a lot of contradictorary stuff from what the american media is saying, wonder what the truth is. http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news078.htm March 25, 2003, 1230hrs MSK (GMT +3), Moscow - As of the morning March 25 the situation on Iraqi fronts remains quiet. Both sides are actively preparing for future engagements. Exhausted in combat the US 3rd Motorized Infantry Division is now being reinforced with fresh units from Kuwait (presumably with up to 1 Marine brigade and 1 tank brigade from the 1st Armored Division (all coming from the coalition command reserves) and elements of the British 7th Tank Brigade from the area of Umm Qasr. The troops have a stringent requirement to regroup and, after conducting additional reconnaissance, to capture An-Nasiriya within two days. The Iraqis have reinforced the An-Nasiriya garrison with several artillery battalions and a large number of anti-tank weapons. Additionally, the Iraqis are actively deploying landmines along the approaches to their positions. However, currently all combat has nearly ceased due to the sand storm raging over the region. Weather forecasts anticipate the storm's end by noon of March 26. According to intercepted radio communications the coalition advance will be tied to the end of the sand storm and is planned to take place during the night of March 26-27. The coalition command believes that a night attack will allow its forces to achieve the element of surprise and to use its advantage in specialized night fighting equipment. There have been no reports of any losses resulting from direct combat in the past 10 hours. However, there is information about two coalition combat vehicles destroyed by landmines. Three US soldiers were wounded in one of these incidents. Positional warfare continues near Basra. The coalition forces in this area are clearly insufficient for continuing the attack and the main emphasis is being placed on artillery and aviation. The city is under constant bombardment but so far this had little impact on the combat readiness of the Iraqi units. Thus, last night an Iraqi battalion reinforced with tanks swung around the coalition positions in the area of Basra airport and attacked the coalition forces in the flanks. As the result of this attack the US forces have been thrown back 1.5-2 kilometers leaving the airport and the nearby structures in the hands of the Iraqis. Two APCs and one tank were destroyed in this encounter. According to radio intelligence at least two US soldiers were killed and no less than six US soldiers were wounded. The coalition forces are still unable to completely capture the small town of Umm Qasr. By the end of yesterday coalition units were controlling only the strategic roads going through the town, but fierce fighting continued in the residential districts. At least two British servicemen were killed by sniper fire in Umm Qasr during the past 24 hours. The coalition command is extremely concerned with growing resistance movement in the rear of the advancing forces. During a meeting at the coalition command headquarters it was reported that up to 20 Iraqi reconnaissance units are active behind the coalition rear. The Iraqis attack lightly armed supply units; they deploy landmines and conduct reconnaissance. Additionally, captured villages have active armed resistance that is conducting reconnaissance in the interests of the Iraqi command and is organizing attacks against coalition troops. During the past 24 hours more than 30 coalition wheeled and armored vehicles have been lost to such attacks. Some 7 coalition servicemen are missing, 3 soldiers are dead and 10 are wounded. The coalition commander Gen. Tommy Franks ordered his forces to clear coalition rears from Iraqi diversionary units and partisans in the shortest possible time. The British side will be responsible for fulfilling these orders. A unit from the 22nd SAS regiment supported by the US 1st, 5th and 10th Special Operations Groups will carry out this operation. Each of these groups has up to 12 units numbering 12-15 troops each. All of these units have some Asian or Arabic Americans. The groups also have guides and translators from among local Iraqi collaborators, who went through rapid training at specialized centers in the Czech Republic and in the UK. The sand storms turned out to be the main enemy of the American military equipment. Just the 3rd Motorized Infantry Division had more than 100 vehicles disabled. This is causing serious concern on the part of the coalition command. The repair crews are working around the clock to return all the disabled equipment back into service. The M1A2 Abrams tanks are not known for the their reliable engines as it is, but in the sand storm conditions multiple breakdowns became a real problem for the tank crews. All attempts by the US paratroopers to capture the town of Kirkuk have yielded no result. The Americans counted on the support of the Kurds but the latter refused to take a direct part in the attack and demanded guarantees from the US command that it will prevent a Turkish invasion. The Turkish themselves are avoiding making any promises. Additionally, the situation [at Kirkuk] is affected by the lack of heavy weapons on the part of the US paratroopers. The aviation support alone is clearly not sufficient. The northern group of forces commander Marine Brig. Gen. Osman has requested artillery and armored vehicles. All indications are that so far the US is unable to form a combat-capable strike force in this area. According to satellite reconnaissance it seems likely that the Iraqis had time to remove the captured Apache Longbow attack helicopter of the 11th Aviation Regiment. The pieces remaining at the landing site following a US bombing strike indicate that the bombs hit a crudely constructed mockup. Aerial bombardment of Baghdad has so far failed to produce the expected results. All targets designated before the war have been hit 3 to 7 