Posted on 03/30/2003 12:38:03 PM PST by rebel
Clear Skies in the Sunni Triangle
The 101st Airborne got into the fight yesterday, attacking the RG (republican guard) south of Baghdad with Apache Longbow attack helicopters joined by Air Force and Navy fixed wing warplanes. US Army spokesman, Major Hugh Cate, said 30 Apaches destroyed at least 25 Iraqi tanks and other armored vehicles belonging to the Medina Division of the RG near Karbala, southwest of Baghdad.
Today, warplanes pressed the attacks, aiming to attrit the RG by 50% before ground forces attack. Bounded by the cities of Baghdad, Najaf and Kut, the Sunni triangle covers 1,200 square miles and is the heartland of the Sunni Muslims - Saddam's ethnic branch of Islam. The RG is deployed with three divisions, the Hammurabi Mechanized Division, the Medina Armored Division and the Baghdad Infantry Division, on a line from Ar Ramadi west of Baghdad down to Karbala and east to Al-Kut with the Nida, Adnan and Nebuchadnezzar divisions north of Baghdad. Without the 4th ID attacking from the north, these units have been free to reinforce the southern defense or re-enter Baghdad. With clear weather forecast through April 7, except for winds on Wednesday, the triangle is a happy hunting ground for U.S. air power - a killing field.
"We always regarded Baghdad as the point where we would eventually have to apply pressure in this fight, and our judgment was that the quicker and more dynamically we applied that pressure, the better off we would be," V Corps commander Lt. Gen. William Wallace told National Journal. "As for the Medina, it's important among the Republican Guard divisions by consequence of its position to the south. And I've told my soldiers and anyone else who would listen that we shouldn't underestimate the Republican Guard, or build our battle plan on the assumption that they might not fight. I'm expecting a tough fight from the Republican Guard."
Elements of at least three regular army units, the 6th Armored, 11th Infantry and 51st Mechanized divisions -- whose willingness to fight had been a huge question mark before the war began -- are aggressively engaging the Americans and the British in Basra, Nasiriyah and Najaf, among other locations, said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon official at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who is an expert on the Iraqi military. Their actions have not been fully appreciated, largely because media attention has been focused on the looming fight between the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and the capable and well-equipped Medina Division of the Republican Guard.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Daniel Darnell said from Prince Sultan Air Force HQ in Saudi Arabia that three-quarters of allied airstrikes are now targeting Republican Guard forces that stand between advancing columns of U.S. ground troops and Saddam Hussein's government. By Friday, 75 percent of all air missions were targeting elements of the Medina and other Republican Guard divisions, he said. The rest are against targets inside Baghdad and in support of U.S. ground forces operating in western, northern and southern Iraq, Darnell said.
He added that U.S. and British warplanes over the past week have attacked virtually every military airfield in Iraq believed to number roughly 100 and have seen only a small number of planes. The Iraqi air force, which was vastly depleted in the 1991 Gulf War, has not flown a single mission since this war began March 20, Darnell said. While that is good news for allied pilots, Darnell said he and other air war planners remain wary of the potential for Iraqi surprises. The Iraqi air force is believed to have no more than 100 combat aircraft.
Rear Adm. Barry Costello, commander of the USS Constellation battle group in the Persian Gulf, said Saturday that his planes are pounding Republican Guard positions south of Baghdad. He said they hit 40 targets in the past 24 hours, including a Republican Guard headquarters near Kut. The bulk of close to 100 bombing missions a day from each of the five carriers have been at night and have hit artillery, command posts and vehicle convoys of the Republican Guard's Medina division. The Navy has been notably quiet and is releasing very little detailed information or press reports on their operations.
Meanwhile the media is hunting the US Military, focused on reporting not unexpected logistics problems as US failures and flexibility in operational planning as failure to get the plan right the first time.
(Excerpt) Read more at efreedomnews.com ...
They got that right! Lately, ABC News has got me shouting obscenities at the radio.
More than I do normally, that is.
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