaponry is available in country.
Logistic deployment the next reality.
Yes..the cost to have Cobras,Hueys and Apaches rocketing up and down certain hiways is costly..but may be the most important deployment scheme to negate the logistic/ambush thingy in Iraq.
In a severe reality..this actually enables the U.S. to kill insurgents as they slink into position.

Airpower really unhinges Hamdi....its costly.....but worth it for the return netted.

[NoClones]

interesting analysis

[NoClones]

Good old 'Chesty' Puller!!

Semper Fi!

[proud American in Canada]

"I just discovered Belmont Club about a week ago and I was blown away by the analysis."

For me, it was yesterday. :)

Not having military experience, I don't always understand all the arcane points, but overall, I find it a huge relief from the incessant negative news media slant.

[alexandria]

Now THIS part is very interesting...
"The coalition authorities in Iraq this week appointed the leadership of Iraq's new army. A Kurdish general who organized the Kurdish fighters since 1973 will head them, with a Sunni Arab as the chief of staff and a Shia as his deputy."

I remember when the Marines initially went into Fallujah there being something said about the US bringing the Kurds into Fallujah to help against the insurgents. I was wondering where they had gotten off to...

[Teplukin]

agreed, Belmont is excellent. They give the truth. To read the regular liberal news media, you would think that we had withdrawn, and turned the city over to a B'aathist.

That is hardly the case.

[LS]

1) All this was driven by the Marines' careful study of how the RUSSIANS screwed up in Grozny, as per one Marine Lt. Col. He said this is going right by the book.

2) You will see reports where idiot Iraqis in town wave the old Saddam-era flags or shout "victory over the Americans." Let 'em shout what they want. It's sort of like paying taxes---you can shout, "I love taxes" or "I hate taxes," but you still have to pay them, and the reality of THIS is going to set in on these a-holes pretty quick. They lost, and they did so in such a way that they didn't even get their stupid faces on Al-Jazeera.

3) The Iraqi army/cops will learn a lot, esp. if this general is in our pay, as I bet he is.

4) Don't know if anyone has been keeping up with the death toll, but in just the published #s, we have lost a handful of Marines to several HUNDRED of these terrorists. The fact is, this is war, and any general alive will take that ratio.

[Dog]

I think I finally grasp what we are doing......what have the Iraqi people become accustomed to.....a STRONGEMAN.

We just fabricated one to head this FPA. This General Shaleh.....could be the next ruler of Iraq.

[river rat]

If the Marines and "New Iraqi Army" -- comprised of Sunni, Kurds and Shiites are successful -- it will simply devastate Kennedy, Dasshole, Clinton and Kerry....

The Democrat Stooges will have been shown to be crying sisters, in the fetal position -- much like France and most of "Old Europe"...

That dumb cowboy from Texas - may have pulled off the biggest "Rope a Dope" in History...

It will be wonderful!!!!.............If it works.

Time will tell.

Semper Fi

[livius]

Wretchard is wonderful, as always.

What I see as the main problem with this strategy, however, is that there has been no clear indication to either the Iraqis or the American people that this was at our choosing. Muslims go with the "strong horse," but so do Americans, and the fact that so many Freepers could get so hysterical about this indicates to me that communication was not very good.

Most Americans support our actions in Iraq and feel we are winning. The leftist press, of course, hates it all, and knows that the way to get its program front and center is to undermine support for the war, as it did in Vietnam. If Americans had felt we were winning in Vietnam (which we were), they would have supported it. But instead all we got from the press was losses, deaths, and enemy bragging, which effectively undermined civilian support.

One thing I don't think we have sufficiently learned from Vietnam is that war is fought on the television screens of America. The inclusion of embedded reporters early on made me think that we might have learned this lesson, but in the last few months, we seem to have unlearned it.

[Travis McGee]

Amen. I put The Belmont Club above Stratfor or the Northeast Intelligence Network for excellent current anaylysis.

Wretchard will be as well known as Ralph Peters or Victor Davis Hanson in a few years.

We will say we knew him when.

[Travis McGee]

If HH isn't hip to Wretchard and The Belmont Group yet, he should be.

[in the Arena]

bttt

[Judith Anne]

Thanks very much for posting this analysis. I was trying to figure it out from some of the other threads, and it just was such a mish-mash of hysteria and handwringing...

This may work out very well. If not, we're still around.

[Southack]

"I think I finally grasp what we are doing......what have the Iraqi people become accustomed to.....a STRONGEMAN. We just fabricated one to head this FPA. This General Shaleh.....could be the next ruler of Iraq."

Pretty much. We've set him up to be Iraq's next national *hero*.

Think about it; this new Iraqi general gets to come in and save the day in Fallujah. The international press is going to cite him as the next Saladin.

Never mind that what we've been doing is killing and wearing out the resistance in Fallujah so much that what remains is easy pickings...even for a ragtag bunch of former Republican Guards who have barely had minimal training together in the last year. What matters is that this new Iraqi general will be the one to get the credit for ending this uprising.

There's even an old American Indian story along these lines:

Four tribes had decided to unite, and when all four chiefs died, the big new tribe was to be ruled by only one son of only one chief.

Each of the chiefs did what they could to build up their own number 1 son over the years so that their child would be the great new chief.

But one of the chiefs outdid all of the others. He sent his braves out with his son to where they knew an old mountain lion lived. They chased the mountain lion, pounded him with rocks, and beat him down so much that finally he couldn't even stand. Then the chief ordered them all to move away from the old cat. At that point he told his young son to slay the beast on his own, which he did...returning to his tribe with the beast's carcass over his shoulders. The women in the tribe soon spread the news of the young son killing the mountain lion. Word reached the other 3 tribes before the next meal was even served. Everyone knew that the son had slain the mountain lion.

When the four chiefs next met, they talked about what each of their sons had done...and they all praised the one chief's son for killing the mountain lion. But then they asked the old chief to tell how it happened.

The old chief told them everything. He didn't hide from the leaders the fact that the mountain lion couldn't even stand when his son killed it. There was silence in the wigwam.

Couldn't even stand?!

Finally, one of the other three chiefs stood up and said: "It doesn't matter that the lion couldn't stand when he was slain by your son. What matters is that a chief's son has slain a mountain lion. Now all of our tribes can be led by a new chief one day, a chief who has slain a mountain lion on his own."

This pleased the other 3 chiefs to no end, and they all agreed that was the son to lead their combined tribes in the future.

...

Well, that chief's son is now the new Iraqi general in Fallujah, and if he slays the lion that can't even stand there, he will become Iraq's new hero...and perhaps even their new leader.

[McGavin999]

This administrations lack of communication skills can't be real. They were the best right up through the invasion. I could never understand why we left the Iraqi TV going, and why we leave Al Jazeera going, but I finally figured out that we must be using it somehow. Don't know how exactly, but the whole military not doing anything? No.

The misinformation and confusion surrounding this Fallujah thing HAS to be deliberate.

If it's keeping US off balance, it's has to be keeping the enemy off balance. I've learned to just be patient.

[McGavin999]

We will say we knew him when.

Yep, the only problem is, how will we know it's him? (Do you suppose he'll be introduced as Wretchard?)

[Stentor]

the fact that so many Freepers could get so hysterical about this indicates to me that communication was not very good.

Some Freepers are extremely well educated. That doesn't stop you from living in the last century.

[michaelt]

My experience has been that a lot of FReepers that overreact either negatively or positively, depending on the event, or rumor, or whatever.

Living through those last few years of Clinton, following everything here at FR, drove that point home to me. I guess its just human nature.