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| Mock Iraqi Villages in Mojave Prepare Troops for Battle |
| 2006-05-01 |
| Three years into the conflict in Iraq, the front line in the American drive to prepare troops for insurgent warfare runs through a cluster of mock Iraqi villages deep in the Mojave Desert, nearly 10,000 miles from the realities awaiting the soldiers outside Baghdad and Mosul and Falluja. Out here, 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles, units of the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y., are among the latest war-bound troops who have gone through three weeks of training that introduce them to the harsh episodes that characterize the American experience in Iraq. In a 1,000-square-mile region on the edge of Death Valley, Arab-Americans, many of them from the Iraqi expatriate community in San Diego, populate a group of mock villages resembling their counterparts in Iraq. American soldiers at forward operating bases nearby face insurgent uprisings, suicide bombings and even staged beheadings in underground tunnels. Recently, the soldiers here, like their counterparts in Iraq, have been confronted with Sunni-Shiite riots. At one village, a secret guerrilla revolt is in the works. With actors and stuntmen on loan from Hollywood, American generals have recast the training ground at Fort Irwin so effectively as a simulation of conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 months that some soldiers have left with battle fatigue and others have had their orders for deployment to the war zones canceled. In at least one case, a soldier's career was ended for unnecessarily "killing" civilians. "We would rather you got killed here than in Iraq," said Maj. John Clearwater, a veteran of the Special Forces who works at the training center. The troops who come here are at the heart of a vast shift in American war-fighting strategy, a multibillion-dollar effort to remodel the Army on the fly. Here, the Army is relearning how to fight, shifting from its historic emphasis on big army-to-army battles to the more subtle tactics of defeating a guerrilla insurgency. The changes in the Army's emphasis are among the most far-reaching since World War II, all being carried out at top speed, while the Iraqi insurgency continues undiminished and political support for the war ebbs at home. American commanders say publicly that they still believe they can win the war, especially now with a more coherent strategy to combat the insurgency and train their soldiers to fight it. The lack of such planning — indeed, the refusal in the first months after the invasion to acknowledge the presence of the insurgency — is at the heart of the criticism leveled recently at Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld by six former generals. Beneath the public veneer, some American officers say they believe that public support for the war will probably run out before the changes will begin to make a major difference. The more probable chain of events, they say, is a steady drawdown of American forces from Iraq, long before the insurgency is defeated. Education in Counterinsurgency More at link |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #5 :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-05-01 21:11 |
| #4 I know it was the NYSlimes. I was just hoping that they would have an attack of decency or something. Silly me. |
| Posted by: N guard 2006-05-01 20:57 |
| #3 or it's the NYTimes....(hint, NG, pick the latter) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-05-01 20:44 |
| #2 The lack of such planning — indeed, the refusal in the first months after the invasion to acknowledge the presence of the insurgency — is at the heart of the criticism leveled recently at Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld by six former generals. Sigh. The little traitor freak of a reporter just couldn't stand not letting an otherwise interesting, informative article go by without spraying it with irrelevant BDS. Its like seeing someone prepare a beautiful, delicious steak dinner...then s%#t all over it. Get over it, all ready. The cited graf has nothing to do with the article, and just leaves you open to the charge of flaming bias. The only explanation I can think of is that it is either a macro inclusion, or the editor was asleep at the switch. |
| Posted by: N guard 2006-05-01 20:40 |
| #1 San Diego's Iraqi community is almost all Chaldean christians |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-05-01 20:38 |