Sy Hersh:"departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower"

[sabra]

http://peaceandjustice.org/article.php?story=20051129114516312&mode=print0

11/29/05 - Seymour Hersh: UP IN THE AIR - Where is the Iraq war headed next?

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
The New Yorker
Issue of 2005-12-05


<snip>

A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President’s public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower. Quick, deadly strikes by U.S. warplanes are seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capability of even the weakest Iraqi combat units. The danger, military experts have told me, is that, while the number of American casualties would decrease as ground troops are withdrawn, the over-all level of violence and the number of Iraqi fatalities would increase unless there are stringent controls over who bombs what.

Hersh warned us:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03651563.htm

<snip>

Baiji police said six people were killed and three wounded when the house was obliterated. Among the casualties were two police officers, one killed, the other wounded, they added. The youngest casualty was 14, the local police chief said.

"I absolutely confirm there were no terrorists in this house," Baiji police chief Colonel Sufyan Mustafa told Reuters.

"Even if there had been, why didn't they surround the area and detain the terrorists instead?"

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03651563.htm

<snip>

DIGGING ROAD

A statement issued by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division said soldiers monitoring film from a reconnaissance drone spotted three men digging a hole by a road around 9 p.m. (1800 GMT).

Pilots were alerted, the military said: "The individuals... were followed from the air to a nearby building. Coalition forces employed precision-guided munitions on the structure."

The military gave no casualty figures.

Asked whether a bomb -- an improvised explosive device or IED, in military jargon -- had been found in the road and what measures were taken to determine who was in the house before the attack, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ed Loomis said he could not detail tactics but said : "Digging in the road surface in the hours of darkness are the actions of someone emplacing an IED."

Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, national spokesman for U.S. forces, said: "Insurgent activity was confirmed through multiple sources, to include previous intelligence and direct observation at the time of the air strike ... "We are working closely with Iraqi security forces ... to determine precisely what happened and any unintended casualties resulting from our targeting of insurgent activity."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03651563.htm

<snip>

Last week, the military said an air strike killed 10 people near the nearby town of Hawija after pilots tracked men who had been spotted digging by a roadside.

U.S. forces have used air power increasingly of late.

Official data show the average in the last quarter of 2005 was 54 strikes per month, compared with five strikes per month in the first quarter; the recent rate was comparable to the 56 per month seen in the second half of 2004 when troops fought a Shi'ite uprising and stormed the Sunni city of Falluja.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Oh Boy! The generals can talk about "collateral damage" again.

With the usual chorus of "we regret the loss of civilian lives" after the standard denials that the bombs harm anyone but "terrorists".

[sabra]

2. you have the local police chief saying:

"I absolutely confirm there were no terrorists in this house," Baiji police chief Colonel Sufyan Mustafa told Reuters.

"Even if there had been, why didn't they surround the area and detain the terrorists instead?"

so sad :-(

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Not to mention self defeating.

But, the military can chalk up another glorious "victory".

[Jara sang]

4. The B-2 bomber. How many lives will it save?

"I don't do body counts. This country tried that in Vietnam and it didn't work."




http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/19/INGK0D963N1.DTL

[FloridaPat]

5. No dead US soldiers and tons of cash to the defense contractors.

* dream of a good war.

[wtmusic]

6. And no (visible) dead civilians

Let the love rain down. :sarcasm:

[meganmonkey]

7. Right, because rebuilding starts with bombs falling from the sky

:(

[Dongfang Hong]

8. And who, may I ask, will target the bombers if US troops leave?

Our pilots usually don't have a clue what exactly they're bombing; it's not like they walk around looking for targets before taking a cab back to the airbase. If our troops leave, then we give the Iraqi army--by and large Shi'a, often composed of Shi'a militia entirely--the ability to target whomever they like without oversight. This seems quite dangerous to me; a Shi'a-designated airstrike on a Sunni mosque or neighborhood could massively increase ethnic tensions.

[sabra]

9. so are you conveying that the US should stay in Iraq, indefinitely

to provide this "oversight" ? BTW, who is doing the oversight of the US?

[Dongfang Hong]

11. No, of course not.

That's another terrible option. This plan is marginally preferable, but if it turns into a Shi'a weapon, it will be worse for Iraq and hence worse for us than if we were to stay with all our soldiers. Preferably, I would have an Arabic-speaking, locally-knowledgable Ranger assigned to each Iraqi unit to designate targets for airstrikes; it would minimize US troop presence while still providing a neutral balance to the Iraqi army's pro-Shi'a leanings.

And by 'oversight' I mean a non-ethnically-aligned faction such as the United States. Whether the target is designated by an Iraqi or an American, the bomb is seen as an American one. If it is targeted by an Iraqi and hits a Sunni target, it will be seen by Sunnis as both an American bomb and a Shi'a bomb. We can't have Iraqis believing that we're taking sides in a potential civil war; if that were the case the situation would quickly become even more dire than it is now.

[bananas]

10. satellites and reconnaissance drones

I think it's mentioned in the PNAC "Rebuilding America's Defenses" and other places, they want to be able to do everything by remote control, have total global surveillance using satellites and drones, eventually put weapons in space. It's part of "Full Spectrum Dominance".

From the original post:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03651563.htm

<snip>

DIGGING ROAD

A statement issued by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division said soldiers monitoring film from a reconnaissance drone spotted three men digging a hole by a road around 9 p.m. (1800 GMT).

Pilots were alerted, the military said: "The individuals... were followed from the air to a nearby building. Coalition forces employed precision-guided munitions on the structure."

[Dongfang Hong]

12. That won't be useful on a battlefield situation.

While useful for occasional search-and-destroy missions or targeted-assassination missions, drones won't be of significant use on the battlefield. The problem is if, say, an Iraqi army unit is pinned down by gunfire coming from an apartment building near a Sunni mosque, and decides in retribution to target both the mosque and the building.

[bananas]

13. Welcome to DU!

I just took a look at your profile - I'm guessing you're an American in China?
translate.google.com doesn't work on your profile, btw.

I'm pretty cynical.
We've already "accidentally" blown up mosques and reporters in Iraq,
We "accidentally" blew up the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
Rumsfeld and Cheney gave Hussein chemical weapons to help him fight Iran.
I haven't seen anyone fired over any of this.