[gandalftb]

You're right about the Marine Air Wing. The 2nd MAW was deployed in Feb-March but it went straight to al-Asad for duty in the al-Qaim, western al-Anbar area and was kept very busy. My son's recruiter is with them and accidently met him on a parts run west of Fallujah and said they were too busy to help out. They were really happy to see each other, small world. When Falluja lit up, the 3rd MAW was rushed over, but too late for the fight.

The lack of a MAW delayed offensive efforts and cost us the initiative of a full sweep of Falluja before CentCom started complaining. There were only 5 operational Abrams and they were borrowed from the Army. 24 more showed up but too late to affect the battle. By the time they arrived the fighting was confined to al-Jawlan where the streets are too narrow to drive down, so they largely stayed on the cordon line.

This is my complaint: had there been adequate intel given to the Marines when they arrived as to the disposition of the enemy they would have waited until they had at least a MAW and swept all of Falluja before the whining started.

Puff is a nasty boy, but he only works at night and can't hold on a target, you need A-10s and Apaches and Cobras, hell, a dozen SkyRaiders with Freepers flying them could have done the job.

The lesson here is don't start a fight until you can prosecute it with full initiative and aggressiveness.

[Rokke]

"The lesson here is don't start a fight until you can prosecute it with full initiative and aggressiveness."

Thanks Gandalftb. And as previously discussed, I agree with you that the Marines were led down the primrose path with regard to what they were going to face when they rotated back into Iraq.