Article

2007-10-24 Iraq

America weighs air strikes on Kurds in Iraq

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Posted by Fred 2007-10-24 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 Do not lose focus. Something else is happening entirely. Front movements and political rattling masking something of a different nature entirely.

Should know for sure in a day or so.

Posted by newc">newc 2007-10-24 00:11|| 2007-10-24 00:11|| Front Page Top

#2 newc, any hunches beside "something else's going on"?

Posted by twobyfour 2007-10-24 01:36|| http://www.twobyfour.info]">[http://www.twobyfour.info] 2007-10-24 01:36|| Front Page Top

#3 Jeebus W, just pop a Ranger BN in there for "Hunting the PKK", and move a heavy BN up to relieve them.

Get the the Peshmerga in on it from the start - the set the cordon, and the Ranger go a'huntin (No love lost between the Peshmerga and the PKK). Once the heavy arrives, the IA and Peshmerga go in joint ops with the US units.

Airstrikes? Cruise Missles? Thats way over the top.

Someone in the Whitehouse is smoking crack if they are serious about this.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-24 03:21|| 2007-10-24 03:21|| Front Page Top

#4 "About 70 per cent of the US military's air cargo headed to Iraq is shipped through a US air base in southern Turkey"

This needs to be changed in a hurry.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-24 03:21|| 2007-10-24 03:21|| Front Page Top

#5 Someone in the Whitehouse is smoking crack if they are serious about this.

Doubt it. This is Clinton's style, not W's. I think this was meant as more of a veiled threat.

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-10-24 07:20|| 2007-10-24 07:20|| Front Page Top

#6 That's Dybua we all know & like.

Posted by gromgoru 2007-10-24 08:03|| 2007-10-24 08:03|| Front Page Top

#7 Why use cruise missiles when you have AC-130s?

Posted by RWV 2007-10-24 08:41|| 2007-10-24 08:41|| Front Page Top

#8 I think that the US threat of military force against the PKK may throttle them back a bit to help defuse the situation.

However, from reading the Wiki article on the PKK, they have diverse sources of funding and weapons, and operate in the mountainous areas, where it is not so easy to dislodge them. They are some nasty terrorists, and anything that they might do in our favor in Iran would be offset by their nasty activities elsewhere. They are a thorn in our side, as well as with the Kurdish province in northern Iraq.

We certainly don't need Turkey causing problems in Northern Iraq right now, justified or not. It looks like the PKK problem needs to be dealt with now.

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2007-10-24 09:30|| 2007-10-24 09:30|| Front Page Top

#9 The Kurdish state needs to rein in the PKK, they have killed 35,000 turks. Wonder why Turkey is mad, see these PKK as another terrorist group and you'd be right. They kill innocents as readily as all other terrorists.

Kurds of Iraq are trying to build a sovereign country within Iraq, they dont need these PKK disrupting this effort and should themselves in consort with Turkey, take action. PKK is a communist organization with mal intent.

Posted by Spiny Gl 2511 2007-10-24 09:52|| 2007-10-24 09:52|| Front Page Top

#10 Apparently Turkey has launched. The US should let them handle it, provide its mouthpiece favoring Turkey.

Posted by Spiny Gl 2511 2007-10-24 10:21|| 2007-10-24 10:21|| Front Page Top

#11 Spiny, most RB'ers recognize that the PKK is a terrorist organization. We'd all appreciate seeing them whacked hard. It should be us and the Peshmerga doing it, though, not the Turks.

As OldSpook has pointed out over the last couple of days, the strength and type of Turkish military units, along with their deployment and order of battle, on the border would lead an intelligent analyst to think they have something on their minds other than going after the PKK. That's the issue.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2007-10-24 10:51|| 2007-10-24 10:51|| Front Page Top

#12 keeping armour on the border, Steve? That could fall under the category of sending a very strong message to the Iraqi Kurdish leadership, right?

Posted by Liberalhawk 2007-10-24 10:57|| 2007-10-24 10:57|| Front Page Top

#13 A combined US-Iraqi-Pershmerga task force could, and should, roll up the PKK from the south, driving them into the waiting arms of the Turks.

Having linked up with the Turks, the task force follows up the Turkish withdrawal to the border, just to make sure they didn't miss anything.

The fact that the US troops end up on the border, more or less dircetly on a line between the Turkish armor and Kirkuk--mere coincidence, that.

