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Manning The Post
History As It Happened
Sunday, March 23, 2003 |
*** The Command Post Has Moved ***
The Bush administration has made clear it wants Israel to stay out of an Iraq war so as not to provoke Arab and Muslim countries assisting the United States. But that won't stop Israel's weaponry and arms technology from being used against Iraqis. ...
Iraqi forces might be on the receiving end of Israeli technology in several scenarios.
Here is a good Strategy Page Article on why there is so much resistance going on in previously taken towns. Scatter a few loyalists around the towns to conduct ops, and it looks like a big guerilla movement.
Maybe this will give the 4th to do when they finally arrive in Kuwait.
Posted
by Nick ( http://arrogantrants.blogspot.com/ ) |
Permalink |
Sunday, March 23, 2003 |
Streaming Al-Jazeera
Little Green Footballs has a link to continuous streaming video from al-Jazeera (Windows Media, broadband needed). Apparently, you don't have to wait long for the video of American POWs to show up, though I haven't seen it so far. Lots of video from Iraq, and interviews with Iraqi military.
Some good news: The Command Post is becoming very, very popular ... and we know Blogger has been slow at times since last night. SO, Michele and I are exploring registering a domain name and hosting the site on a non-Blogspot server as you read this. We'll keep you posted.
Thanks again for everyone's efforts.
UPDATE: Also, we've received very gracious offers for free server space, etc. It looks like we'll be all set, but thank you for this ... we're amazed at how much everyone wants to help.
From Ha’aretz: “…Two of the prisoners, including a woman, appeared to be wounded. One was lying on the floor on a rug. …
…The prisoners were questioned on air and gave their names, military identification numbers and home towns. …
…The first prisoner shown gave his name as Miller and said he was from Kansas. …
…Asked why he had come to Iraq he replied: "Because I was told to come here. I was just under orders. I was told to shoot - only if I'm shot at. I don't want to kill anybody."
On the main road running across the plain, burned-out Iraqi vehicles were still smoldering on Sunday afternoon, and charred ribs were the only recognizable part of three melted bodies in a destroyed car lying in the roadside dust.
"It wasn't even a fair fight. I don't know why they don't just surrender," said Colonel Mark Hildenbrand, commander of the 937th Engineer Group.
"When you're playing soccer at home, 3-2 is a fair score, but here it's more like 119-0," he said, adding that the Iraqi sport utility vehicles (SUVs) stood no chance against tanks.
"You can't put an SUV with a machine gun up against an M1 tank -- it's heinous for the SUV," Hildenbrand said.
Indeed.
"I feel nothing but sorrow for these people," Hildenbrand said as he toured the hideout. "This war is against one man, it's not against the Iraqi people. I just wish they would surrender so we could get it over with."
The contrast between Hildenbrand's attitude and the mindset of a regime that would put these people out as cannon fodder--not to mention murder prisoners and parade the bodies on television--is striking. It should shame anyone who claims there is a moral equivalence between the American and Iraqi regimes. It won't; but it should.
According to what shown on Israeli channel 2 the video was broadcast by Al Jazeera but the microphone in the video says Iraqi TV. So it looks like it was originally taped by the Iraqis and given to Al Jazeera to be broadcast. I think it is being broadcast all over the world by now except for the US.
According to this WaPo story, Russian companies have been selling military items such as anti-tank missiles, night-vision goggles, and satellite jamming equipment to Iraq. Reps of at least one Russian company were seen in Iraq last week instructing Iraqis on the use and maintenance of satellite jamming equipment. The US has expressed its displeasure with this activity at increasingly higher levels since last June. Yet the Russians continue to deny and ignore even when given specific info.
Al-Jazeera is "independent" a la the BBC, but is based in and funded by ally Qatar. If they are violating the Geneva Convention and other international laws, our STATE DEPARTMENT should immediately demand Qatar to force Al-Jazeera to stop.
(sorry to rant, but...
Sunday, March 23, 2003 |
Heavy fighting by the Euphrates; American casualties; Iraqis using human shields
CNN reports a battle between U.S. marines and the Republican Guard near Nasiriyah near the Euphrates, after the RG attempted to ambush an American convoy.
