The Dogs of War

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (FSPilot @ Mar. 22 2003,07:40)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">He says the Iraqis still hold Um Qasar and have defeated several US offensives.  <span id='postcolor'>

That part is apparently true. Umm Qasar has not been cleared yet and BBC reports still heavy resistance. Several attacks on Basra have failed and coalition forces have been stopped in Nasiraya on the way to Baghdad.

As for the rest they are saying, well, I wouldn't put too much trust in that

[FSPilot 0]

I heard we had Basrah in control and had actually advanced around 100 miles into Iraq.

[Guest]

Basra is certainly not in coalition control, the fighting is currently on the outskirts of the city. You can check basically any news service for that.

The second part is true. The second force going towards Baghdad has advanced about 150 km to Nasiraya where they have been halted and have made no advances the latest 12 hours. They currently fear that the Iraqi troops will blow up the bridges crossing the river, making a further advance more difficult.

The bad (for the coalition) news in all of this is that they have only faught regular Iraqi units that have put up a serious fight. No engagements with the Republican Guard has been made yet.

[FSPilot 0]

Are the troops getting any air support? Aside from that one AH-64 that crashed I haven't heard anything about the air force (or army navy marines for that matter) attacking Iraqi forces directly, instead of just the military infrastructure.

[beno_83au 1369]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (FSPilot @ Mar. 22 2003,08:25)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Are the troops getting any air support?  Aside from that one AH-64 that crashed I haven't heard anything about the air force (or army navy marines for that matter) attacking Iraqi forces directly, instead of just the military infrastructure.<span id='postcolor'>

Earlier on in the thread was something about some helos being called in to engaged 11 tanks.

[//relic// 0]

ABC TV Australia is reporting that intelligence analysts believe Saddam to have wired multiple dams with explosives, in order to flood large parts of Basra and Baghdad when defeat comes.

http://www.abc.net.au/broadbandnews/ram/news.ram

"Saddam has devised terrible war strategy"

Btw, if you're looking for a good streaming source, ABC news is it. Larger + higher quality video than most, plus the journalism is a cut above the typical cnn trash.

[//relic// 0]

ABC News is also reporting that the entire 51st Division has surrendered, "which would normally total up to 10,000 troops gave up en masse"

I re-emphasise what I said above. This video is amazing quality for a netstream, if only I could save it, as ABC updates every 30 mins or so totally replacing the videos available.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Still some pockets of resistance in Umm Qasr. Video shows Marines clearing out the old port section of the town, supported by a couple Cobras. Oh yeah, and some highly obnoxious CNN reporters rambling about non-existent snipers and speculating on whether the Cobras are British

[beno_83au 1369]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Tex [uSMC] @ Mar. 22 2003,09:11)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Oh yeah, and some highly obnoxious CNN reporters rambling about non-existent snipers<span id='postcolor'>

Lol, yeah. A soldier fires a single, aimed shot at another group of soldiers and suddenly he has qualified as a sniper.

[Guest]

House of the Iraqi ministry on the Republican Palace grounds. It's about the size of the Capitol building in Washington. It was according to Swedish media hit 18 times last night.

I was a bit surprised - I expected it to be more damaged. The buildings around it look pretty intact.

[FallenPaladin 0]

Yes, it looks still very solid and stable, but I guess it`s scorched inside. But the underground levels could be still intact I think.

[HellToupee 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Beno @ Mar. 22 2003,21:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Tex [uSMC] @ Mar. 22 2003,09:11)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Oh yeah, and some highly obnoxious CNN reporters rambling about non-existent snipers<span id='postcolor'>

Lol, yeah. A soldier fires a single, aimed shot at another group of soldiers and suddenly he has qualified as a sniper.<span id='postcolor'>

a sniper is a shooter from a conceled location, a sharpshooter is one very good at shooting.

[Balschoiw 0]

US armoured units suspected 40 miles of Bagdad.

