Article

2003-03-27 Iraq

Blackhawk Down Author asks ’Will Baghdad Fight to the End?’

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Posted by kgb 2003-03-27 12:04 pm|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Once the siege of Baghdad has started, if needs be, Saddam will have no resources to support his thugs. Further, anytime they choose to terrorize, torture, or murder the people of the city, these people will be reminded of why he is known as the Butcher of Baghdad and they will think they'd be better off without him. There is no need to enter Baghdad to get him -- the Iraqi are already there and will do it for us. Remember Ceaucescu.

Posted by Kalle (kafir forever) 2003-03-27 12:28:32|| [radio.weblogs.com/0103811/categories/currentevents/] 2003-03-27 12:28:32|| Front Page Top

#2 RE: "Once the siege of Baghdad has started, if needs be, Saddam will have no resources to support his thugs."
Good point. I just hope there are enough people who are ready to do what has to be done. The desire to be free is powerful.

Posted by kgb 2003-03-27 12:37:15|| 2003-03-27 12:37:15|| Front Page Top

#3 Another da$$$$ anti-military, anti-US apologist. Disgusting! Still, there are a couple of nuggets to be mined from this boxcar-load of drivel. We at least are fully aware of what sadista-in-charge sadsack plans. Beyond that, it depends on Franks, and his battle plan. So far, none of us know that for sure.

I think we will see something unexpected. So far, this war has NOT been a by-the-book set piece, and it's not only caught the Iraqis by surprise, it's also caused many of the second-guessers to tear their hair out in huge clumps.

Two reasons why the "mother of all battles" won't succeed: air superiority, and unconventional warfare tactics. I'm sure there will be dozens, if not hundreds, of small-unit forces inserted into Baghdad from all directions once the seige begins. They will wreck havoc on an isolated group here, there, and then disappear, only to reappear somewhere totally unexpected and do it again. In the end, the lack of food, water, and supplies will force the Iraqi Republican Guard to either surrender in large numbers, or launch an attack that will be totally destroyed.

Sadsack is not smart, only shrewd. He can be out-thought as well as his troops can be out-fought. If all else fails, we can pull back and engage in an artillery exercise a la Stalin. Lots of civilian casualties, but you end up with nothing to hide behind.

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-03-27 13:04:23|| 2003-03-27 13:04:23|| Front Page Top

#4 Patriot--

Mark Bowden is NOT anti-military or anti-US. You could argue that his article is excessively influenced by Mogadishu....

Posted by Brian 2003-03-27 13:38:26|| 2003-03-27 13:38:26|| Front Page Top

#5 Bowden strikes me as being far from anti-American, or anti-patriotic in my own encounters with the man. At the very least his son is (was?) a Marine.

The point remains is that all roads lead to Baghdad and that Saddam knows this and can plan for it. The question is do we have some alternative to siege or urban assault. Considering that the administration seems to have been taken aback by the partisan war, some hard thinking is in order about just how to bring this show to a successful ending. I don't have any great answers, I just know that I'm starting to nurture some real distrust for Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz. Maybe, just maybe, Eric Shinseki knows what he's talking about.

Posted by Hiryu 2003-03-27 13:42:08|| 2003-03-27 13:42:08|| Front Page Top

#6 Old Patriot,

Mr. Bowden is not anti-military or anti-US. Having read his books and a number of his articles, I get the sense that he loves the grunts and is reasonably clear-minded. Brian's thought might be more spot-on: having seen and written about Mogadishu, it's all he knows about urban warfare right now. I'm hoping Gen. Franks has a better plan.

I'd rather listen to Bowden than at least half the "analysts" employed by the networks right now.

Posted by Steve White 2003-03-27 13:53:11|| 2003-03-27 13:53:11|| Front Page Top

#7 Why would the US bother to take Baghdad. Easier to encircle the city, take over radio and television and wait it out. Bombing targets of opportunity of course with occasional nightime incursions into the city to keep them off balance. While that is going on we set up a new Iraqi government in the rest of the nation (shown on the telvision we now control) and push for an uprising of the people in Baghdad.

Posted by Yank 2003-03-27 15:03:25|| 2003-03-27 15:03:25|| Front Page Top

#8 360 degree combat? I don't see it. We're not having our guys inserted in the middle of Baghdad - we're starting around the edges and working slowly towards the center - using fire support to take out any units that attempt to go to the rescue of the building we're clearing. I think Mark Bowden is a fine journalist, but as a combat tactician, I'm not sure he's as knowledgeable as he could be.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-03-27 16:07:14|| 2003-03-27 16:07:14|| Front Page Top

#9 First of all, they have been carefully targeting, bombing and destroying communications facilities so that centralized coordination gets disabled. Also, they have made a deliberate decision to withhold bomb destruction assessments. I think that a couple of crucial psych ops strategies need to be formulated and implemented, too. I am not in favor of just going in and doing street fighting. We need to get the upper hand and put them in a reactive posture, not the other way around. Going in would be fighting on their turf with them having the advantage of an intimate knowledge of all the alleys and hidden shortcuts in the casbah-- we don't need that aggravation. If you saw what happened to the IDF going into a casbah at the refugee 'camp' or in one of the other cities, you should know that we need to avoid that. Let's not get sucked into that.

Posted by button 2003-03-27 18:07:31|| 2003-03-27 18:07:31|| Front Page Top

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