***Operation Iraqi Freedom - Situation Room - Day 12 - LIVE THREAD***

Multiple ^ | March 31st, 2003 | Various

[Mr.Crimson]

I don't see any "major" mistakes. I see our troops surrounding baghville.

[texxie]

well said and very true

[nicollo]

n&v, I forgot to mention that my glass is half-full, and I'm ok with that.

texxie & Greenpees, thanks, and welcome to FR. Greenpees, maybe you'll get used to ole nicollo. He's renowned for making a fool of himself, but he's good at it.

Sam, you wrote, "Don't rush, take your time and do the job right." I'm tempted to agree, but I'm not so inclined. I think we'll keep moving. I'm intrigued by the lack of news from the front. I think that indicates more, rather than less is about to happen.

The initial rush was brilliant. There is so much bad that didn't happen because the heroes of the 3rd ID and the Marines are knocking on Baghdad's door, as well as the rest of our boys & girls who're running all over Iraq. Nothing we could have accomplished without sending in the 3rd cannot be accomplished, or better, with them there. And,damn, what Special Ops has accomplished is unreal, and I can only begin to imagine it. Think about it:

Firstly, there is no longer any, ANY argument whether or not we should invade. Even if we bombed first while loading up fully in Kuwait a la Gulf I, the pressure not to invade would be increased and immense, and the public would be unsure. All anybody can say today is that we shouldn't have invaded. Even France has done some serious STFU of late. The UN has been rendered entirely useless, and far more so than had we not gone with the rolling start. Sometimes the past tense is one's best friend... (it never seemed to work with my wives and ex-wives, but that's another story).

Another huge benefit of the quick invasion is that the WMD inspections are pedal to the metal, and most intrusive. Air power is great, but the colonoscopy is a hands-on procedure.

There's a host of things that haven't happened, from no scuds at Tel Aviv, no burning of the world's 2nd largest oil fields, to no genocide in Iraq. Among the many things that have been made far more difficult for the Iraqis is coordination with Al Queda and other terrorists, UN legitimacy, and the PR campaign be run out of Paris. On the diplomatic scene, our allies have more political cover from the invasion than they would have under a slower start, and our enemies have lost their straw man. Kuwait, Saudi, Jordan, etc. are forced and fixed in our line. Oh, and Turkey is screwed.

It could have been very, very different. The rolling start was brilliant.

[Mr.Crimson]

wooo hoooo!

[JLS]

B) the "Media" is doing a major meltdown and has gotten the "jist" of things totally wrong and will have MAJOR egg on their faces in a few months.

Sorry Paradox but the media made many of the same errors about the war to liberate Kuwait. They made many of the same errors about the war in Afghanistan.

And yes they will be wrong on this war too. But they report lots of thing, ie police chases ect, correctly and know no matter how wrong they are today they will be right about some things and can be right again tommorrow. That gives them great confidence to report it the way they see it. They know nobody is right all the time and nobody is wrong all the time. So they can get away with their biases when they want.

[merrin]

Yeah, but this is stinking little Iraq. If we were in any danger of losing to this third-world backwater, there would be something deeply wrong with the very fabric of time and space.

Anyway, I'm not saying there were major mistakes. Frankly, I don't know enough about military matters to have a firm opinion. Maybe Rumsfeld's brilliant and guys like Ralph Peters are just worrywarts.

[oceanperch]

Airbourne Guy. Great Post.

[Consort]

..."Chemical Ali". These Iraqienianese all look alike to me.

[Mr.Crimson]

There was no Fox news during Kuwait and the embedded thing isnt being used in Afganhistan as it is here. I believe those two developements will change the future of news reporting on military actions.

[Mr.Crimson]

He looks like a used car salesman

[texxie]

lol dare I ask????????

[MEG33]

Marines have stormed Shatra ,Army fighting door to door in another town.Marines have POWs. (dozens of RG) 7th in a stand off with city hiding troops.

[merrin]

I think his brother is "Damnation" Ali.

[Mr.Crimson]

Nah,you don't

[Scott from the Left Coast]

I think that the nature of this plan is becoming a bit clear in general, and I think it has been dictated by events in Turkey to some extent (not totally, however).

I do not think the level of resistence has caused the plan to "go out the window" nor do I think the Fedayeen attacks, if you can call them that, play any role whatsoever (except greatly increasing the Iraqi bodycount and modestly increasing ours). Military plans are not created in a manner that stiffer-than-expected resistence causes them to blow up, particularly when that resistence is not successful in causing attrition to your own forces.

The weather may be something of a factor -- but it too is probably modest to moderate in its impact.

The plan appears to have been designed to cordon off Baghdad from two directions, with a third (the north) to be added later, later is of necessity since the 4th ID is not up there. This cordon is the first line of the siege of Baghdad that has been talked about so much. It allows us to fight smaller battles in mop-up areas at a slow easy pace that reduces our own casualties. Mini-sieges, such as Basra. The siege is designed to allow us to concentrate our air power in an area the size of Connecticutt instead of spreading it out over a California sized area. We play a game of attrition, slowly reducing the equipment and the supply available to Iraqi forces -- and then we probe and push inwards.

We all laughed a few weeks ago (before the war) when the 1st Armored Division and the 1st Cavalry Division were given deployment orders to Iraq as follow on forces that wouldn't arrive until at least May (at the earliest). That is a tremendous offensive punch coming into theatre pretty late, in our estimation. Well, I guess Rumsfeld really was thinking about a longer war.

With the attrition that Iraq's forces will suffer and the deprevation of supply that will become critical to them, those units will be able to crush the egg-shell around Baghdad pretty easily.

[texxie]

he looks like a double

[Grenada]

OK, I really don't get it, but that could be due to my poor befuddled brain.

[TigersEye]

Thank you for your post #103. You said what I didn't have the words to say. No one knows if (no one here that is) if the plan is on track or not. The people who do know aren't going to tell anyone either. But your summation is spot on.

[Consort]

His uncle is Gasoline Ali.

[Aaron0617]

cool...some video feed of Australian lookin to put some pain on someone. GO AUSSIES!!!