Go Back to the B3 Home Page
Complaints, compliments, arguments? Email me.
[<< "File this under 'misplaced optimism.'"] [Archive Index] [>>"Hearts and Minds."]
11/09/2003 Archived Entry: "The Obvious."
The Obvious.
In a Guardian report about how we're destroying Iraq in order to save it (I posted this earlier), this little nugget jumps right out:
The arrests and the launch of Operation Ivy Cyclone came, however, amid more bad news for the Bush administration over its handling of post-war Iraq. An official US army review leaked to the US NGO globalsecurity.org has revealed that the army had no plan for the occupation of Baghdad.
Officially titled the Third Infantry Division (Mechanised) After Action Report, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the study provides the first formal internal view of the Iraq war from the point of view of the soldiers who brought down Saddam Hussein.
The report provides official confirmation of a complete absence of high-level military and political planning to manage the aftermath of victory and indicates some key problems that continue to hamper US army effectiveness to this day.
Some of the lack of planning first became apparent at Baghdad International Airport (BIA): 'Multiple military and inter-agency organisations vied to set up operations at BIA, but the (3rd Infantry) Brigade Combat Team controlling BIA was too engaged in continu ing combat operations to coordinate this adequately.'
The report continues that the 3rd Infantry Division itself, which had been engaged in some of the heaviest fighting on the outskirts of Baghdad, 'lacked guidance' on how to deal with the different competing Iraqis they encountered. 'Ongoing struggles for power, establishing security without the benefit of a functioning police system, and re-establishing a pay system for government workers continue to plague the restoration of "normalcy" to Baghdad,' it said.
You can grab the report (.pdf format) here.
Replies: somebody speaks up.
"As F16s jets dropped 500lb bombs on the area where the helicopter was shot down, US troops launched a massive sweep operation"
Maybe a massive sweep operation isn't a major combat operation but i'm pretty sure dropping bombs from F16 jets is. Unfortunately these assholes won't consider it a major combat operation unless they get to nuke someone.
Posted by kuma @ 11/09/2003 04:19 AM NY
