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Pentagon fears defeat by Hezbollah
[Iran Press TV Latest] The Pentagon is spending millions to learn from Israeli's defeat in the 33-day war on Lebanon, amid fears the US army would be outpowered by Hezbollah in case of a conflict. The US Department of Defense has conducted interviews with those Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers, who fought against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, to learn from the failures of their campaign, The Washington Post reported Monday. The US military experts who studied the Israeli Army's annihilation were surprised by the defeat Hezbollah inflicted upon the armored columns, using anti-tank guided missiles. Hezbollah forces are "extremely well trained, especially in the uses of anti-tank weapons and rockets," the newspaper cited a Pentagon report conducted on the group's military power. According to another study conducted by the Army's Combat Studies Institute, "From 2000 to 2006 Hezbollah embraced a new doctrine, transforming itself from a predominantly guerrilla force into a quasi-conventional fighting force." The 33-day war highlighted a rift among US military leaders, with some believing that the military should be restructured so that it would be better prepared for asymmetrical wars. Others, meanwhile, were concerned that such changes would make the military vulnerable to conventional battles. Many top Army officers however believed the war's outcome illustrated the price of focusing too much on counterinsurgency wars. "The real takeaway is that you have to find the time to train for major combat operations, even if you are fighting counterinsurgency wars," said one senior military analyst who studied the Lebanon war for the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. In an attempt not to be caught off-guard by Hezbollah forces in the event of a war, the US Army and Marine Corps had arranged several multi-million-dollar drills to simulate battles against the group. Citing Frank Hoffman, a research fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico, the newspaper reported that the organization has conducted "five major [war] games in the last two years, and all of them have focused on Hezbollah." Andrew Exum, a former Army officer who has studied the battle from southern Lebanon, was quoted as saying that "Even if the Israelis had done better operationally, I don't think they would have been victorious in the long run." Tel Aviv, which launched the offensive to destroy Hezbollah's military power, was forced to eventually leave the region without achieving any of its objectives. Posted by: Fred 2009-04-07 |
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