Is the current conflict in Iraq win-able?

[gotterdamerung]

A study: BIAP ROAD

 

Zinni is probably one of the most reliable sources for military thought processes. However, I am not certain that even someone as distinguished as he was would maintain an active clearance upon retirement. Information is fluid. Nothing is set in stone.

 

The "Spearhead" that entered Baghdad in 2003, which was thought to be gearing for the mother of all urban combat situations, was woefully inadequate at a mere 5000 men from the Third Infantry Division.

 

I had a kind of familiarity with this unit from my own Army career. My friend Ray spent some time with this same reconstituted infantry division in Somalia/Operation Restore Hope/UNITAF. From conversations pertaining to Somalia he described periods of incoming mortars, small arms fire, dirty conditions, and intermittent warfare. The unit had some combat experience from that and the 1st Gulf War, but this war was something new. This time it would be the old “Strike-Hold” mentality. Holding terrain and blowing through obstacles are two entirely different facets of modern warfare. The lessons were about to be learned in hindsight.

 

3rd ID had long geared itself for the modern middle eastern battlefield, but no one was really geared for the realities on the ground in Iraq. The point of the spear just kept getting leaner and leaner as the road went north. The reality was that we had bypassed every major enemy enclave, leaving battalions to contain the Baathists, but never insuring a strong forward push. The enemy dissolved under wary leadership and were sent home to fight another day. Every day since that has been an insurgency.

 

The combined armor/scout teams initial forays towards the heart of Baghdad were simply strong armored reconnaissance on the main highway called Saddam highway. This artery which links the US military base known as BIAP, with the diplomatic brain stem (IZ-formerly Green Zone/CPA) is still contested today. There have been numerous ambushes on this road including one in December of L. Paul Bremer's motorcade. It would be several weeks before this event was reported to the public, but I was aware of it on the 6th of December 2003 when Name Withheld reported the incident to the selected members of the winter selection course for BPD. It was reported that several IED’s detonated behind the Ambassador’s limo striking his limo, the follow car, and spraying a HMMV with shrapnel. A little bird helicopter immediately came on station, but found no subsequent targets to engage.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/12/19/sprj.irq.main/

 

I once had a conversation with a full bird infantry colonel regarding BIAP road and it‘s security posture. I told him that if they wanted to secure the BIAP highway they would need a rotating company element of armored infantry to man fixed positions and conduct patrols of the road. Simple math allows that 2 platoons could cover the uncontested highway augmented by armored HMMV patrols of dismounts along the entire stretch. Checkpoints are BFV’s in hull down positions linked 800m apart and dispersed with dismounts for close protection. The 25mm gun of the Bradley is more than adequate to cover this range with HE/AP. This chain gun being well known for it’s ability to pack a substantial punch. In reserve, a QRF element from the 2 platoons off duty able to respond (rolling-locked and loaded) at least one platoon in less than 3 minutes.

 

Seemed pretty common sense to me.

 

I had driven this same road hundreds of times in both directions over the past year and manned a fixed checkpoint along the axis for weeks because the Army was unable to manage the operation. My first day on that road resulted in me and my Ghurka partner being sprayed with rounds from an AK-47. We took cover and then it was over. Gone like a ghost. In Artyom Borovick’s classic tale The Hidden War the Russians referred to them as Dushku or ghosts. I’ve seen RPG rounds fired from the French village at passing convoys. Weaved in and out of traffic along it’s entire length, and jumped curbs to avoid IED’s planted on the roadway. I have seen fatalities occur on this highway. It’s an eerie feeling when you drive past an anonymous stretch of that highway that 2 minutes later is peppered with explosives. Vulnerable would be the feeling associated with that realization.

 

Over time that same road has come to be called “Ambush Alley”. I felt that was somewhat of a misnomer when I first heard that statement, but upon my return to Iraq in April-May I changed my mind pretty quickly. The devastation along the highway from the April battles was highly evident. The burned out hull of a US Army transporter and trailer stood as a monument to the ambushes that had occurred there. Also in testimony were the burned out patches of road, debris littering the roadway, and Jersey barriers pushed out in the road to create slow-downs and choke points. American troops and contractors have been dying on BIAP highway for quite some time.

