Guerrilla Warfare (Stop Saying That!) in the 'Sunni Triangle'

[DUreader]

http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=757522003


snip


Some 600 attacks on US troops have occurred in the three months since the
end of the war, with 32 US combat deaths and several times that number of
wounded. Each day sees between ten and 25 violent incidents in the triangle,
Gen Franks says.

The triangle stretches due east to the outskirts of Baghdad, and then runs
north towards Saddam’s home town of Tikrit, taking in the towns of Fallujah,
Baqouba and Balad. Travel between the towns is via lonely, near-lawless
desert roads where passing units can find themselves a long way from help
and resistance fighters can see them a long way off.

If the triangle includes Baghdad, however, and the city has certainly
witnessed a string of attacks on US soldiers, its population could easily
run to close to half of Iraq’s.

The area forms part of a geographical patchwork quilt developing across
Iraq, in terms of friendliness and hostility to the coalition presence.

[UpInArms]

1. have you read

David Hackworth's latest column - "Bring It On"?

It talks about the guerilla war situation pretty clearly

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target%20Homepage%2edb&command=viewone&op=t&id=21&rnd=723.5023041474655

excerpt:

Whatever Rummy wants to call it, we’re still stuck in a classic Phase I Guerrilla War (G-War). And every day, Iraq becomes a more dangerous place, with the potential of becoming even worse if our brass don’t start understanding the enemy and the nature of the same sort of G-type ops that crippled Napoleon in Spain, bloodied the Brits in Northern Ireland and postponed the peace process in Israel.

[Emillereid]

2. An interview with an Iraqi guerilla fighter is revealing

A Promise To Fight On
A leader in Iraqi militia group tells of plans for extended guerrilla war

By Mohamad Bazzi
MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT

July 10, 2003


Fallujah, Iraq - <snip>
"We have many more people and we're a lot better organized than the Americans realize," said Khaled, 29, who gave an hour-long interview yesterday on the condition that only his first name be published. "We have been preparing for this kind of guerrilla war for a long time, and we're much more patient than the Americans. We have nowhere else to go."

Khaled described the workings of a loosely organized network of former Baath Party members, Iraqi soldiers, intelligence officers and other die-hard Hussein supporters who have been responsible for an unknown number of the attacks that have killed 29 U.S. soldiers and injured dozens since May 1.

He said the network operates in cells of five or six members that answer to a secret leadership structure. It goes by various names - the Fedayeen, the Iraq Liberation Army, Muhammad's Army - and Khaled said only a handful of people know its full reach. He said its members draw inspiration from Hussein and from the belief that the ousted Iraqi leader is alive and will regain power once U.S. troops are forced to leave.....

<snip>
It is an account that contradicts statements by several U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who argue that the Iraqi insurgency is a disorganized movement of former Baathists and thousands of criminals who were released from prison by Hussein last year.
<snip>
"We know each other and we have ways of communicating with one another," said Khaled, a tall, muscular man with a trim mustache and short-cropped hair. "The Americans made a big mistake by thinking that we all disappeared after the war.".....

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/iraq/ny-wofeda103365886jul10,0,832475.story?coll=ny-top-span-headlines

Runsfeld can call it what he likes -- but a guerilla war by any other name, is just as deadly.

I heard a fabulous line yesterday that sums up the differences between the Iraqis (mideast in general) and the West -- the West has the clock, but the Iraqis have the TIME.

[NYC]

3. "We have nowhere else to go."

I think that's the key to the whole problem. Why would they stop fighting?

[solinvictus]

4. They won't

An indiginous guerilla war takes little material support to sustain effective measures against an occupying army. If you read up on the subject, a few dedicated and armed people can make an area ungovernable. These people are well armed and can probably count on small arms and munitions from Iran or Syria to sustain them.

[teryang]

5. "Syria and Iran are cowed?"

Don't believe it. Their governments may publicly kowtow to our regime, but that doesn't hermetically seal the borders of Iraq. This conflict has potential to draw support from throughout the Arab world at a level sizable enough to keep it going indefinitely. What the Islamic countries say publicly and what their leading political and financial families and secret operatives do are two different things. The Islamic world does not have the infrastructure or battlefield organization of our opponents in Vietnam, but they do have access to substantial financial and manpower resources in an asymmetric conflict. Time is on their side. Our side lacks manpower, cultural knowhow, and political will.

Another myth being perpetuated by Army types is that it is possible to "win" the guerilla conflict by increasing troop levels. Where have we heard this before? Battalion level engagements will never occur in Iraq. They don't have to to drive us out. It is about the political will of the American people to adjust and interupt their lives and sustain casualties for a undefined mission, unsupported by the rest of the world. This conflict will continue at a G-1 level indefinitely, "postponing the peace." (Good meme Hack!) This resistance level is already operating at a level above the desperate tactics of suicide bombings which they are apparently willing to resort to if their relatively successful small unit actions, sabotage and assassination actions cannot be maintained.

Is it really possible to install a western friendly, corporately subservient regime in the heart of the Arab world? Does this even come close to demonstrating common sense? Our interests and those of Iraq are irreconcilable. We want their territory, markets and resources for our own exploitation. They don't want us. Arabs understand conquest but that doesn't mean we can prevail.

Hackworth relished the success of the invasion on television. His comments about the possibility of continued guerilla war and suspicions of the disappearance of major Iraqi ground forces were prescient but little more than a footnote in all the bombast of which he was a participant. He seems to be holding out hope here for a complete political win via the Army and it won't happen.

[saigon68]

6. I REMEMBER THE IRON TRIANGLE

Just northwest of Saigon. A very, very nasty place. At least 10 ARC-Lights would be staged every night. Never really slowed them down.

[bemildred]

7. Nice site.

Thanks for the link.