Steven Den Beste relays a great analysis of the war so far, and adds a little of his own.
So what's the plan? While claiming no inside knowledge, there are only so many ways of skinning this cat, and strategically it's a fairly simple problem. Any workable plan must have a minimum of 4 elements:
1. Road march: advance on Baghdad and establish attack positions while shoring up supply lines.
2. Whoop ass: destroy the Republican Guard units around Baghdad.
3. Vise Grip: complete the encirclement of Baghdad and cut off all supplies to the city.
4. Mop up: defeat remaining Iraqi forces while awaiting Baghdad's surrender.
Coalition forces are currently somewhere between 1 and 2. A sure sign the road march is complete is that the units stop moving and wait for orders to attack. That appears to have happened. The next step is to attack the Republican Guard forces, which must be destroyed before any credible attack on Baghdad can begin. The aerial softening up phase is in progress, and a ground assault is imminent.
Saturday, March 29, 2003
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I think the biggest problem will be after we've surrounded Baghdad. I have a feeling most of the republican guard will pull into the heavily populated areas. Do most fighting street to street. Areas will waver in control for several weeks and causalities will be high on both sides. We'll most likely see more of the suicide type attacks as we did today. It'll get done but it won't be easy.
If we decide to wait it out, we'll end up with a much higher civilian death-toll as people die through starvation and such.
Also I don't think Saddam will be captured, he's too much the egotist. If he has gas or nukes, he'll use them.