Saturday, June 23, 2007
Good News from Iraq
The AP has a lukewarm hopeful story on Operation Arrowhead Ripper. The hard part in a block and sweep or any envelopment attack is to keep the enemy in the bag. Senator James Webb (D-VA) described how the NVA used to get out of our best efforts by taking casualties at a weak point in the American line which effort punched a hole and allowed the enemy to escape. I haven't been able to learn if that has happened in Baquba. If I were a member of al Qaeda in Extremis, I'd be looking for an Iraqi part of the line to try to punch out.
Yon's coverage of yesterday is not yet up.
UPDATE: This story says that 75% of the "senior militant commanders" have escaped. How the heck do they know that? If they could count them, couldn't they have captured or killed them? The story does have this bit parallel to my thoughts:
Since Monday, two U.S. Army battalions have launched air assaults to the south and west of the area, a tangle of narrow dirt and paved roads crisscrossing a residential area. Troops discovered at least seven homes booby-trapped with trip wires, said Col. Steve Townsend, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.
Two more units moved in to flank the north and east to block the militants' escape. But by then, Odierno said, many were already gone.
"It's like jelly in a sandwich — it squirts when you squeeze it," Parke said. "We're fooling ourselves if we think we can hold them in."
Yon's coverage of yesterday is not yet up.
UPDATE: This story says that 75% of the "senior militant commanders" have escaped. How the heck do they know that? If they could count them, couldn't they have captured or killed them? The story does have this bit parallel to my thoughts:
Since Monday, two U.S. Army battalions have launched air assaults to the south and west of the area, a tangle of narrow dirt and paved roads crisscrossing a residential area. Troops discovered at least seven homes booby-trapped with trip wires, said Col. Steve Townsend, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.
Two more units moved in to flank the north and east to block the militants' escape. But by then, Odierno said, many were already gone.
"It's like jelly in a sandwich — it squirts when you squeeze it," Parke said. "We're fooling ourselves if we think we can hold them in."
Labels: Iraq Successes
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:50 AM 
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"This story says that 75% of the "senior militant commanders" have escaped. How the heck do they know that?"
Lets take it a bit further- how do they know who's al Qaeda and who's just a plain old Sunni or Shia civil war fighter? And is it just me, or all of a sudden is the media calling everyone we fight a member of al Qaeda?
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Lets take it a bit further- how do they know who's al Qaeda and who's just a plain old Sunni or Shia civil war fighter? And is it just me, or all of a sudden is the media calling everyone we fight a member of al Qaeda?
# posted by 
: 8:50 PM
: 8:50 PM << Home
