Interestingly enough, it notes that the assault was done despite the original plan to surround Baghdad and send in infantry (from the opposite side of the Marine attacks, I assume). Remember that many at the time thought that Baghdad would be another Stalingrad where Saddam's forces might break us with casualties. And armor has been thought of as a mobile force and not a city-taking force (I don't know why, since armor in support of infantry has long been invaluable).
Which prompted me to go back to earlier posts to see what I wrote about taking Baghdad.
In my post on Iraq on the very first day of my blog's existence, July 12, 2002, I wrote:
The only potential battlefield problems are city combat in Baghdad and chemical weapons. With his regime at stake, die hards may well pull a Berlin bunker strategy and Saddam may figure he has nothing to lose by going chemical. For the problem of city fighting, remember the 82nd Airborne should be on call to aid in this. Hopefully some defectors will aid too and lead their own Iraqi troops into the city. In any case, we will need to drive on and bounce the city rather than besiege it and give the defenders time to fortify their nerves and buildings. Better some losses early than a dragged out bloody fight in that sprawling city with the accompanying CNN risk of starvation and disease plaguing the civilians.
My first impulse was to do exactly what we did--hit the city as we approached it while the enemy was off balance. I assumed a rapid advance to the outskirts of Baghdad. But I did not predict the bounce would work. I just said it was worth a try to prevent a siege.
On March 29, 2003, I observed (from the undead archives that I haven't tried to move here):
I figured it would take a week to get outside of Baghdad. Once there, I didn't know whether it would go easy or hard. We made it within striking distance in less than a week and we have paused since then, Partly from the need to resupply, regroup, maintain vehicles, and rest. The dust storm that raged did provide cover for that. At first I thought that once it passed, we would strike the Republican Guards outside Baghdad.
I was still uncertain about what would await us inside Baghdad. But we did move fast to get within striking distance.
On April 3, 2003, in the undead April archives, I could see the spreading confusion in Iraqi ranks and hoped we could exploit it:
Iraqis claim we are not even 100 miles from Baghdad. The scenes inside Iraqi command bunkers may resemble Berlin in April 1945, as the Baathists still alive issue orders to non-existent divisions. And the ones who are sent south expecting no Americans until they are 100 miles from Baghdad will be slaughtered as they run into American troops just outside the city.
It is worth it to try and bounce the city on the run while the Iraqis are panicked and frightened refugees from the Republican Guard fleeing into the city can spread a little panic with the news that we can't be stopped. Remember, retreating troops have every reason to inflate the threat they are running from to justify their flight. If we truly meet tough resistance, we can pull back and do it the slow, careful way. But it is worth it to try to take the city fast, given all the other threats in the world.
Throughout the war, I counseled speed as the answer to problems, whether international efforts to save Saddam, chemical weapons use, or irregular attacks on our supply lines--just get north and take the capital.
On April 5th, I wrote:
A U.S. task force (a battalion of armor and mechanized infantry) raided through southwest Baghdad. It was apparently a great success, but I honestly don't understand why a unit that rolled through the city with such ease did not try to hold what it took. I am no expert on urban warfare, but I hope we don't have to retake that ground later at great loss of life. I also worry about the people who waved at us, believing we were freeing them. Will the Saddam security people take their revenge? How will these people feel seeing us march in and then let the thugs back?
But perhaps surrounding the city is taking priority now. And maybe holding the areas would just prompt Iraqi artillery fire and civilian deaths. And we do have to work on lines of communication security. And special ops people are in the city doing their work quietly. Plus we may be talking to Iraqis in the capital. I will not complain. There is too much I do not know. We are in the beginning of week three and we are probing the Iraqi capital! I'd say the Iranians, who tried at high cost for 6 years to batter their way to any Iraqi city, are very impressed. And afraid. Good.
The war isn't over by a long shot, but it still qualifies as a cakewalk as far as I am concerned. I hope this success holds.
The fantasy briefings given by the Iraqis about how the war is going are getting downright sad. And encouraging. How can the leadership of Iraq exercise effective command when their data is so wrong? Seriously, this is Berlin bunker '45-level collapse. They really may have no idea how badly they have been beaten. Just like in '91 when they had no idea where American forces were in Iraq when they sat down to agree to a ceasefire.
Into Baghdad.
The difficulty of the fight was not apparent from the initial reports. But we rolled through on the raid and I wondered why we didn't hold the ground we took. I was willing to defer to the Army. What I did not know was that the raid was a test that the brigade wanted to use to justify an attack into Baghdad to hold the ground and show Baghdad Bob to be the liar he was.
On the 7th, I noted that a full brigade was raiding into Baghdad. At that point, we now know, it still wasn't decided whether we'd stay and hold our ground.
