The next big milestone of the war in Iraq will be a fierce assault on the Iraqi Republican Guard's Medina division, which guards the gates of Baghdad. Shattering the Medina division is now a central goal of the U.S. war plan for psychological as much as tactical reasons. U.S. officials hope that destroying the division with an overwhelming display of American firepower — a ground version of the "shock and awe" air campaign — will break the spirit of four other Republican Guard divisions surrounding the capital, and perhaps tip the political balance decisively against Saddam Hussein and his regime.
Pehaps indeed!
Made up of some 10,000 troops, the Medina division is deployed about 50 miles south of Baghdad. It straddles one of two key highways into the capital, in a heavily defended area that Pentagon officials call the "Red Zone." Rumbling toward it, or already there, are 20,000 American troops, tanks and armored fighting vehicles from the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division. U.S. ground forces could begin attacking the Medina division as soon as American commanders decide that air attacks have sufficiently weakened the Iraqi forces surrounding Karbala.
| I'd expect that intel assets are mapping where all the elements of Medina are deployed, as close to real time as possible, and that there's some detailed target lists going to the Air Force and Navy. Butting heads with the RG is the wrong way to go — 3ID and the Marines should be serving as recon elements right now, helping with the mapping, and should be anticipating engaging any survivors. I read an article yesterday — Sydney Morning Herald, I think — where they were expecting the allied forces to take 12,000 dead in taking Baghdad. If we don't run it as a combined arms operation, that could well happen... |
Still Monday's fighting made clear that some optimistic early predictions of a swift and overpowering U.S. victory over Iraqi forces may not come to fruition. Apache pilots attacking the Medina division, one of Mr. Hussein's best units, Monday night reported encountering a torrent of fire that frequently forced them to abandon targets. In other cases pilots said they had to abandon planned strikes because Iraqi tanks were too close to homes or holy sites.
| That's what happens when you use tactical aviation too early. Switch from helis to A10's and things will look different, especially if they follow B52s or Tomahawks... |
In the south, U.S. Marines were still reporting hit-and-run attacks on U.S. supply lines. Pentagon officials described those attacks by Iraqi guerrilla forces as a nuisance. The real battle lies ahead in Baghdad. While U.S. forces have been allowing many regular Iraqi Army troops in southern Iraq to lay down their arms and walk away, planners say they need to break the Medina division, or turn its leaders against the regime, to prevent the elite troops from falling back to the capital and reinforcing Iraqi soldiers there. U.S. officials say they have been in regular contact with commanders of key Republican Guard units, trying to persuade them not to fight. So far there is no sign that they have succeeded.
| It's a waste of time. Break it off and then get about the business of breaking them up... |
Highly targeted strikes continued Monday, as U.S. ships and submarines lobbed cruise missiles at Iraqi leadership facilities in the capital city, accompanied by sorties from B-2 bombers. But as fighting moves closer to the capital, the Pentagon may find it hard to stick to that plan, especially if the Republican Guard, which is better-armed than other Iraqi military units, puts up a tough fight. To make the task harder for the Americans, U.S. planners say, troops and tanks from the Medina division appear to have dispersed widely in and around Karbala, placing themselves close to homes, schools, mosques and the region's many ancient Shia shrines. U.S. officials believe the Republican Guard units near Al Kut have been authorized to use chemical weapons. To hurt the Medina division from the air, U.S. commanders may have to risk far more civilian casualties and wider damage than they have to date.
| Then risk them. The Bad Guys are the ones standing next to Grandmaw and Little Timmy, not us. There are good ideas, and then there are good ideas taken to an extreme. Christ knows, there were enough churches in Europe that had to be rebuilt 60 years ago... |
British Prime Minister Tony Blair heralded the coming battle with the Medina division Monday as "a crucial moment" of the war. The division's troops "are those closest to Saddam that are resisting and will resist strongly," he told Parliament Monday. "The vital goal is to reach Baghdad as swiftly as possible, thus bringing the end of the regime closer." Mr. Blair will meet with President Bush at Camp David on Wednesday or Thursday to discuss the campaign's progress.
| Medina should be engaged by then, I'd suspect, and they'll know how it's going... |
By Monday afternoon, soldiers from the U.S. Third Infantry Division had reached the outskirts of Karbala and were about 50 miles from Baghdad. The vast Army convoy was slowed by sandstorms and by resistance from irregular Iraqi forces armed with rockets and grenade launchers near Najaf. Gusts were expected to reach up to 70 mph, stirring enough sand to make flying helicopters and driving trucks treacherous, said Col. Joe Anderson, commander of the 101st's second brigade at Camp New York, Kuwait. But Pentagon officials insisted that the troops are still ahead of the schedule set by Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in the region.
| Sand storms are a bitch. They're a bitch for both sides... |
The 101st is expected to advance rapidly in trucks and helicopters, which both transport infantrymen and shoot at the enemy. The division's third brigade, which also was deployed in Afghanistan, has set up refueling facilities in Iraq. The 101st's two other main infantry units — the first and second brigades — are still in Kuwait. Commanders wouldn't say when they'll move, but suggested that the winds probably will delay them. The 101st could be used either to defend vulnerable U.S. supply lines in the south or to provide added punch to attacks on the Republican Guard.
