They had an ass-whoopin' to deliver.
Once he had targets, Gen. Dempsey could then map a battle plan for entering four key cities — Karbala, Najaf, Kufa and Diwaniyah. This would be a counterinsurgency fought with 70-ton M-1 Abrams tanks and aerial gunships overhead. It would not be the lightning movements of clandestine commandos, but rather all the brute force the Army could muster, directed at narrowly defined targets.(via Sarah)
Last week, Sheik al-Sadr surrendered. He called on what was left of his men to cease operations and said he may one day seek public office in a democratic Iraq.
4 comments:
Tim,
How confident are you that this report is actually how things went? I've heard stories about Vietnam that were not too different, but upon investigation turned out to have been fabricated by wannabes who never left the States. Does the good Captain confirm?
Thanks.
Glenmore
Glenmore: Your question struck me as odd, until I considered the fact that you probably don't live in our little community. Were you here you would have contact with someone on a daily basis who had just spoken to their husband or wife who was in Najaf on that very day. You would have heard the stories transmitted, for better or worse, to us in the rear over the phone lines. You could name on any particular day what unit was in what southern town, and you could correlate that with the body counts as the press saw fit to publish them, and you would eventually have come to a running average of casualties running nearly 25 to 1 in our favor.
It would then be a momentous event when events like this occurred (see this link http://gatorsix.blogspot.com/2004/06/huge-victory-by-good-guysrebel-cleric.html and this one http://gatorsix.blogspot.com/2004/06/signs-of-progress-one-way-to-look-at.html and this one http://gatorsix.blogspot.com/2004/06/and-oh-while-we-are-at-it.html and this one http://gatorsix.blogspot.com/2004/06/oh-ironyblasts-were-reported-at_07.html.
Did the Captain confirm? Well, in some ways...she was pushing the ammunition into those towns as fast as the 1AD and the 2d ACR could fire it.
Bottom line: 1AD stayed because al Sadr put another "Army" on the street. 1AD was given the mission to deal with it. As has been well publicised, even in a pessimistic media, that army is gone. We've heard it over the phone, we know most of our guys are back at Camp Victory...
Yeah...I buy it.
Was it General Dempsey's statement yesterday; about a other extension that got the 1st AD guys upset and voicing their oposition back at the commander ? Or was it someone else ? Or was he kidding ?
Tim,
Thank you for the confirmation.
I read your blog (and as many others as I can) because I can PROVE a lot of what the media feeds us is wrong, and thus am suspicious of anything else they print (even though I find the Washington Times far better than most). When I am feeling 'generous' I assume their mistakes are the honest result of not really 'knowing' the story themselves and having to produce text by a deadline. As I had mentioned, all too often the stories that make the news are faked or exagerrated (eg. Jessica Lynch). Or, as on some blog the other day, supposedly there are 4 living VA Medal of Honor recipients, yet over 200 tried to claim the VA MOH tax benefit.
On one of your earlier posts you cited, a reader named David kind of asked the same question - from HERE it is hard to know whether al Sadr backed off because he was hurt too badly to continue, or because he worked out a satisfactory political 'deal' (press seemed to generally lean toward 'deal').
Question: Are 'casualties' defined as (historically) 'killed, wounded & captured', or as in the media as 'killed'?
25:1 ratio is bad enough for the side with the '1' - cannot even imagine how demoralizing it must be to the side with the '25'.
Glenmore Shelton
River Ridge, Louisiana
glsh@chevrontexaco.com
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