Posted on 06/28/2003 10:48:56 AM PDT by quidnunc
Saddam Hussein's defence strategy all along was to fight a scorched-earth retreat, then mount terrorist strikes against occupation troops and domestic sympathizers once Iraq had inevitably fallen to the U.S. and her allies. The theory was that Americans can't handle casualties or bad news, and with the Western liberal media — Saddam's most reliable and consistent allies — dwelling on U.S. casualties from each terror hit, the Bush administration would be forced to pull up stakes. With them gone, the Saddamites would soon find their way back to power.
The first part of this plan did not go well for him. The Iraqi army collapsed, but owing to U.S. foresight, training, and technology, there was little scorched earth. Now the second part is going badly, too — though it is far from over, and the Western liberal media are at least keeping their part of the "bargain", with endless, misleading, "chaos in Iraq" coverage.
The war entered its second phase with the fall of Baghdad, as I wrote in April. It was not yet over; only the exciting part was over. I said the second part would take much longer, and I predicted allied casualties would eventually be more than were lost in the main invasion. I believe that was also the Pentagon's expectation. Check against delivery: this is just what is happening, and contrary to reports, we are not surprised.
The invasion came in under budget in three ways, including literally, for it cost at least $8 billion (U.S.) less than the Pentagon had allocated (possibly a first in the history of our planet). There were fewer casualties, and the objectives were captured faster than even the most optimistic forecasts I had seen or heard about.
It was almost too fast: for part of the problem when Baghdad fell was the U.S. didn't yet have enough troops ready for occupation duty. The whole 4th Infantry Division was still en route from its pointless wait to be allowed to pass through Turkey. A fairly brilliant job was done of cobbling together U.S. Army patrols, in the first couple of weeks, from troops that seemed almost outnumbered by media hacks. These latter, having been wildly wrong in all their own predictions about how the war would go, were now desperately trying to score after-the-fact "gotchas".
As we now know, such screaming headlines as those which were accorded to the "Baghdad Museum looting", were based on lies. Yet we continue to be fed very dubious information by reporters working with, for example, translators previously employed by the Baathist regime. The "Iraq in chaos" slant is still being applied to isolated and sporadic resistance from surviving members of the Saddam Fedayeen (including the Syrian, Palestinian, and other foreign terrorists smuggled in to help). The slant is belied by less jaundiced reports from travellers through the country.
Most neighbourhoods in Baghdad are quiet, and business is booming by pre-war standards. Ditto, most towns across the country, especially those in the Shia south, where at least three in five Iraqis live. And by both American military and Iraqi sources, I am told that almost every major violent crime turns out to be, on further investigation, not a manifestation of "general disorder" but another hit from the Fedayeen.
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(Excerpt) Read more at davidwarrenonline.com ...
Things are going wrong for the Americans in Iraq. Which is fine. No war is perfect.
Their solution is to build a new Iraqi army from scratch. Recruitment begins this week for 12,000 men, building up to 40,000 in three years. This is less than fine. It is insane, an idea so bad it grinds my teeth to a fine powder. It will one day backfire badly on the Americans.
Let's look at the beginning of this quagmire. Okay, sinkhole, but Daniel Ellsberg's already taking notes for Pentagon Papers II.
Normally when things go badly, Americans send in the Marines. Iwo Jima, Panama, it's the script. Call in air strikes, bomb some palm trees, dump 40,000 kilos of Fruit Loops, wonder why the locals are cranky, and get the hell out.
The problem is that this time things are going wrong in a way Americans really don't like and can't cope with emotionally. "Saddam's dead if our forensics work out, and so once again, you're welcome, Iraq, but we'd really like to leave now."
But they can't. The consensus seems to be that they won't be leaving for at least five more years. This has not yet sunk in with the American voter, but it will.
U.S. soldiers are still being shot at by AK-47s and rocket launchers. The British, who are soft targets, are being hit hard. Even U.S. Republicans are saying, "If you wanna be popular, you really oughta get them clean water."
Then there was that bizarre assault-rifle attack by a little girl on the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment.
The Americans, accustomed to kids with guns, took the weapon, which was found hidden, wrapped in a red dress (there's a Steve Earle song here, or perhaps a Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels), but left the 12-year-old girl for the parents to deal with.
Marines do not arrest little girls. It looks lame.
An American therapist-type creature would call the mullah and take a proactive approach — an intervention — to teach the girl how acting out affects others. Next would come the psychobabble: Think of the tensions that have impacted this girl since her parents moved into separate tents. Peer pressure, body image, a stash of bullets. What does the school say? ADHD? Ritalin? Paxil?
After Vietnam, Americans should have learned never to start a war where the good guys and the bad guys look alike. Shiite, Sunni, Christian, Yazidi, Mendean or Wahabi, they look rather similar, at least to U.S. soldiers. And which of these remains a secret Baathist (Saddamite)?
Iraqis are enraged by unemployment, much as Americans will be when the recession settles in and they discover that 250,000 Iraqi ex-servicemen (mass murderers included) will soon get support payments of $50 to $150 a month, with 300,000 conscripts getting a lump sum. Ironically, it's more than some single mothers get in Ohio.
The real problem is this: A properly equipped Iraqi soldier has an assault rifle, grenades, Humvees, tanks and those cool helmets. What if tens of thousands of them decide to use their weapons on the Americans?
-snip-
(Heather Mallick in The Globe and Mail, June. 28, 2003)
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Well put. I would also like to add the Iranian factor to the equation, because the mad mullahs would love nothing more than to expand their power into and over Iraq, once and for all.
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