So this is Plan B, the 'Hail Mary' play from the North (facing defeat US forces are desperate)

Irish Independent ^ | Rupert Cornwell in Washington

[dead]

EVEN on Donald Henry Rumsfeld, that formidable and remarkably well preserved 70 year old who as Secretary of Defence is running the campaign in Iraq, the strain is starting to tell.

Outwardly, it is the pugnacious Rumsfeld of always, the steamrollering CEO who brooks no dissent. Look more closely, however, and the lines of strain are visible. The tiredness is evident in the eyes behind those rimless spectacles. And small wonder.

For he is the man in the hot seat as, eight days into the Gulf War of 2003, a once cocksure America is forced to face the possibility it may be months, not weeks before a war sold as a virtual cakewalk, may finally be over.

"Saddam has learnt from Gulf War One, and he's learnt from Mogadishu," Kenneth Pollack, an Iraq specialist at the Brookings Institution said yesterday, referring to the unhappy US military intervention in Somalia in 1993, which ended after dead American soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. "He's learnt that irregulars and paramilitaries can cause problems, using things like human shields. Maybe he watched the movie 'Black Hawk Down' over again," and Mr Pollack adds, "I'm only half-facetious."

Pentagon officials grudgingly admit that the resistance has been stronger and more tenacious than expected.

Admittedly, friendly fire apart, US and British casualties have been minimal. But the guerrilla hit-and-run tactics, coupled with the blinding sandstorms of the last two days, have slowed the advance.

Supply lines strung out for 250 miles or more on jammed, inadequate highways have been stretched to breaking point. This week, the US 3rd Infantry Division leading, the thrust to Baghdad, virtually ground to a halt, short of fuel and even food and water. Sheer exhaustion is also forcing a pause, in which to regroup, rearm and resupply.

Did Washington, seduced by the dream of a speedy and easy victory, put too few troops in the field? No, answer of course the architects of the strategy. "Our plan is brilliant," General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, proclaimed as the first doubts began to stir. "We're on track, we're on plan. We think we have just the right forces for what we need to do now."

Esteemed experts beg to differ. There is just a hint of the Hail Mary play about Plan B. That last minute all or nothing American football game plan to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. As the Northern front opens with support from the Kurds much now depends on this last throw of the dice to decide what will be either a comprehensive sweeping victory or a long dragged out and even bloodier affair. They point out that the 250,000 troops deployed in and around Iraq are only half the force massed for Gulf War One - which moreover was fought in flat desert conditions ideal for US mechanised armour. The actual ground combat force is somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000.

The heavy forces in the field - the 3rd Infantry, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and the 101st Airborne (not yet fully deployed in Iraq) plus the British are not enough, they say - even given total US/British domination in the air. "We needed at least four divisions and the British. We've got three and the British and we're getting a harder war than expected," says Pollack.

Of the above elements, only the 3rd Infantry is a really heavy fighting force with tanks and armoured vehicles. Additionally, the withering air fire put up by Republican Guard units blunts the effectiveness of the deadliest US battlefield weapon, the Apache attack helicopter.

But the deficiency should be made up with the belated arrival of the 4th Infantry Division, which was supposed to have launched a second front from the north towards Tikrit, Saddam's family stronghold, and Baghdad itself.

That plan perished when Turkey refused to allow US ground troops to use Turkish bases. The 1,000-man paratroop landing in Kurdish-controlled Iraq on Wednesday is scant substitute for the 62,000 men the Pentagon wanted to mass along the Turkish border.

Now the 4th Infantry and its 30,000 troops are being deployed from Fort Hood, Texas to Kuwait, from where they will move north to reinforce the US force gathering to launch the decisive assault on Baghdad. The armada of ships carrying their armour has started to arrive in the Gulf from the Eastern Mediterranean.

The 4th Infantry should be combat-ready sometime early in April. At that point it will move north to the front, allowing secondary forces to be released to guard supply lines. All of which is reasonable enough - except that it wasn't in the original script.

More than any other in history this media-saturated war, with its unprecedented real time coverage from the front, has been a prisoner of expectations. Alas, expectations, exactly like financial markets, overshoot in both directions.

The optimism at the outset was excessive, fuelled by the likes of Dick Cheney, the vice-President, who predicted on national television that the Republican Guard would do what General Myers yesterday called "the honourable thing," and not fight at all. Until early this week, the mighty array of pundits and military specialists did not mention the word "Fedayeen."

