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| Axis of Evil |
| Victory Scrimmage |
| 2003-01-03 |
| Details from Stars and Stripes on the upcoming exercise. The top ground commanders of what will likely form the Armyâs spearhead into Iraq will gather in Germany for face-to-face planning meetings and war plan rehearsals, according to senior Army officials. âV Corps is planning a command and control exercise within the next 30 days,â said Lt. Col. Joe Richard, a V Corps spokesman. âItâs part of our ongoing effort to stay ready and ensure that V Corps and its units are fully prepared to undertake any mission it is required to do.â Although Richard declined to elaborate, several senior military officials told Stars and Stripes that the exercises will bring together many of the top commanders of any ground invasion should the White House give the green light for an attack on Iraq. Dubbed Victory Scrimmage, the war games will gather the key leaders of the United States-based 101st Airborne Division and 1st Cavalry Division as well as the Germany-based 1st Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division. It will involve hundreds of staff officers, war planners and support troops, officials said. âItâs a command and control exercise with pucksters â guys who move the puck around for computer simulations,â said Maj. Hugh Cate, spokesman for the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, Ky. âThese guys tell the computer whatâs going on; itâs a simulated battlefield with replicated units.â Cate said that more than 100 personnel would be involved in the exercise, which would last âa week to 10 days.â All four divisions will fall under Lt. Gen. William Wallaceâs V Corps for the exercises, which will be conducted at the Armyâs sprawling training center at Grafenwöhr, Germany. Wallace and his staff just returned from the deserts of Kuwait where â along with the Marine Corpsâ 1st Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters â it hashed out top-level planning for an invasion of Iraq with U.S. Central Command. Now itâs time to work out the details of those plans, officials say. The exercises are slated to begin in mid-January and will run one to two weeks. Looks like my timetable is coming along nicely Meanwhile, the Pentagon is finalizing orders for the first wave of Germany-based forces into the Middle East. Several thousand soldiers â mostly from V Corpsâ support brigades â engineers, military intelligence and communications units among them â are expected to receive their official deployment orders any day now. The mobilization is part of a much larger mustering of forces in the Middle East. According to U.S. Central Command officials, there are currently about 60,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines already in the region. Those numbers are expected to balloon to as many 250,000 if an invasion is ordered. From Websters: Scrimmage = practice play. Yup, playoffs coming up. Time to get ready for the real Super Bowl. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 If you look at the way the administration has been handling many events over the last year, you'll find that they seem to always have an ace up their sleeve. Case in point: the refusal to talk to the Paleostinians until 'the leadership has changed'. That's put Arafat and co. in complete disarray. I guess people are getting edgy because they want things to happen - all over the middle east, all at the same time, and perhaps get back to some level of normalcy. But the international scene doesn't work like that. You can see the chess pieces on the board, so can I. Thing is, this administration doesn't play by those rules - they have new pieces off the board, ready to play, when they're ready. And they sure as hell don't have any resemblance to horses, queens and bishops. The new pieces are a combination of military units (lots of them and the willingness to use them), dialogue with other leaders (Putin is a classic example) and a whole host more I could only guess at. The next year is going to be very interesting, and the show starts sometime In February. |
| Posted by: Tony 2003-01-04 03:57:03 |
| #1 I still don't get it. My suspicion has always been that first Iraq gives the UN the full declaration of their WMD program, then the U.S. provides inspectors with real intelligence (!!) catching Iraq at a lie, and then the playoffs begin. Now it looks like the inspectors won't find anything, and their report might even be favorable to Iraq (no WMD). Do the boys & girls in Washington have an ace up their sleeve, or what? I see the chess pieces on the board, but just can't see the next move. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-01-03 17:35:19 |