 

A few months ago 4 men from my unit were killed in a highly coordinated moving ambush involving RPG’s, a rolling hit, and subsequent blocking of egress routes. The survivors were badly shot up and in need of medical attention. A former 1st Sergeant of mine picked them up off the highway after they had commandeered a vehicle and driven to the 1st military checkpoint they could find. He described the moderately wounded American as screaming and experiencing a lot of blood loss from a small wound to the ear. In addition he had been hit at least 3 other times in various places. The Pole who was gut-shot on the other hand complained little as it did his Polish companion. They were totally calm after experiencing a harrowing gunfight which resulted in 4 KIA on BIAP Highway. After action reports pinpointed foreign fighters as the antagonists in this deadly assault. Chechnyans to be more precise. Up the ante some more boys.

 

The air of tension ratchets up a little more every time you go back there. It begins to invade your psyche, to get underneath your skin. Almost from the second your feet touch ground in this ancient land you begin to mentally revive your survival instinct. Information that does not pertain to the immediate moment you are living in becomes irrelevant. What matters is the air conditioning in your vehicle, the weapon in your hands, the body armor on your chest, and the men around you. Those things and time. Each moment crystal clear. Poignant in that it may very well be your last. You grit your teeth and keep your hatchet sharp. The mission will continue. The only way is forward to the objective and Allah will meet many souls should Haji fuck with us

 

At least this is the attitude portrayed, but this is not always the reality. Sometimes The Haj wins. People I’ve worked with or known have died here. We’ve all had a close call or two. Everyone has their story. They will take them home someday and wonder if people would want to hear those tales? What lessons could be learned? Are we reinventing the wheel?

 

… A malignant hatred begins to rise and fester. Every day anger seethes throughout. There are thoughts of mortality to wrestle with. Thoughts of home to suppress.

 

Moving on…

 

It was clear to me after a mere few minutes of conversation that this Colonel right out of the war college was somewhat distant from the reality of the situation. Nonplussed he said “They would be too exposed”. Clearly this man had no real knowledge of the true situation along the BIAP highway because he never left the safety of the Emerald City for the real world out beyond the gates. I had spent 6 months tracking around those wastes, and I was pretty damned happy to be sitting it out for awhile in the green fortress. I recognized his mindset as a stereotype of a hundred Mad magazine caricatures of Colonel’s gone mad or too distant from reality to react. I decided to let the conversation end right there. If no one has the guts to protect one of our most basic and vital supply and information lines here at the epicenter of our military and political seat of power, how then can we even begin to protect the long supply lines or our own people?

 

A few months later on another trip I returned to find Bradley’s out protecting the BIAP road. Maybe someone got smart to the real solution. Probably some civilian or a private mentioned the obvious. Who knows? Maybe we’re even a little more secure as a result, but who knows. The next time it may be a dirty bomb or a chemical dispersion. I mean after all the WMD’s were fake…right? Right? I think not. Rumors of them circulate still. There is always validity in rumor.

[Gary_Yngve]

Interesting that the foreign fighters were Chechnyans. Just the other day Putin was bashing Bush because he felt that Bush was undermining Putin's "War on Terror."

[gotterdamerung]

It's all a tragic comedy anyway. Everybody gotta die sometime.

[jon]

Could you guys please post longer articles?

[gotterdamerung]

I could WRITE longer articles I suppose.

[jon]

In this case size doesn't matter.

[rbw1966]

What unit is this?

[Gary_Yngve]

The post is 959 8=======Ds long.

[gotterdamerung]

What unit is this?

 

This was a unit assigned to provide PSD/convoy protection in the Ramadi/Fallujah area. They were from the same unit that had 4 members killed in the April Fallujah incident, and their bodies mutilated and strung from a bridge.

[mattp]

I find much of what Zinni has to say convincing. I've been trying every Google search I can think of to try and figure out who it was on the Joint Chief's of Staff, who said essentially the same thing BEFORE the invasion and got sacked for it -- that the war plan did not provide enough troops to secure the area quickly or to secure the aftermath. (Yes, I know this may not be exactly what Zinni has said.) Wasn't there somebody who said this, in the weeks leading up to the war, and who got sacked for saying so?

[gotterdamerung]

Shinseki is your man:

 

"Earlier this year, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told a congressional panel that postwar Iraq would require hundreds of thousands of US troops for an extended period -- an analysis Rumsfeld quickly called ''far off the mark.''"

 

 

I believe Shelton and Cohen were vehement about denouncing the force structure prior to the war

 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030331-warplan02.htm

[Mal_Con]

It is always bad news when civilians overrule the military when it comes to fighting wars, regardless of party, because then good soldiers die

[mattp]

I believe you are correct that this would not be the first time that political considerations have overridden what the analysts, both DOD and State Department, had to say. In fact, didn't they say similar things about Vietnam and perhaps Korea?

