# USA will win every battle, but lose all the war(s)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 15, 2003, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656 "2003-03-15T21:16:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Henry\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d78d45/32.png) [@Henry\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henry_B)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2003, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/1 "2003-03-15T21:16:13Z")
Look at this cite: [http://www.idleworm.com/nws/2002/11/iraq2.shtml](http://www.idleworm.com/nws/2002/11/iraq2.shtml) Even if it is satiric, it gives a picture of the different elements in the area. 1. **If CIA is right?** 2. **If also Pentagon and other military analysists, are right?** [http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-12-wrong-in-war-usat\_x.htm](http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-12-wrong-in-war-usat_x.htm) > [@](#): > > No military analyst believes that the United States would lose a war with Iraq. But there are quite a few - both inside and outside the Pentagon - who say there is a real possibility for things to go wrong despite the overwhelming U.S. superiority in weapons, training and technology. > > “No plan survives contact with an enemy, no matter how positive or optimistic you can be about a conflict,” says Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense think tank in Washington, D.C. > > \ > **"There is a nearly 100% probability that actual combat will not neatly conform to any scenario developed before the war,"** says Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Many expert arguments over how to structure given (war) scenarios are largely irrelevant.” > > \ > The worry goes all the way to the top. **Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld** keeps a typewritten list of what he calls “very unpleasant” things that could go wrong, topped by concerns about chemical and biological weapons, house-to-house fighting in Baghdad and civil war in a post-Saddam Iraq. > > \ > Saddam did not do that during the long buildup before the 1991 Gulf War, in part out of the belief that the U.S.-led attack could be forestalled by negotiations. **He will not be under any such illusion this time, military experts say. Planners fear that once Saddam senses an attack is about to begin, he will start a scorched-earth campaign to destroy Iraq’s oil fields and bridges, actions that could force U.S. commanders to move sooner than planned.** > > \ > A good part of the unease about setbacks comes from some senior officers’ concerns that not enough troops are being deployed - some planners wanted as many as 400,000 - and that there is too much micromanaging by Rumsfeld, according to military personnel who insist on not being identified. > **Rumsfeld has demanded a smaller force than some advisers advocate, and military officials have complained about his overriding their recommendations.** > > \ > … the Serbs shot down an F-117 stealth fighter and an F-16, used decoys and other tricks to hide targets from U.S. aircraft, **and jammed U.S. military communications.** > > \ > The Iraqis hope to replicate the Serbs’ success: Senior U.S. Air Force officials say the Iraqis have met with the Serbs to learn how their air defenses fought U.S. warplanes. > > \ > Here is a worrisome scenario outlined by several strategists, including some at the Pentagon: > The armor gets slowed crossing the Euphrates on the way to Baghdad. The Iraqis lob chemical shells into the gridlock, and they manage to jam the electronic communications systems in the Abrams tanks and the Bradley fighting vehicles - perhaps by broadcasting noise on all available frequencies. > **Suddenly, the U.S. vehicles find themselves out of communication with each other and unsure of where their foes are.** > > The Iraqi attacks create confusion. With little fuel, the armor cannot move far. Soon, the tanks’ internal oxygen systems are exhausted, forcing crews to breathe outside air, which makes them vulnerable to Iraqi chemical weapons. Ground troops begin to withdraw, and the tanks must be abandoned. > > There are other problems Pentagon planners worry the Iraqis or others could create: > > **Destroying crucial dams.** Iraqis could blow up dams to flood areas around Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul, and the marshes around Basra in the south. This would slow a direct, quick punch against Baghdad and other cities. > > \ > Destroying one dam on the Tigris River north of Mosul - the 35th largest dam in the world in terms of the water behind it - would unleash 9.5 billion gallons of water. That would flood northern roads U.S. forces need for an assault from Turkey. Rupturing two dams north of Baghdad would flood the city and the agricultural area around the capital. > Destroying other dams south and west of Baghdad would flood the marsh regions and Basra, complicating the assault from Kuwait. > > \ > **Setting oil wells on fire.** The Iraqis set oil wells ablaze in Kuwait in 1991. Pentagon planners say they believe that Saddam is ready to do the same in Iraq, but this time **he could also place chemical or biological agents in the oil fields. That would turn burning wells into chemical or biological weapons.** > > **Interfering with communications and targeting devices**. Iraqi forces can easily obtain jamming equipment that could block or confuse radar, radios and the Global Positioning System units allied forces would use to navigate and to target weapons. Military experts say the Iraqis have the technical capability to conduct the jamming, but they are unsure whether the Iraqi forces have the creativity to do it, as the Serbs did. > > Besides jamming communications by filling the airwaves, Iraqis could confuse radar by adding spurious signals to a radar system’s returns. > > \ > It would also be possible to **infect military computers with computer viruses and worms, but experts again say the Iraqis might not know how to do the necessary hacking.