Battle Lines
Tom Brown		Battle Lines is an ongoing Web log (blog) dedicated to providing a broad perspective on the latest news and developments from the war in Iraq. Response and suggestions are welcomed. Tom Brown has been an editor, reporter and software analyst for The Seattle Times for 20 years.

March 25, 2003

Do we need more troops to end this thing?

Today's must read is a posting on another war blog site, dailyKOS. It is a memo purportedly written by "a fairly well known military officer and commentator who under the circumstances is going to have to remain unidentified, other than to say that he is fairly well known military officer and commentator." The memo is dense with military acronyms, but it makes the case that the so-called "shock and awe" campaign failed and that the U.S. command may have erred by not bringing in enough troops to end the war quickly. Against this must be set the fact that the U.S. has been able to push ahead rapidly with few casualties despite the Iraqi resistance, while air strikes undoubtedly have "degraded" the Iraqi defenders and will do so further in the days ahead. Mac Owens, makes the opposing argument -- that the push to Baghdad is a bold plan being implemented boldly and so far is furthering the goal of quickly toppling the Saddam regime.

Posted by tbrown at March 25, 2003 02:02 PM

Katherine Long, research editor at the Seattle Times and 18-year editor and reporter, substituted for Tom Brown the week of April 14.

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