The armored columns have been rolling basically unimpeded for a while now. All the other operations seem to be going well. The leadership strikes may have actually rattled the leadership. I did not want to predict the war before it started. But, I get the feeling like Saddam may be gone and surrender may be imminent. But, there could still be much more to come. Thus, this topic.
In the prediction thread, I predicted that the US would control all of Iraq, except Baghdad, in a couple of days.
So far, so good.
I also predicted another 45 days of vicious street fighting to take control of Baghdad.
Let’s hope I’m wrong.
I predicted it would take 2-3 months just to get to Baghdad. In a way, I don’t think I’m entirely wrong yet. Someone has to roll up the Tigris and Euphrates plains, rather than slide around it.
I predict U.S. forces will be in position near Baghdad by Monday.
I also think there is at least a 50% chance that this war will be over by then. There are already rumors of surrender talks, and two more days of ‘shock and awe’ is going to have a lot of military people thinking twice.
God, I hope you’re right, Sam. I think this war was a horrible idea, but now that it’s happening, I hope it’s over as quickly as possible, with the minimum loss of life on both sides.
Daniel
Interesting. This is the story I just saw that inspired this.
If the leadership is already wavering, with that much firepower still unused, it really could be over fairly soon. My money is on the heavy armored divisions versus any street fighters. I don’t think many people will resist our troops now. I pray we will continue to keep bombing of Baghdad to the highest level leadership targets. That will help calm the masses.
Sam I’ll bet we have troops near or in Baghdad (in numbers) sooner than that. Later today maybe? That’s eight hours.
Generally, the potential for mass casualties is still great. I’m not trying to downplay the seriousness of this period in history. Decisions people make on both sides will determine how all this turns out in the very near future.
I didn’t expect the war to last too long. So far I haven’t seen anything to think otherwise. But still early predictions of a coup in the first few days seem to be wrong. And it still remains to be seen whether the Republican Guard will fight in Baghdad. My guess is that they would be happy to do a deal if the Baathist regime is left in place minus Saddam and Sons. I don’t know if the US will agree.
Question: what exactly are the Iraqi troops doing? They don’t seem to be fighting back but I haven’t heard any reports of them surrendering in large numbers. Or are they all close to Baghdad?
The real problems of course will start after the war: finding all those bio/chem weapons before terrorists get their hands on them and building a stable post-war Iraq.
I don’t think that this war will last that long. The scale of the invasion is simply overwhelming. Shock and Awe is an apt description of the offensive that is happening and the Iraqi soldiers must be as demoralized as they were in the Persian Glf War. They have an enemy that they can’t see hitting them with weapons of incomparable efficiency and accuracy.
The Iraqi leadership seems to be disorganized, the Iraqi military appears unable to launch any kind of effective defense, and the coalition troops are rolling through Iraq with little opposition with some reports that they are being cheered on by Iraqi citizens in the south. The coalition holds territory in the north and had secured airfields that they can now use to stage further attacks.
The Americans are hitting targets in Iraq with impunity and portions of Baghdad have been levelled, yet the lights are still on. This is a testament to just how acurately the Americans are hitting their targets.
The Iraqi Minister of Disinformation just made a statement that the Americans were hitting historical sites and that ther Iraqi military will defeat “the mercenaries”. I bet he doesn’t have cable television and hasn’t seen the destruction that has happened so far. Perhaps communications are already so poor that he has no idea of what’s happening.
Columns of 10,000 armoured vehicles, 10 miles deep are heading towards Baghdad and many key locations are now under coalition control.
There’s a question as to whether Hussein is still alive and a report states that one of his sons was killed in the intitial bombing.
Reports would indicate that the coalition is just getting warmed up and will be hitting 1500 targets before the day is done.
The worst of the fighting is yet to come as the coalition forces have not yet engaged the better equipped and fanatically loyal Republican Guard.
I don’t think the Republican Guard will be able to mount a significant defense and if the regime has been beheaded they will have even less reason to defend a dying regime. I believe that they will have to defend themselves from Iraqi citizens and members of the Iraqi army that will now choose to fight for their future rather than maintain loyalty to a brutal and possibly dead dictator.
I think it will be a matter of weeks before this war ends and then the real work of rebuilding Iraq will begin.
The reporter’s log on the BBC site says one column is sitting outside of Nassiriyah. That’s pretty far in, maybe a third of the way to Baghdad (handy map).
I think a western column will sweep into Baghdad. I was thinking in a Panzer General (a game) sense how I would attack Iraq. I decided to occupy the Iraqis in the North and South with slower attacks, being sure how secure the oil fields.
Then, through the not really that impassable desert, drive right up to Baghdad. Basically Norman Schwartzkopf’s attack into Iraq without the flanking manuver. Just go straght up from Jordan or western Saudi. Or, I’m very wrong. At least I’m not afraid to make wild predictions. That makes for good internet crow eating later.
I just heard reports of talks happening between members of the Republican Guard, the C.I.A., and other Iraqi opposition leaders concerning surrender…
And more news… the commander of Iraq’s 51st division comprising of 8000 troops has just surrendered.
FWIW not long after Gulf War I, I spoke to an acquaintance who is a Ph.D. anthropologist and diplomatic “brat” who grew up all over the world, and who has a wide circle of acquaintances who have done archeological digs in Iraq at various points in their careers.
Well, guess who keeps super-detailed maps of the Mesopotamia region? Archaeologists, of course. My acquaintance said her colleagues had been approached by the U.S. military for copies of their maps, saying they wanted them to avoid hitting sites of historical value during the bombing. It’s been a while, so I can’t recall all the details, but IIRC she said they were suspicious of the military’s real motives and/or didn’t want to betray the confidences of their Iraqi colleagues, so they wouldn’t release the maps.
Great. So when sites of priceless archaeological value are damaged on accident, do you think your friend will blame the military totally, or will she accept some of the blame for herself?
Or her colleagues, more accurately.
The war will be over relatively quickly. The aftermath will linger for decades.
One division of 8,000 has already surrendered which is a big succcess for the US. It should make capturing Basra a lot easier. Let’s see if the rest of the Iraqi regular army crumbles quickly.
I am wondering ,though, about the repeated claims of talks with the Republican Guards. If the RG was seriously talking of surrender would the US make it public? Regardless of what’s happening the US has an incentive to say that the RG is going to crumble. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens as the US forces get closer to Baghdad.
The surrender of the Iraqi 51st Division is a success, but we shouldn’t overstate its importance. It was a regular army unit (basically unmotivated conscripts, poorly trained and equipped), isolated in a forward position. What’s more, any Iraqi forces that come into contact with American forces in the open are done for – they can’t survive in a stand-up fight, and they can’t retreat because they’d be destroyed while in motion from the air (as happened when the Iraqi army retreated from Kuwait in '91). We should assume the Iraqi high command was aware of this, and that the speedy surrender or destruction of the 51st was counted on in advance (it’s telling that we’re so far seeing no other significant opposition).
If the Iraqis can keep their better units from surrendering en masse (a big if), I’d expect a bloody fight (lasting, say, a week or so) in the streets of Baghdad (perhaps with a tragically high level of civilian casualties).
. . . and implied in the previous post is that we will reach Baghdad very quickly. The Iraqis won’t sacrifice large numbers of troops to slow us down, since those troops would be irrevocably lost once they came into contact with our forces.