thedrifter
05-20-05, 01:14 AM
05.19.2005
From The Editor
Iraq Is Still up for Grabs
By Ed Offley
Having read Steve Chapman and Jack Kelly this week, it's hard to believe that they reside on the same planet – much less are talking about the same military operation.
As a force of more than 1,000 Marines crossed back over the Euphrates River last weekend following a seven-day ground offensive against Iraqi guerrillas and foreign jihadists, Kelly and Chapman joined a chorus of columnists and pundits attempting to sort out the winners and losers after what was the largest U.S. military offensive since the Marines went into Fallujah six months ago.
Here's the box score from Operation Matador, as U.S. military officials told The Washington Post on Sunday, May 15:
"The U.S. military said in a statement that the operation had killed more than 125 insurgents, most of whom died in a battle that broke out at Ubaydi last Sunday as Marines were massing for the river crossing. In addition, 39 'terrorists of intelligence value' were detained, the statement said.
"The operation employed coordinated attacks by ground and air forces, with AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships and AV-8 Harrier and F/A-18 Hornet jets backing Marines as they swept through towns and combed caves. Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, called the air campaign one of the successes of the offensive."
"But the week-long village-to-village push along the river's north bank turned up few of the foreign fighters estimated by Marines to number in the hundreds. The foreign fighters apparently had been in the northern Euphrates towns as recently as two to three days before American forces arrived, said Maj. Steve Lawson of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, another ground commander in the attack."
Kelly, a national security writer for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, gleaned evidence of significant progress for the U.S. military and the new Iraqi government in the operation and other recent developments that, on surface, appear troubling. Acknowledging that a wave of suicide car-bomb attacks that have killed over 400 Iraqis while Operation Matador was underway, Kelly saw a positive trend in the drumbeat of violence:
"The body count is up because two offensives are under way. The insurgents have launched a suicide bombing campaign in an effort to destabilize the new Iraqi government. The Marines are clearing out the rats' nests in western Iraq to which insurgents fled after they were expelled from their stronghold in Fallujah last November."
"The suicide attacks gather ominous headlines, but are failing in their strategic purpose. They have not diminished the willingness of Iraqis to enlist in the army and the police. Between 1,500 and 3,000 more sign up each week. And the Shi'ites and Kurds have not been goaded into bloody confrontations with the Sunnis."
Chapman, writing in The Chicago Tribune, took a much darker view of events:
"Could it be that we've misclassified the insurgency in Iraq – that it's an invertebrate, able to absorb bone-crushing blows because it has no bones to crush? It seems to be more like a dandelion, which, when smashed, only spreads more seeds. Seven months after U.S. forces leveled the enemy stronghold [in Fallujah], the insurgents are causing as much trouble as ever. ... "
The dilemmas faced by the United States persist. We see no choice but to carry out military missions to kill insurgents – but those missions produce collateral damage that alienates the people we are trying to help. ... We may not have the means to win this one – even if Americans are willing to stay for years to come and even if the military can withstand the debilitating demands on its people. It's hard to find grounds for optimism."
How to square the circle on two such contradictory assessments? What is obvious is that the situation in Iraq is nowhere close to a decisive point. There is evidence aplenty to support either the Kelly or Chapman assessment.
The Iraqi government has lost some of the political momentum from the January elections in recent months while its leaders haggled over appointments to key government posts. Recent polls do show a drop in public confidence in the government given the renewed bombing attacks that more and more target Iraqi officials and ordinary citizens rather than U.S. troops.
On the other hand, a growing number of experts in guerilla movements and counter-insurgency operations are coming to the conclusion that the loosely-affiliated fighters – including disaffected former Ba'athist regime officials, al Qaeda terrorists and criminal gangs – have blown the prime rule of guerrilla war: They have alienated the civilian population which Mao Zedong once described as the "ocean" in which the guerrilla "fish" swim.
Writing of guerrilla warfare and insurgency tactics in The New York Times last week, James Bennet observed: "American forces in Iraq have often been accused of being slow to apply hard lessons from Vietnam and elsewhere about how to fight an insurgency. Yet, it seems from the outside, no one has shrugged off the lessons of history more decisively than the insurgents themselves."
Various counter-insurgency experts that Bennet interviewed described those masterminding the car bombings and execution-style slayings of ordinary Iraqis as "nihilistic," "incomprehensible" and displaying "no logic" in terms of classic guerrilla warfare. He quotes an eloquent warning from Che Guevera, another failed guerrilla fighter:
"Where a government has come to power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted."
So I cast my vote with Jack Kelly, although with a strong caveat. The terrorists' tactics are clearly beginning to backfire and it becomes clearer by the day that they have no alternative vision to offer the Iraqi people other than pure chaos or – down the road – the nightmare of a 7th–century radical Muslim version of Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Still, despite clear tactical victories and intelligence windfalls (including an uncorroborated report from a London newspaper last week that al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was seriously injured in the fighting), the U.S. military and its Iraqi allies have yet to break the back of the terrorist-led enemy.
Two additional statements I read last week sum up the situation quite well:
Noting that al Qaeda has opted to make its decisive showdown with the United States in Iraq, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerny told The Washington Times, "If they fail in Iraq, Osama and his whole crew are finished." And a senior American officer in Iraq, speaking on background to reporters, said, "I think that [the U.S.-led effort to create a stable government in Iraq] could still fail. It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail."
According to widespread news reports from Iraq, our troops serving and fighting there clearly believe in their mission and are confident in the long run a free Iraq will prevail. I cast my vote with them as well.
