Mogadishu Lessons Help Foil Saddam's Strategy (Good Article)

The Washington Times ^ | 4/8/2003 | Rowan Scarborough

[Rammer]

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's strategy of creating a "series of Mogadishus" in Iraq's southern cities failed because the United States committed overwhelming firepower and political will, unlike in Somalia in 1993, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

[Rammer]

Article points out a good point:

"The big difference between Mogadishu and Iraqi urban areas is these guys know they have a president who is backing them."

[Desecrated]

Didn't we still kill 2000 somalis, even without our armor?

[martin_fierro]

Saddam's not the only one who watched "Blackhawk Down".

So did Dubya.

[MattinNJ]

bttt for later read.

[jriemer]

Please forward this article to that dork professor at Columbia...

[thoughtomator]

Well, duh! Isn't it obvious that the nature of the US failure in Mogadishu was the lack of political support? In pure military terms, those Rangers performed excellently - they were simply too badly outnumbered and not properly equipped for the task. No backup, no heavy weapons spelled death for those brave soldiers. We should never forget them, lest we have more lives sacrificed to political expediency.

[capydick]

Oh-Oh, the clintonista revisionists will not like these statements.Look for statements from the rapist regime to correct the record. It must be tough spending the remainder of their lives trying to spin history.

[dvwjr]

The Washington Times is not restricted:


Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's strategy of creating a "series of Mogadishus" in Iraq's southern cities failed because the United States committed overwhelming firepower and political will, unlike in Somalia in 1993, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

The sources said U.S. commanders are growing increasingly confident that the urban tactics displayed in uprooting the Fedayeen Saddam fighters in the south bode well for expected close-in attacks and tunnel-to-tunnel fighting in Baghdad.

The commanders are so certain that the capital is nearing a state of disarray that two A-10 Thunderbolts have been dispatched directly over it to attack paramilitaries and the city's last line of defense, Special Republican Guard units.

Baghdad's air defenses once lay so thick and overlapping that a lumbering A-10 could never enter its airspace.

One unknown is what, or who, is hiding in a complex of natural and man-made tunnels under the city. The CIA has obtained drawings of the extensive network. At some point, U.S. occupiers will have to enter this underground.

The allies' rout of the Fedayeen stirs memories of urban battles in Somalia nearly 10 years ago.

At the time, a joint U.S. task force tried to subdue warlord gangs and capture their leaders so that humanitarian workers could save starving Somalis. The force consisted of extremely light infantry: Army Rangers, Delta Force, some infantry and helicopters. There was no armor.

AC-130 gunships had been withdrawn because some Clinton administration officials feared that the planes' machine guns and cannons did too much damage. After 18 service members were killed in an operation retold in the "Black Hawk Down" book and movie, President Clinton withdrew troops from the Horn of Africa nation.

The disaster in Mogadishu became legend among Islamic terrorists as a lesson in how to defeat the Americans.

Several Pentagon sources say the Ba'ath Party regime repeatedly referred to "Black Hawk Down" in military training. As the allied invasion neared, Baghdad sent thousands of Fedayeen fighters into southern cities to create "a series of Mogadishus," one Pentagon source said.

The source said the regime believed that if the Fedayeen caused dozens of combat deaths, the U.S. troops would leave, just as they did in Somalia.

It didn't work. British and Americans methodically secured the cities of Basra, Nasiriyah, Najaf, Karbala and Kut, fighting door to door if necessary.

"You have to look at the basic context in which we fought," said a senior Pentagon official involved in war planning.

"In Mogadishu, we were in the process of pulling out. We had already given an SOS. There wasn't any sense of mission in what we were doing. In Iraq, every Pfc. says we're here to kick Saddam's ass and liberate the Iraqi people. These people know what they are doing there. And that direction comes from the American president."

He added, "The big difference between Mogadishu and Iraqi urban areas is these guys know they have a president who is backing them."

Andy Messing, a former Army Green Beret who did humanitarian work in Somalia, said another big difference is that the current war plan devoted resources to winning over the populace.

The allies brought in relief supplies, and Army civil affairs officers moved into secured areas to restart basic city services. Mr. Messing said those critical features were missing in Mogadishu.

"We're doing all the things we should be doing," said Mr. Messing, executive director of the National Defense Council Foundation. "We are not meeting the kind of angry resistance we faced in Mogadishu. You go in with the fist and then you open your hand. The military didn't open our hand in Somalia."

