Custer’s Sons
March 27th, 2003 - 10:27 am
Read Ralph Peters today for a vivid description of the battle being fought south of Baghdad by the 3/7th Cav:
The forces rushing south have at least one specific mission: Destroy 3/7 Cav. The Iraqis hope that the squadron has been weakened – although the best that Iraqi attacks along the route of march achieved was to disable – not destroy – three U.S. tanks.
Nonetheless, the Cav’s toughest fight is on as I write. Because of the weather, some of those Iraqi fighters likely will get through, along with some Republican Guard armor. And the weather does hurt the ability of the Cav’s tanks and infantry combat vehicles to detect and engage enemy targets at long range.
This battle is a knife fight.
You know what to do; read the whole thing.
Peters is great. However, I think he’s being a little hasty, and kneejerk anti-civilian, in condemning Rumsfeld for shortage of armored divisions. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I think its true the “neos” have a little egg on their faces with respect to the response of the Iraqis. Reminds me a little of the Russians under Stalin. However, more armored punch would require that much more logistical support, and in any case, Rumsfeld had nothing to do with us getting screwed by the Turks. Great piece though. Go 3/7!
Didn’t Centcom say this morning that this never happened? Iraq repositioned some RG units near Bahgdad, but there was no significant engagement with ground forces. I think that is what I heard. It was before coffee though
Rummy and his whizkids have low-balled this from the get-go. It’s entirely his fault for abandoning the classic American means of warfighting, overwhelming force, shock and violence upon our enemy. Instead of aksing “how many troops do we need to ensure it gets done”, Rummy asked “how many do we need to just get by”. I understand they are trying to prevent civilian casualties and contain damage to Iraqi infrastructure, but there’s NO good reason for having insufficient troop strength before initiating hostilities. You can have enough guns to get the job done and still keep collateral damage down, and Rummy et al blew it.
The Iraqis only disabled two tanks, the other one had a small problem when it collapsed a bridge it was driving over.
If I ever end up in the Army I’m going armor all the way. Did you know that no one has ever been killed in combat while in an M1 Abrams?
The 7th Cav. had their http://www.ibiscom.com/custer.htm“>Little Big Horn, so to speak. History will not repeat itself.
I think that Peters and others are really not taking into account some realities. The Mullet above claims “there’s NO good reason for having insufficient troop strength before initiating hostilities.” How about this:
Turkey denied us basing rights, so we had a heavy division in theater that couldn’t be deployed there. This also held up another heavy division or more because of the ships carrying 4ID being indisposed for a month while the diplomacy dragged out. Kuwait was pretty much full, and neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia nor Syria would allow the use of their territory for basing (we probably didn’t even ask Syria and Iran). Jordan allowed us the use of their territory, but apparently not for basing heavy units.
Given all of this, where were we supposed to unload another heavy division? Where would we base them? Where would we stockpile their supplies? What ships and aircraft did we have uncommitted to make this additional logistics effort? Do any of these questions cause a rethink of whether or not more heavy units could have been put into the initial fight?
I saw Peters and Democratic presidential hopeful Clarke on CNN last night, and God help me, Clarke made a lot of sense. After Peter’s said the Turks did us a favor by allowing 4th ID to be redeployed to Gulf, Clarke pointed out that had 4th ID been offloaded in Turkish ports on time, otherwise treading water in Med for 2 weeks would have redeployed other reinforcements to Kuwait. He also made the point of being relieved by Turkish intransigence for sake of political stability w/ Kurds, but would have greatly welcomed 4th ID in N Iraq. To me, due to the Turks and Saddam’s SS tactics, the military aspect has been certainly been made more difficult than anticipated. On the other hand, for the same reasons, the peace will be that much easier when it comes. This, owing to the decimation of dead enders, as well as the enhanced sigh of relief ordinary Iraqis will feel when we establish control.
Yeah, the Turks gave us the shaft, no doubt about it. That, no doubt, is the reason why we are only now opening a northern/western front. My point was, given the fact that no further troops could be deployed right away, Rummy chose to move ahead with what he had in theater, thinking it would be more than sufficient.
Remember, Rummy wanted way less troops than what are in place now. Franks convinced him to use more, but not as many as Franks and CENTCOM wanted. It’s Rummy who holds the bag on this, and he should’ve considered force structure before launching the offensive. Now, with the 4ID two to three weeks away from bringing their whoopass combat power to bear on the ‘Dad, we’ve got a long, somewhat insecure logistical tail, xhausted troopers and close to three weeks before we can effectively resume the offensive.
Rummy chose to discard the Powell Doctrine in terms of warfighting, and should never have done so. Attacking forces generally require a 5 to 1 up to a 10 to 1 ratio in superior forces when taking on troops in prepared defensive positions, and Rummy’s estimates were wildly optimistic.
I realize hindsight is 20-20, but this sort of oversight is inexcusable. If the joint chiefs (and others, like Franks) would have been REALLY listened to and consulted, there’s a good chance this would already be over.
Peters article rings true. I had suspected that someone had bought into the airpower promises. Certainly I wondered where the 1st Armored and 1st Cavalry were. This was done on the cheap and someone’s head should roll. Its too bad if Rumsfield is responsible. He talks straight, this is too rare in government where you get the con men like Powell too often.