Juan Cole is pretty dismissive (although he begins from an assumption of a planned assault on Najaf).
Juan Cole wrote “Admittedly, a lot of what I have written is speculative, and I’m open to being corrected by better evidence.”
He’s “open to being corrected”? Back in my day, people who made the arguments were expected to back them up with some sort of evidence. We weren’t expected to take them as a valid point until such time as we could disprove their wild conjecture.
He’s applying his considerable expertise to making a preliminary assessment of an incident from conflicting sources. On the one hand you have ‘official’ sources and on the other various Sunni news sources. Both of which you can’t trust as far as you could throw Stonehenge.
So, he inserts a disclaimer. He is expressing willingness to reassess when new evidence appears. What is the problem with that?
What do you propose? We trust the US Govt account? Yea - right.
Why? The story, as presented, prompts several observations.
The first, obviously, is the nature of the Fog of War.
However, as presented, we have a troop of (reasonably) armed pilgrims running into a checkpoint and a firefight breaking out.
Then we have a wholly separate group of people joining in the firefight while claiming to have called for a ceasefire.
Then we have U.S. air support arriving, in the dark, to finsih off a battle that has been raging for 22 hours.
Then we get a claim that it was a massacre (with the strong implication that it was a deliberate massacre).
Very little in that recounting makes any sense.
If it was a deliberate massacre, why was the Iraqi Scorpon brigade mentioned in other articles only brought in after the fight had been joined. If I were planning a massacre of a group that I would have to presume to be armed, I would amass all the heavy troops and weapons I could at the beginning of the incident.
Similarly, a battle that was joined at 6:00 a.m. Sunday had to have attracted someone’s attention by Sunday at noon. Why wait until the following morning to call in U.S. air support?
If the second group was only inadvertantly involved, why dd they not try to retire and make contact with (send a messenger to) Iraqi or American headquarters to call for an end to the fighting rather than stay and shoot while calling for a truce?
Now, I have no idea what really happened. (For example, it might have been a matter of terrain that prevented the one group from withdrawing and we have no information regarding what sort of communications were available to any of the groups to talk to each other. Iraqi and U.S. military would be supposed to have decent radio contact, of course.) I am not going to speculate who the good guys and bad guys are, but the story in the linked article does nothing but raise questions.
As presented, a claim for a deliberate massacre seems out of line.
As presented, a claim that the Iraqi/U.S. forces prevented an attack on a Shi’a shrine are unsupported.
On the other hand, a claim for a clusterfuck seems quite reasonable.
(And, as Cole said, more information–especially on the odd chance that it was accurate–could change my view.)
I have no doubt they do…just like I have no doubt that in the minds of the faithful (the OTHER faithful you understand :)), people really do see Jesus in a piece of toast.
Let me see if I have things right here. We are supposed to judge the over all effectiveness of the Iraqi military based on a battle between forces of near parity (wrt numbers), where the enemy forces were dug in and staged an ambush of the Iraqi force…and this Iraqi force called for air strikes and other support from US forces. A battle where the key pieces of MILITARY data (that we could use to actually evaluate wtf happened there) is missing?
Am I missing some info here? How could we possibly judge the current state of the Iraqi military based on this one incident…of which we don’t have all the information of the tactical situation?
When come back, bring debate…and pie.
-XT
You’re missing the fact that it was a battle of choice for the Iraq forces as presented by the original story. That their tactical ineptness in engaging as they did and their consequent inability to deal with the consequences suggest they are not competent, equipped or motivated enough to be relied on.
Crap intelligence to begin with. The decision to engage. It’s all in the OP.
When come back bring willingness to read.
So, the Iraqis brought in superior fire power
- seems sensible to me
It sounds a bit like Lions versus Christians, with the Iraqis collecting the entrance money.
They bought it in after getting themselves in trouble. After ‘they’ - the Iraqi Army - on which we are pinning our hopes - got owned by an obscure messianic militia who outgunned them and outfought them. If indeed the INA put up a fight at all before running away and calling for help.
