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Invaders Can Not Take Baghdad: German Military Experts
Military German experts ruled out it was impossible for the U.S.-British invasion forces to occupy and secure Baghdad as long as the current âunity and determinationâ â between the Iraqi regime and people â goes on, expecting âa bitter defeatâ should the invasion forces opted for attacking the Iraqi capital. Participants in an emergency research session to assess the current invasion, organized by the Unit of Military studies and analyses â affiliated to Hamburg University â (AKUF), noted that âthe history of world wars never recorded one case of an invading army that managed to occupy and control a heavily-populated city â such as Baghdadâ. According to German Magazine Tagesspiegel Friday, March 28, the German experts unanimously believed that the invasion forces had only two options to occupy and secure Baghdad or Basra; either to flatten them completely or besiege them until hunger played its toll on the people inside. Pioneer of German military experts, Dr. Manfred Messer Schmidt, expected the U.S.-British invasion forces would lose the war as long as the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, remained in control of the country.The idea is to throw him out of the country, preferably into jail... Schmidt stressed that âdestroying Baghdadâ would hamper tanks and armored vehicles moving in the streets, leading to the inevitability of âstreet fightingâ. This, he added, means unimaginable losses inflicted on the invading armies. âIf they extremely lucky, they (invading forces) may manage to occupy some suburbs,â Schmidt added, citing the bitter German experience of attacking and besieging Russian Leningrad for 900 days during WW II.âEntering Leningrad led to its complete destruction and severe human casualties on both sides, due to fierce street fighting,â he stressed. Schmidt, who up till 1995, was the head of the Central German Office for Military Studies in Freeburg, likened the situation of the invasion forces in Iraq to that of the German forces that invaded Russia during WW II, seen as the beginning of the defeat. Ummm... Does one of us have his thinking confined to a tunnel here? Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-03-29 |
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