MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune
From the opening scenes, the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade figures prominently in the new NOVA TV special "Battle Plan Under Fire" tonight on Channel 9.
The documentary features extensive coverage of the Army's first Stryker brigade operating in Mosul and the second Stryker brigade training at Fort Lewis.
The joint production of NOVA and The New York Times examines the technology-driven changes in the U.S. military and their effectiveness in Afghanistan and Iraq - the "chat room war," as one expert calls it.
The producers' point: Precision-guided bombs and satellite communications toppled the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, but the high-tech U.S. arsenal has not proved as decisive in the guerrilla war that has taken hold in Iraq.
"Technology may win battles, but can it win the war?" the producers ask.
The Stryker brigades are highlighted as a leading example of the U.S. military's drive for greater speed, technological superiority and precision weapons.
Brigade commander Col. Mike Rounds and the brigade intelligence officer, Maj. Yvette Hopkins, and the cameras follow Stryker infantrymen on a night-time raid and to the scene of a roadside bombing that just missed their convoy.
In the convoy scene, agitated Stryker soldiers are shown detaining a motorist and yelling at him for information about the bombing, although it's not clear he was involved. In the raid, nervous women and children are shown trying to explain to the soldiers that the man they're after hasn't been there for months.
There are shots of the video screen on the vehicle's remote weapons station, where the gunner can see targets day and night, and of the vehicle's on-board navigation and communication networks.
Rounds is interviewed in the brigade's tactical operations center in Mosul, with the digital maps and communications systems in the background that provide Stryker soldiers with almost instant access to the latest conditions in the area where they're operating.
The show also documents the new drive for technology to help U.S. troops cope with conditions like the current ones in Iraq: more sensors, shatter-resistant glass, lightweight armor and robotics to clear mines, for instance.
But as former Iraqi Republican Guard chief brigadier Mohammed al Askrray put it, it remains for the U.S. forces to figure out how to use their technological advantage to combat the ideas that motivate Iraqis to fight.
"In such cases where a person is willing to blow himself up, that has to do with an idea, and you cannot really stop it with technology," he said. "You have to fight him with his own weapon, fight ideas with ideas."
Michael Gilbert: 253-597-8921
mike.gilbert@mail.tribnet.com
Thanks for calling it to my attention, I just set the Tivo to record it. Looks very interesting.