The only thing I might have done differently is to have diverted the Fourth ID to Kuwait earlier so that it might have been able to march up the gut of the Mesopotamian Valley.
The Valley is key to control of Iraq, and I don't believe that we have enough men there to hit the center hard. This explains the presence of the Fedayeen Saddam and the Al Quds militias. Now then, within two weeks, the Fourth ID will have become reinforced and in place. Fourth ID will go right up the Al Samawa highway, a big four laner that runs from Al Basrah to Baghdad.
It is my opinion that we will wait another week and a half to two weeks to assault Baghdad proper, simply because we need to get Fourth ID on the ground and squared away. Fourth will go straight up the line to take its place squarely in front of the Hammurabi Division, laid out on a front some thirty miles south of Baghdad between the two rivers.
In the meantime, the Marines and Infantry are systematically isolating the "technicals" and eliminating them. One of the tactics we are using, as another poster pointed out, is to send out hunter-killer squads led by a sergeant to ambush the Fedayeen. This is a quick and innovative adaptation: the unsaid policy is that it is open season on undeclared Iraqi men who are out of uniform-"no bag limit".
Right now, there is a problem with basic supplies: water and food, on the northern Marine leg of the spearhead. It appears that the southern supply line runs through a lot of desert and can avoid some of the areas that have been contested, such as Al Nasiriyah. Everyone appears to be okay when it comes to ammo.
The combination of two events, the clearance of Al Basrah and the arrival of Fourth Infantry Division, will begin to turn things decisively in our favor. And that's not the half of it. Two divisions and an Army cav regiment are following. The First Cavalry, the Big Red One, and the Old Ironsides (First Armored) Division are on their way in. It will take another month to get them all there. Second Armored Cavalry Regiment has been on alert for some time and is on its way in, as well.
These reenforcements will do two things: tip the scales decisively in our favor militarily and show the Iraqi people that our advance will be overwhelming and remorseless.
I think that Tommy Franks knows we can't take Baghdad right now. I also believe that Tommy Franks wants to do what General Giap did to him and the rest of the U.S. Army in 1967: hold the belt of the enemy. We plan on keeping his major RG forces pinned until we get Fourth ID in place. To do that, we need more supplies and more of an effort to engage the Guard. Instead of rushing headlong into the Guard, we'll wait for him. Remember, Saddam and the people around him have an impression of American weakness. They believe that if they send enough men out and inflict enough casualties, the American media and the American people will rise up and force Bush to seek a political settlement. This is a severe misreading of one of the lessons of the Vietnam War. People in the third world don't recall that the reason Lyndon Johnson lost support was not because our men were dying, but because they were dying for no reason and no sight of victory.
Remember: the American people know the meaning of victory. They know that when the Regime falls, the war is essentially over. The rest is just mopup. Baghdad itself is, like Berlin before it, a real city and a real object that will signal the beginning of the end of the war.
It will simply take more time because we underestimated Saddam's resourcefulness and the reach of his party loyalists in the cities in the south.
Be Seeing You,
Chris