-Click for larger map-
BIG!

Archives

---

Resources

---

News
Opinion
Defense Related/ Oriented
Bloggers
Think Tanks
Photo Albums

 
Hit Them and They’ll Run (Marni Soupcoff - AEI)

World’s Perception of U.S. on the line in Iraq

This past week, I went to an intriguing talk by Princeton Professor Bernard Lewis, an authority on Islamic history and the contemporary Middle East.
------
Luckily, the actual content of Lewis’s speech was enlightening and disturbing only in the sense that it brought out a point that has lingered in my mind since 9/11. Perhaps, he argued, the United States really did have an indirect hand in bringing about the attacks on itself, not in the ridiculous sense that many in the left have suggested (too rich, too Zionist, too capitalist), but because they allowed a perception to develop that the U.S. would not defend itself or fight back against those who attacked it.

posted by Joe at 5:09 PM

 
Perspective on the duration of war (Charles Krauthammer)

WASHINGTON--The First Gulf War took six weeks. Afghanistan took nine. Kosovo, eleven. We are now just past two weeks in the Second Gulf War. It's time for a bit of perspective. This campaign has already been honored with a "quagmire" piece by The New York Times' Johnny Apple, seer and author of a similar and justly famous quagmire piece on Afghanistan published just days before the fall of Mazar-e Sharif and the swift collapse of the Taliban.

The drumbeat of complaint for the first two weeks from the media, retired generals and anonymous administration malcontents has been twofold: the "flawed plan" and the raised expectations.

posted by Joe at 7:08 PM

 
The War Has Refuted The Opposition (David Horowitz)

Once again the left is proved wrong. In less than two weeks of fighting to liberate Iraq, we have brought to light enough facts to destroy every argument the left has made against the war. (But don't expect this to put a crimp in its self-righteous arrogance).

I won't even waste time on the fact that Saddam was still lying about obeying the UN resolutions concerning his weapons. The Al Samoud missiles, the stashes of chemical uniforms, the seriousness with which allied commanders are taking the threat of chemical attacks on our troops are the sickening signs of how incompetent the Blix operation to disarm Saddam was.

After the disarmament myth, the left's principal illusion was that while Saddam may have been a freelance despot he was not a terrorist and certainly not involved with al-Qaeda.

The capture and destruction of al-Qaeda's training camp in Northern Iraq irrefutably shows that Iraq is part of the Axis of Evil that includes al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

posted by Joe at 7:00 PM

 

Just look.

posted by blaster at 4:42 PM

 
Michael Kelly Killed in Iraq
Atlantic Monthly editor was columnist for The Washington Post

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 4, 2003; 12:40 PM

Michael Kelly, 46, the Atlantic Monthly editor-at-large and Washington Post columnist who abandoned the safety of editorial offices to cover the war in Iraq, has been killed in a Humvee accident while traveling with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division...

posted by Bill at 1:05 PM

 

3rd Infantry Encounters Little Resistance

The swift advances to the edges of the Iraqi capital came after U.S. commanders altered plans to destroy the Medina Division of the Republican Guard. They had foreseen a massive ground assault led by M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles. But by the time the Army units reached the Euphrates, the Medina Division had been effectively annihilated by U.S. airstrikes and rocket barrages, military officials said.

posted by blaster at 10:19 AM

 
The Folly of Containment (Commentary: Robert J. Lieber)

No matter what finally happens in our confrontation with Iraq, the use of force against Saddam Hussein is a subject that is bound to be debated for years to come. Any proposed resort to war carries great risks and entails unforeseeable consequences; this particular resort to war, having occasioned months of impassioned and often bitter discussion at home and abroad, and having run up against determined resistance on the part of some of America’s democratic allies, invites repeated reassessment...

posted by Bill at 10:55 PM

 
Photo Proof That Saddam's Alive?
Glenn Reynolds is not convinced.
posted by Bill at 10:36 PM

 
All the News That Fits... (NYT)
In "Corrections" today:

A front-page article on Tuesday about criticism voiced by American military officers in Iraq over war plans omitted two words from an earlier comment by Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of V Corps. General Wallace had said (with the omission indicated by uppercasing), "The enemy we're fighting is A BIT different from the one we war-gamed against."

posted by Bill at 3:32 PM

 
Kanan Makiya's War Diary (TNR)

The world is now getting acquainted with the Fedayeen Saddam, the thugs who are keeping Iraqi citizens in check, most vividly right now in the cities of the south. Western estimates of their strength vary--on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put their size at "probably somewhere between 5,000 and 20,000"--but Iraqi opposition sources say they number at around 50,000, in regiments of 3,000 across Iraq's 18 provinces. They were created by Saddam's elder son Uday in 1991 with the specific purpose of countering any future intifada...

