Friday, August 05, 2005

Operation Quick Strike

UPI says Operation Quick Strike has been launched against "insurgents and foreign fighters in western Iraq's Anbar province".

Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, director of the U.S.-led Combined Press Information Center, said the offensive was not in response to the three insurgent attacks that killed 21 Marines this week. On Friday, Iraqi special operations forces directed a Marine airstrike on insurgents firing from buildings near Haqliniya, southwest of Haditha.

The most interesting information on the current operations comes form Bloomberg. The standard description of the operation's objectives was given: "to interdict and disrupt insurgents and foreign terrorists' presence in the Haditha, Haqliniyah, and Barwanah area". But Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in an interview that:

"This (assault) is part of a pattern of offensives to deny the insurgents sanctuary along the Euphrates River to match ongoing operations along the Tigris" ... Cordesman said the coalition's goals in the Euphrates valley are to make harder for foreign insurgents to infiltrate from Syria and find "stable sanctuary'' in the region. Another aim is to put pressure on Sunnis to join the political process, he said. "The political and military effects will play out over months, not days,'' he said in a telephone interview.

Cordesman's remarks suggest that Quickstrike's context is far larger than to disrupt the local insurgents in Haditha. They are certainly not a reprisal or reaction to the loss of 21 Marines in Haditha. (I speculated that they were lost in carrying out the offensive operation of which Quickstrike is a part). Together with General Ham's comment that these operations go "all the way out to the border" and the New York Times story that the US is mounting operations north of the Euprates in the direction of Mosul, Cordesman's statement that Quickstrike is "part of a pattern of offensives to deny the insurgents sanctuary along the Euphrates River to match ongoing operations along the Tigris" is nothing short of astounding.

(Speculation alert). My own guess is that the US decided that letting insurgents dig in, as they did at Fallujah, resulted in very expensive, publicly visible major operations. Even smaller ops like Matador showed that the enemy could turn individual villages into mini-forts which could create statistical casualty bumps (of say, more than six Americans killed). Readers will recall how one Marine AAV was destroyed in Matador because it had to proceed down a mined road. Therefore it was desirable to strike the enemy at many points at once, never allowing their cadres to re-group and re-connect with other cells. Forcing movement has already resulted, as the LA Times reports, in the abandonment of RPGs, mortars and mines, stuff you can't carry on the run.

The logistical key to successfully accomplishing this was to create the ability to strike on both banks of the Euprates and across the plain to the Tigris with armored vehicles. (The NYT article mentioned in passing that helicopter-borne raids were already common) The establishment of a base in Rawah facilitated this. Another important component was deploying Iraqi government forces in cleared areas to prevent, or at least slow down, the reconstitution of insurgent cells.

37 Comments:

Blogger John Aristides said...

Col Bill,

From July 26, 2005 (here):

"Iraq's defense minister criticized Syria on Tuesday for ignoring Iraqi demands "to stop the infiltration of terrorists."

The official, Saadoun al-Dulaimi, singled out Iraq's western neighbor as among states that are slack on stopping the flow of militants into his country.

"When the lava of the exploding volcano of Iraq overflows, it will first hit Damascus," al-Dulaimi warned during a news conference to discuss an upcoming nationwide security plan.

He said militants are coming into Iraq from Syria via three routes, with the intent of targeting the Baghdad area."

I think Syria is in a lot of trouble. In Wretchard's previous post there was much discussion on this issue, if you want to check it out.

8/05/2005 04:44:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

The pressure building on Syria (but a few examples):

1. Defense minister in the Interim Iraqi government Hazem al-Shalan renewed his accusation to each of Iran and Syria over supporting the armed operations inside Iraq by weapons and money. He threatened to transfer the battle to the lands of the two countries.

2. Secretary Rumsfeld recently met Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and encouraged the Iraqi government to get tough with Syria; “They need to demonstrate that they're a big country, they're a wealthy country, that they'll be around a long time, and they don't really like it.”

3. "The United States and the world obviously has to create a better clarity in the minds of leaders of Syria that what they are doing is harmful ultimately to themselves," Rumsfeld said after a speech in Beverly Hills at which he was twice heckled.

4. Iraqi officials have accused Syria of sheltering terrorists and announced that they possess their pictures and addresses in Damascus.


Bolton passed a unanimous UN resolution condemning Syria and Iran yesterday, in his first day on the job. As Bill Roggio states, "Despite the multiple warnings to Asad, he continues to interfere with Lebanese politics and colludes in the murder of Iraqis and Americans. These are dangerous games, and one he cannot play forever without consequence."

8/05/2005 05:06:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

I think Col Bill Kilgore's question is a little bit larger than the ground covered by the Iraqi Defense Minister's answers. Syria seems determined to strangle the new Iraq in the crib. Some articles put Iran in a more ambivalent position. They need a stable new state next door, but at the same time fear that it may be an American ally. They are probably hoping for a new state, but one which is an Iranian client. So the question is: how long are we in for?

