URBAN WAR PREDICTIONS COMING TRUE

A year ago, before U.S. troops entered Baghdad, mil­i­tary observers (includ­ing this one) were pre­dict­ing a drawn-​​out, bloody mess. Urban war zones, they warned, would blunt America’s tech­nol­ogy edge — radios don’t work so well in con­crete canyons, and unmanned spy planes can’t see inside build­ings. More impor­tantly, per­haps, Iraqi fight­ers could eas­ily pop in and out of a city — and a civil­ian pop­u­la­tion — they knew a thou­sand times bet­ter than any G.I.
But then: noth­ing. Saddam’s forces van­ished. American sol­diers were left to deal with a nasty pirhana of an insur­gency. But it was noth­ing like the street-​​to-​​street com­bat so many had fore­casted.
Until now, it seems. 12 Marines were killed yes­ter­day fight­ing Sunni insur­gents — likely for­mer Saddamists — in “non­stop, house-​​to– house, roof-​​to-​​roof fight­ing” in Ramadi, near Baghdad. Another group, from the Marines’ 2nd bat­tal­ion, 1st reg­i­ment, fought “block-​​to-​​block” in Fallujah, accord­ing to the AP. In a half-​​dozen other cities across Iraq, Shi’ite forces aligned with the rad­i­cal cleric Muqtada al-​​Sadr are bat­tling with U.S. and allied troops. Sadr now appears to be in con­trol of Najaf, a city of 500,000 that’s one of the most holy in the Shi’ite faith.
It’s clear from reports like this that Sadr’s mili­tia wouldn’t pose a hint of a threat to allied troops — if this was open com­bat, tra­di­tional war. But it’s not.
The Command Post has ongo­ing updates. And Phil Carter’s blog is a must-​​read in these times.

April 7th, 2004 | War Update | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.