Thanks to Laurie Mylroie for tip.
posted by Bill at 12:46 PM

 
Nat Hentoff
Why I Didn't March This Time
Their Tongues Were Cut Out for Slandering Hussein
The Village Voice
March 28th, 2003 3:30 PM

I participated in many demonstrations against the Vietnam War, including some civil disobedience—though I was careful not to catch the eyes of the cops, sometimes a way of not getting arrested. But I could not participate in the demonstrations against the war on Iraq.
posted by Christine at 11:51 AM

 
We want the war, and we want it now!

Finally he felt free to talk: "There is something you should know - we didn't want to be here tonight. When the priest asked us to gather for a peace service, we said we didn't want to come because we don't want peace. We want the war to come."

"What in the world are you talking about?" I blurted.

Thus began a strange odyssey that shattered my convictions. At the same time, it gave me hope for my people and, in fact, hope for the world.

Because of my invitation as a "religious person" and family connections, I was spared the government snoops who ordinarily tail foreigners 24 hours a day.

This allowed me to see and hear amazing things as I stayed in the homes of several relatives. The head of our tribe urged me not to remain with my people during its time of trial but instead go out and tell the world about the nightmare ordinary Iraqis are going through

posted by Jack at 8:58 AM

 
A day at the office.. with a laser designator

Mike is looking through the viewfinder of a British made Pilkington LF25 laser designator. The crosshairs are centered on a ventilation shaft. The shaft is on the roof of The Republican Guard Palace in downtown Baghdad across the Tigris River.

Saddam Hussein is inside, seven floors below, three floors below ground level, attending a crisis meeting.

Mike's co-worker Pete (also an Ironman finisher, Lake Placid, 2000) keys some information into a small laptop computer and hits "burst transmit". The DMDG (Digital Message Device Group) uplinks data to another of Mike's co-workers (this time a man he's never met, but they both work for their Uncle, "Sam") and a fellow athlete, at 21'500 feet above Iraq 15 miles from downtown Baghdad. This man's office is the cockpit of an F-117 stealth fighter. When Mike and Pete's signal is received the man in the airplane leaves his orbit outside Baghdad, turns left, and heads downtown.

Mike has 40 seconds to complete his work for tonight, then he can go for a run.

Mike squeezes the trigger of his LF25 and a dot appears on the ventilator shaft five city blocks and across the river away from him and his co-workers. Mike speaks softly into his microphone; "Target illuminated. Danger close. Danger Close. Danger close. Over."


posted by Jack at 6:56 AM

 
A real test: restraint during war (Michael Kelly)

In addition to some theorizing about the nature of the conflict, Kelly gives some nitty-gritty details.

WITH THE 3RD INFANTRY DIVISION, Iraq--Friday morning, after a gas scare (an Air Force plane bombed an Iraqi fuel or cargo truck nearby and the resulting fire had triggered a false reading), Sgt. Federico Alzerreca, of Bangor, Maine, took off his gas mask, his rubber boots, his rubber gloves and his cloth gloves underneath. He loosened the hood of his nuclear-biological-chemical suit. He lit a cigarette and pulled in some smoke and said, "It's a shame America is so (blanking) nice. Otherwise, we would have taken this (blanking blank) out in a day."

The war that the United States is waging against the regime of Saddam Hussein is a critical test of several related and very ambitious concepts.

posted by Joe at 11:03 PM

 
Iraqis losing grip on Western Desert (Boston Globe: Nickerson)

The war in northern and southern Iraq is playing out on television screens around the world. But in the vast western desert between Baghdad and the Jordanian border, the campaign is being waged -- and apparently won -- in secrecy and stealth.