** > Iraq has also tried to develop **an electromagnetic pulse weapon** that could fry the computer and electronic networks in U.S. weapons, experts say. > > \ > **Using weapons of mass destruction.** > Strategists presume Saddam does not have nuclear bombs, but they believe he does have chemical and biological weapons. “The use of either of those would slow an infantry advance and probably slow an armor advance,” says Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank in Arlington, Virginia. > > \ > **Adding to the problem:** Saudi and Kuwaiti officials have hinted they would refuse to let contaminated personnel and vehicles back into their countries. > \ > > The Turks have begun to move more troops to the Turkey-Iraq border to prevent Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq from infiltrating into Turkey during a war. That has angered Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq. > > \ … would delay efforts to secure the northern oil wells, rout the local pockets of Saddam supporters and stamp out a small group of al-Qaeda supporters in the northeast. > > \ > **Urban warfare.** > A street-by-street battle would slow U.S. troops and drive up casualties. That would create what one military analyst warned could become a “Mesopotamian Stalingrad” - referring to the World War II battle in which Soviet defenders fought heavily armed German invaders to a stalemate in the streets of Stalingrad and turned the course of the war. One factor working in the favor of U.S. troops is that Baghdad’s relatively low-rise buildings make it an open urban landscape. > > _{My comment: Badghdad is almost a 1,5 times bigger area than New York}_ > > \ > **Fighters in civilian clothing** > Cordesman says Iraqis are building defensive structures to heavily fortify Baghdad and Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, an indication that the Iraqi leader plans to make a stand in his cities. > > The Pentagon says it believes reports that **Iraqi forces have bought U.S. and British uniforms and plan to use them to confuse allied forces.** > Even more worrisome, Cordesman says, there are signs that some elements of the elite Republican Guard are training to fight in civilian dress and that Iraq will deliberately use fighters in civilian clothes to make a stand in the streets of Baghdad and Tikrit. > \ Or If we can believe: [http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0311/mondo1.php](http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0311/mondo1.php) James Ridgeway > [@](#): > > Among the questions about a war against Iraq is the effect it would have on the world economy. Some things we already know, and many of them aren’t good: > • The Japanese economy is in shaky shape. Japan imports all its energy supplies. Oil accounts for more than half of those supplies, and more than 80 percent comes from the Middle East. On Monday, the Japanese stock indexes continued their downward spiral to new lows, on news of North Korea’s firing a missile and on speculation over the approaching war. The price of oil is already at about $37 a barrel, and as the price increases, the Japanese will go deeper into debt. > > \ > The U.S. economy is in rickety shape. Wall Street may have settled into a permanent bear market. The government, which was in surplus, is suddenly in deep deficit, which will grow as Bush spends money for the Iraq war. And perhaps most importantly, our 2002 trade deficit soared to a record high of $435.2 billion, up 21.5 percent from 2001. > > The Iraq war itself will be costly, and experts differ on whether Iraq’s oil income can pay for the invasion and occupation government as well. It certainly cannot pay for even the most minimal improvements in the Iraqi oil infrastructure, which was badly damaged in the Iraq-Iran war and Desert Storm. > **According to press reports, the European and Asian oil companies that had wanted to invest in rebuilding the oil industry under Saddam Hussein are to be blacklisted by the U.S.-run occupation regime because they come from countries, such as France and Russia, that have not been helpful to the U.S. in the UN.** > > But, to put it politely, our allies in “the new Europe,” such nations as Bulgaria and Romania, are not in position to pick up the tab. As powerful as ExxonMobil may be, it’s pretty doubtful that Standard Oil’s great-grandchild will want to pay for the entire reconstruction of Iraq’s oil business. > > **That leaves the U.S. taxpayer to pick up the tab.** **And the war will be enlargened…** [http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0311/schanberg.php](http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0311/schanberg.php) > [@](#): > > Today, Pakistan and the U.S. pose for pictures as allies. But there are deep internal contradictions. Is it not interesting that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, bin Laden’s operational commander, was captured the other day in a safe house in, yes, Pakistan? And not just in any old spot in Pakistan, but in the cantonment town of Rawalpindi, which adjoins Islamabad, the nation’s capital. How long had he been there? Was he under the protection of elements in the Pakistani government or military intelligence service who are sympathetic, sometimes openly, to the Taliban and Al Qaeda? Is Pakistan the next monster of our making? > > More telling perhaps, Pakistan has secretly provided both North Korea and Iran with nuclear technology and blueprints useful in producing atomic weapons. North Korea, Iran, and Iraq—in George Bush’s words—constitute the “Axis of Evil.” Should Pakistan be added to the list? The White House has chosen to look the other way. To date, the North Koreans are believed to have produced at least two bombs and have the capability of delivering them to America’s West Coast. Iran is believed now to have the capability of building a bomb, and keeps expanding its technical reach. Western intelligence says Iraq probably has some nuclear materials but has not yet been able to build a bomb. Also, its missiles are all fairly short-range. > > Is it not fair then to ask why, if North Korea and Iran both present a greater and more immediate threat, our first act should be to declare war on Iraq? **Red-necks and Freepers!!!** Tired of reading? Don’t worry they will show everything on TV also. And the question: **Will USA win every battle and lose the war(s)?** The answer is yes. Or the tax-payers will. And the world economy. And the open question is: **How to stop the war from spreading out?** There is no answer. Thank You for reading. Henry ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/2 "2003-03-15T22:50:45Z")