The ghost division has taken 2 major airfields in Iraq. It´s H3 and H1. I was right with my assumption that at least 6000 US troops used Jordania as a jumppod into Iraq. This will be the end of Jordania as we know it.

The turkey invasion into northern Iraq happened only very short after the US were granted the turkey airspace. Makes you think that there is a relation between this two facts. The US need the northern front badly. Maybe they sacrificed the kurds to the turkeys for that higher goal.

Interesting sidenote. Turkey is part of the coaltion of the willing. Looks like US has no control about their coalition forces.

[Jinef 2]

Talking of reporter ignorance,

there was footage of a RAF chinook with royal marines on board in a landing pattern, it was coming down and a soldier was waving it down - he had his arms up for okay but the reporters were yapping on about "Aha. More evidence that Iraqis are surrendering in droves!"

They later corrected their mistake though.

[barcode6 0]

9--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Mar. 22 2003,109)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

House of the Iraqi ministry on the Republican Palace grounds. It's about the size of the Capitol building in Washington. It was according to Swedish media hit 18 times last night.

I was a bit surprised - I expected it to be more damaged. The buildings around it look pretty intact.<span id='postcolor'>

I wonder if they used a thermobaric weapon on this one?

Thermobaric Weapons.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

There was a MAJOR fire in that building last night(i just saw re-run footage of it)- i wouldnt bet on it still having much functionality whatever it looks like on the outside

and going on with the subject of reporter ignorance

a reporter in Iraq reported that the US marines had found Stinger missiles in the UN Umm Qasr compound (presumably put there by Iraqis) which is worrying enough but

A less than knowledgeable reporter in the studio said

'AHA stinger missles! Missiles Iraq isnt supposed to have, so that will be evidence of Iraqi non-compliance then!'

Err no... (the reporter in Iraq made her look pretty silly by correcting her)  

'Saddam to have wired multiple dams with explosives, in order to flood large parts of Basra....'

I imagine thats just the kind of thing special forces will be having under surveilance

Anyway apparently coalition forces found a lot of demolition equipment at many of the southern oil well, seems it could have been worse at those oil wells, who knows why they werent detonated.

Balschoiw-"The turkey invasion into northern Iraq happened only very short after the US were granted the turkey airspace"

I understand the Turkish parliamentary vote on the two issues happened at roughly the same time, its possible the US is involved in some kind of deal but its also possible that the parliament made the two decisions on their own. (feelings in Turkey are very strong on this)

British troops are reported to still be roughly 30 ks from Basra,

and coalition troops are not reportedly planning to enter it imminently, theyre planning to go around it (and encircle it)whilst negotiating surrenders and/or bombarding it (hopefully avoiding civilian areas)

so the earlier reports seem (on present information)to have been premature to me.

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Balschoiw @ Mar. 22 2003,11:37)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">US armoured units suspected 40 miles of Bagdad.

The ghost division has taken 2 major airfields in Iraq. It´s H3 and H1. I was right with my assumption that at least 6000 US troops used Jordania as a jumppod into Iraq. This will be the end of Jordania as we know it.

The turkey invasion into northern Iraq happened only very short after the US were granted the turkey airspace. Makes you think that there is a relation between this two facts. The US need the northern front badly. Maybe they sacrificed the kurds to the turkeys for that higher goal.

Interesting sidenote. Turkey is part of the coaltion of the willing. Looks like US has no control about their coalition forces.<span id='postcolor'>

I'm just waiting for Iran to join in to 'protect' the Sh'ias. Then wel'll have a real party

In other news, there is according to Swedish news a large tank battle outside Basra and that they've been at it for hours already.

I'm still very curious about the artillery strike reports on Basra that were reported yesterday. I had written them off as false when reporters on the ground with the troops started mentioning them. I have a bit of a problem reconstructing a time line, but it would seem that there are at least two separate forces in the south. One that took Umm Qasr and the other that is going towards Basra.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Id say theres more than two forces. There are reportedly coalition troops above Basra and also to the west as well as those still engaged in securing the city and old port of Umm Qasr

[Balschoiw 0]

" I have a bit of a problem reconstructing a time line, but it would seem that there are at least two separate forces in the south. One that took Umm Qasr and the other that is going towards Basra. "

At least there are 4 major separate forces on the way now.

