Smart Rebels (Iraqi Resistance) Outstrip US
16 Mar 2007, 7:44 am
'Smart' rebels outstrip US
Top American generals make shock admission as Iraq leader pleads with neighbouring countries to seal off their borders
Paul Beaver in Fort Lauderdale and Peter Beaumont
Sunday March 11, 2007
The Observer
The US army is lagging behind Iraq's insurgents tactically in a war that senior officers say is the biggest challenge since Korea 50 years ago.
The gloomy assessment at a conference in America last week came as senior US and Iraqi officials sat down yesterday with officials from Iran, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad to persuade Iraq's neighbours to help seal its borders against fighters, arms and money flowing in. During the conference the US, Iranian and Syrian delegations were reported to have had a 'lively exchange'.
In a bleak analysis, senior officers described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan 'as smart, agile and cunning'.
In Vietnam, the US was eventually defeated by a well-armed, closely directed and highly militarised society that had tanks, armoured vehicles and sources of both military production and outside procurement. What is more devastating now is that the world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft.
By contrast, the US military is said to have been slow to respond to the challenges of fighting an insurgency. The senior officers described the insurgents as being able to adapt rapidly to exploit American rules of engagement and turn them against US forces, and quickly disseminate ways of destroying or disabling armoured vehicles.
The military is also hampered in its attempts to break up insurgent groups because of their 'flat' command structure within collaborative networks of small groups, making it difficult to target any hierarchy within the insurgency.
The remarks were made by senior US generals speaking at the Association of the US Army meeting at Fort Lauderdale in Florida and in conversations with The Observer. The generals view the 'war on terror' as the most important test of America's soldiers in 50 years.
'Iraq and Afghanistan are sucking up resources at a faster rate than we planned for,' one three-star general said. 'America's warriors need the latest technology to defeat an enemy who is smart, agile and cunning - things we did not expect of the Soviets.'
Other officers said coalition rules of engagement were being used against the forces fighting the insurgency. 'They know when we can and cannot shoot, and use that against us,' said one officer, reflecting the comments of US soldiers in the field. Another said recent video footage of an ambush on a convoy, posted on the internet, was evidence that insurgents were filming incidents to teach other groups about American counter-measures.
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Make mine a super frapalapi with double cream lots of Aspartame choc chip cookies a lump of lard and make it a big one
16 Mar 2007, 7:50 am
Fort Lewis Strykers come under heavy fire In Iraq
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Associated Press
BAQOUBA, Iraq - Dozens of U.S. Stryker combat vehicles roared into Baqouba at sunrise. The enemy was ready. As the dawn call-to-prayer fell silent, the streets blazed with insurgent fire.
Within minutes of the start of their first mission in Diyala province Wednesday a voice crackled across the radio: "Catastrophic kill, with casualties."
Inside the rear of one Stryker, soldiers shushed one another and leaned closer to the radio. They all knew what it meant. A U.S. vehicle had been lost to hostile fire.
Nearly 100 Strykers, armored troop carriers with 50-caliber machine guns, were called north from Baghdad into the province and its capital to try - yet again - to rout Sunni insurgents, many who recently fled the month-old Baghdad security operation.
The fighters have renewed their campaign of bombings and killings just 35 miles northeast of the capital as the war enters its fifth year. Diyala province is quickly becoming as dangerous as Anbar province, the Sunni insurgent bastion west of Baghdad.
Rocket-propelled grenades pounded buildings Wednesday where U.S. soldiers sought cover. Mortars soared overhead and crashed to earth spewing clouds of deadly shrapnel.
Gunfire rattled ceaselessly - the hollow pop of insurgent AK-47s and whoosh of grenade launchers nearly drowned out by shuddering blasts from the 50-caliber machine guns.
Soldiers screamed into their radios for backup. Apache attack helicopters swooped in, firing Hellfire missiles.
By day's end, one soldier was dead, 12 wounded and two Strykers destroyed. The Americans said dozens of insurgents were killed but gave no specific number.