He’s baack… ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2003, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/3 "2003-03-15T23:00:47Z")
So the U.S. won’t sink to the level of the Iraqis. Good for them. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2003, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/4 "2003-03-15T23:38:45Z")
Thank You for the coding, big fella. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/5 "2003-03-16T00:49:38Z")
So… things won’t go exactly as we plan, if it comes to war. So… we have thought about, and have plans in case bad things happen. So… what? ---
**Author:** ![Saen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d2c977/32.png) [@Saen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saen)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/6 "2003-03-16T02:19:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*“There is a nearly 100% probability that actual combat will not neatly conform to any scenario developed before the war,” \*\* This was 100% true for every “war” since the history of mankind. If this is supposed to be significant in your thread then I know I did not waste my time by reading it past this. because I didn’t. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BeatenMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ab097/32.png) [@BeatenMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeatenMan)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/7 "2003-03-16T02:30:25Z")
You forgot the part about so many Iraq soldiers will give up that we will run out of food rations and our soldiers will die of stavation. Then there is the part about we chase them so fast our soldiers die of heat stroke. Or our soldiers trip over dead iraq soldiers break thier legs and die in the desert. Our soldiers will come down with bad back syndrome from stacking the dead Iraq soldiers too high. Don’t forget we learned from Serbia too. ---
**Author:** ![Halogen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Halogen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Halogen)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/8 "2003-03-16T03:07:27Z")
Good post, Henry. If our government cared one BIT about stopping terrorism here, we would have ended immigration and stopped funding Israel on 9/12/01, if not before. But no hint of such action. NONE. And now war on Iraq 'cuz “they might take part in terrorism.” How many people (Americans and Iraqis) might die this war? And what nation does Iraq really theaten? Makes ya wonder about “our” government, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Henry\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d78d45/32.png) [@Henry\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henry_B)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/9 "2003-03-16T05:13:26Z")
**Hi! Jackmannii** Yes I’m coding and snipping as usual. **E-Sabbath** > [@](#): > > So… things won’t go exactly as we plan, if it comes to war. > > So… we have thought about, and have plans in case bad things happen. > > So… what? ## The whole story is about when it does not go as US has (publically) planned. So who are “we”? **Saen** A quote from my post, (quoting Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies) ## “There is a nearly 100% probability that actual combat will not neatly conform to any scenario developed before the war,” **Saen** wrote: > [@](#): > > “This was 100% true for every “war” since the history of mankind. If this is supposed to be significant in your thread then I know I did not waste my time by reading it past this. because I didn’t.” If You did, the whole secret would have been lighten up for You. And if not, You can contact **E-Sabbath** , because he knows how everything will go and how everything has been planned. And maybe he tells us everything in the next post? (And I think You were lurking a little bit furthere, here and there, didn’t You?) \*\* BeatenMan\*\* If Saddam is bad, really bad, and I personally think he is very evil, it takes only a few thousand men to blow up the oil-fields, dams and bridges. Let’s assume that Haliburton fixes everything, who will pay? And the oilfields can not be “fixed”. **Answer:** The US tax-payers will pay and the world economy. **Look what the friends of USA in the area is saying, the Saudian expert and the exile Iraquian expert:** > **[Yamani fears war could cut off Iraqi oil forever](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/mar/15/oilandpetrol.iraq)** > > Oil prices could race to well over $50 per barrel and "ruin" the world economy if Iraqi crude output is severely hit by a US military strike, former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani said in London yesterday. > [@](#): > > Oil prices could race to well over $50 per barrel and “ruin” the world economy if Iraqi crude output is severely hit by a US military strike, former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani said in London yesterday. > In the run-up to a possible US and British assault on Baghdad, he rejected arguments for intervention in the region saying it would breed another generation of terrorists. > > The Harvard-educated