One that took Umm Qasr, one for Basra, third bypassing towards Bagdad, fourth heading into Irak direction Bagdad from Jordania. As I already reported H3 airfield seems to be taken and H1 airfields is suspected to be taken but I have no comfirmation yet.

This makes 4 separate forces. But only 2 of them are moving right now. The coalition forces lack the northern front a lot. That becomes quite clear now. In order to seize Bagdad they´ll need to cover the northern region wich is not able with airdeployed forces only.

In my opinion this war is far from being won at this time. Only a complete surrender of the Bagdad forces would end this now. Or of course the reported kill of Saddam.

[Guest]

No, I'm talking about the southern front only. Basra and Umm Qasr. Not the ones that are going for Baghdad (and currently stuck in Nasiriaya) and not the northern incursions.

The reason for the doubt if there is one or two forces there is because the media has been refering to Umm Qasr as "on the road to Basra".

[Balschoiw 0]

Ah ok. I missed that.

[turms 0]

How are the Iranians doing there? I would see that they would be quite interested of some territories in northern Iraq "to protect the shia muslims living there",specially after the 3 missiles shot to Iran. Does Iran have troops groupped themselves for attack?. Iran can be a wildcart in the crisis..

[Guest]

The interesting (perhaps the wrong choice of word) thing will be Baghdad. I don't know how they expect to pull it off. I read yesterday an analysis from 2000 by DOD on the possibility of urban warfare in Baghdad and Teheran. The conclusion was that conservative analysis puts the number at 40% casualties for an attacking force that is five times larger then the defending force. They reduced the number to 25% if just special ops were to be used. Needless to say, this is not an acceptable number. There are 20,000-30,000 republican guard units in Baghdad. If the coalition forces go in with 100,000 soldiers, they can expect between 40,000 and 25,000 casualties.

So the option that remains is a seige of Baghdad, but it won't work either. It will hurt and kill civilans much more then the Iraqi military. The military have their own supplies and should they run out they'll just grab the rest from the civilians. Baghdad is also a huge city so I'm not really sure that a seige is plausible at all. Setting up the perimeter would require far more troops then the coalition have now.

The only hope is to get Saddam and hope that the Iraqi military machine breaks down. That's however far from a sure bet. So far the predictions on Iraqi troops morale have been completely wrong. The coalition has met major resistance from regular units in all three larger cities they have attack with ground forces so far. Baghdad is protected by the Republican Guard who are much more motivated and better armed.

I simply don't see a solution.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Even in the south there are multiple forces-

-those securing the Faw peninsula, -those securing Umm Qasr

,-those pressuring Iraqi positions on the west of Basra,-those securing the southern oil facilities.....

and i have heard reports of coalition forces north of Basra (not as far as An Nasiriyah)

maybe more

'the media has been refering to Umm Qasr as "on the road to Basra".'

this sounds like media soundbyting (bullshit)

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Den-"The only hope is to get Saddam and hope that the Iraqi military machine breaks down"

Thats certainly a major component of the plan (but they are actively involved in breaking the machine not just hoping)

surrenders etc are definatly being relied on to some extent

"So far the predictions on Iraqi troops morale have been completely wrong"

Not completly, there have been continuing surrenders since the start with reports of large scale surrender negotiations going on, however there has indeed been medium resistance

(with limited coordination)

I am not surprised to see the troops in entrenched postions fighting back, this is typical of other fighting in the arab world-including the Iran/Iraq war, in some cases it might actually be quite hard to surrender even if they would rather do so..

The Gulf war was to a great extent maneuvre warfare, the Iraqi amy is fighting all on home territory this time...

I expect (though hope not) to hear of some terrible encounters before the war is over...

Quick victory is not certain