Mr Rumsfeld warned yesterday: "We must expect that it will require the coalition forces moving through, destroying Republican Guard units around Baghdad, before you see the crumbling of the regime." But will that take weeks, or months? © Independent News Service.

[Dog Gone]

Did you just miss the fact that we are sending 100,000 + more guys?

Apparently you missed the fact that the 4th Infantry Division has been preparing to go for months. The only thing that has changed is that they didn't get the chance to meet their equipment in Turkey.

They were delayed in their departure.

What is ludicrous is your take on all this. Do you really think that we shipped all their equipment over there without any plans to send the troops? Get a clue.

[cyncooper]

Miss Marple has an idea of where the *press* got the idea this would take just a matter of days. Just guess?

Clinton, himself.

I then found another speech where he stated it on 3/13, Miss Marple found him saying it in an editorial on 3/18. See my post here, and Miss Marple's post at #14 on this thread. Both posts have links to their sources.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/878157/posts?page=27#27

Miss Marple, since I mentioned you, I am pinging you.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Don't you understand that politics dictated that only a certain number of troops can be staged in Kuwait?

I'd be glad for you to explain that.

The -plan-, it seems to me was to get the 4th ID into Turkey. That didn't happen. Now they are scrambling. Is it reasonable to give the SECDEF a free ride for his extemporizing the operation?

I don't think it is.

The mitigation I see is that they had to get rolling before the mean temperature shoots through the roof. But they are sending guys they never planned to. They figured that the Iraqis wouldn't fight. Was that a reasonable assumption? I sure thought so. But I don't have the resources the SECDEF has.

Also--- you need to make your plans based on enemy capabilities, not perceived intentions. The Pentagon seems to have ignored this pretty basic tenet of operational planning. It's not what they -will- do you have to consider, but what they -can- do.

ItWalt

[dead]

That's interesting. Can you recall where you saw that?

It was during a radio interview I heard, but couldn’t find a transcript.

I did find this article that I believe refers to the interview I heard. This is what the article says:

"I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won't last any longer than that," he said in an hour-long radio interview for Infinity Broadcasting.

Rumsfeld was later pressed for specifics about the length of war and responded that months were most likely, but hopefully we could do better.

Any "cakewalk" talk came from pundits or outsiders. Nobody in this administration ever put forth that notion.

[cyncooper]

Did you just miss the fact that we are sending 100,000 + more guys?

Did you miss the fact that that was ALWAYS the plan?

Well, now you know! You're welcome.

[Valin]

And now for a little reality

TRAPPED!

By RALPH PETERS

---

March 26, 2003 -- PERHAPS the craziest notion bouncing around the media is that Saddam Hussein is a brilliant military strategist. He may be a champion dictator, good at slaughtering, torturing, raping and starving his own people. But his military schemes are masterpieces of incompetence.
Right now, the hand-wringers are warning that Saddam, in a stroke of genius, has deployed his Republican Guards in towns and villages, threatening us with deadly urban combat and inevitable destruction.

What Saddam actually has done is to break his last, best armored divisions into little pieces. He'll never be able to put them back together. And we'll destroy them, piece by piece.

Saddam's remaining "elite" troops are indeed hiding behind civilians and breaking the laws of war by placing tanks, artillery and other military systems next to mosques, hospitals and schools. Yes, they're using their own people as human shields. But the pundits - and Saddam - have utterly misread the consequences.

Certainly, this dispersal of his remaining divisions makes targeting them harder - because we don't intentionally kill innocent civilians. So the destruction of Saddam's last armored forces may go a bit more slowly. But that's only an annoyance. In the greater scheme of things, Saddam has done us a favor.

By breaking up his most-loyal brigades and divisions of his own free will, Saddam has thrown away his last chance to use them as a coherent military force. They're not only out of his control now, they're out of the control of their battalion and brigade commanders.

The purpose of an armored division is to strike swiftly, with massive, converging firepower, against your enemy. Tanks are not effective in ones and twos. A division's real advantage is the synergy it achieves by combining all of its combat systems - tanks, infantry, artillery - into one powerful package.

Just as he has trapped himself in Baghdad, like Hitler in Berlin, Saddam has trapped the best of his military in scattered villages, towns and suburbs. The moment they try to move out of their hiding places to gather and attack us, they will be destroyed.