lawyer expressed fears that the relatively low pressure oil wells in Iraq could be rendered useless forever if Saddam Hussein chose to set them on fire. > > \ > Sheikh Yamani - whose Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES) organised the meeting - expressed concern that Iraqi exports could be cut completely during any assault. > > \ > “$80, $100, $60 it’s all bad,” Sheikh Yamani added, though he argued that prices would fall to less than $25 if any conflict was short and there was no permanent damage to oilfields. > > Asked whether the whole US campaign in Iraq was misguided and would cause more insecurity, he said: “That’s what I believe - what I am afraid of,” he explained adding his view that oil was a “prime objective” of President Bush’s Middle East policy. > > “They are creating terrorists … This policy [is] now antagonising the whole people in the Arab and Muslim world.” > > Concerns about Iraqi oilfields being taken out of action completely were raised by Gassan Atiyah, managing director of the Iraqi File publication and a former college lecturer there, who said Saddam could “kill the oil for good” because the low pressure wells - unlike those in Kuwait - were susceptible to permanent damage. Sheikh Yamani indicated his agreement. "It was mentioned by an American company. They said that to set fire to the Iraqi oil fields is a very serious and difficult problem because they have 2,500 wells. > > **"They might even destroy the wells deep enough which means that the whole occupation of Iraq does not really give any returns."** I just wonder what he meant by “any returns”? **Halogen** Thank You. I am most worried about the terrorists in the future. The battle begins in Bagdad. The main industry there is refining oil. They will fill the trenches with crude oil, put them on fire and so on. They want to create smoke so that the smart weapons would not be so smart. When Bagdad is burning, there will not be “a few angry young men”. There will be about a billion. It will be the happiest day of bin Laden. This is not a question between King George, his valet Tony and the Satanic-Saddam, nor the followers like Spain, Bulgaria and Latvia, who also wants to fight. It is the whole world. Have a nice day and many greetings from Siberia. (I am a Finnish citizen living here somewhere in Russia. Moving soon east again, I think). Henry ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/10 "2003-03-16T06:22:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Halogen \* > \*\*Makes ya wonder about “our” government, huh? \*\* Not really. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/11 "2003-03-16T06:55:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Halogen \* > \*\*If our government cared one BIT about stopping terrorism here, we would have ended immigration and stopped funding Israel on 9/12/01, if not before. > \*\* So, if we really wanted to stop terrorism, we would go isolationist, cut off one of our major sources of brainpower and cultural richness, and then abandon a major ally (thus further demonstrating how worthless our word is), which would lead to inevitable and hugely bloody war, possibly/probably going into thermonuclear range? Well… Wish I could say you were the [only one who thought this way](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=149047&highlight=appeasement)… ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/12 "2003-03-16T07:18:36Z")
[ul]:dubious: [sup] **From Russia with Love!** [/sup][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/13 "2003-03-16T15:24:37Z")
Well, Henry, I’m not in contact with Rumsfeld or anything, but… pretty much, all you’ve managed to do is restate the obvious ‘laws of war.’ Big deal. Adapt and adjust. That’s why we have generals, that’s why we have planners. I’m sure that they are aware of the obvious issues and have something planned to deal with as much of the potential damage as possible. Because they’re not stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/14 "2003-03-16T18:59:30Z")
Wait, you mean to tell me that Saddam will try to fight back when we invade? I wonder if anyone has tried to get this news to the Pentagon. So they could, you know, plan for it. ---
**Author:** ![Henry\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d78d45/32.png) [@Henry\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henry_B)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-will-win-every-battle-but-lose-all-the-war-s/161656/15 "2003-03-16T20:26:44Z")
I do not understand some of Your “clever - von oben” comments. (Naturally not all of You.) Because we all seem to agree on that a war i not predectable. We seem to agree that the war will be mastered by the USA generals, etc. etc. (Even if we know that Rumsfield did not give them everything according to the plans). Needless to say that I would believe that the US generals are stupid. But the last weeks we have seen that the administration is. And shortsighted. The whole output will be depending on their wits, not the generals. The military just make their job. I have just a few questions (which all are not military questions): - has it no difference for You if the war expands? - that the oil recources of this planet can be decimated? - has it no difference for You how much the oil will cost? - the value of the dollar? - the fact that the stability of the whole financial world is at stake? - the fact that the terrorism will grow? And the favt that the whole world wants to help You in the war against terrorism,and You are just gleeing? If You think that this war is against terrorism, just keep believing. It is Your only help. The belief. I do not know Your ages, but I assure You this is not a video-game, even if I put a game in the OP. I do not think You even read the thread. I personally think that the war, not maybe the first days, but later, will be a shock for the world. The biggest shock will be for the US citizens. I hope I am wrong. Henry