A TACTIC, NOT A STRATEGY:

Town becomes horrific battleground: Hundreds of Iraqis reportedly die in`chaos you cannot imagine' (NBC NEWS, March 29, 2003)

The suicide bombing that killed four U.S. soldiers Saturday happened just outside a dusty town that saw hundreds of Iraqis literally drive themselves into U.S. positions during a four-day battle that started with a swirling sandstorm and ended with nightmarish scenes.

WHEN U.S. tanks from the 3rd Mechanized Infantry first rumbled into this town on the Euphrates river on Wednesday, irregular Iraqi forces set up sniper nests up and down the main street, opening fire from doors, windows, market stalls and patches of open ground.

A crimson sunset painted the street red and visibility fell to less than 15 feet as a swirling sand and dust storm kicked up when the guerrilla units attacked.

U.S. officers said fighters in minivans, pick-up trucks and cars drove straight at the oncoming tanks. Others took to canoes, rowing down the river and trying to fix explosives to the main bridge in this town about 80 miles south of Baghdad.

But the guerrilla-style forces were vastly outgunned by the tanks of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, and hundreds of Iraqis have died in this town over the last four days. [...]

"It was mad chaos like you cannot imagine," said the tank unit's commander, who identified himself as "Cobra 6" as he did not want friends and neighbors back home to know what he had been through.

Missile Strike Kills 200 Iraqi Paramilitary Fighters (Fox News, March 29, 2003)

U.S. warplanes firing laser-guided missiles destroyed a two-story building in the Iraqi city of Basra Friday, killing some 200 Iraqi paramilitary fighters, the U.S. military said.

The attack targeted the Saddam Hussein loyalists who British officials say have clamped down on a restive population in Basra.

Earlier Friday, the paramilitaries -- known as "Saddam's Fedayeen" -- had fired mortars and machine guns on about 1,000 Iraqi civilians trying to leave the southern city, British military officials and witnesses said.

British forces surround the city -- Iraq's second-largest, with a population of 1.3 million -- and want to open the way for badly needed humanitarian aid. But they have yet to move in, facing what would likely by tough street-by-street resistance from the militiamen.

Friday night's airstrike went after what Central Command called "an emerging target." The pair of F-15E Strike Eagles fired laser-guided munitions fitted with delayed fuses -- meaning they penetrated the building before detonating to minimize the external blast effect. The Central Command statement said a church 300 yards from the two-story building was undamaged.

The statement did not say how it was known that 200 paramilitaries were holding a meeting.

US Helicopters Kill 50 Elite Iraqi Troops -Officer (Reuters, March 29, 2003)

U.S. helicopters attacked units of Iraq's elite Republican Guard on Saturday, killing at least 50 Iraqi soldiers and destroying some 25 vehicles, a senior officer said.

"We fired 40 missiles and we had 40 hits. We had a confirmed kill of at least 25 vehicles including tanks, armored personnel carriers and trucks, and at least 50 dead," Major Hugh Cate told Reuters.

As scary as these suicidal attacks are to us, and as much scarier as they must be to the men facing them, nothing much has changed in warfare since General Patton said: "Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." The ultimate fact of these attacks is nothing more that dead Ba'athists. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 30, 2003 7:29 AM