On the 8th, I said we were subduing enemy resistance in Baghdad. That does little justice to the fierceness of the fight going on. I also mocked Baghdad Bob's denial that we were in Baghdad.
On the 9th, I sensed we'd passed the tipping point to victory:
The regime in Baghdad is crumbling. Scattered resistance will not alter the fact that Baathists have lost Baghdad. Cries are going out that the casualties from our urban blitz are excessive and that world opinion, Arab opinion in particular, will not forgive us. The assumptions and conclusions are wrong.
We probed and raided and found Iraqi defenses lacking. We decided to bounce the city rather than lay siege. Would fewer Iraqis have died if we had sealed off the city? With death squads punishing disloyalty; and regime thugs hoarding all the food, water, and medicine? Would giving the thugs time to recover their will to fight after the pasting they took really have lowered casualties? Ours and theirs? Clearly, winning fast lowers casualties by ending the damn war. How this can be overlooked is beyond me.
As for the rest of the world not forgiving us? Are they to refuse "forgiveness" in the face of happy Iraqis? The Moslem world seems to have no problem forgiving the French, the Soviets, and the Russians for their brutal wars against Algerians, Afghanistan, and Chechnya. And they slaughtered Moslems for years. The Russians are still doing it. Indeed, the Moslem street seemed to forgive Iraqi slaughter of Iranians and Iraqis with ease.
The Moslem world will learn to see the bright side of ending Saddam's despotism. They may even draw hope that their own misery can be ended.
Honest to God, the stories of Iraqis finally free to express their feelings brought tears to my eyes. This war is not "just" one in our national security interests—it is just. And we did it in the face of moralists who claimed leaving Saddam's regime in power was the right and moral thing to do. In the face of the near universal disapproval of leaders of western religions. Against world opinion. And we did it with fewer casualties than I thought possible. In three weeks. America's determination to lead others who believed as we did is to be commended for sticking to the goal of overthrowing Saddam's regime. The coalition of the willing is also the coalition of the right. The coalition of doing the right thing, that is. I eagerly await the news of the planned anti-war protests this weekend.
The war is not over yet. The Saddamites may yet try a last stand in Tikrit. Some might yet launch chemical weapons in a last spasm of murder.
The troops on the ground certainly felt that they'd reached a tipping point on the 9th.
It wasn't until June 6th that I fully realized how intense the fighting had been in the fight to attack and hold Baghdad, even though I had read the fight had been touch-and-go:
Outnumbered and in danger of running out of fuel and ammo themselves, the troops defending Objective Curly fought a Roarke's Drift-like battle without the benefit of field fortifications. Their long stand and ultimate victory despite being surrounded and outnumbered by fanatical attackers who tried small arms, RPGs, and even car bombs to win is a rebuke to those who said (once the war was won—before they said we'd face a bloodbath) that of course we would win, defeating Iraq was beneath us.
One thing that I will quibble with in the book--as I did back in June 2003--is that the ferocity of the fighting is said to refute the idea that the war was a cakewalk. Although I still didn't have the details of the fights into Baghdad by 3rd Infantry Division (mechanized), on April 25th I wrote:
In the annals of warfare, the Iraq War is easily a cakewalk. This is not to diminish our accomplishment, for our military has trained for decades to fight this well. Indeed, I under-estimated how lethal our ground forces are. I assumed (though I did not have the nerve to stab at such a touchy topic beforehand) that 200-250 dead was likely the price to win, and a few hundred more perhaps if we had to fight our way into Baghdad street by street. Chemical weapons would add to that but not as much as heavy urban combat. Even these levels I would consider a decisive victory if not a cakewalk. We actually won with significantly fewer combat deaths than we suffered expelling the Iraqis from Kuwait. It doesn't get much better than this.
Knowing the ferocity of the Thunder Runs into Baghdad doesn't change my mind. This is not to belittle the difficulty of defeating the various Iraqi, jihadi, and mercenary enemies who opposed us. But we did kill them in massive numbers while losing relatively few soldiers. Could troops less well trained and equipped have pulled it off? No. But given our skills and technology and the shortcomings of even fanatical enemies, we decisively smashed our enemies in those fights. For us, it was a cake walk. the insurgencies and terror campaigns that followed were far harder based on casualties. Our troops were awesome. Have no doubt. But we crushed our foes.
What I am newly impressed with was the ability of our military to adjust plans on the fly to take advantage of new circumstances (Iraqi panic and confusion) and set aside the more deliberate approach to subduing the city's defenders. We did not let fear of what can go wrong prevent us from taking an opportunity to win faster and with lower casualties in the long run. Bouncing Baghdad, my friends, was a gutsy call.
