Saddam plans urban campaign if U.S. attacks - LA Times

Reuters | 8/08/02

[Destructor]

All we have to do is hit the bastards with massive airstrikes on Friday morning when they have their heads in the sand bowing towards Mecca! If we did that Gulf War II would be over even quicker than the first one!

[elfman2]

"They have no reason to love Americans this time...they've watched 500,000 children die, their children...from pointless embargoes"

I don't think even the Iraqis believe that. Only their propaganda puppets here. And those people who parrot that absurd claim are partially responsible for those deaths. They're responsible by enabling Saddam to believe that he has enough supporters here to make his "I'm starving my people while building palaces and it's your fault" policy a success. Stavka2 appears to be one of those people.

[Aquinasfan]

Hiding behind civilians and children. How very brave they are. They nust make Allah proud !

They've certainly demonstrated that they don't distinguish between combatants and civilians. This is a diabolically clever move on Sadam's part.

[kjam22]

We are in desperate need of a General Sherman. Someone who will march through the country side, through the cities, ripping up and burning everything in site. I'm not sure our leaders today know what war is.

[elfman2]

" My question is this...if Saddam has WMD capabilities like the US administration claims, what prevents him (Saddam) from lobbing a few of those Israel's way? "

The likelihood of them being effective at little more than firmly aligning the whole world, except radical Arabs, behind our campaign.

[unixfox]

Saddam's strategy appears to center on drawing U.S. forces into Baghdad and other cities, where his equipment and troops would be surrounded by civilians...

If the civilians of Baghdad and other cities are stupid enough to stick around they deserve to get blown away. Besides, they are the ones that let him stay in control.

[Myrddin]

Saddam is going to put all his troops into a very densely populated civilian area. It would be a damn shame if his troops made an error with a contagious bioweapon. It would move like wildfire. The whole city would have to be isolated and quarantined. Possibly even incinerated to keep it from spreading.

[Vermont Lt]

The problem with your assumption is the concept that we can stop exports. When we do that, our customers' source for oil will have dried up and their cost of production will skyrocket--or cease to exist.

The result will be more money chasing fewer goods. Even if ANWR were to be open for drilling it would be years before the oil there reached our pumps.

Whether we like it or not, we are a world economy and the elimination of that much oil from the system would much more than a "blip".

[ohioman]

We will attack Iraq February 1, 2003.

[Tallguy]

Siege warfare is a sure sign of operational failure. You would expect Saddam to fallback on his cities this time around since Desert Storm proved that the Iraqis can't fight a mobile battle.

What are we going to do if we kick the door in and then get bogged down? What if Saddam unleashes a bio-weapons attack on a US city while we are encircling one of his?

There aren't any easy answers. Your enemy will always seek to attack you where you are most vulnerable. If this were easy, Saddam would already be gone.

[mlocher]

Oh great strategy...group them all in one spot!

unfortunately we feel the need to fight wars the western way with a bunch of thugs with no honor. the unspoken word is that there will be a civilian militia that we will have to go after. in doing so civilian clothed iraqis will die and sodom will play this pr all that he can.

if we were like them, we would simply bomb the cities with all of our might.

let's roll

[Tallguy]

I generally liked your analysis except for the following:

72 hours of carpet bombing and Saddam surrenders.

Carpet bombing? No way, Jose! Very bad PR. The army will risk another Mogadishu before that happens.