| Still no real news. The story, at the moment, seems to be Basra. Is there an "uprising?" There are rumors, but not much more. You can be sure that reporters will be rushed in if we do secure the city, so that clearly hasn't happened yet. Either we go in soon, or there will be a humanitarian disaster, as the million plus residents have been without electricity and water since Sunday. That is very bad, and it would appear that time is essentially up. We have to move on Basra immediately. But without an uprising from inside the city British forces tasked with capturing the city will either lose a lot of men, or inflict huge casualties on the civilian population they are supposedly liberating, or both. But they can't just stand outside the city and watch a million people die. And Basra was supposed to be easy. The first photo op of the war. Gulp. The other story is the 4th Infantry Division. My understanding (I'm just getting up to speed on the all the military nomenclature) is that this is the group that would have come through Turkey, but since they weren't allowed they sailed through the Suez on their way around to Kuwait. (I understand they are not on the ships, just their mechanized equipment - they'll be dropped where ever the machinery is unloaded.) There are 3 U.S. divisions closing in on Baghdad. One from the West of the Euphrates, one just east of the Euphrates, and one along the Tigris. But these soldiers have been fighting for many days and need a rest. Also, they need to be resupplied. The 4th (and maybe more) is apparently necessary to shore up these troops before the big fight can begin. Supposedly it will be at least Saturday or Sunday before the 4th can join the fight coming up from Kuwait. But there are two other wild cards: - the many unconfirmed reports of Turkish troops coming over the boarder are actually misidentified U.S. troops. Somehow we cut a deal with the Turkish military and they are letting the 4th through against the expressed wishes of the government. - the ships with the 4th's gear have secretly landed at Al Aqabah on the Red Sea in Jordan instead of sailing all the way around the peninsula to Kuwait. From here they will cross Jordan and materialize out of the western Iraqi desert to join the fight on Baghdad. This would be Gen. Frank's wild card surprise move. My money is on the second possibility, but it's still going to be many days before we have enough strength around Baghdad to start the fight. I say Friday at the earliest (with the surprise Jordan route,) or Sunday at the very earliest if they do go all the way around. And it could even be longer. It's a long way around that penninsula (Here's a general map of the region; here's one of Jordan.) So we wait. Watch what the British do in Basra. And continue our psy ops in an effort to get Iraqi generals to turn on Saddam. This is really our only plan, as far as I can see. Try to draw some RG divisions out into the open where we can crush them, showing our massive fire power - while working back channels to try and get someone inside to off Sadam. Maybe keep this up for a week? Two weeks? Only when it is clear that Sadam will not be taken out from inside do we launch the assualt on Baghdad. I guess at that point we'll find out if they are going to use chemical or biological or radialogical weapons. If they do then I have no idea what will happen. If they stay conventional, then we go in and slug it out. Most likely amazingly bloody. Huge Iraqi casualties - many tens to hundreds of thousands. Thousands of U.S. and British casualties. But eventually we will take the city. And then the really hard part starts: keeping the country together. Ugh. Enough for now. |
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