Mr. Messing said this war presents a "new paradigm." For the first time, conventional commanders are welcoming — at the insistence of Pentagon civilian policy-makers — a greater role for special-operations forces. These forces include not only combatants, but also civil affairs and psychological warfare officers to directly reach Iraqi citizens.

The Fedayeen tactics resemble the techniques of Somalis: firing from among civilians using rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

The Fedayeen did succeed in slowing the allied advance, often fighting to the death.

But in the end, the British and U.S. soldiers and the Marines prevailed. Unlike the Rangers in Mogadishu, the Americans here enjoyed the backing of helicopter gunships, M1A1 tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

The military had put emphasis since 1993 on urban combat. Infantrymen have suffered relatively low casualties as they methodically cleansed neighborhoods of Fedayeen, room by room.

In Somalia, most townspeople sided with the warlords; everyone seemed to own a rifle. It was different this time, with the Fedayeen despised by most locals.

"The problem in entering Mogadishu was that everyone was against us," a senior U.S. official said. "In this case, everyone is pointing out the Fedayeen."

Intelligence collection also played a major part in capturing the southern cities.

Tips from citizens enabled the coalition to bomb a building in Basra where more than 200 Fedayeen were meeting. During the weekend, U.S. Central Command learned of a sighting of Lt. Gen. Ali Hassan al Majid, whom Saddam put in charge of defending southern Iraq. His house was bombed.

The allies now believe they killed the man, aka "Chemical Ali," who gassed the Kurds and brutally cracked down on the Shi'ites after the 1991 war.

In Baghdad, commanders are taking one chunk of the city at a time and report only sporadic resistance at this point. They benefit from one key surveillance tool not present in Somalia: spy drones that can loiter for hours, telling soldiers in real time where the Fedayeen are lurking.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Mogadishu flopped because it was a US-UN operation.

[rey]

I don't get where everyone thinks Mogadishu was a failure,a loss. A flawed mission, perhaps. Not the cleanest, best supported op, certainly. But a failure or loss it was not. The target was secured, the mission was achieved, thousands of Somalians died, and we sadly lost two helicopters and 18 men, but we got them all back. However in military terms it was a big win that put the opposition on the ropes. I am sorry to say that a fact of warfare is you don't scrub the war, or even a battle for the sake of one prisoner.

[Ebony-Patriot]

Speaking of that professor, I recieved an e-mail from the President of Columbia University.

I want to acknowledge your email message concerning Assistant
Professor De Genova's remarks. I am appalled by his outrageous
comments. I want to assure you that his comments in no way represent
my views nor anyone with whom I have spoken at the University. His
comments were not made in a classroom, but rather at a teach-in, an
informal gathering where faculty and students come together to discuss
and debate the pressing and important issues of the moment. They are
not authorized or officially sanctioned classroom experiences.

Assistant Professor De Genova was exercising his freedom of speech
when he made those remarks. However, free speech does not insulate
him from criticism. Our faculty and students, regardless of their
position on the war, have not been silent in their denunciation of his
remarks.

While Nicholas De Genova's words properly invite anger and sharp
rebuke, there are few things more precious on any University campus
than freedom of thought and expression. That is the teaching of the
First Amendment and I believe it should be the principle we live by at
Columbia University.

I appreciate your adding your voice to those who have expressed their
opinions. At a time of war, when American troops are in harm's way,
his comments are especially disturbing. I am particularly saddened
for the families of those whose lives are at risk and who must endure
the pain provoked by his statements.

Sincerely,

Lee C. Bollinger
President
Columbia University

Is it just me or do I detect a hint of BS in this or what?

[Rammer]

I agree. An entire city of thousands of armed enemy fighters were unable to defeat 100 lightly armed US warriors. Sounds like a success to me.

The "failure" was that Clinton/Aspin had their heads you know where and didn't back up our brave fighting men.

[gridlock]

Osama bin Laden is not the only one who learned the lessons of Mogadishu. Look how effective his "technicals" were, this time around...

[MainFrame65]

"The big difference between Mogadishu and Iraqi urban areas is these guys know they have a president who is backing them."

This quotation, which you highlighted above, is the most important idea from the article. The article considers it in terms of providing military resources, but it is also important in terms of the carping and criticism coming from the domestic foes of the President and the military. These critics, contrary to their words, are doing actual harm to the Country, and they ought to be called to task on it. But its importance lies as much in