They're not even that well hidden. When the sandstorms clear and we pick up the pace again, we'll strike them at our leisure. As for the cowards hiding next to hospitals and mosques, we'll spare them for now - but they might as well be chained to those buildings. They can't move, or they'll be destroyed.

That's not going to do Saddam or his grandiose plans much good.

I do agree with the straight-shooter generals we've heard briefing from the Gulf: Tough days still lie ahead. Some of that Iraqi armor will come out to fight in little groups. Our troops on the ground may get into some challenging armored gunfights. But we're better-trained, better-equipped, better-motivated, and we're led by real soldiers, not by dictators cross-dressing as field marshals.

Deadly dangers remain, and I do not ever want to suggest that the last stretch of the road to Baghdad will be an easy ride. Some Iraqi tanks have been dug in and carefully camouflaged. Some may even get off the first shot. But they won't get off a second one. A tank in a stationary position is nothing but a pillbox leaking oil - and a perfect target. No Iraqis who kill or injure Americans are going to survive.

And more indicators have popped up that Saddam has ordered the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield. If his subordinates are foolish enough to obey his orders to employ these inhumane weapons, they may, indeed, harm unknown numbers of our men and women in uniform. But our response will be fierce, and uncompromising, and irresistible.

If chemical weapons are used, the results could be ugly. And the broadcast media will go into a panic. But the readers of this newspaper (and you studs down on Wall Street) need to remain steady, in that great New York "I seen 'em tougher than you, buddy" spirit.

Since 9/11, America's been in the payback business. And there's nobody better at business than Americans. Any chemical attacks will be avenged.

Dictators always mistake freedom for weakness. We will not be deterred by anything Saddam and his dying regime throw at us. We will simply show the world that there is no courage more enduring or powerful than the courage born of liberty.

THIS column has consistently tried to apply common sense, honesty, and military experience to explaining the events of this war. But, just as I believe we can all be confident of the war's outcome, we also need to be willing to look hard at our mistakes. And some mistakes have been made.

The men and women of our armed forces are performing valiantly under difficult, exhausting conditions. They continue to face serious dangers, from chemical weapons to the bloody intensity of tactical combat. But there is one other risk that concerns me - and it was a needless risk to take.

Despite the warnings - even the pleading - of his generals, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to send as many heavy ground forces to the Gulf as our military planners requested. In many ways an admirable and inspiring leader, Rumsfeld let himself be persuaded by a gang of civilian theorists and by mercenary defense contractors that airpower could win this war and that ground forces would just go in to tidy things up.

So the generals did not get the extra armored divisions they wanted to provide maximum punch on the battlefield and as insurance should unexpected difficulties emerge. Now we have no significant ground reserves in the theater of war, we lack adequate combat units to fully protect our supply lines - and the weary troops at the front must continue the fight by themselves.

A campaign like this should be a matter of teamwork, with new players going in to relieve those who need a breather. But we went to war with nobody on the bench.

Make no mistake: Our soldiers and Marines will pull this one off. Count on it. But, in this single respect, the civilian leadership in the Pentagon let our troops down. We had the forces, we had the time, and Secretary Rumsfeld refused to send them. Just as Defense Secretary Les Aspin refused to send our troops in Somalia the tanks for which they begged.

This isn't Somalia, but any defense secretary unwilling to listen to the advice of his uniformed subordinates assumes a terrible responsibility.




Ralph Peters is a retired military officer and the author of "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."
NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc. NYPOST.COM, NYPOSTONLINE.COM, and NEWYORKPOST.COM are trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc. Copyright 2003 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

[Alberta's Child]

The U.S. government, in response to 9/11, has created a Department of Homeland Security -- what they are saying is that stateside defense is not a function of the Department of Defense. I fully disagreed with this move at the time, but in fact what the U.S. government has done is fully vindicated Rumsfeld without even meaning to.

Besides, the last Secretary of Defense was William Cohen -- so even a bag of rocks would have been an improvement.

He hasn't done anything really good at all yet.

I'll mention a little piece of recent history here, and I'll bet very few people even picked up on this . . .

Back in mid-2002 there was a period of several weeks during which it seemed inevitable that India and Pakistan would wage a full-scale conflict that would probably degrade into a nuclear war. Every day, the lead story in almost every newspaper and on every television newscast was about the military build-up along the India/Pakistan border. One day (I think it was in July), the stories suddenly vanished, and almost nothing has been heard about the conflict between these two countries.