It was a bloody first day for the 2nd Infantry Division's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment - the crack Stryker battalion dispatched from Baghdad's northern suburbs.
The battalion is a component of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, a Stryker Brigade Combat Team from the Army's Fort Lewis, south of Tacoma, Wash., that's on it's second tour in Iraq.
"They threw everything at us - RPGs, mortars - and a guy even tossed a grenade just in front of my vehicle," said Capt. Huber Parsons, the 28-year-old commander of the 5-20's Attack company. "But the most devastating was the IEDs," the Coral Gables, Fla., native said. He was talking about improvised explosive devices - roadside bombs.
One Stryker was lost in a particularly sophisticated ambush.
Struck head-on by an IED, the rubber-tired armored vehicle was swallowed up in the bomb crater. Insurgents emerged from hiding, firing RPGs in unison.
The Stryker crew was trapped. One U.S. soldier was killed. All nine other crew members were wounded, though six later returned to duty.
The other Stryker was destroyed when a roadside bomb exploded as the armored vehicle drove over it. The nine-man squad got out alive, three with injuries.
"It was quite an introduction to Diyala," said Sgt. William Rose of the 5-20's 3rd platoon, Alpha company. "That was the most contact we've had in weeks, maybe months," said Rose, a 26-year-old Arlington, Mass., native.
"They always say the next place we're going is the worst - the most violent - and it never turns out to be the case," Rose said. "They really meant it this time."
Violence has risen dramatically in Diyala since the Feb. 14 launch of the Baghdad security operation. Insurgents have slowly been taking control for months, however. Attacks on American forces in the province have shot up 70 percent since July, according to military figures.
The Stryker group sent to fight the insurgents was hand-picked by Gen. Ray Odierno, the second in command of all U.S. forces in Iraq. It marked the opening of a new front in the Baghdad security operation, a broadening of the mission for which President Bush has promised more than 20,000 additional soldiers.
The Stryker group came to Baqouba on Tuesday full of optimism about pacifying Diyala, as they did earlier in parts of Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul.
Confidence faded Wednesday in the hail of insurgent fire and news of casualties among comrades.
"Our first day and we lost one already," said 22-year-old Spc. Jose Charriez of Hermiston, Ore. "You realize how quickly your life can go."
He and his comrades went through names - Jones, Rubenstein, could it be them? - trying to figure out who died. A young private bowed his head in prayer.
"One killed in action and nine casualties. That's basically all of us right here," said Spc. Anthony Bradshaw, a 21-year-old from San Antonio, pointing to the nine men around him.
Hunkered down in their vehicles, the 3rd platoon was itching to get into the fight. They are infantrymen trained for foot patrols, not to ride in armored vehicles, they said. And word of the two lost vehicles fueled their determination.
Then the order came: dismount, clear houses to the north.
At the back of the Stryker, the hatch dropped open, and nine soldiers piled out. They took cover on the front porch of an abandoned house and plotted their path. Explosions rang out to the east, source unknown.
They crouched behind a crumbling cement wall separating overgrown lawns where rusted garbage trucks lay. With large red wire cutters, Spc. Jeremiah Westerfeld, 22, ripped through concertina wire to allow the soldiers to scramble over the wall.
The Batesville, Ind., native bent over and offered a reporter his shoulder as a step to break her fall.
They dropped down into a scruffy yard, thick with foliage and muddy ruts. A dog barked wildly. Smoke grenades were thrown for cover.
Someone shot the dog.
Doors were kicked in, residents questioned. One vacant house was booby-trapped with a trip wire connected to a homemade bomb made from a propane tank.
Throughout the day, soldiers took aim but seldom got a clear shot at the elusive militants, who hid behind rooftop water tanks and vanished in lush palm groves. Gunfire seemed to come from nowhere and from everywhere.
Insurgent fire kicked up pebbles at the Americans' feet as they ran between buildings. Incoming bullets were getting more accurate.
