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Road to Baghdad Goes Through Tel Aviv
How DEBKA says the war is going to play out.
Large American contingents, airborne and heavy mechanized divisions, Marine task forces, aircraft carriers, helicopter fleets and hospital ships are speeding to jumping-off positions around Baghdad. The US is expected to launch the coming war against Iraq with parachute drops on Baghdad, together with commando landings in the city from the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.
More likely helicopter assault
A large-scale force will meanwhile encircle the Iraqi capital, while a mighty tank force dashes north from Kuwait and Qatar, bypassing the southern Iraqi Shiite cities of Najef and Karbala and circumventing the Iraqi army defending Baghdad. Those tanks will join the encircling force.
Bypass those cities like during the WWII Pacific island hopping, cut them off and wait until they surrender. Which will be two seconds after Sammy's dead.
The object of this colossal movement of military strength is to lay Baghdad to siege. This tactic and the consistency of the strength for its execution, DEBKAfile’s military sources report, have been taken from the Israeli doctrine of besieging Palestinian West Bank cities in order to lower the level of terror. For over four months, American military officers have been observing Israeli units at first hand, as they operate against terrorists in Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, Bethlehem and Ramallah, watching also the IDF method of isolating Yasser Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters.
Picking up lessons learned the hardway
According to our sources, American military planners are transposing the anti-terror tactics they have witnessed on the West Bank as battle plans for the 101st Airborne Division fighters destined for Baghdad. Israeli tank maneuvers under helicopter cover have been studied in Jenin as a model for the 3rd US division’s M1 Abrams main battle tanks to follow, in the streets of the Iraqi capital. In effect, American war planners have adopted sections of the IDF’s combat strategy against Palestinian terrorist strongholds. This strategy consists essentially of pouring with stunning speed into targeted urban districts large-scale tanks columns armed with heavy firepower, together with armored units under helicopter and drone air cover, as well as crack fighting units, such as paratroops.
This onslaught leaves the forces under attack too overwhelmed to put up more than token resistance. They soon discover that any attempt to hit the iron giants roaming their streets results in their firing positions, bunkers or rooftops, being pulverized by the attacker’s superior firepower.
This is not going to be a replay of "Blackhawk Down"
According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the American strategists were also interested in the second half of the Israeli doctrine, namely the way in which Arafat has been corralled in his Ramallah administration and terror headquarters for more than 10 months, together with 20 to 30 Palestinian terror chieftains who dare not come out from under his protection. US war leaders are planning to use tanks, drones and crack troops in a similar fashion to beleaguer Saddam Hussein, his family and top staff in the palace or bunker in Baghdad or Tikrit in which they are holed up – for as long as it takes. They see no need to break in and capture him, only to wait patiently outside his gates until he surrenders or agrees to leave the country.
More likely we'll give him one chance to come out, if he's still breathing, and then drop a bunker buster on him. If it gets that far, no way he gets to leave.
Posted by: Steve 2003-01-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=9076