Boston Globe: Bush "shock & awe" tactics "played into Hussein's plans"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/10/11/study_ties_hussein_guerrilla_strategy/

WASHINGTON -- The "shock and awe" attack that toppled Saddam Hussein in three weeks is often touted as a brilliant strategy that defeated Iraq with relatively few US casualties. But new information suggests that the United States may have played into Hussein's plans for a quick war followed by a long guerrilla insurgency.

The report last week of the Iraq Survey Group, based partly on interviews with captured leaders of the secretive Iraqi regime, said Hussein planned to have his troops and loyalists pull back after an initial US thrust and engage the Americans under terms more favorable to the Iraqis.

According to retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Krepinevich, an expert in counterinsurgency, ''good strategic planners look at not only the rosy scenario but some of the darker ones that we are now being confronted with in Iraq."

But in the end, he said, the full-blown insurgency is probably less a result of Iraqi planning and ''more our missteps."

[billybob537]

1. That wouldn't surprise me!

Any good tactician knows you'll never beat the US Army in a fair fight! The only hope would be a long and costly guerrilla war.
And any one with a brain knew Iraq was a no-win situation.
If they ever achieve a democracy they will elect a fundamental Muslim and become another Theocracy like Iran!

[coalition_unwilling]

2. Just finished reading Hersh's Chain of Command

Near the end of it (in the Epilogue, I believe), Hersh actually references an interview he conducted with an Iraqi general who coorroborates the Globe's report here. Acc. to Hersh's reporting, the Iraqi military knew it could not win in a head-to-head fight with the U.S. military; that's why, one day there were street blockades up in Baghdad, the next (at Hussein's direct order) the blockades went down and the Iraqi resistance changed to a cellular organization as a strategy.

The U.S. military won the battle it wanted to win (invasion\occupation), but Hussein set in motion a longer-term strategy to win the war he wants to win, i.e., kicking out the invaders\occupiers. Right now, only about 35% of this country "gets it", but give it another year and another 1,000 body bags.