The Command Post - Iraq - What Iraqi strategy?

April 04, 2003

What Iraqi strategy?

Jim Keegan wonders what kind of war the Iraqis are fighting, and concludes - carefully enumerating their many tactical mistakes - it's not much of one at all. Strong evidence that 1) Saddam is dead, and/or 2) has lousy generals, and/or 3) may have good generals but refused to listen to them (a predictable syndrome of megalomaniac dictators).

Posted By Judith (Kesher Talk) at April 4, 2003 02:09 AM | TrackBack

Comments

FYI, It's John Keegan..

Good post too. Thx..

Posted by: Ben Noah at April 4, 2003 02:14 AM

Still no word on what the bulk of the republican guard are up to. I am hoping that they are just an Enron style expenses fiddle for Saddam.
BTW how many $billion do you think the Swiss are safeguarding for Saddam as he wanders around Paris in a big ginger beard?

Posted by: zack mollusc at April 4, 2003 02:17 AM

With the numbers of casualties, destroyed T-72's, BMPs and BTRs, I think they were right - the Republican Guard has been destroyed as a military unit. Survivors may be mounting small-unit ambushes or motivating irregulars, but I think they're gone and their equipment is destroyed.

Orion

Posted by: Orion at April 4, 2003 02:20 AM

The real key is comparing the social psyche of the two forces. The West is a rational society based on reason, critical analysis, skepticism, radical free thinking. Soldiers can improvise, communicate, decide, think, and then act.

A totalitarian regime has none of these advantages. It's like a pile of flesh that can react to stimuli, but not create an independent thought.

Posted by: miguel at April 4, 2003 02:53 AM

See reference "Why Arab armies lose"
Bush and SH have one thing in common - neither has a lot of military experience.
The critical difference is that Bush knows it, and defers to those with experience. Saddam believes himself a genius.
Sun Tsu would say that the outcome of this war was already determined before the troops even took the field.

Posted by: Dishman at April 4, 2003 03:04 AM

I 98% think it's the classic Western-Arab mismatch plus successful decapitation, but 2% fear that the "deeply mysterious" part of the walkover is a nuclear surprise or some such horror.

Posted by: someone at April 4, 2003 04:44 AM

Yes, it's John Keegan, this has already been posted here: http://www.command-post.org/archives/003541.html :-)

Posted by: gabriel syme at April 4, 2003 04:51 AM