BUSH SAYS IRAQI WAR WAS EXTENDED BECAUSE OF TURKEY

menewsline.com ^ | 04/28/2003 08:59:42 | MENL

[Destro]

Last Updated: 04/28/2003 08:59:42 Middle East

BUSH SAYS IRAQI WAR WAS EXTENDED BECAUSE OF TURKEY

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The United States has again blamed Turkey for a failure of the Pentagon's "shock and awe" strategy against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

U.S. President George Bush said Turkey's refusal to allow American forces to enter that country to form a second front in northern Iraq was a major blow to the coalition against Saddam. Bush said the result was that Saddam was able to concentrate all of his forces around Baghdad.

Bush said the absence of a northern front reduced the element of surprise against the Saddam regime. The result, he said, was an improvement in Iraqi combat as Saddam moved his forces from north to south.

"Shock and awe said to many people that all we've got to do is unleash some might and people will crumble," Bush said in a television interview on Thursday. "And it turns out the fighters were a lot fiercer than we thought. Because, for example, we didn't come north from Turkey, Saddam Hussein was able to move a lot of special Republican Guard units and fighters from north to south. So the resistance for our troops moving south and north was significant resistance."

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[Ancesthntr]

I think that the so-called "failure" of "Shock & Awe" is a non-starter. The campaign, as envisioned by the author of the concept, never occurred. We changed the battle plan right from the very beginning - we were supposed to begin with a couple of days of "Shock & Awe" bombing, but circumstances changed a bit and the ground forces went in right from the start. [This, by the way, shows our great flexibility, and should shock the Hell out of any future opponents]. The bombing version of S & A never got a fair chance to be demonstrated, so how could it have failed?

Nonetheless, with our hands and feet tied by the Turks and French, we still won in 3 weeks. That shocked and awed much of the world, despite it not being the S & A campaign as originally represented to the world. Either way, I don't really care - all that matters is that we won in only 3 weeks with minimal casualties.

[LS]

First, I said on this forum about two days after the war started that I was EXTREMELY skeptical that there ever was a "shock and awe" strategy. It was a media prop, and a ruse, to conceal our true plans. There was NEVER any intention to put out the lights, or otherwise destroy "infrastructure." But the Iraqis were prepared for this, and had their AA drawn back to Baghdad. I think when the full story of this is out, "Shock and Awe" will go down right next to the Schwartzkopf "hey diddle, diddle, right up the middle" feint in Gulf War I.

[WOSG]

You are correct, we *wanted* him to pull the forces back to baghdad, the better to clear the way there.

The whole campaign was "shock and awe" in that we had a tempo that destroyed the enemies ability to respond and because we had an overwhelming advantage that created an inevitability of victory. It was not just airpower advantage but on the groud as well.

[WaterDragon]

Even with Turkey doing a back-flip on letting us invade from the North, and France and Russia giving Saddam daily updates on our plans, I think our military did indeed 'shock and awe' the entire world.

[LS]

I agree that was the impact, but I still think the term "shock and awe" was a deliberate deception to mislead the journalists and Saddam into what our intentions were.

[WOSG]

"I still think the term "shock and awe" was a deliberate deception to mislead the journalists and Saddam into what our intentions were."

yeah, and that deception was "shock and awe" too!!

( the Real shock and awe concept was about so disrupting the thought patterns of the enemy they couldnt effectively counter anything. IMHO it worked! )

[LS]

No kidding. But the concept the journalists were operating under---and the one they passed along to Saddam---was that it was going to look like Dresden or Hamburg in 1944. We may have dropped a lot of munitions, but the precision was what was really awe-inspiring.