times, but this had almost no effect on the combat readiness of the Iraqi army, their air defenses or the command and control structures. It seems that during preparation for the war the Iraqis were able to create new, well-protected communication lines and control centers. There is plenty of intelligence information indicating that so far the US electronic reconnaissance was unable to locate and to penetrate the Iraqi command's communication network, which is an indication of the network's high technological sophistication. A particular point of concern for the US command is the huge overuse of precision-guided munitions and cruise missiles. Already the supply of heavy cruise missiles like the "Tomahawk" has been reduced by a third and, at the current rate of use, in three weeks the US will be left only with the untouchable strategic supply of these missiles. A similar situation exists with other types of precision-guided munitions. "The rate of their use is incompatible with the obtained results. We are literally dropping gold into the mud!" said Gen. Richard Mayers during a meeting in Pentagon yesterday morning. [reverse translation from Russian] The US experts already call this war a "crisis". "It was enough for the enemy to show a little resistance and some creative thinking as our technological superiority begun to quickly lose all its meaning. Our expenses are not justified by the obtained results. The enemy is using an order of magnitude cheaper weapons to reach the same goals for which we spend billions on technological whims of the defense industry!" said Gen. Stanley McCrystal during the same Pentagon meeting. [reverse translation from Russian] Since the early morning today the coalition high command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are in an online conference joined by the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. This meeting immediately follows an earlier meeting last night at the White House. During the night meeting with President Bush emergency actions were outlined to resolve the standstill in Iraq. The existing course of actions is viewed as "ineffective and leading to a crisis". The Secretary of State Collin Powell warned that, if the war in Iraq continues for more than a month, it might lead to unpredictable consequences in international politics. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Mayers reported on the proposed actions and corrections to the plan of the operation in Iraq. George Bush demanded that the military breaks the standstill in Iraq and within a week achieves significant military progress. A particular attention, according to Bush, should be paid to finding and eliminating the top Iraqi political and military leadership. Bush believes that Saddam Hussein and his closest aides are the cornerstone of the Iraqi defense. During today's online meeting at the coalition headquarters Gen. Franks was criticized for inefficient command of his troops and for his inability to concentrate available forces on the main tasks. According to [Russian military] intelligence Pentagon made a decision to significantly reinforce the coalition. During the next two weeks up to 50,000 troops and no less than 500 tanks will arrive to the combat area from the US military bases in Germany and Albania. By the end of April 120,000 more troops and up to 1,200 additional tanks will be sent to support the war against Iraq. A decision was made to change the way aviation is used in this war. The use of precision-guided munitions will be scaled down and these weapons will be reserved for attacking only known, confirmed targets. There will be an increase in the use of conventional high-yield aviation bombs, volume-detonation bombs and incendiary munitions. The USAF command is ordered to deliver to airbases used against Iraq a two-week supply of aviation bombs of 1-tonn caliber and higher as well as volume-detonation and incendiary bombs. This means that Washington is resorting to the "scorched earth" tactics and carpet-bombing campaign.
I'm almost positive this is complete bull. I've seen a few of McCrystal's Pentagon press briefings and he would never ever say anything like this. These war reports sound like they're composed by a bunch of bitter ex-Soviet military people.
OK first of all, paging Dr. treeman, Dr. treeman you're needed in the Hangout stat. Second of all, a LOT of this stuff I'm having trouble swallowing. In regards to the sandstorm, it said it disabled over 100 vehicles of the 3rd MID. WHAT? Sand clogging a sparkplug is NOT disabling a vehicle. I'll believe it when I see it. And this pablum supposedly attributed to our officers is rediculous. One of our generals COMPLAINING about how much money we spend on our military while at the same time claiming that Iraq's army has "reach the same goals" as us (whatever those are supposed to be) is asinine. And claiming that our technology has lost all it's meaning? Which army has lost what, MAYBE 50 people (fatalities) this whole conflict because of our superior arms and protection? We've marched within 50 miles of Baghdad while moving faster in a war zone than any army in history. I highly doubt ANYONE in leadership would act the way Gen. McCrystal apparently is. As for Basra, last I had heard we had bypassed the city while the British had encircled it waiting for morning to hit before moving in and fully backing up the Shi'ite revolt (which wasn't mentioned anywhere, I noticed). I wouldn't call that "positional warfare". I call that hauling @ss toward the goal of Baghdad and letting support troops clean up. I call serious shenanigans on this piece of.."journalism". I have seen aboslutely nothing from any of the embedded journalists (who have been very quick to report ANY bad news) to back up any of this except the sand storms. It sounds like nothing more than a Russian reporter angry that we're having more success in Iraq than they had in Afghanistan (actually, we had more success there to).