Ellie
From The Editor
Iraq Is Still up for Grabs
By Ed Offley
Having read Steve Chapman and Jack Kelly this week, it's hard to believe that they reside on the same planet – much less are talking about the same military operation.
As a force of more than 1,000 Marines crossed back over the Euphrates River last weekend following a seven-day ground offensive against Iraqi guerrillas and foreign jihadists, Kelly and Chapman joined a chorus of columnists and pundits attempting to sort out the winners and losers after what was the largest U.S. military offensive since the Marines went into Fallujah six months ago.
Here's the box score from Operation Matador, as U.S. military officials told The Washington Post on Sunday, May 15:
"The U.S. military said in a statement that the operation had killed more than 125 insurgents, most of whom died in a battle that broke out at Ubaydi last Sunday as Marines were massing for the river crossing. In addition, 39 'terrorists of intelligence value' were detained, the statement said.
"The operation employed coordinated attacks by ground and air forces, with AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships and AV-8 Harrier and F/A-18 Hornet jets backing Marines as they swept through towns and combed caves. Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, called the air campaign one of the successes of the offensive."
"But the week-long village-to-village push along the river's north bank turned up few of the foreign fighters estimated by Marines to number in the hundreds. The foreign fighters apparently had been in the northern Euphrates towns as recently as two to three days before American forces arrived, said Maj. Steve Lawson of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, another ground commander in the attack."
Kelly, a national security writer for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, gleaned evidence of significant progress for the U.S. military and the new Iraqi government in the operation and other recent developments that, on surface, appear troubling. Acknowledging that a wave of suicide car-bomb attacks that have killed over 400 Iraqis while Operation Matador was underway, Kelly saw a positive trend in the drumbeat of violence:
"The body count is up because two offensives are under way. The insurgents have launched a suicide bombing campaign in an effort to destabilize the new Iraqi government. The Marines are clearing out the rats' nests in western Iraq to which insurgents fled after they were expelled from their stronghold in Fallujah last November."
"The suicide attacks gather ominous headlines, but are failing in their strategic purpose. They have not diminished the willingness of Iraqis to enlist in the army and the police. Between 1,500 and 3,000 more sign up each week. And the Shi'ites and Kurds have not been goaded into bloody confrontations with the Sunnis."
Chapman, writing in The Chicago Tribune, took a much darker view of events:
"Could it be that we've misclassified the insurgency in Iraq – that it's an invertebrate, able to absorb bone-crushing blows because it has no bones to crush? It seems to be more like a dandelion, which, when smashed, only spreads more seeds. Seven months after U.S. forces leveled the enemy stronghold [in Fallujah], the insurgents are causing as much trouble as ever. ... "
The dilemmas faced by the United States persist. We see no choice but to carry out military missions to kill insurgents – but those missions produce collateral damage that alienates the people we are trying to help. ... We may not have the means to win this one – even if Americans are willing to stay for years to come and even if the military can withstand the debilitating demands on its people. It's hard to find grounds for optimism."
How to square the circle on two such contradictory assessments? What is obvious is that the situation in Iraq is nowhere close to a decisive point. There is evidence aplenty to support either the Kelly or Chapman assessment.
The Iraqi government has lost some of the political momentum from the January elections in recent months while its leaders haggled over appointments to key government posts. Recent polls do show a drop in public confidence in the government given the renewed bombing attacks that more and more target Iraqi officials and ordinary citizens rather than U.S. troops.
On the other hand, a growing number of experts in guerilla movements and counter-insurgency operations are coming to the conclusion that the loosely-affiliated fighters – including disaffected former Ba'athist regime officials, al Qaeda terrorists and criminal gangs – have blown the prime rule of guerrilla war: They have alienated the civilian population which Mao Zedong once described as the "ocean" in which the guerrilla "fish" swim.
Writing of guerrilla warfare and insurgency tactics in The New York Times last week, James Bennet observed: "American forces in Iraq have often been accused of being slow to apply hard lessons from Vietnam and elsewhere about how to fight an insurgency. Yet, it seems from the outside, no one has shrugged off the lessons of history more decisively than the insurgents themselves."
Various counter-insurgency experts that Bennet interviewed described those masterminding the car bombings and execution-style slayings of ordinary Iraqis as "nihilistic," "incomprehensible" and displaying "no logic" in terms of classic guerrilla warfare. He quotes an eloquent warning from Che Guevera, another failed guerrilla fighter:
"Where a government has come to power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted."
So I cast my vote with Jack Kelly, although with a strong caveat. The terrorists' tactics are clearly beginning to backfire and it becomes clearer by the day that they have no alternative vision to offer the Iraqi people other than pure chaos or – down the road – the nightmare of a 7th–century radical Muslim version of Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Still, despite clear tactical victories and intelligence windfalls (including an uncorroborated report from a London newspaper last week that al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was seriously injured in the fighting), the U.S. military and its Iraqi allies have yet to break the back of the terrorist-led enemy.
Two additional statements I read last week sum up the situation quite well:
Noting that al Qaeda has opted to make its decisive showdown with the United States in Iraq, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerny told The Washington Times, "If they fail in Iraq, Osama and his whole crew are finished." And a senior American officer in Iraq, speaking on background to reporters, said, "I think that [the U.S.-led effort to create a stable government in Iraq] could still fail. It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail."
According to widespread news reports from Iraq, our troops serving and fighting there clearly believe in their mission and are confident in the long run a free Iraq will prevail. I cast my vote with them as well.
Ellie