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| Invaders Can Not Take Baghdad: German Military Experts |
| 2003-03-29 |
| Military German experts ruled out it was impossible for the U.S.-British invasion forces to occupy and secure Baghdad as long as the current âunity and determinationâ â between the Iraqi regime and people â goes on, expecting âa bitter defeatâ should the invasion forces opted for attacking the Iraqi capital. Participants in an emergency research session to assess the current invasion, organized by the Unit of Military studies and analyses â affiliated to Hamburg University â (AKUF), noted that âthe history of world wars never recorded one case of an invading army that managed to occupy and control a heavily-populated city â such as Baghdadâ. According to German Magazine Tagesspiegel Friday, March 28, the German experts unanimously believed that the invasion forces had only two options to occupy and secure Baghdad or Basra; either to flatten them completely or besiege them until hunger played its toll on the people inside. Pioneer of German military experts, Dr. Manfred Messer Schmidt, expected the U.S.-British invasion forces would lose the war as long as the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, remained in control of the country. The idea is to throw him out of the country, preferably into jail... Schmidt stressed that âdestroying Baghdadâ would hamper tanks and armored vehicles moving in the streets, leading to the inevitability of âstreet fightingâ. This, he added, means unimaginable losses inflicted on the invading armies. âIf they extremely lucky, they (invading forces) may manage to occupy some suburbs,â Schmidt added, citing the bitter German experience of attacking and besieging Russian Leningrad for 900 days during WW II.âEntering Leningrad led to its complete destruction and severe human casualties on both sides, due to fierce street fighting,â he stressed. Schmidt, who up till 1995, was the head of the Central German Office for Military Studies in Freeburg, likened the situation of the invasion forces in Iraq to that of the German forces that invaded Russia during WW II, seen as the beginning of the defeat. Ummm... Does one of us have his thinking confined to a tunnel here? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #17 TGA, thanks for the explanation. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-03-30 00:14:55 |
| #16 Herr Doctor. Leningrad had a friendly armed force attempting to break the seige. Baghdad won't. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-03-29 23:00:00 |
| #15 Didn't the head of the German commandos predict we were heading into a massacre by going into Afghanistan? I kind of wish these guys had been running the German military in 1939. They are gloomy enough to have persuaded Hitler that Poland would kick the tar out of the Nazis. |
| Posted by: NCC 2003-03-29 21:57:10 |
| #14 TGA - Thanks for the explanation. |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-03-29 21:22:31 |
| #13 No, Prof. Manfred Messerschmidt is one of the leading military experts in Germany. And a very critical one, too. He is one of the German historians who exposed the crimes of the (regular) German Wehrmacht in the Soviet Union. He is absolutely legit. But as I said, the Islam-online article definitely distorts the German studies. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-03-29 21:07:34 |
| #12 Read this guy's name. Is someone putting us on? Messer Schmidt {like the ME-109 from WW II}. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-03-29 20:59:36 |
| #11 How like the Germans: incapacitated by the notion that another nation might accomplish what Germany could not. |
| Posted by: FriarDK 2003-03-29 20:56:19 |
| #10 He never said that. This BS article is severely misquoting and distorting the original studies. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-03-29 20:53:53 |
| #9 Umm.....Herr Professor......the Nazis never took Leningrad. They never destroyed it. Maybe your daddy said he did, but that's just war story bullshit. And this guy's one of Germany's leading military experts?? Mein Gott!!! |
| Posted by: Former Russian Major 2003-03-29 20:39:14 |
| #8 Another case of "if we can't do it, then nobody can". |
| Posted by: Ray 2003-03-29 20:33:51 |
| #7 ... as long as the âunity and determinationâ â between the Iraqi regime and people â goes on .... This is both the critical flaw and the out he's left himself in his analysis. The jihaddi, "Fight or we'll rape your daughter, castrate your son and throw you into a wood chipper" strategy is only going to work until there are enough coalition troops in a given area for the locals to feel comfortable pointing out the Ba'athists. When that happens, the dominos will begin to fall but he'll still be able to claim that he was correct because the "unity and determination" of the Iraqi people will have dissolved. |
| Posted by: B. 2003-03-29 20:06:18 |
| #6 I have read the (much longer) article in German. I think that the Islam-online article misses the point of the German analysis. First of all he doesn't write about cities "falling" like Steve White assumes. He mentions that Paris 1871 did fall because the French emperor and his army already had capitulated and Paris had no provisions to resist a siege. Paris 1940 and Rome 1944 fell because they were not defended (Rome was declared an "open city" if you remember well. Berlin 1945 fell because Germany capitulated. Berlin was not conquered house by house, the Russian tanks made it to the Reichstag and the thing was over. The real point of the study is not that a city can't be conquered house by house, but that it can't be done in a more or less "clean way" (i.e. sparing the inhabitants as much as you possibly can). The coalition forces just can't reduce the city to rubbles, they cannot fight house for house, with terrible casualties on both sides. The American public is not going to watch this silently and the idea of the Iraq war, to "liberate" Iraq, would look rather strange after a while. There is one point which the study (actually several studies, not one) miss: The use of helicopters. If the coalition forces do need to conquer Baghdad the helicopters will be the decisive factor, not the tanks. I believe that if the helis start to take out every house with a sniper in it the resistance will end fairly soon. The other question is what the regular Baghdad inhabitants will do. I think every city is different. It is more likely that a civil war will break out in Baghdad once the Shiites think it's safe. Not that this would be a pleasant prospect for the Allied forces. I'm sure Baghdad can be taken. The question is what price are the allies willing to pay for it. But frankly we do not know how the situation will be in a week or two. That fierce resistance we see now may be rather short lived. And there is still the chance the Saddams closest friends will desert and shoot him. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-03-29 20:02:13 |
| #5 "likened the situation of the invasion forces in Iraq to that of the German forces that invaded Russia" Maybe, but we got control of the vast southern Iraqi oil fields after what - two days? The Germans never got control of the Soviet Union's oil. [Not that we're only fighting for the oil.] Another big difference is that our economy is easily 100 times bigger than "greater" Baghdad (sans oil), unlike WWII where Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were roughly equal economically. Baghdad has no hope - no hope of reinforcements, no hope of supply, no hope of anything except eventual capitulation. Finally we are soon going to be surrounding Baghdad and hunting down the regime's leaders with local intelligence and precison munitions. The Nazis never even got close to getting a shot at Stalin. z |
| Posted by: ziphius 2003-03-29 19:16:39 |
| #4 Maybe we can take him on a tour of the city when we capture it and give him a history lesson while we are at it. Dumbass... |
| Posted by: Angry Federalist 2003-03-29 19:10:36 |
| #3 âthe history of world wars never recorded one case of an invading army that managed to occupy and control a heavily-populated city I seem to recall that Paris fell in both 1871 and 1940. Rome fell in 1944. Berlin fell in 1945. Berlin, Dr. Schmidt, you may know where that is, sir. the U.S.-British invasion forces would lose the war as long as the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, remained in control of the country. This guy should get a job writing non-sequitors. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-03-29 18:59:30 |
| #2 Of course, this idiot refuses to accept the destruction of Berlin or Warsaw, which both saw Soviet armies enter and capture. If this were a course, he'd flunk. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-03-29 18:58:46 |
| #1 Hmm, thanks for the thoughts, but how long has it been since Germany won a war? 132 years? |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2003-03-29 18:50:39 |