In a rare reference to the campaign, a senior US commander said yesterday that US special forces are firmly in control of the west. ''We are denying freedom of movement throughout the western desert and are being very effective at it,'' Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said...

posted by Bill at 4:46 PM

 
A Time to Fight (WSJ: Barry McCaffrey)
Despite some setbacks, the war plan is proceeding well.

The initial success of the CENTCOM attack has been impressive. Gen. Tommy Franks's superb air-land-sea forces have achieved total air dominance, sunk the remainder of the Iraqi navy, and achieved a blitzkrieg success in plunging an Army-Marine three-division task force 300 miles into Iraq up to the gates of Baghdad. Special-operations forces by the thousands infiltrated throughout Iraq, seized the western deserts preventing a potential attack on the Israelis, stabilized the Kurdish front with the support of airborne troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, and conducted direct action and strategic reconnaissance missions throughout the theater of operations.

There have been setbacks. No plan survives contact with the enemy without significant disruptions caused by enemy action, weather, terrain or miscalculation. But while early criticisms of the Pentagon have been overheated, the American public needs to start looking at Iraq as a war--like all wars--that we must fight hard to win...

posted by Bill at 9:23 AM

 
'In Our Hearts We Feel Something Else' (WSJ: BOTWT: Taranto)
The myth of pro-Saddam Iraqi "nationalism" gets a good debunking from an unlikely source: the Arab News...What some Iraquis say after the cameras are turned off.
posted by Bill at 9:16 AM

 
Chart of Countries Selling Arms to Iraq (Command Post)
Glenn Reynolds: "Boy, when you look at this graphic of who sold weapons to Iraq, that whole Security-Council thing sure gets easy to understand."
posted by Bill at 9:05 AM

 
The Leading Indicator of Victory (Slate: Jack Shafer)
OK, so beating up on R.W. "Quagmire" Apple is easy, and Shafer admits it, but read on to his description of the "arc of the wartime news cycle."
posted by Bill at 8:46 AM

 
Phony ethics charges; the nation's defense. (WSJ: Richard Perle)
Perle responds to charges.

Last week I resigned my position as chairman of the advisory Defense Policy Board after news stories, rich in innuendo, suggested that I had acted improperly in advising Global Crossing (the New York Times) and, in a separate matter, in meeting over lunch with two Saudi businessmen (The New Yorker). They provoked an avalanche of stories, mostly repeating points in those first two, with each iteration making more extreme allegations than the last. There was no way I could quickly quell the press criticism of me, even though it was based on factual errors and tendentious reporting. So I wrote to Donald Rumsfeld, "I have seen controversies like this before and I know that this one will inevitably distract from the urgent challenge in which you are now engaged. I would not wish to cause even a moment's distraction from that challenge"...

posted by Bill at 7:46 PM

 
Tradgey of the Arabs

There is great insight in this article. The war will soon be over. A rich country with well educated people will remain. If ever the seed of Arab regeneration will take root, here it will happen. What will the Arab 'Street' have to say to those Arab brothers and sisters, who rage at having been abandonded to the decades of Saddam?
posted by Jack at 2:13 PM

 
The anxiety of war (Alistair Cooke, 95)

...I take, I have to take, a nap in the late afternoon in order to be alive and agreeable in the evening.

For the past week or longer I've not napped, I've lain there - it's called resting I believe, but my mind turning over many things. "fretting" I think is the right word.

"It's the war," said my helpmeet with the wagging finger.

She was right. It was time to do something about it...

posted by Bill at 11:20 AM

 
They dominate the air, but still the media can't win (Mark Steyn)

After little more than a week, is this war coverage in trouble? Already questions are being raised about whether the media's plan was fatally flawed. Several analysts are surprised that, despite overwhelming dominance of the air, television and radio divisions have so quickly repeated the mistakes of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, on the ground, rapidly advancing columns become stalled in Vietnam-style quagmires around the second paragraph.

