April 5, 2003
WHEN A SIEGE BECOMES A DASH:
When a Dash Becomes a Siege (ROBERT PATTON, 4/05/03, NY Times)Gen. George S. Patton, my grandfather, has received a lot of mention lately in connection with the astonishing dash of the American military across more than 300 miles of Iraq in less than a week. Beginning with the breakout from Normandy in August 1944, Patton's Third Army similarly used speed and maneuverability to press the attack, stretching supply lines to the breaking point while gobbling up huge tracts of territory and taking thousands of enemy prisoners.Much of what we've seen of Gen. Tommy Franks's battle plan calls to mind Patton's favorite battlefield dictums. "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow" would seem to apply to the accelerated commencement of the ground offensive after the missile strike on the Iraqi leadership on March 18. The apparently improvised jump-start clearly surprised Iraqi defenders expecting, per the 1991 Persian Gulf war, weeks of aerial shock and awe in advance of tanks and infantry, and it helped coalition forces to secure the southern oil fields and the Euphrates bridges at Nasariya before they could be sabotaged.
Likewise Patton's oft quoted "hold 'em by the nose and kick 'em," which in tactical terms translates to pinning the enemy in place while flanking him with the bulk of your force, is reflected in the coalition's "leapfrogging" of Iraqi towns en route to the main objective, Baghdad. "There is no purpose in capturing manure-filled, water-logged villages," the general told his men. "Straight frontal attacks are prohibited unless there is no other possible solution."
Yet in September 1944, Patton deviated from his preference for maneuvering and received what he called "my first bloody nose" as a result. The fortified city of Metz, in the Lorraine in northeastern France, blocked the Third Army's route to the Rhine. And while no one should compare that city of 83,000 with Baghdad and its 5 million inhabitants living in an area larger than New York City, the perils and pitfalls of Patton's siege are worth contemplating as General Franks readies his troops for the last phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
It was brilliant of Franks not to pause, but to drive forward, taking the airport and rumbling tanks through town. One instructive story from NPR today: after taking out a gunner with a Tow missile, the Americans discovered that the guy manning it had been a colonel. As one of the soldiers said, when you've got colonels pulling the trigger, there's something seriously wrong with your army. Not only is Baghdad not going to be Stalingrad, it's not even going to be Metz. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 5, 2003 10:37 PM
The contrast between this story and the Ralph Peters story linked below is striking (Peters blasting Rumsfeld for a poor war plan even though the war is going well). One has to believe there will be a lot of fighting at the Pentagon when this is over.
Posted by: AWW at April 5, 2003 10:51 PMThere's an expression that goes something like, "The dogs howl, but the convoy keeps moving."
Sometimes one can take a lot of satisfaction from being criticized by the "right" folks.
I don't think Rumsfield is worried about these kinds of criticisms, though; I'm not even sure he cares about vindication. He's interested in results, getting rid of Saddam and his murderous regime and replacing it with something that is viable but not treacherous and, if possible, more responsive to its people's interests. A country with Iraq's natural resources should be an absolute gem....
And as for the critics, all the time, keeping in mind that one of the things about a democracy is that it allows people to make asses of themselves. (Just so that one can be reassured about the vibrancy of American democracy.)
One wonders though if there's any price to pay for doing so.
Barry:
I don';t think active service military guys are entitled to express themselves honestly about the decisions of those higher up the chain of command. If a private can't mout off to a colonel, a general can't mouth off to civilian leadership.
In the military, at any time, mouthing off should be, as the pacifacists put it, "the last resort". A probable career ender that should only be done because sacraficing one's self is the only way to prevent a catastophe. What we've been seeing is the usual sniping and backbiting which has come to characterize 1990s style politics. If anything, it's a sign of how politicized our military has become by the civilian authority of the time, and one thing that shouldn't be permitted is a politicized military.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at April 6, 2003 12:09 PMThe chiefs of staff are supposed to offer
military advice to the civilians. They are not
supposed to stop once the bullets start
flying.
Nor are junior officers supposed to shut up
and just follow orders. We usually celebrate
the initiative of the American enlisted man
and junior officer, and we should.
In 1942-42, the Navy's torpedoes didn't work.
The brass insisted they did. The sub skippers
insisted they didn't.
It took a long time and many unfavorable
endorsements of action reports before
Admiral Lockwood consented to actually
test the torpedoes.
The juniors were right.
This is a Beltway thumbsucker. I see no
evidence the the JCS are not doing their job.
Except for a few disgruntled underlings who
are feeding the likes of Sy Hersh, everything
is copacetic.
Harry:
Writing a negative action report on a technical issue isn't insubordinate. Leaking to Sy Hersh because you didn't get what you want is.
Sure, but you've picked an easy one. There's
plenty of situations where the dividing line
is not so easy to discern.
Orrin, Baghdad is not Stalingrad or even Metz becausse the Iraqis are not the Red Army of the Wehrmacht. One of the most fascinating issues of military history is why some nations produce successful armed forces and others do not. The answers lie deep within the cultural foundations of the nations involved. As described in Hansen's Western Way of War, a combination of discipline and individualism is what is needed. Remember also what Napoleon observed about Islamic militaries: individual bravery and collective incompetence.
Posted by: Lou Gots at April 7, 2003 9:38 AM