| I'd say bring it up and overwhelm Medina in a sandwich job — but I'm not a general... |
For a second day, U.S. Apache helicopters pounded the Medina troops and tanks from the air, preparing for the coming ground battle. Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said the attacks had "significantly degraded" the division's combat punch. The Pentagon has been preparing for the battle with the Republican Guard at Karbala since the opening night of the war. Air Force and Navy attack planes spent the first two days of the war striking at the Medina division's air defenses. Starting Sunday night, lower- and slower-flying A-10 tank killers and Apache helicopters began blasting the division's tanks and artillery pieces. The Army fired dozens of surface-to-surface rockets at the dug-in division. One senior military official said it appeared that Gen. Franks "wanted to make an example of the Medina division."
| Take it apart and the others will be unhappy at the thought of engaging. Screw it up, and they'll all expect us to to screw up with them, too... |
While the Army's Third Infantry prepares for the fight around Karbala, the U.S. First Marine Division is racing toward Baghdad, preparing for its own fight with a second Republican Guard Division stationed near Al Kut, 70 miles southeast of Baghdad and blocking the second major highway into the capital. Marines crossed the Euphrates River unopposed, apparently on the way to Al Kut. One contingent of Marines traveled for 26 hours straight, making slow stop-and-go progress, almost completely without Iraqi opposition. At 2 a.m. local time Tuesday they were awaiting orders in a convoy shrouded in total darkness.
| So they're going to do two at once — simultaneously? |
So far the Republican Guard unit there has been spared attacks from Marine helicopters, which have been operating farther south where Marines were facing resistance from irregular forces. That means that the Marine battle at Al Kut could be two or more days away as the helicopters are brought northward to destroy tanks and prepare the battlefield.
| Where's the heavy air prep? What's missing from this story? |
U.S. officials have warned that enemy troops at Al Kut may be armed with chemical weapons. American officials are hoping that a stunning defeat of the Medina forces outside Karbala might be enough to persuade the forces at Al Kut to surrender faster and without using their chemical arsenal.
this logic seems a bit suspect to me.
| Too much psychology here, and not enough air support... |
How the Medina forces will fight isn't known. For now, it seems unlikely that they will rumble out of their defensive positions to try to attack U.S. armor. "The Iraqis simply can't maneuver in large formations without exposing themselves to attack from the air. To move in formation for any of these units is to die," says retired Col. Rick Sinnreich, who takes the role of the enemy commander in Army war games. Instead, the Army's biggest concern is that Republican Guard divisions will dig in until U.S. tanks get within striking distance, and then abandon their tanks and speed toward the urban sanctuary of Baghdad.
| That would amount to insanity on their part. You can't expect your opponent to be insane... |
To prevent that, the U.S. is unleashing a torrent of air power to kill as many of the enemy as possible. Once the battle begins, U.S. troops will seek to kill or capture Iraqi fighters before they have a chance to flee and regroup in the capital. The Third Infantry Division is likely to pursue fleeing Republican Guard units to the edge of Baghdad. Once there, U.S. forces could face an inner ring of defense around Baghdad that consists of two Republican Guard divisions as well as Mr. Hussein's 15,000-man Special Republican Guard unit. U.S. Navy and Air Force planes also have been hitting those forces hard in recent days.
| I hope they're hitting them a lot harder, and a lot more systematically than is coming across in the news reports... |
Gen. Franks, the U.S. commander, said Monday that the Iraqi leader's ability to communicate with and direct his forces is damaged but still working. In Baghdad the Iraqi government continued to demonstrate its political control. Iraqi state television broadcast a speech by Mr. Hussein, which included references to the battle for Umm Qasr that began Saturday. The references seemed intended to confirm that Mr. Hussein had survived two separate cruise-missile attacks on his residences Thursday morning and again on Friday night. U.S. officials said they couldn't tell when the speech was recorded. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told reporters at a news conference that Mr. Hussein is "in full control of the army and the country."
| I was hoping he was toe-tagged, but if he's not, tough luck. We'll have to get him later. He can stand against a wall with Tariq and Taha Yassin and count muzzle blasts... |
U.S. planners are hoping to have most of the major cities in the south under control by the time they fully engage the Republican Guard outside Baghdad and move on toward the capital, so they don't have to divert much needed firepower southward. In the south Monday, U.S. and British troops continued to battle small but dangerous groups of Iraqi militia and regular forces around several towns and the key city of Basra. One British soldier was killed near the town of Az Zubayr south of Basra, the BBC reported. Fighting continued around the port city of Umm Qasr, which U.S. and British forces are eager to control so they can begin shipping in large amounts of humanitarian aid to help win the support of local residents.
| I listened to Blair's news conference this morning. Some of the reporters seem unable to think of anything but Humanitarian Concerns®, demanding to know why these haven't been addressed, since we're all of five days into the campaign... |
While most of the attention has focused on the southern region of the country, important work lies ahead for U.S. forces in the north, where a large oil field isn't yet fully under U.S. control. In that region, coalition warplanes bombed a military barracks near the Kurdish-held town of Chamchamal, not far from the Iraqi oil center of Kirkuk. Bombing also continued in Mosul, close to Kurdish territory. The U.S. hopes to use lighter forces, special-operations troops and some U.S. Army infantry units to secure the oil fields there. Defense officials said that the U.S. plans to begin airlifting large numbers of U.S. troops into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq over the next few days. Movements there have been somewhat hampered by the Turkish parliament's decision several weeks ago to deny ground access through Turkey to coalition forces.
| Yeah. You might say that. 4ID driving south toward Baghdad would have produced an entirely different picture than what we're seeing today. Thank you, Turkey. Bastards. |
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