Battle for Baghdad begins

Washington Times ^ | 4/02/03 | Rowan Scarborough

[kattracks]

The ground offensive to capture Baghdad began last night, as tanks and helicopters from the Army's 5th Corps started a major attack against the Republican Guard Medina division defending the city's southern approach.

In the battle for Baghdad, heavy fighting was reported north of Karbala, a holy Shi'ite Muslim site about 50 miles from the capital.

[patriciaruth]

kewl.. Thanks! And thanks for the other articles you've been posting.

[laz17]

Meanwhile, anti-war protestors will take over Washington, DC and demand the unconditional surrender of the US.

[patriciaruth]

The following is a post by section9 on 3/28/03, on a thread about the so-called "pause". For any of you who missed this post and are mystified why the Iraqis would line up their tank divisions for slaughter, here is the best conjecture on the block.

"Actually, this [the supposed announced "pause"] is a smart thing to do. Remember, Tommy Franks knows that his opposite number is the Lider Maximo, Saddam Hussein, otherwise known as the Greatest Military Genius in Human History. Everyone here needs to ask themselves why did we announce this publicly!

" Why did we say that we are low on gas for the tanks? Why did we say that we are low on food? Why did military officers deliberately leak something like this to Reuters, an outfit that the military knew would run with this story?

" Consider: the trucks haven't stopped rolling. There have been supply problems, yes. There have been anecdotal stories about food shortages, but nothing about gasoline. There have been constant problems with the Fedayeen. However, their numbers have been attritted tremendously and our Marines and line infantry have been adopting new hunter-killer small squad tactics to go and take them down. I'm not saying that supply problems don't exist. I am saying that critical fuel and ammunition is probably adequate for a holding action or a small advance, but not for Baghdad.

" But our tanks are not out of gas. However, we're publicly announcing that our tanks are running low?

" Remember the Medina Division. And remember who is in overall command: Saddam. This guy is a political genius and a military nutball. He'll hear about this from his excitable toadies and order an atttack by the Medina Division. He might even be stupid enough to think: "Aha! American Tanks cannot move! It says so in the New York Times!"

" This was announced publicly so that Saddam would go over the edge and order an attack. He's thinking of Stalin again: the Panzers have run out of gas at the Gates of Moscow and it is time to release the Siberian Divisions!

" Unless cooler heads prevail, Saddam will order a general offensive by all three Republican Guard divisions. You can be damned sure that we'll be watching them closely.

" The men in grey will come out to play. When they do, they will be slaughtered en masse by tac air, Apaches, and fully armed and operational Abrams and Bradleys. All topped off with plenty of fuel.

Be Seeing You,
Chris

[Pro-Bush]

Excellent alanysis! Thanks for the hard work.

[Terp]

Me thinks the military has used the left wing media as the greatest propaganda tool in the history of modern warfare. What was it three days ago we were out of beans and bullets? And then a day later there was going to be a pause of 4-6 days and maybe as long as 30-45 days. And now four days later were in the subburbs of Baghdad.

Terp

[firewalk]

Thank you for the ping