I certainly don't remember the exact date, but I do know that this story disappeared from the headlines the day after Donald Rumsfeld visited both India and Pakistan on his way to visit the U.S. troops in Afghanistan. I remember thinking at the time that it was very odd for a U.S. Secretary of Defense (as opposed to the Secretary of State) to carry out a diplomatic mission like that.

I have no idea what transpired over there, but to say that Rumsfeld "hasn't done anything really goos at all yet" is a little presumptuous.

[paul51]

The author is delusional

The article reads like wishful thinking to me. Just another American hater

[WhiskeyPapa]

Apparently you missed the fact that the 4th Infantry Division has been preparing to go for months. The only thing that has changed is that they didn't get the chance to meet their equipment in Turkey.

We are now sending a lot of troops in addition to 4th ID.

The Turks stiffed us; now we are scrambling, it seems to me. You disagree, fine.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

I have no idea what transpired over there, but to say that Rumsfeld "hasn't done anything really goos at all yet" is a little presumptuous.

Think about that sentence some more.

Per you, he --might-- have done something good, but we don't know that.

Walt

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

The mitigation I see is that they had to get rolling before the mean temperature shoots through the roof. But they are sending guys they never planned to. They figured that the Iraqis wouldn't fight. Was that a reasonable assumption? I sure thought so. But I don't have the resources the SECDEF has.

I think that last weekend Rumsfield reminded reporters that they didn't know the plan, unless you are in the Pentagon you don't know it either. They were talking to the officers via e-mail and phone well before the war started trying to get them to promise to surrender right away. At least one of them did. Acting as though every officer was about to surrender probably helped this officer to decide to surrender. Right after he surrendered this type of talk stopped. IMO the talk of massive surrenders was a ruse to get a few officers to surrender. Also others around Baghdad simply have not had an opportunity to surrender. No need to spend any more time at the POW camp than you have too.

[dighton]

PERHAPS the craziest notion bouncing around the media is that Saddam Hussein is a brilliant military strategist.

“As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he’s a great military man, I want you to know that.”

-- General Schwarzkopf, 1991.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Did you just miss the fact that we are sending 100,000 + more guys?

Did you miss the fact that that was ALWAYS the plan?

Where can I see that in the record?

What I've seen for months is discussion of the "inside-out" plan versus the "outside-in" plan. I just read yesterday that Meyers and Franks wanted to buck up the ground forces and Rumsfield didn't think that necessary. He was for the inside out plan. Now wea are scrambling to buck up the ground forces, just the way the military professionals said all along.

Walt

[Miss Marple]

Many of the troops currently being called up have been on notice that they would be called up for several months. We are not "scrambling," regardless of how the media portrays it.

I don't understanad Peters' complaint, other than the lack of armor, because if I have known about these expected deployments, I cannot understand why he hasn't known about them.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

I just read yesterday

So you just gotta believe what you read in the mainstream press? Right?

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

The leftist mantra of the last few days as been all about the "unanticipated fierce resistance of the irregular paramilitary forces".

But the reality is that these clowns are trying to crash pickup trucks into tanks. The left doesn't "get it" that these irregulars are basically the military equivalent of gnats that need to be swatted away.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The mitigation I see is that they had to get rolling before the mean temperature shoots through the roof. But they are sending guys they never planned to. They figured that the Iraqis wouldn't fight. Was that a reasonable assumption? I sure thought so. But I don't have the resources the SECDEF has.

I think that last weekend Rumsfield reminded reporters that they didn't know the plan, unless you are in the Pentagon you don't know it either.

I know they are scrambling to send guys they hadn't planned to send.

Now, as I understand, they are sending 4th ID soldiers --before their equipment even arrives.

Does that seem like part of a plan to you?

Walt

[Valin]

hitler was supposed to be smart to.

These guys are all supposed to be so friggin brilliant. Why do they all end up on the ash heap of history?
And so will this little two-bit punk.

[WhiskeyPapa]

I just read yesterday

So you just gotta believe what you read in the mainstream press? Right?

I am going to read a lot of different things, use some common sense, and make my own decision, so I don't have to have the 'deer in the headlights' look some people on FR show.

Walt

[oyez]

As the late, great Jimmy Durante used to say "Everybody's gotta' be a critic!"