U.S. Land Advance Could Pause for Weeks - Military

Reuters | March 30, 2003

[HAL9000]

CENTRAL IRAQ (Reuters) - Some U.S. troops said on Sunday they had been told a pause in land advances toward Baghdad could last several weeks. They said they were digging trenches, laying mines around camps and camouflaging vehicles, but that the aerial and artillery bombardment on Iraqi positions in and around Baghdad would continue unabated.

"It looks like they are going to be in this position for at least two weeks, the sergeant says," said a Reuters reporter with U.S. forces in central Iraq.

"They're going to send in the aircraft to do the work before the grunts (foot soldiers) go in. It's going to be more air strikes, at least for a couple of weeks probably."

Another Reuters reporter was told that the pause could last as much as 35 to 40 days.

[BurbankKarl]

We have to get that other armored division in from Germany (which one of the nations would allow to use their railroads to deploy) which after the war will return to Poland as part of our new basing strategy.

[mc10]

what does presstitute mean?

[KneelBeforeZod]

Yahoo uses more than Reuters. On my Yahoo page I have AP, E!, San Jose Merc, LA times, WLJA, KPIX, KCBS,Baltimore Sun and Court TV... which is about 5% of their sources--at most .

FR just has a lot of "oh my God look what Dashcle/DNC/Jesse Jackson/Al Jazeera/etc is saying!!!" posts.

[Duke of Milan]

press + prostitute = presstitute

[Spruce]

We are witnessing the Biggest Ass-Kicking in history

[Dont Mention the War]

It's like the old Rolaids ads:

How do you spell bullcrap? R-E-U-T-E-R-S. ***belch!***

[Dont Mention the War]

If our ground troops are still in the same spot in 35 days, I'll eat leftover Fear Factor "food" on live national television.

[Dont Mention the War]

Yahoo has a buttload of news sources. They'll run just about any source they can work out a deal with. It's just that Reuters consistently manages to be the only one to come up with these pink-sky "news" stories.

A better gauge of what's really going on is Google News, which is 100% computer-generated based roughly on the same algorhithm as the regular Google site, and is thus far more likely to bury uncorroborated crap like this.

[twntaipan]

Just bankrupt idiots.

[bart99]

Personally I don't think we'll be needing the 4th ID after the air power does their thing on the RG positions outside Baghdad...... but I guess we do have to make use of the equipment from those ships. *s*

Word from the inside sources from the pentagon is that Bagdhad will be taken from the inside out. Could be the regime implodes before we have a chance to go in there.

Well, we'll go in anyway, but to mop up and find all the WMDs.

[ironman]

Read about OPLAN 1003 here.
OPLAN 1003 Major Theater War - East
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/oplan-1003.htm

[bart99]

Good points.

Maybe we want to wait for the 4th ID to circle up around to the north so we can keep those unreliable Turks in their own country.

Or maybe set up a line of defense next to Iran somewhere.

~chuckling~

I think Franks knows well what he is doing.

[mc10]

thanks....

[bart99]

"IT IS TIGHTENING THE NOOSE! CUTTING OFF RESUPPLY...CUTTING OFF HOPE!"

---

And continuing operations in the North..... and continuing bombing behing and on top of the RG divisions *s*

[sit-rep]

get rueters the hell out of theater...same with CNN. They are dis-information artist and should be expelled.

[libertylover]

How can any non-moron say that either things are going bad or that the plan is not working?

I'm sure you already know the answer to your question - the liberal ones for whom a decisive US victory is the last thing in the world they want to see.

[libertylover]

It has accomplished it's initial objective of reaching the city. IT IS TIGHTENING THE NOOSE!

Quite right. But for NYT-type "journalists" this would require a story based on thought and analysis rather than their usual knee-jerk "let's-hate-the-US" reaction.

[libertylover]

By the time the 4th ID is there the RG will be in a world of hurt...

I imagine they're already in a world of hurt but we're not seeing it. Actually, I'm glad we're not seeing this carnage because the mainstream media would portray us of being evil bullies in this very lopsided part of the war.

[Spandau]

OK. Probably the right thing to do. Gulf War I began with 40 days and 40 nights of air strikes before the ground forces rolled. I think air strikes are what the US uses now in place of the good old artillery preparation.

Reinforce, resupply, and "tidy up" as Bernard L. Montgomery would say. Let the northern front develop, and see what happens in Basra. A pause might also give both sides time to think of way out this, if that's what they want to do. We'll see.

[SodiumWarthog]

Also add that we have secured the southern oil fields with only nine wells set afire (with some of those already being put out.). In a related policial master-stroke, the Oil for Food program was reinstated. What's so great about that you might ask? It defacto recognises that a political entity has control of these oil assets outside of the Iraqi government. In short, oil can be sold on the open market for supplies to feed the people taking some of the financial burden off us.

Now, nothing will be flowing out for quite a while but just the idea of this will send world oil prices down. If even just a trickle can start to flow, watch prices plummet on speculation it will become a flood.

Koffi Annan is happy because he sees it as an opening for the U.N. but the one who controls the well heads is actually driving this train. You have doubts? Bagdad bob, the Ba'ath sock-puppet, is not happy about this at all and he knows what a loss of sovernty this is.

A pause also allows us to secure fields in the north. These are less important because it will take longer to get them operational and oil flowing out of them as opposed to in the south.

Of course, this is probably the plan to begin with.