Posted by Mike 2007-10-24 11:30|| 2007-10-24 11:30|| Front Page Top

#14 Any chance this is a smokescreen to move assets around for a future strike against Iran?

Posted by Crusader 2007-10-24 12:40|| 2007-10-24 12:40|| Front Page Top

#15 Libhawk, the armor isnt on the border as much as it is deployed in assault formations along the roads.

Plus its the wrong tool to go after terrorists with - you need infanctry in that terrain with that type of foe. Tanks are support, not primary.

Teh armor not spread wide along the border like you'd need for border security ops, and its pure armor - they haven't cross attached with infanty to form company teams that you'd need for counter insurgent work in mountainous areas.

Add to that the areas the PKK is in are mountanous. Its a military reality that you simply do not send armor into the mountains, unless you have infantry with them, cross attached down to the company level (neighboring battalions swap a tank company for an infantry company, and companies swap a tank platoon for an infantry platoon).

And there's your problem, once you know that about miltiary ops in that terrain with that foe.

Pure armored divisions are the wrong tool to go after terrorists with in that area - you need infantry in that terrain with that type of foe. Tanks are support, not primary.

The other problem is those aremored division are deployed as pure armor, and they are deployed in assault formation deep along the roads like an arrow pointing at the border - meaning the only military operations they are set for (unless they change the posture and deployment) is a deep fast armored penetration along the road throgh the mountains, and beyond.

Its a subtlety that old military intel greybeards would catch on to, but a lot of other folks would not. Most folks think "OH an armored divsion on the border, than means they will have tanks to shoot the terrs".

As I shoed above, dead wrong depending on the posture, deployment and composition of their forces.

See the difference?

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-24 12:49|| 2007-10-24 12:49|| Front Page Top

#16 THe optimal troops to do that work are airmobile troops with lots of air support - or even better, Rangers.

The Tuks mentioned above used "Commandos", which is the right tool for the job. The US shoudl put some of our own "Commandos" up there - a ranger battalion, and back it with a Stryker battalion from the reserve in Kuwait.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-24 12:52|| 2007-10-24 12:52|| Front Page Top

#17 The Turks could also be hedging their bets here too. If the commando raids and US pressure doesn't stop the PKK, they just might go for the whole enchilada of northtern Iraq.

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-10-24 13:25|| 2007-10-24 13:25|| Front Page Top

#18 Spook, what you said makes perfect sense to me. (Everything I know about tactics and operational arts I learned from playing SPI games. Doesn't make me an expert, I realize, but I may have a claim to be smarter than the average MSM foreign correspondent.) That's why I think we want to send some people up there to "help" clean out the PKK--and screen Kirkuk from the Turk armor.

Posted by Mike 2007-10-24 14:17|| 2007-10-24 14:17|| Front Page Top

#19 Winter is coming on. They'll not do anything too drastic (go too far south) in bad weather.

Posted by Besoeker 2007-10-24 15:20|| 2007-10-24 15:20|| Front Page Top

#20 old spook

Im not a military expert, but what little I know suggest armor doesnt make sense in mountains. I wasnt disagreeing with that.

My guess is that the Turks are less sure that the Peshmerga and the Kurdish regional govt are 100% against the PKK than some here, and they want Barzani, Talabani et al (not to mention Rice, Petraeus, et al) to be aware that they are capable of going beyond the mountains if necessary.

They may also want to signal their own people that they are capable of going beyond, so they can attribute any cooperation they do get from Iraqi Kurdish authorities to their own deterrent capabilities.

Posted by Liberalhawk 2007-10-24 17:01|| 2007-10-24 17:01|| Front Page Top

#21 Liberlahawk, thats a decetn assumption, and one that I was hoping was the case- this was a bit of a "tantrum" to get our attention, and sabre-rattling for the folks back in Ankara to print headlines about.

But hope is never something to base military analysis on, as we learned with out military vitory and subsequent mess in the aftermath in Iraq. Set ops for the worst and have contingencies for better curcumstances.

I've seen to many "porefect plans" go into the crapper once they meet reality, and with the East Coast Elites liek Bush and Clinton have cozied up to in State and CIA, their reaction usually is "This cant be happineing, I said it was impossible, *I* wouldnt do that". Duh.

First rule of military analysis is put yourself in your opponent's place, including mindset.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-24 18:44|| 2007-10-24 18:44|| Front Page Top

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