[Mal_Con]

Each was somewhat different, In Korea McArthur wanted to use nukes but I do not believe all of the US Military had signed on. We got in big trouble when the Chinese intervened with millions of "volunteers" and barely fought back to a stalemate that continues to this day.

Vietnam as described in "The Fog of War" was something nobody really wanted with civilians wanting to do contradictory objectives such as winning hearts and minds, military victory, and minimal casualties. Iraq is the only recent one that was actively sought and all disagreers fired including civilians who said it would cost as much as it actually did.

[mattp]

As I understand it, you are correct that all of these events has been "somewhat different."

 

I recall that the analysts told Kennedy and Johnson, however, that we were in big trouble in Vietnam long before they acknowledged it, while others were indeed pushing for the use of the atomic bomb and some still maintain that we could have prevailed with the use of overwhelming military power.

 

I belive similar dynamics played out in planning and undertaking subversive interventions in China and Cuba during the '60's -- the (professional) analysts' predictions were better than those of our (elected) governmental leaders.

 

One theme that I believe has been repeated is that our State Deparment analysists and their counterparts in the DOD have been remarkably accurate in predicting the outcome of overt and covert operations, but politics have often dictated that their "warnings" were ignored.

[markinore]

New York Times, September 8, 2004

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5946240/

 

As American military deaths in Iraq operations surpassed the 1,000 mark, top Pentagon officials said Tuesday that insurgents controlled important parts of central Iraq and that it was unclear when American and Iraqi forces would be able to secure those areas.

 

MSNBC, September 9, 2004

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5946240/

 

"The 'peace' has been bloodier than the war," said Capt. Russell Burgos, an Army reservist who recently returned from a tour of duty with an aviation regiment in Balad, Iraq. In his view, the U.S. experience in Iraq is coming to resemble Israel's painful 18-year occupation of parts of southern Lebanon.

 

Before the war, predictions by even the most skeptical Bush administration critics did not include scenarios of escalating violence this long after the invasion, or of the U.S. military issuing a news release such as the one it sent out Tuesday morning, headlined "Fighting Continues in Eastern Baghdad." In addition, several cities near Baghdad have slipped from U.S. control in recent months and have become "no-go zones" for U.S. troops.

 

"No one that I know of, to include the most pessimistic experts, predicted a full-scale insurgency would break out within a couple of months of the overthrow of the old regime," said Steven Metz, a guerrilla warfare expert at the Army War College.

 

Now, Metz said, "the current situation may be sustained for a very long time."

 

Based on the above reports, it seems reasonable to conclude two things: 1) There are not enough U.S. troops to achieve military control. 2) There does not appear to be a reasonable prospect of establishing an Iraqi army capable of achieving military control. Does anyone disagree? If those conclusions are correct, there may be only two alternatives: pulling out, or getting stuck in the quagmire.

[selkirk]

I may be a liberal but pulling out isn't an option. Giant power vacuum, more hardcore extremesists and then we probably would have a government that's actively training terrorists as opposed to one that the politician's claimed did. It would also be an utter waste of the lives expended so far on both sides. There is a 3rd option though.... And as much as people probably don't like it, bringing in the UN to boost the troop count until the country is stabilized and the government is strong enough to stand on it's own and is supported by enough of the current insurgents and malcontents to be considered legitimate. (likely several years) This would also add legitimacy to the process and hopefully soften the impression that the US is invading. Especially if we can pull in troops from other Muslim/Arab countries, even if it's only a token force.

 

Were already knee deep in the quagmire, now we have to figure out how to extract ourselves without making the situation infinitely worse.

[Bug]

Pulling out is our only reasonable action. Any further troops will only serve to prolong the killing. If we were willing, and I am not, to go in there with a truely overwhelming force and scortch any source of resistence, then we might win through respect but probably not even then with the jihad being global. No. Let the fundamentalists take over and run their course as they did in Iran. Eventually, the people of a nation that large will become uncontrolable and the resources (oil/money) too valuable to withhold. They will moderate themselves. It will not be a fun transition but I think it is inevitable. There is not enough political clout in the idealism of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield/Ascroft to maintain such a horrific drain on our young adults nor our economy.

The truely sad part is that so many have already died to an end that is not well thought out.

[gotterdamerung]

I agree about pulling out. Then we could carpet bomb the place into tiny atoms.