Of course what you call news, russians will call "american Propaganda" and what russians call news, americans call "Russian propaganda", the truth is probably neither and probably won't be revealed until after bush has left office. it's good that this has encouraged debate. In terms of the speed of the push, that's really the game plan, it's not really like there's been too much fighting, there's been a few skirmishes here and there, but it seems like the iraqis have settled in for the long haul, entrenching themselves in the cities. What it will come down to is who the population supports, and it is not the "we love freedom and americans line" iI assure you. The Americans have pulled in their trump card, 3000 Shiite militia trained in qatar, inciting the basra population, if they are successfull, then the whole south will fall quickly and the north will be less messy, however if basra does not fall quickly and by internal means, Americans will take over the country for sure, that's not in doubt, however as Russians discovered, keeping huge armies in foreign territories is a hugely expensive exercise(you didn't think the russians pulled out cos they were militarily beaten did you?) So the coaltition needs to annilihate any rebel, guerilla, forces in the country rather quickly.
I think this article is one piece of the entire puzzle because there are some facts and fancies that won't be confirmed for now. It was an interesting read, but it doesn't cover the Iraqis sneaky low ball tactics or those hush hush weapons the Russians provided them. Any general that would exclaim the use of precision bombs as "dropping gold in to mud" when the premise was to reduce civilian casualties would sound like a stupid short-sighted idiot who doesn't belong in the millitary.
About as accurate as the last one. There are over 1500 reporters in the region, from practically every country on the planet. I don't think they're all lying about what's going on. This is Russian propaganda, pure and simple.
reporters go where the army tells them to go, it's a freaking war zone, there aren't 1500 reporters wandering around. the american's job is to make the americans look good, the russians job is to make the russians look good, usually by making americans look bad. And the veracity of the claims in this report won't be verified for a while. If you read the earlier reports you'll note that no where does it say that umm qasar has been captured, something that most news organisations were quick to broadcast.
This reminds you of when the US created the Muhjadin and Bin Laden to resist the Russians when they invaded Afgahanistan , also without UN approval. Now it seems that the Russians ,despite the end of the cold war, are perhaps somewhat supporting the Iraqis (or at least enjoying US troubles) as the US invades Iraq.
Interesting story on the reporting of US military tactics on the Chinese media. ***************** ***************** In China, the War in Iraq is getting unprecedented media coverage. But are the Chinese watching the same war? While CNN and other western-based media outlets put their own particular spin on the war in this, the fourth day of the American invasion of Iraq, they generally agree on that victory for America is at hand. On CCTV-9 (China Central Television), China’s major English news channel, the spin on what they call "The War on Iraq" is quite different. Indeed, if you believe Chinese News on this, the same fourth day of the same campaign, the "invaders" may have bitten off more than they can chew. Juxtaposed with images of Iraqi soldiers picking through pieces of downed American jets, are interviews with Chinese military strategists are giving their own spin on why Iraq will be a far tougher nut to crack than Western viewers might think. Zhang Tianping, a top Chinese military analyst, was somewhat dismissive of the American "Shock and Awe" strategy. "The American ground warfare is still being fought like the second world war." He said "But Iraq, having lost all of its advanced weaponry after the first gulf war, has become quite adept at guerrilla tactics. This will allow Iraq to harass and stall US troops while worldwide anti-war sentiment grows." The Chinese have a high regard for the use of guerrilla tactics against a better equipped force - after all, without such victories the People’s Republic of China might have been snuffed in the cradle.......... link
Actually your article has a quote that is a flat out lie. Americans every day can watch the press conferences from the Pentagon and we hear what's being shown on Arabic news so it's pretty clear to me that this Russian "news" is just a bunch of crap. Even the title of that website says Aggression Against Iraq and it has a bunch of peace protest signs from Americans. Same old Communists from Russia.
Interesting. Especially since the first Gulf War scared the PLA so bad, they instituted a major overhaul of tactics. Moving away from overwhelming manpower tactics to overwhelming firepower tactics in an attempt to replicate American power capabilities. Since '91 the PLA has undergone a massive modernization program designed to bring their technological capabilities more in line with American force structure, mainly because they realized their old tactics would never work now. This is pure goo goobilly goop.
Of course there is lies in there, half truths, exagerations, however there is also some insightful commentary that you will not get in the american media, the trick is to find out which is which. just to give you an example, the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division launched two bat-sized offensives on the UK positions near Az Zubayr today, yet this is the same Division that surrendered on the first day of fighting? mmm, you see, the same half truths and lies.
