NADP News September 09, 2010

Tragic Setbacks Do Not Portend a Quagmire By Ed Offley The war in Iraq is less than a week old and the naysayers are already starting to bray. To be sure, the events on the battlefield over the past three days have been truly jolting. After several days of Wagnerian imagery from the missile impact zones in Baghdad and merrily-we-roll-along live TV from embedded reporters with the 3rd Infantry Division and Task Force Tarawa, it would appear that Operation Iraqi Freedom just hit a brick wall. Our television screens and newspaper front pages are suddenly brimming with the fog and friction of war. On surface, it is obvious that a lot of bad things have happened in a relatively short period of time. We suddenly have anywhere between 20-25 servicemen who have been killed in combat, with another five taken prisoner by the Iraqis. We have seen gruesome close-ups of dead Americans whose wounds imply summary execution by their captors. We have the spectacle of a terrorist act against U.S. Army soldiers by a fellow soldier (a self-declared Muslim). We have a friendly fire episode in which a Patriot anti-missile battery shot down a British Tornado aircraft. And we have more images of Saddam Hussein purportedly surviving multiple attacks on his suspected whereabouts. We have dead journalists. The editorialists at The New York Times – who consistently opposed U.S. military action against Iraq, mind – were among the first to jump in, somberly portending tragedy: “The first days of the war in Iraq were so smooth, Americans might have been forgiven for imagining that the conflict would be clean and relatively free of casualties. Then over the weekend, they were faced with battlefield death, human error and other tragedies. The task of beating back Iraq's best troops and capturing Baghdad while keeping the rest of the country under control looks increasingly formidable.” The Baltimore Sun opinionists also weighed in with the new angst after initial days of euphoria: “But yesterday found U.S. Marines still trying to secure the city of Umm Qasr 48 hours after it had supposedly fallen, other units meeting fierce resistance on the outskirts of An Nasiriyah, and an ambush in the desert leading to the capture of the first American POWs.” And a USA Today analyst hinted that the Pentagon itself bears some blame for creating unrealistic expectations in the minds of the American people: “In making the case for targeting Saddam, administration officials had said a military win was never in question, leaving the impression among many that it wouldn't be difficult. Much of the debate beforehand had focused on the day after – that is, the day after a quick victory. But the weekend's events reminded everyone that there would be a war first.” Well, pardon my French, but this is a load of merde du taureau. Once again, the who’s-in-who’s-out, thumbs-up-thumbs-down, instant-gratification culture that infects modern journalism is trying to declare defeat in Operation Iraqi Liberation even before the real battle is joined. These are the same talking heads who 17 months ago had all but proclaimed our campaign in Afghanistan a quagmire heading for defeat – just days before the capture of Mazar-e-Sharif and the total collapse of the Taliban regime. Certainly, each of the tragic incidents that occurred in Iraq in recent days is to be regretted and the loss of life sincerely mourned. A formal U.S.-British investigation into the friendly-fire incident is already underway and we must wait for its conclusion to determine why the missile battery misidentified the Tornado as an unidentified, presumed hostile aircraft. Human error or a technical malfunction that prevented the aircraft transponder from signaling the correct identification code are the more likely suspect causes. The killing and capture of Army support soldiers by Iraqi irregulars likewise must be probed – deeply and quickly – to ensure that the Central Command tactic of swift advance does not compromise the safety of rear-area personnel in southern and central Iraq. And the apparent assassination of 101st Airborne Division troops by a disgruntled Muslim-American soldier should prompt a thorough internal investigation by the U.S. military to thwart any future mishaps. If there is one possible common theme among these incidents it is not that the Centcom war plan is a recipe for quagmire and defeat: Rather, the political and military strategies driving our effort for regime change have led to a restrictive set of rules of engagement aimed at minimizing civilian deaths and preventing excessive destruction of Iraqi infrastructure. Those are laudable premises that come at a very steep price. Iraq has become the opposite of Vietnam, where “We destroyed the village in order to save it.” For hard, logical reasons, we are leaving much of Iraq intact in order to save it – inevitably allowing diehard Iraqi soldiers and guerrillas to live and fight another day. The U.S. military death toll will be higher as a result when we do finally achieve victory. Just don’t expect the talking heads to comprehend that reality anytime soon. Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.

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