Unsurprisingly, Iraqis seem to be using Palestinian tactics:
Earlier, soldiers on reconnaissance missions reported that they had seen members of the Iraqi Republican Guard herd Iraqi women and children to military positions for use as human shields, a U.S. military source told Rodgers, who is accompanying the 7th Cavalry's 3rd Squadron.
Through Israeli channel 2: Al Jazeera video shows 4 soldiers, man 31 y/o from New Jersey, woman 30, from Texas and another man from Texas. 2 of them are from 507 maintenance unit.
Some of them are injured.
The captured soldiers told their names, age, state, army number and unit.
FoxNews is saying military initial response is that likely it is US POWs, possibly from 507th Maintenance Company out of Ft. Bliss, TX. The executed were shot in the head. The interrogations on camera were a violation of the Geneva Convention Article 13.
Fox News is talking about the video purportedly showing the captured US POWs, which FoxNews is thus far choosing not to show. There's speculation about whether they're really Americans, but it seems likely. Also, as reported before, some may have been killed/executed. The reporters keep noting that the mistreatment and interviewing are "against the Geneva convention", which would be true, but as another military analyst said, "It's Iraq. They don't care about the Geneva convention."
As far as being a propoganda tool, it may work in the Arab countries but it will have the opposite effect in the Western countries.
This kind of thing is a part of war. All we as civilians can do at this point is pray for the POWs and do all we can to make the military success more assured and swift.
UPDATE: At least five in custody, according to Al Jazeera, including at least one woman. Two of the "POWs" are saying they're from Kansas and Texas. The Pentagon has not confirmed the capture yet.
Sunday, March 23, 2003 |
Israelis consider lowering alert
In light of the American capture of the only airfields from which Iraq could have fired SCUDs at Israel, the Israeli government is considering lowering the nationwide alert status.
Listening to Russert's show and I'm hearing that they've got unconfirmed reports that the American POWs mentioned here may have been summarily executed.
(Um. I see WindRider beat me to this one. Can't argue with his headline.)
Sunday, March 23, 2003 |
Must have been after some BIG ones...
Fox News TV reporting that U.S. Navy SEALs have found Iraqi fishing boats "packed with" "very powerful mines" -- about ten. A few days back, they found a couple of tugboats with a total of 87 mines on them. I wonder what the Geneva Convention says on this topic...
I just heard George Stephanopoulos begin an interview by saying, "It does seem like the coalition has had a lot of bad news in the last 24 hours."
Now, while it's true that we've had some bad news, it seems to me that, considering we're in the middle of a war, that we've had amazingly little bad news.
From the first, the U.S. assault force was designed to be fast and lean -- which means it is too small to simultaneously carry out both an invasion and an occupation, dropping off units in each town as it proceeds. And while the outbreak of civil strife is a concern, because of its effect on Iraqi civilians and the image it projects to the rest of the world, officials said they are determined not to allow it to distract the invasion force from its mission.
Good.
"Follow-on forces will be arriving to deal with security eventually, but we're just not going to slow down our combat force," a Defense Department official said. There has been no indication of when those reinforcements might arrive to begin peacekeeping operations.
"You can't have it both ways," said another Pentagon insider. "You have to win the war quickly -- and you can't move fast enough if you are infusing authority along the way." He echoed the view that the violence might help the U.S. military if it targets the secret police and other elements of the regime that might otherwise be able to fight the invasion.
Jobe said he reminded his forces that their job will get harder the longer it goes on, and that it could culminate in a difficult siege of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. But that hasn't stopped many of his charges from referring to their procession north as the "Baghdad 500."
Rummy Speaks: On MTP Rumsfeld just stated that 1) he was aware of no mising paratroopers, 2) that there is possibly a plane missing, and 3) that there "could be" coalition troops in Iraqi hands. He also noted that some journalists are missing.
Excellent piece by Bob Woodward in today's WaPo: Attack Was 48 Hours Old When It 'Began'. It paints a picture of a thoughtful, flexible, and bold war planning effort.
