Posted on 10/14/2002 9:07:34 AM PDT by kattracks
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:09:31 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
ELIMINATING Saddam Hussein will cause far fewer casualties than many commentators have suggested.
A war against Saddam's forces need not require large numbers of troops and need not necessitate a bloody urban battle through the streets of Baghdad, as some doomsayers have predicted. To win, U.S. forces don't have to attack Baghdad at all. Nor need they attack the Iraqi army directly.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Pardon me, but this is silly, IMHO. We put a force in place in the boonies and say "come attack me" and Saddam just says "so what?". You win wars by occupying ground and killing the enemy, and that hasn't changed in a few hundred thousand years, and that is what we're going to have to do.
That might work. The problem is that the images of civilians in Baghdad starving to death or succumbing to disease due to a U.S. "siege" would be plastered all over the world. That might not be something that we could continue for an extended period, and the author hasn't addressed that possibility at all.
Regardless of time-honored traditions, the American military does what's needed to win even if it's non-standard. Otherwise, the British would've won when we stood line-to-line with them. Hiding behind trees and rocks picking off the British (then the world's superpower) thin red line worked, despite the line-to-line tradition of that era's European warfare tactics.
The only thing to do is wait them out. this is certainly consistent with symbolizing how the the attack is one of liberation as opposed to occupation.
Either Mr. Alexander or his editor clearly does not understand what GPS is, or how it works. Such a basic error makes me suspicious of his entire article.
More to the point, Mr. Alexander seems to be saying that we need not deploy troops in order to defeat Iraq. Instead, we need only expand our "No-Fly Zones" to take out anything we don't like the looks of.
Mr. Alexander says (correctly) that the Iraqis would be foolish to get together in large groups. The problem is, a dispersed Iraqi army still controls Iraq, unless we send our guys in to take the real estate. That means regular battles, and regular casualties (perhaps Bevin missed the fact that such things occurred in Afghanistan).
Now, I also happen to believe we can do this without a lot of casualties, but not for the surgical reasons Mr. Alexander provides. Rather, I suspect that the Iraqis will be more than happy to surrender, and to be rid of Saddam and sons.
Alexander paints a rosy picture, all right. But then, roses grow best when nourished by a deep layer of BS -- which is what this article is.
What if we put a force in place, and then put Exxon/Mobil in place, and then say "come stop us from taking your oil." Do you think Saddam will just say "so what?"
The possibilities are endless.
(steely)
1. It probably only enhances Saddam's power relative to his subjects.
2. Saddam would likely respond by lobbing chem agents at our troops in Iraq. The more Iraqis killed in the process, the better for Saddam, because the media will spin it as our fault.
I like the idea of an orchestrated series of feints so we can get Saddam to play his cards early and on our timetable, and so we can regain the element of surprise.
One thing I like about a siege strategy is that we will knock out the communications early, requiring information to be passed in person, not by electronics. When Iraqi troops mass together, ka-boom.
This leaves them operating in chaos and panic with limited command-and-control.
But, if we've identified a proxy (new regime), we need not occupy that ground (the city) ourselves. We WOULD be occupying, effectively, the rest of the country. It's been months since I first read the Baghdad-isolation strategy, and I still think it's the way to go. We can choke them to death just by surrounding them. Saddam (and his sympathizers) like the idea of Somalia-like street warfare, but it's just not necessary.
This is fatuous. Saddam disclosed in 1995 that he had 5000 gallons of weaponized Botulinum poison. Our forces would be sitting ducks.
The fireball would likely take care of any nasty germs or chemicals stored in the area.
Not quite. Basra is Shia territory, and should fall quickly, along with the southern oil fields.
The north is Kurdish, and is presently relatively independent. It shouldn't be difficult to occupy this ground, and push the line of control only a few miles south to include the northern oil fields.
A drive on Baghdad would only have to go far enough to seize the oil installations around Baghdad.
At that point, Saddam and Baghdad become irrelevant. They can come out to play, and face annihilation, or hunker down until they implode. The most likely scenario is that the Iraqi Army will enter Baghdad and take it from Saddam. In my mind's eye I envision something similar to Bucharest and the annihilation of Ceacescu's security apparatus by the Romanian army.
It will be ticklish, but I fully believe that entire units of the Iraqi army will switch sides, and they will be our occupation force.
My thoughts too. The author's suggestion that the Iraqi people might rise up against Saddam is a good posibilty, but in that event I suspect Saddam would release whatever WMDs he has on hand against his own people in Baghdad. These are potentical problems I'm sure our planners are aware of. The author's premise is correct though, and I posted as much months ago. Really one armored cavalry regiment with sufficient backup could destroy any combination of forces Saddam could send against them.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we simply dropped a ten-megaton bomb on Baghdad and walked away. "NEXT!"
Why do we need to occupy Iraq?
The way to conquer territory is to stand on it and defend it against all comers. But we don't really need the territory (possibly the oil fields), we just want Saddam, his henchmen, and his entire government to go 'poof!'. Nothing like a nuke to do that once and for all.
--Boris
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