Rightwords... Prudent Conservatism

Superior Force Wins

Ever since the Iraqi war began, I have been amazed at the pitifully small size of the force being used to subdue the terrorists. Because of the too few troops, many border areas of this huge country are available to the insurgent groups for assembly, resupply, rest and reenforcement. At the peak of the invasion, we had about 250,000 troops engaged, where most military experts (and this arm-chair general, too!) had suggested at least double that number to stay around to police the country after major fighting had concluded. This was a strategic and tactical mistake, and it has cost lives and resources that needn't have been lost, as well as time to finish the job over there.

Imposition of Martial Law

But there were even more missteps. We chose to skip declaring martial law throughout the country. This meant free movement for insurgents around the nation by van and auto was quite feasible, and car bombings could be used easily. The reason for this avoidance of martial law was to project the image of our forces as "Liberators" and not "Occupiers." The message to the Iraqi was to get back to situation normal as quickly as possible, then we would leave.

This played into the hands of the insurgents who had planned for insurrection ever since it became obvious that the US would invade, and had hidden vast quantities of munitions throughout Iraq for that purpose. Our checkpoints have inhibited movements somewhat, but certainly not well enough to halt car bombings. We have persisted to this day in trying to keep a "business as usual" face on daily life in Iraq, but ask an Iraqi, and he will call us "occupiers", not liberators.

Had we declared martial law, and enforced it with sufficient troops saturating the key areas we could have accomplished several objectives quickly in an operation I dubbed "Iron Fist" just to have a name:

1. Limiting movement of insurgents by a strict curfew, multiple roadblocks, and observation of all major streets and intersections 24/7.

2. Doing house-by-house, and building-by-building searches for munitions thoroughly. No mosque or other religious sites should be immune to search and seizure. Anyone found possessing munitions should be arrested and jailed.

3. Declaring Iraq a weapons-free zone, and shooting to kill anyone carrying one that couldn't be identified as friendly troops or police.

4. Immediately reforming the old Iraqi army under our command regardless of the probability of it being riddled with terrorists or sympathizers. And then proceeding to weed the unreliables out. By this maneuver, we would have effectively corralled this large pool of fighters and put them to work restoring the country, possibly unarmed, with our troops.

5. After a few instances of suicide car bombings, or preferably before, of course, we should have taken far more strict measures to severely limit use of automobiles and trucks in the cities for a while.

6. After the first instance, or again preferably beforehand, we should have realized the danger to Iraqis waiting in lines to apply for police or other jobs. Protection could have been providied them by concrete barriers rather inexpensively.

7. Many Iraqis insisted upon driving their autos and trucks directly at our troops and checkpoints at high speed. This gave the appearance of being a bomb attack on the checkpoint or troops, of which there had been many. The rules of engagement were to first attempt to stop them by shooting their engines out, but if that didn't work, to shoot the driver. In many instances shooting the engine out had no effect, either because the 5.56mm rounds could not do enough damage, or because the vehicle was on a downhill slope and simply kept rolling. So the driver was killed.

The only thought I have on how to minimize this kind of situation is to use the martial law announcement channels to set forth and post the rules for traffic in the cities, including speed limits, and cautions about heading straight for checkpoints at high speed.


Closing the Borders Effectively

There are long borders between Iraq and its neighbors. It takes cooperation to limit traffic across their frontiers. There has been some cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, but little or no cooperation from Iran or Syria. These countries should be pressured heavily to stop traffic intended to enter Iraq. Border incursions should be authorized both in hot pursuit of insurgents and in special forces raids inside the borders to combat groups of insurgents.

This is another reason to have a far larger army available. Setting up an effective border interdiction system demands troop power, and many helicopters and surveillance drones. Constant patrolling is needed, with the patterns not easy to guess, and the actual patrol routes known only to a few.


Equipment


Another major deficiency of the military was sticking to the Hummer, but mysteriously not using Bradleys more extensively after the major engagement period. Even the Bradley was vulnerable to RPG fire, though, and the Hummer was initially unprotected against even rifle fire. The IED, or roadside bomb was and is effective against all vehicles, especially when the insurgents upped their explosive power.

In my opinion, there should have been faster reaction to the equipment situation, and immediate reequipment of our units with better-armed and armored vehicles. There are several new vehicles on the market, and I am familiar with one from South Africa that has a V-shaped hull which redirects bomb blast up and away from the crew inside. I understand we are procuring 168 or them, but it is limited by the production rate of the company there. We should have bought the license and produced them ourselves much more rapidly. Our new Stryker vehicle is apparently a good attempt, but it does not have the V-hull that is so important for crew survival.


Widening the Scope of the War


We did not see the Arab Street rushing to sign up to retaliate against our Iraqi invasion. But at some point they just might become so inflamed that they would bring many more fighters into the action. This we can handle, since it is how we fight the best -- against large formations or masses of troops.

What must be accounted for is the possibility of Iranian, Syrian and even Egyptian armies forming up to fight us. Their combined active troop power is well over a million men. This is a third compelling reason to have overwhelming force in the region. With our strength assured over there, these countries would be most reluctant to attack us, which would permit us to finish our job in Iraq and move on.

But, suppose one or more of those nations did form up to move on us? We would have a tough fight on our hands, and would need to have large reenforcements ferried over there on short notice. I would prefer that the standing forces we have in Iraq could withstand such an attack, and even win, with rapidly augmented air force and naval air support.

# posted by Mannning @ 1:12 PM