The Bush administration’s battle plan for Iraq may not be unravelling, but it’s got a couple of loose seams.
The house-of-cards collapse of the Iraqi government that the U.S. had hoped for didn’t happen and apparently isn’t going to happen. There is little remaining doubt that Saddam Hussein is still alive and directing operations of his military.
Today, that includes the movement of at least 5,000 Republican Guard troops, supported by hundreds of tanks, directly toward U.S. forces south of Baghdad. In other words, the beginning of what appears to be an Iraqi offensive.
On the surface, this appears to make no sense, as the 7th Cavalry and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force will make hash of the RG – unless they are able to make contact with U.S. forces before the current sandstorm blows out or unless, perhaps, they plan to use chemical weapons.
Continued sandstorms are limiting the ability of U.S. aircraft to slow the advance. Stay tuned.
A quarter of the coalition forces are still bogged down around Basra, where events remain confusing. Reports of a popular uprising there spurred coalition hopes yesterday, but today it’s unclear whether it really happened. British troops on the outskirts of the city continue to slug it out with elements of three Iraqi regular army divisions and some of the Saddam Fedayeen.
The fight took another turn Wednesday, when a column of about 120 Iraqi tanks and armored personnel carriers broke out of Basra south toward the Al Faw Peninsula. They were engaged by U.S. forces and hit hard by air strikes.
These developments, plus widespread harassment of U.S. supply lines, argues that we don’t have enough troops on the ground to end the conflict quickly.
So where’s the 4th Infantry Division?
In Saudi Arabia, unfortunately This is the heavy armored division that the U.S. planned to move through Turkey to open a second front to the north of Baghdad. But the Turks didn’t cooperate.
So the 16 freighters carrying the division’s tanks had to steam through the Suez canal and around the Arabian Peninsula to Saudi Arabia. The tanks should be there today. However, the division won’t be in a position to fight until, probably, the middle of next week.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who was allied supreme commander of NATO forces from 1997-2000 and now provides military analysis for CNN, said that Turkey's "failure to permit the 4th Infantry Division to go through was a significant problem, not an insignificant problem."
Despite difficulties, no nightmare scenarios yet
U.S. forces have hit some potholes on the road to Baghdad, but there is no reason to suspect they won't get there eventually. In the meantime, this piece argues, we can be happy that none of the nightmare scenarios have occurred.
Civilian casualties mount
Civilian casualties are beginning to mount. Two missiles fell on a market in Baghdad today, killing at least 15 people, the Iraqi government said. At a Pentagon briefing, U.S. officials said they had conducted no attacks in the explosion are and suggested that anti-aircraft shells or a surface-to-air missile might have caused the damage.
In Nasiriya, scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the war, Iraq said 500 civilians had been injured.
U.S. soldiers may have been shot as they tried to surrender
The U.S. command said it was reviewing a report that when Iraqi forces ambushed a supply convoy Sunday seven soldiers killed were shot as they got out of their trucks with their hands up to surrender.
First relief supplies arrive in south
The first trucks of relief supplies arrived at the port town of Umm Qasr and were mobbed by hungry Iraqis.
E-bomb takes out Iraqi TV
Wednesday dawn raids over Baghdad knocked out the Iraqi satellite television and communications center with our new wonder weapon, the E-Bomb, which is designed to disable computers, radar and transmitters. TV was back on the air after several hours.
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