Quote:
Originally Posted By The King
03-17-2003 02:25 AM
"Our forces will have control of the country in less than 10 days. There will not be the prolonged bombing campaign that took place during the first Gulf War."
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That was my prediction and it is apparent that coalition forces will not have control in this time frame. It is being reported that coalition forces only have control of approximately 40% of the country.
For those of you that equate control and secure, they are not synonymous. I have explained this in other posts. Once coalition forces have control of the country it does not mean that Iraq will be secure and I suspect that Iraq will not be a secure environment for years, if ever. I have stated that militarily taking control of Iraq will be the easy part but winning the peace will be the difficult part.
Why haven't we taken military control of the country up to this point in time?
Weather has been a factor. Several days of sand storms pretty much brought the advance on Baghdad to a halt, as well as the logistic units which supply the spearhead. In addition weather delayed the massive bombing of the Iraq Divisions arrayed on the outskirts of Baghdad. The first days of the Air Strikes were not directed at Iraqi forces but were directed at military/government infrastructure. When the Air Strikes were just beginning to be directed at Iraqi Divisions several days of sand storms delayed this operation.
Another factor has been the fact that hardcore cadre apparently has been "embedded" among the Iraqi forces and they are forcing them to fight at gunpoint. This is not an unheard of tactic and has been used in past conflicts by certain military and paramiltary forces. How unexpected this factor is to the planners of this campaign I do not know.
Another factor has been the coalitions unwillingness to get bloodied and taking blood (which includes the blood of civilians) which has delayed taking full control of the port cities and cities along our "logistics tail". Those powers that be are going to have to become less reluctant and fight this war as it should be fought, as recluctance and delay often causes greater loss of life than engaging as they should engage.
My big concern about this campaign from the word go was that we were going in "light in the ass". It may be that we now intend to delay until force multipliers come into play in the North as well as in the South. It is being reported that up to another 130,000 troops are being inserted and this will take some time, but I favor this move if it is in fact the strategy.
As long as the weather holds the majority of the sorties being flown are now being directed at Iraq Divisions arrayed outside of Baghdad so if this proves to be effective enough, the advance may resume without waiting for force multipliers to be inserted in country.
My new prediction is that we will have military control of the country within 30 days.