Speaking live from his armchair, General George S. Patton says, "Look, I'm just an armchair general, but, when I lean forward, pick up the remote and switch on the TV, it seems clear these media sonsofbitches pushed ahead too fast in the first 48 hours...

posted by Bill at 8:53 AM

 
Turkey expresses alarm at Kurdish advances, fearing they may try to seize perhaps their best chance of self-rule since the Ottoman empire collapsed

Turkey has been preparing to send large numbers of troops into northern Iraq, to discourage the Kurds from seeking anything resembling independence and to stop them taking the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul and their big oilfields, currently under the control of Saddam's forces. America has desperately been trying to persuade Turkey to hold back and seemed to be succeeding. But on Friday, Turkey expressed its alarm after Kurdish fighters broke through the Iraqi front line and advanced to within ten miles of Kirkuk. “The United States has to take measures against possible developments in the region with an approach taking into account Turkey's sensitivities,” said Turkey's National Security Council. Translation: don't let the Kurds go any further.


posted by Jack at 6:01 PM

 
Facts on Who Benefits From Keeping Saddam Hussein In Power

Trade trumps? Take a look at the economic relationships between Iraq and those countries standing against war with Saddam.

Jack
posted by Jack at 3:28 PM

 
The bipolar media (Krauthammer)

WASHINGTON--The media could use some lithium. Not since I studied bipolar disease 25 years ago have I seen such dramatic mood swings as in the coverage of the first week of the war.

It began with ``shock and awe'' euphoria, the hailing of a campaign of immaculate destruction. It was going to be Kosovo II, Afghanistan with embeds, another war of nearly bloodless (for us) success.

And then on Sunday, bloody Sunday, the media discovered that war is hell, and descended into a mood as dark as any of Churchill's ``black dogs.'' But the blackness came from confusing two different phenomena: war and battle. The narrow focus of the camera sees not war, but individual battles, which, broadcast live, gave the home front the immediate (vicarious) experience of the confusion and terror of combat. Among the chattering classes, a mini-panic set in.

posted by Joe at 2:45 PM

 
"Uphill battle" to win Iraqi trust (Reuters)

KUWAIT (Reuters) - The U.S. and British war effort faces an uphill battle to win the trust of Iraqis after military planners failed to take sufficient account of Iraqis' deep fear of President Saddam Hussein, a British general says.

"Winning their trust is going to be an uphill battle in the short term," Major General Albert Whitley, who helped with preparations for the war with Iraq, told a news conference in Kuwait on Sunday.

"The Iraqi regime has for many years ruled and controlled its people by fear. That is something we did not fully comprehend... We did not appreciate what 12 years of fear can do to people," he said.

posted by Joe at 2:38 PM

 
Rumsfeld Faulted For Troop Dilution (Loeb - Washington Post)
The article is more balanced than the lead paragraph.

Current and former U.S. military officers are blaming Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his aides for the inadequate troop strength on the ground in Iraq, saying the civilian leaders "micromanaged" the deployment plan out of mistrust of the generals and an attempt to prove their own theory that a light, maneuverable force could handily defeat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

posted by Joe at 2:12 PM

 
Sparing Civilians, Buildings and Even the Enemy (NYT Op-ed: Max Boot)
[Boot is author of "The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power," 2002. Excellent read.]

Watching images of the bombing of Baghdad brought to mind another American bombing campaign 58 years ago. On March 9, 1945, more than 300 B-29 Superfortresses attacked Tokyo...The enormity of the destruction is almost impossible to comprehend today, because the American armed forces fight so differently now. The new way of war emphasizes precision and aims for minimal casualties on both sides. This approach represents a considerable advance, but it also brings its own set of problems...

posted by Bill at 1:28 PM

 
Bush's Peril: Shifting Sand and Fickle Opinion (NYT: R.W. Apple)
Early days in Afghanistan, Apple famously judged, "quagmire." Andrew Sullivan's comment:

Johnny Apple, fresh from a couple of bottles of the best Chardonnay, uncorks a memorable vintage of his: the "This-War-Is-Vietnam" thumbsucker, brought to the table in every conflict, undeterred by its catastrophic record in the past. Actually, there's something vaguely comforting about this kind of piece. Like a rite of spring, it blossoms early in every recent conflict, a slightly different exhausted metaphor each time - in 2003, in the desert, it's "quicksand" - a gentle reassurance that the people who have always got it wrong are saying the same thing yet again. Well, we'll see.

posted by Bill at 1:13 PM