April 13, 2003
GEN. McCAFFREY: INVASION CAN NOW PROCEED
Advance Elements of Vaunted 4th Infantry Division Enters Iraq (AP, April 13, 2003)Meeting no resistance, advance elements of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division entered southern Iraq late Sunday to reinforce the American war effort.Gen. McCaffrey is an experienced commander and a professer of military science. I'm a schmo with good internet access. But he was wrong, wrong, wrong and he was wrong for an interesting reason: he didn't notice that the world had changed.The advance units were scouting the way for a convoy expected to roll in early Monday and continue throughout the day, said Maj. Mike Silverman. He said no resistance had been met.
With the advance of American troops into Tikrit on Sunday and the last vestiges of Iraqi resistance crumbling, it was not clear whether the division would see any action or take more of a stabilization role.
Posted by David Cohen at April 13, 2003 8:49 PM
Shoot, I was just as right as you and I didn't
have to be conservative to get there.
Of course you are--you just fancy you thought it all up yourself.
Posted by: oj at April 14, 2003 1:20 AMHarry, it seems I remember your writing that more infantry was needed. This was a different war and Franks et al. deserve credit for their gamble. The danger may be in believing the next one, outside of the Mid-East, will be the same.
Posted by: Genecis at April 14, 2003 11:16 AMI said you need infantry to control
prisoners.
The number you need varies by the type
of prisoners. You could guard 10,000
Italians with a KP cook in World War II,
but that wouldn't work with Germans.
In Iraq we have taken very few prisoners.
Are they dead. More likely, they went
home.
If the Iraqis had turned out to be stubborn
nationalists and had fought to preserve
their sacred Iraqi soil, we might have ended
up with lots of prisoners, and that would
have been awkward. But I never expected
that to happen.
I used the word audacity, and, a couple
of days later, so did Franks.
The audacity of invading a large country
with, at least potentially, access to modern
arms, with such a small force is unprecedented
since Mongol times.
There must be a competent assessment of
the difference in the force structures between
Gulf I and Gulf II, but I haven't seen one.
I think it's important, so here goes.
Any professional militarists who want to
correct me, have at it.
In 1990, the Army was desperately undermanned
for any large operations (thanks to the volunteer
army) and was structured to resist a Russian
attack into Germany. To give each of its few
soldiers the maximum firepower, the Army
got rid of its infantry and gave everybody a
tank or a cannon.
In Gulf I, we sent 7 armored divisions, and
borrowed infantry from our allies.
This gave our allies a veto on the depth of
any advance, and they used it.
Perhaps the Marines could have been used,
but it would have taken a couple of days to
get them ashore and organized; and time
was important.
No doubt the tanks could have crushed
Baghdad. What they would have done then
was a problem.
I have never heard any general admit it, but
apparently some of them realized you can't
win a campaign without infantry.
In Gulf II, we had at least one armored
division on hand but did not use it. Instead
we used "infantry divisions" that were
really armored, but that had more organic
footpower than a full-on tank division.
The amount of boots on the ground was only
just sufficient for the advance and not
sufficient for controlling a large abandoned city.
If the Turks had not betrayed civilization (nothing
new there) by preventing the 4th Infantry
from participating, it would have been easy.
I was counting on force disparity, but it looks
like I misjudged it badly. I thought we had
an advantage of 100:1, but it looks more
like 1,000:1.
Apparently, almost all the killing was done by
the airmen and airwomen. I wouldn't be
surprised if it turns out that not as many as
1,000 GIs carrying individual weapons ever
pulled a trigger.