And do you want to address my point about the consequences of such an approach in the hearts and minds environs of Baghdad? Or are you comfortable with a we had to destroy the city to save it approach?
Feeling blase about the prospects of The Surge succeeding with allies and tactics like these?
I think that they might toughen up if we (UK and USA) got out of the arena.
Personally I reckon that the ‘hearts and minds’ of Baghdad have long been planning a Saigon like exit, which suits me fine as I’ve long been planning an Iraqi Kebab House in an obscure bit of Britain ( Iraqi kebabs are mind blowingly good ) and it would amuse me to staff it with GPs and similarly overqualified people.
Actually I am more than half serious - the Kebab side is viable and evacuating Iraq might be the only way of preserving the useful and less obnoxious population.
Heck, it is a mess - have you read ‘Rule Britannia’ by Daphne Du Maurier ?
Occupation without consent is impossible.
An influx of high quality kebab shops - now that is something I’d salute if you run it up the pole.
From George Orwell’s 1936 essay, “Shooting an Elephant”:
“Can you prove that it didn’t happen?”
–Criswell
The Heaven’s Army never should have surrounded them. If they just gave them an avenue of escape, they would have exploited it and ran off. Instead they forced the Iraqis to stand their ground and fight long enough to be reinforced by Allied forces and ultimately prevail.
Good for us, but silly tactical error on their part.
Eighty percent support is a wild exaggeration, and calls into question what your definition of “support” is. A classic battalion of the size you’re describing is typically formed of three companies, each of three platoons; an infantry platoon at full strength has at least 24 actual soldiers, giving our theoretical battalion at least 216 infantrymen, and in most cases more. Battalions are relatively homogenized; on a grand scale, like at the division/corps/army level, you’ll se e alot of support but they’re going to be in support-only units when you get down to the battalion and company levels. Field battalions will be heavy on field personnel.
You also have to consider that a lot of the people we’re calling “support” at the battalion level are in fact combat support; at the battalion level you might have machine gun teams, anti-tank teams, or mortar teams, for instance, usually in a combat support platoon or company, who certainly are not paper pushers. Field officers certainly count as fighting men, as do senior NCOs.
I mean, if you’re saying 640 out of 800 men in an infantry battalion aren’t in a combat role, I’d be fascinated to hear (A) what they’re all doing, and (B) how those platoons and sections are filled.
There isn’t THAT much administrative overhead at the battalion level.
I’m curious how you got from my “80% are actually used for combat instead of support” to your “80% for support.”
I’m open to correction on exact numbers, but please do not reverse my figures and then cry “foul!”.
Sounds like an Ap Bac moment to me. Only this time, the cult didn’t retreat, and Iraqi/Allied forces defeated them.
Started a new thread on this possibility.
“A millenarianist cult?” Sweet Mercy Magruder, we’re facing a mob of crazed hatmakers! :eek: Call in the gunships!
That battle happened at the start of the Vietnam War, Ryan.
Yes, if you categorise the Vietnam war starting with US troop deployments in Vietnam as the ‘start’ however, considerable amounts of advisors were in country before 1965.
Vietnamisation primarily failed because the ARVN were prone to avoid risks in pacification, not to mention large amounts of corruption and poor leadership, mix this in with conscription, leads to a force poorly trained and unqualified to fight in battle.
However in Iraq, we have a situation quite different, whilst the ARVN was built for conventional warfare, we’ve seen a light Iraqi army (suitable for counter-insurgency) (also not conscripted but all volunteer) built up with US for back up support.
These armies aren’t equal and never will be, however, what’s more important in the long run for Iraq is adequately trained officers and personnel. Calling for backup is not a sign of cowardice. The fact the Iraqis fought them for 22 hours without retreat is a sure sign of some training is working.
(forgive the lateness of the reply, I’ve had no internet for a month)