Posted on 04/03/2003 12:56:48 PM PST by ibme
By Atul Aneja
Iraqi Republican Guard forces gather on the outskirts of Baghdad on Thursday.
MANAMA April 3. While the U.S. forces are beginning to close the ring around Baghdad, they may not yet be ready to storm the city, as the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein may have made elaborate preparations to put up a strong defence.
The Iraqi military planners have been pulling back the elite Republican Guard forces from peripheral areas and repositioning them in and around Baghdad to encourage the advancing U.S. forces into fighting bitter street battles inside Baghdad. The Al Nida division now defends Baghdad's eastern gates, while the Hamourabi division has been positioned to block the city's western entrance.
With the northern front against Iraq not opening up because of Turkey's refusal to allow the U.S. forces to transit through its territory, the Iraqis decided to withdraw the Adnan division from the vicinity of Mosul. This formation has now been positioned north of Baghdad around Mr. Hussein's stronghold of Tikrit. The spokesperson of the U.S. Central Command, Vincent Brooks, acknowledged in his media briefing today that Iraq had been engaged in `repositioning' its forces for some time.
In gauging the scale of possible resistance, the U.S. Central Command appears to be assessing whether these pre-positioned forces have been strengthened by elements of three Iraqi divisions — the Al Medina division, the Nebuchandnezzer division and the Baghdad division. These three formations had been sent out to check the U.S. advance towards Baghdad along the valleys of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.
Except for the Al Medina division, reports from the battlefront indicate that these forces evaded a direct confrontation with the U.S. advancing columns, and have, consequently, survived in considerable numbers. The officials, therefore, do not rule out that possibility that some of these troops may have managed to stage a tactical retreat and fallen back to Baghdad in order to "fight another day."
In effect, they might have ended up adding to the availability of Iraqi firepower inside Baghdad. The U.S. forces are also likely to make sure that Iraqi Fidayeen that are concentrated in cities, such as Najaf and Kabala, are disallowed to disrupt the rear supply lines. Keen to isolate them, the U.S. forces are attempting to play the "Shia card."
Gen. Brooks, pointed out that a prominent Shia cleric in Najaf had issued an edict urging Iraqis not to interfere in the U.S. operations.
There have also been reports, not denied by the U.S. Central Command, that some Shia groups were being armed to fight against the Iraqi regime. In seeking to blunt the effectiveness of the Fidayeen cadres, the U.S. troops have begun to stage street battles in some Iraqi towns. Firefights have raged in the Al Kut town, known for its large bridge over the Tigris, from where a larger number of U.S. troops can be pumped towards Baghdad. Fifteen days after the war, the U.S. troops have crossed the Tigris and the Euphrates and are positioning themselves to seal Baghdad's eastern and western gates. Meanwhile, the invading force has attacked the big Al Haditha Dam on the Euphrates, which could affect the availability of water and power around Baghdad.
I think by now they've had enough time to do an end around baghdad and assault tikrit and the northern divisions.
I'd love to see the face of the northern commander when he wakes up with a division of marines behind him and 70000 angry kurds ahead of him.
Or more likely, they might have ended up adding to the availablity of mangled bodies for our planes, artillery, and missles to pile up in even larger heaps. Massing troops in the face of total, unchallenged air dominance doesn't seem like the smartest tactic to me, but then I was never a military genius anyway.
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