Posted on 04/18/2003 2:38:30 PM PDT by Utah Girl
Now that another of the low-numbered cards is off the table, Vince Brooks's doomsday deck is now short one card. But this poker game is not over, and the most valuable cards are still missing. The capture of Aziz al-Najim, a ranking Baathist, only means that he wasn't bright enough to slip away to Syria when the limos pulled out of Baghdad. The Abu Dhabi film of Saddam--supposedly filmed on April 9, the day his statue was pulled down and Baghdad fell--is meant only to revive the concern of the average Iraqi that Saddam is still alive.
So long as that mystery continues, those who want to prevent stability in Iraq will have leverage from it. Iraqis still have a fear of Saddam's return. This is one of the very few reasons that it is important he be found, or proved dead.
Big Dog and Gen. Myers were talking yesterday about the lessons our military has learned from this war, and concluded that it's too early to define them. But there are some empirical findings that can be catalogued. For the Air Force and Naval aviation, it's clear that the technologies that were refined since the 1991 First Gulf War have paid off enormously. The JSTARS aircraft--the battle management system that tracks movement on the ground--benefited all the ground pounders, as well as the fly-guys. JSTARS was aborning in the 1991 air war, the computer geeks rewriting the software every night to make it work better.
Twelve years later, JSTARS is one of the major players on the field. It covered the flanks of the 3rd Infantry Division, making its dash north to Karbala both quicker and safer. At lower altitudes, the Navy and Marine close air support guys managed a new type of operation we now can call "urban CAS." Baghdad is unlike most dense western cities. Because of its wide areas, helos and strike aircraft could operate with considerable flexibility inside the city. This wouldn't work in, say, Paris because of the density of taller buildings.
It should have surprised no one that the helos--even the superb Apache attack helo--can't operate in areas where there is significant anti-air capability. The longest strike mission in Army helo history succeeded in part, but resulted in about 32 of 36 Apaches being significantly damaged. Lesson learned (for the Nth time): don't send the helos where the fast movers haven't been first.
For the Marines, the lessons learned will be many. But one thing is clear: Marine doctrine on operational assignment works. Keeping units together is essential to cohesion in action. Rotating troops out instead of rotating complete units--at the company level or higher--detracts from the ability to fight. People who train together for years, live together and get to fight together do better than those who don't. The Army policy, back to Vietnam, has moved individuals, not units. It's tougher to keep units cohesive, and their fighting ability at its peak, when you rotate people instead of units in and out of action. In a war that lasts more than a month, this will be something the Army and Marines will both have to pay attention to even more.
It's possible after all that the Assad regime in Damascus is listening. An unconfirmed report this morning is that the Syrians may expel some of the high-ranking Saddamites they claimed to not have. There are several ways they can do this, and only one would put them in our hands. It's far more likely that they will help those already there to escape elsewhere. It might be useful to have a few dozen CIA and spec ops guys ride most of the commercial flights coming out of Syria. You never know how many interesting people you can meet on one of those flights.
Baghdad is regaining electricity and services are being restored gradually. Among the Iraqi treasures looted after Baghdad fell were most of the animals in the Baghdad zoo. Some remain, including a few bedraggled-looking lions. There is consistency on the left. Just as the human rights activists were loath to condemn Saddam's torture and murder of his people, PETA seems uncharacteristically quiet these days. Maybe we should round up a few of their activists and send them to Baghdad. They could provide a meal or two for the lions.
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