US forces advance into Republican Guard positions north of Karbala on the Euphrates, and at Kut on the Tigris. No details yet, so it's unclear whether the Guards stood and fought, fled or pulled back into metropolitan Baghdad. Baghdad is still the prize -- and yes, it does have its own oil field (from the invaluable Perry Castaneda map collection) just southeast of town...
Meanwhile US forces are being very careful in dislodging the Ba'athist opposition in the holy Shi'ite cities of Karbala and Najaf -- the home-in-exile of Ayatollah Khomeini until the Iranian Revolution of 1978.
With these advances and the very low US/UK casualties rate to date, it's a stretch to say that the war is going badly. (Winning the peace is another story). Still, critics of the Rumsfeld/Myers/Franks war plan have focused on three shortcomings:
i) Too few divisions -- and not enough tanks -- were sent to Iraq, particularly considering the need to secure rear areas from guerillas/gunmen;
ii) If Hersh's anonymous sources are right, the haste to get the war started interfered with logistical considerations (especially fuel, spares and ammunition); that's why supply lines are now stretched to near-maximum;
iii) Air support for ground forces has been hampered by a lack of land bases; carrier-based aircraft are having to fill in for the fighter-bombers and ground-attack planes that were to have been based in Turkey or Saudi Arabia.
Blame the last factor on diplomatic failures if you like, but the first two are attributable to the Pentagon's enthusiastic embrace of the Revolution in Military Affairs doctrine. A key RMA theorist Andrew W Marshall was profiled in the 16 July 2001 New Yorker piece, Dreaming About War. (It's not available on their site, but thanks to Bush Watch for archiving it and to net environments for the link.) It makes it clear that Rumsfeld championed RMA against the Joint Chiefs well before this war became likely. And RMA doctrine (many useful links here) does emphasize information technology and light forces while playing down the importance of some hard assets (e.g. heavy tanks). Could the US military's infatuation with high-tech gadgetry trip it up at some point -- not in this war, perhaps, but in the next?
dreaming about war link not there.
Oops, fixed it! Scroll down five paragraphs for the story....
More on the Washington/inter-service politics of the anti-RMA backlash from Easterbrook (via Agonist)...
As for the attacks on Republican Guards: it looks like the Baghdad division near Kut (al-Nida and Baghdad) has indeed been cut off by the Marines, and reportedly "destroyed." But at least some RG troops near Karbala may be abandoning vehicles and withdrawing to Baghdad, an NPR correspondent reports.
The "plan" criticism and defense are playing daily in many outlets. But Bush seems largely immune to right wing domestic fallout for his international diplomatic failures. Teflon is the word that comes to mind.
Business Week April 7 edition has some interesting coverage of "Rumsfeld Doctrine", not (yet) available in their on-line edition.
Seems to me the larger story here is that the Bushfeld team is trying to harness a complex systems approach to planning military strategy (think chaos theory and network dynamics), but isn't willing to relinquish a linear, deterministic conception of narrative and causality. The two are fundamentally at odds with one another. This also maps onto an all-too familiar Western habit of valuing theory over practice. So, in their war gaming, they just ruled out what they didn't want to see happening (oops! restart). And in their briefings now, while Runsfled talks of taking on "emerging targets," they wave opposition and a lot of reality impatiently away. Dangerous mix, it seems to me. The original story on the war games appeared in the Army Times: http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1060102.php
Thanks for the link! Oh, and it isn't only guys who have WF! =}
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With these advances and the very low US/UK casualties rate to date, it's a stretch to say that the war is going badly. (Winning the peace is another story). Still, critics of the Rumsfeld/Myers/Franks war plan have focused on three shortcomings:
i) Too few divisions -- and not enough tanks -- were sent to Iraq, particularly considering the need to secure rear areas from guerillas/gunmen;
ii) If Hersh's anonymous sources are right, the haste to get the war started interfered with logistical considerations (especially fuel, spares and ammunition); that's why supply lines are now stretched to near-maximum;
iii) Air support for ground forces has been hampered by a lack of land bases; carrier-based aircraft are having to fill in for the fighter-bombers and ground-attack planes that were to have been based in Turkey or Saudi Arabia.
Blame the last factor on diplomatic failures if you like, but the first two are attributable to the Pentagon's enthusiastic embrace of the Revolution in Military Affairs doctrine. A key RMA theorist Andrew W Marshall was profiled in the 16 July 2001 New Yorker piece, Dreaming About War. (It's not available on their site, but thanks to Bush Watch for archiving it and to net environments for the link.) It makes it clear that Rumsfeld championed RMA against the Joint Chiefs well before this war became likely. And RMA doctrine (many useful links here) does emphasize information technology and light forces while playing down the importance of some hard assets (e.g. heavy tanks). Could the US military's infatuation with high-tech gadgetry trip it up at some point -- not in this war, perhaps, but in the next?
- bruno 4-02-2003 11:41 pm
dreaming about war link not there.
- dave 4-02-2003 11:51 pm
Oops, fixed it! Scroll down five paragraphs for the story....
- bruno 4-03-2003 12:19 am
More on the Washington/inter-service politics of the anti-RMA backlash from Easterbrook (via Agonist)...
As for the attacks on Republican Guards: it looks like the Baghdad division near Kut (al-Nida and Baghdad) has indeed been cut off by the Marines, and reportedly "destroyed." But at least some RG troops near Karbala may be abandoning vehicles and withdrawing to Baghdad, an NPR correspondent reports.
- bruno 4-03-2003 12:51 am
The "plan" criticism and defense are playing daily in many outlets. But Bush seems largely immune to right wing domestic fallout for his international diplomatic failures. Teflon is the word that comes to mind.
Business Week April 7 edition has some interesting coverage of "Rumsfeld Doctrine", not (yet) available in their on-line edition.
- mark 4-03-2003 1:07 am
Seems to me the larger story here is that the Bushfeld team is trying to harness a complex systems approach to planning military strategy (think chaos theory and network dynamics), but isn't willing to relinquish a linear, deterministic conception of narrative and causality. The two are fundamentally at odds with one another. This also maps onto an all-too familiar Western habit of valuing theory over practice. So, in their war gaming, they just ruled out what they didn't want to see happening (oops! restart). And in their briefings now, while Runsfled talks of taking on "emerging targets," they wave opposition and a lot of reality impatiently away. Dangerous mix, it seems to me. The original story on the war games appeared in the Army Times: http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1060102.php
Thanks for the link! Oh, and it isn't only guys who have WF! =}
- latrippi (guest) 4-05-2003 1:49 pm