In Baghdad, the 5-20 met little resistance as it scoured suspected insurgent dens in neighborhoods around Sadr City. They often drank tea with residents.
Things were different in Diyala, which could prove far more difficult to tame than Baghdad.
"I think the chai (tea) days - the quiet days - are over," said 24-year-old Pfc. Allen Groth of Winona, Minn.
http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/ ... e1256.html
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Make mine a super frapalapi with double cream lots of Aspartame choc chip cookies a lump of lard and make it a big one
16 Mar 2007, 9:39 am
Ultimate I believe that all human lives are equal whether they be American or Arab. I do not want to abandon Iraq because it will result in civil war that will cause mass civilian causalities far beyond that which the United States is experiencing. To do so brazenly would be selfish and cowardly. Yes, American soldiers are dying. I grieve for our dead, and wounded. I am also proud of their sacrifices.
News from the front:
The Americans acknowledged, however, that car bombs remained a big threat that could restart the cycle of violence, and said they were concentrating operations in areas where such weapons were believed to be assembled.
Brigadier Qassim Moussawi, Iraqi military spokesman, said the number of Iraqis killed by violence in Baghdad in the 30 days since Operation Enforcing the Law began was 265, down from 1,440 killed in the previous month. He said that the number of attacks in surrounding provinces had increased, although he did not provide figures.
Major General William Caldwell, US military spokesman, meanwhile said: “Murders and executions have come down by over 50 per cent [in Baghdad].”
He acknowledged there had been a slight climb in the number killed in the last seven days, but not as much as at the equivalent point in the cycle of previous Baghdad security plans. “This past week is normally the week in which the number of murders goes back to their previous levels,” he said.
Stepped-up operations by US and Iraqi forces appear to have had much more impact on death-squad activity than on car bombings, however.
Brig Moussawi said the number of car bombs had declined in the last month from to 36 from 56, but blasts attributed to Sunni insurgents, such as a March 6 pedestrian suicide attack on a procession of Shia pilgrims, which killed nearly 120 people, continue to take a high toll.
(The Financial Times)
From an Iraqi war veteran:
Credit the Iraqi people with taking the opportunity by conducting three honest, open, democratic elections. In May 2006, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki formed a democratically elected, consensus-seeking government not simply in Mesopotamia but in the heart of the politically dysfunctional Middle East.
That's an astonishing achievement.
Al-Qaida's now-deceased emir in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, understood the stakes. In a message to al-Qaida (intercepted by the Coalition in February 2004), Zarqawi wrote that after Iraqis run their own government, U.S. troops will remain, "but the sons of this land will be the authority. ... This is the democracy. We will have no pretexts." Iraq's new army and police will link with the people "by lineage, blood and appearance."
The terrorists and tyrants understand. It's a shame America's chatterers don't.
Unable to defeat coalition soldiers or dim liberty's appeal, Zarqawi and his terror clique chose Iraqi civilians as their target. They concluded that an Islamic sectarian war between Shia and Sunni was the only way al-Qaida would avoid defeat. That might entail temporarily placing a secular Saddam-type tyrant in power -- hence the short-term cooperation with thugs from the former regime. Al-Qaida and the Saddamists bet their bombs would break the Iraqi people. That has not happened. They know their resiliency is a stinging rebuke of terror and tyranny.
Targeting the vulnerable is the same tactic the Ku Klux Klan used to enforce segregation in America's South. The Klan burned African-American churches instead of mosques, but the Klan, al-Qaida and Saddamist fascists target a population with similar technique and tyrannical viciousness.
Most of us are glad the FBI didn't pull out of Mississippi and Alabama in 1963. The analogy isn't direct -- Baghdad isn't Birmingham. However, the goal of ending the oppressive destruction of lives is both comparable and noble.
The Iraqi people are earning their victory and their liberty. The price for both is inevitably paid in blood, sweat and toil. At this point in history, they need American patience.
(source)
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