March 23, 2003
RISKY BUSINESS:
Many US casualties in Nassiriya battle; Footage of American POWs, including woman, shown on Iraqi TV (albawaba.com, 23-03-2003)On Sunday afternoon, the Qatar-based television al Jazeera broadcast Iraqi TV, showing a videotape of at least 10 US POWs, including one female soldier, and a room with some 15 bodies of US troops. The live broadcast included also a footage of a battle field area in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya with additional corpses of US soldiers as well as struck military equipment.The videotape has also shown how the Iraqis investigate the American POWs. The prisoners were questioned on air and gave their names, military identification numbers and home towns.
Asked why he came to Iraq, one captive replied "I come to fix broke stuff." He was asked by the interviewer if he came to shoot Iraqis. "No I come to shoot only if I am shot at," he said. "They (Iraqis) don't bother me, I don't bother them."
Another prisoner, who said he was from Texas, said only: "I follow orders." A voice off-camera asked "how many officers" were in his unit. "I don't know sir," the man replied.
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Air Force conceded that there were American soldiers missing, but said that there were fewer than 10 troops unaccounted for in southern Iraq.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned Sunday it was possible that Iraqi forces had taken U.S. prisoners, saying there were unaccounted soldiers and journalists in the combat zone.
He noted that under the Geneva Conventions governing prisoners of war, "It's illegal to do things to POWs that are humiliating to those prisoners."
Earlier, it was reported that U.S. Marines battled for control of Nassiriya, taking "significant" casualties in a fight to open a route north to Baghdad, military officials said.
Reuters quoted military officials as saying the Marine battalion spearheading the fight had suffered significant casualties in the battle.
A total of 11 U.S. soldiers were captured after taking a wrong turn, and 50 military personnel have been wounded in the massive firefight in Nassiriya, ABCNEWS reported Sunday.
Unfortunately, if you bypass towns to drive forward rapidly, you leave the possibility of some rearguard actions like this. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 23, 2003 3:11 PM
Yes ... and they have to bypass the towns and pressure Baghdad, where the WMD are located, to minimize the chance of WMD being used.
Tough choices.
I don't think American television has shown much of this Iraqi TV material, but I can assure you it is enough to make you sick to your stomach. And shake with fury.
Posted by: Paul Cella at March 23, 2003 7:23 PMThis comes from not having infantry, which in
turn comes from having a volunteer army.
Infantry ain't cheap, but look what you pay
when you don't have it.
I've been saying this, in print, and lately in
places like this since 1991 (and better
strategists than I said it long before).
Anyhow, in some ways war is a simple business,
and the rules that applied 3,000 years ago
are often pretty good today.
As for the Geneva Convention and the Red Cross
and the like, the rules regarding POWs have
NEVER been honored against US prisoners
in Asia. Not ever, by anybody, anywhere.
Nobody in Asia was invited to the Geneva
convention, or the Hague convention before
that.
Humane treatment of prisoners is a western
idea.
I read that American POWs have not been afforded protection under the Geneva Convention since WWI. Where are the demonstrators against this?
Posted by: Paul Cella at March 23, 2003 9:42 PMHarry:
But it is mobility that wins wars and Patton would be damn proud of how quickly we're driving up the gut. Watching tv tonight you have to wonder about the capacity of democracies to sustain a longer term war in the age of information. The hysteria with which the talking heads have greeted a mere handful of deaths, as much as each one matters, suggests that a day of real losses--hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousand--would overwhelm their capacity to process the data. This does not mean that war will become any rarer, rather that there will be greater temptation to use WMD ourselves in order to end wars more quickly even than this one, which seems unlikely to take more than a week or ten days.
I do wonder at times if Lincoln would have ever been able to bring the Civil War to a successful conclusion if television had been around.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at March 24, 2003 12:15 AMMobility wins battles. Infantry wins wars.
In the end, grunts gotta hold the ground.
That's how Hitler got beat by Stalin. His panzers
could surround whole armies, but panzers
cannot corral whole armies.
Infantry is still the Queen of Battle.
If the Iraqis had the substance and grit of the
Russian partisans, which I think they do not,
then the US forces driving ahead would be in
a bad fix.
Patton was a lousy strategist. Give me Alexander
-- Harold, not the Great.
Of course, if we'd attacked when you wanted to there'd have been no infantry.
Meanwhile, we'd like nothing better than for the Iraqis to actually come out of the towns and engage us.
Well, you work with what you have.
My father, who served under Spruance, used
to say that he was the finest American officer
because he "didn't complain about what he
didn't have {this was a slam at MacArthur} but
went ahead and fought with what he had."
Spruance was the only "great captain" America
has yet produced.
There is no doubt we can defeat a nation
like Iraq. Rewind the clock and face off against
a more numerous, committed populace -- N.
Vietnam, for example -- and even our advanced
technology would not suffice to win a war (unless
we were willing to simply obliterate the place).
Well organized infantry defeats mere striking
power if well-led. That's how the Swiss, to take
one of many examples, got their liberty.