Iraq: On Outskirts Of Baghdad, U.S. Commanders Reflect On Battlefield Successes - (Radio Free Europe - Radio Liberty)

Thus, while press reports spoke of U.S. troops being "held up" in southern Iraq, Watson says the reality was that U.S. ground troops had advanced as far as they could without putting the main body of U.S. troops in range of Iraqi attacks. The objective was to provide accurate targeting information for U.S. air strikes against positions of the Iraqi Republican Guard.

This correspondent watched a series of military feints to the south of Baghdad, which military planners said were designed to draw Iraqi forces away from the capital and out into the open desert and highways, where they could easily be targeted by U.S. air and artillery strikes.

These so-called feints at Samawah, Najaf, and Hindiyah were seized on by the Iraqi Information Ministry as instances where Iraqi forces had boldly held off U.S. advances. Similar reports appeared in some Western media.

But military officials RFE/RL spoke with say it is now clear that the U.S. plan worked perfectly -- drawing much of the elite Republican Guard to defend positions along the main highways following the Euphrates River through the center of the country and further south to Basra.

I thought we were stalled, and our war plan was in tatters, and we had to start over again?

So ... none of that was true ?!

Has anybody alerted Peter Arnett yet ?