Military analyst on FoxNews: Intel indicates that Saddam and his two sons were all in the bunker hit Wednesday night, and that Saddam was injured. They don't know for sure how badly injured, but the allied forces have seen no evidence that the top Iraqi military commanders have been in contact with the forces on the ground.
A lot of that isn't new info, but just think about the strike on Wednesday night - it was an amazing feat; it was right on the money, just (apparently) not hard enough. We almost destroyed the Iraqi military command in one blow, and we did wing it, possibly quite badly. It will be interesting to read the whole story, whenever it eventually comes out.
According to a military analyst on Fox: Apparently what happened... the Tornado either did not have or did not have working their IFF (Identification Friend or Foe). There was an unidentifiable blip on the radar, efforts to identify it came up empty, so they brought it down.
"We on the bus felt that we were sympathetic to the views of the Iraqi civilians, even though we didn't actually know any. The group was less interested in standing up for their rights than protesting against the US and UK governments.
I was shocked when I first met a pro-war Iraqi in Baghdad - a taxi driver taking me back to my hotel late at night. I explained that I was American and said, as we shields always did, "Bush bad, war bad, Iraq good". He looked at me with an expression of incredulity.
As he realised I was serious, he slowed down and started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam's regime. Until then I had only heard the President spoken of with respect, but now this guy was telling me how all of Iraq's oil money went into Saddam's pocket and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family."
A two-pronged “pincer” assault on the Iraqi capital appeared to be taking shape following the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers toward a showdown with Saddam Hussein’s best units, the Republican Guards, now dug in around the capital.
"Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference that the Iraqis have not fired any Scuds and that U.S. forces searching airfields in the far western desert of Iraq have uncovered no missiles or launchers."
Sunday, March 23, 2003 |
Yet another reason for war
605 Kuwaiti POWs who have been missing for 12 years now. Plus, as I said in a previous post, one American. If we find him alive and sane, what do we tell him about the delay in his rescue?
On that sombre note, it's Midnight here in Oz, and I'm going to Kip.
Airstrike went in near, rather than directly on, the centre of enemy concentration. White flags now being seen.
Enemy no longer offering resistance, and POWs are being rounded up.
From the looks of it, it's just possible that there may have been no casualties on either side. Certainly no friendlies.
Bravo Zulu (Manouver Well Executed)
But that multi-story building will never be the same again.
There may of course be others. This may have to be repeated a few times.
Fox News military analyst says our forces are being "too cautious" in part due to the embedded media, that what we're seeing is a straightforward skirmish action and that there should've been an air strike called in to end this a long time ago. Not sure if he means that the commander of the forces on camera in Umm Qasr is showing off for the camera, that our forces don't want to risk killing on TV, or what. But an interesting observation nonetheless.
This is surreal, but Fox is split-screen right now, with the feed from Umm Qasr on one the right and a press conference featuring the bloviating minister of information rambling about the heroic resistance of the heroes at Umm Qasr on the left. He's also claiming that after 4 days the allies have only moved 50 meters into Iraq (Umm Qasr is on the Kuwaiti border). Allied timing is off just a bit -- an airstrike is rumored for the holdouts in Umm Qasr, and the juxtaposition of the airstrike with the ministers words would have been... poetic.
Update: Now he's praising the fragging.
Update 2: Now he's claiming that attacks on Basra, Nasriyah, etc. have been repulsed. Five minutes ago he was claiming that coalition troops have yet to cross the border into Iraq.
The USMC M1A1 (I got a good look this time) tanks have withdrawn at speed, along with the convoy. Commentators are talking about an airstrike very soon.
Sunday, March 23, 2003 |
PATRIOT DOWNS BRIT PLANE?
The BBC story I posted earlier has now been updated to include the rumor/report RAF aircraft 'hit by US missile', confirming(?) the reports below on TV reportage.
I'm still skeptical. Why would they fire Patriots at an airplane? What about our IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) equipment?
Channel 7 anchorman Pete Wilson had it close to right when he segued from Iraq coverage to protest coverage and said, "Of course, San Francisco manages to make this about itself."
Sure, there were plenty of people in the streets who care deeply about what happens elsewhere in the world. But as protesters' behavior got worse, it was clear it was about them.