I don't know what the US plan is. But I would guess that it would, like Korea, support Iraq at some level for decades. If you go back and read 1950s accounts of the Korean war, it's amazing to see how contemptuous the press was of the ROKs, who it was predicted, would never amount to a pile of anything. How wrong they were. So I figure the US goal is to create a stable ally in the region, despite the costs. When you consider that the US was able to do this with South Korea, a neighbor to China and Russia, there's no reason it can't do this in the face of the relatively no-account Syrians and Iranians.

8/05/2005 05:10:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Yahoo,

You didn't complete the quote.

The Iraqi prime minister said Friday that the country's leading Shiite Muslim cleric hopes the constitution being drawn up will enshrine Islam as the main source of legislation — something opposed by Kurds and some Iraqi women activists. ... al-Jaafari was asked whether al-Sistani wants Islam to be the main source of legislation or one of the sources.

"Ayatollah al-Sistani does not want to impose dictation on drafting the constitution, but according to my knowledge he hopes that Islam become the main source of legislation," al-Jaafari replied.

Yup. Smells like victory to me.

8/05/2005 05:27:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Wait til those pot smoking hippies and dick-hugging anarchists hear about this from the Liberal Press. The intensity of the protests will cause all citizens to vote democrat as never in the past. (Stolen from Barbara BoxEater at Liberal Larry's site :)

8/05/2005 05:30:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Please let clueless here in on what yahoo's post and W's reply refers to.

8/05/2005 05:52:00 PM  
Blogger diabeticfriendly said...

Wait til those pot smoking hippies

hey... what's wrong with those?

that's what the islamic world needs, cheech n chong

8/05/2005 05:54:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

C4 post from previous thread:
Trish - nice reference to global guerillas where they discuss the thousands of IED cells and their structure, quick diffusion of bomb-making skills, and how it is hard to get "evidence" on the cell leaders so our PC troops must often let them go even when we KNOW they are involved..

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/

8/05/2005 05:59:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Who needs Cheech and Chong, we've got Mike Formica, sir.
"If the insurgent has a burning fueler or bodies in the street, he wants to get Arab media," said Col. Mike Formica, recently returned from Iraq, at the June IED conference.

8/05/2005 06:05:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The PC part,
Sure wish we had non pc rules instead of sacrificing men for the pc cause.
---
These "white collar" leaders are the most difficult cell members to identify, explained Formica. Even if fingered by an informant or other means, the leaders are so good at covering their tracks it's nearly impossible to develop sufficient evidence to detain them. And if captured, they're smart enough not to say anything. Only 5 percent to 10 percent of the insurgents captured by the Americans are cell leaders.

8/05/2005 06:14:00 PM  
Blogger RWE said...

Saw a news report this afternoon in that said that Syria was saying that they were doing all kinds of things to stop inflitration and complained that the U.S. had not supplied the night vision equipment they had requested to enhance their border patrols.
They also complained that the Iraqi side of the fence was not doing enough to stop the infiltrators.
They certainly are a cheeky lot...

8/05/2005 06:42:00 PM  
Blogger al fin said...

Overall the planning and execution of military operations of the US military in Iraq has been top notch.

The lack of understanding of the arab mind has been a significant problem, but the US military of the Iraq era is levels above the US military of the Vietnam era in terms of strategy and tactics.

Incidentally, a lot of people here complain about the lack of public broadcasting of the military's intentions. Wretchard understands how foolish such broadcasting would be, but I wonder how many other people here do.

8/05/2005 06:47:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Clueless is still clueless about yahoo's post:
What is supposed to follow from the news in the link?

8/05/2005 07:19:00 PM  
Blogger StoutFellow said...

Iraqi Constitution for Clueless. The writers of the constitution are debating how big a role Shar'ia law should play in the constitution.

"A draft of the constitution published last week in the government Al-Sabah newspaper put Islam as "the main basis" of law. But the constitutional committee -- made up of Shiites, Kurds and some Sunnis -- is still haggling over the language.

Fouad Massoum, the Kurdish deputy head of the committee, said it will discuss the role of Islam in meetings Sunday.

"We, in the Kurdish coalition, want Islam to be one of the sources of legislation," he said.

Iraq's most prominent Shiite Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has said he wants to preserve a strong role for Islam in the document, but also shuns the direct rule by clerics seen in his country of birth, mainly Shiite Iran."

Not mentioned in the quote is a third, albeit small, group made up of women and secularists who don't want it to be mentioned at all in the constitution.

With regard to yahoo, Wretchard is just pointing out that his/her post is misleading by ommision of relevant facts.

8/05/2005 07:43:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Stoutfellow,
Thanks,
Don't know how I missed that, must be age;-)

8/05/2005 08:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

So why not have Sadr just mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again?

8/05/2005 08:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

fred,
Yes, I have a very hard time reconciling some of the handwringing that goes on with how I would feel if it was my son that got cut down while spending 8 hours taking out a single sniper in a minaret that could have been handled by 1 or two rockets.
...but that's just me.
Same for arguments that apparently favor 100's if not thousands of Iraqi Civilian deaths, not to mention our GIs, in order not to violate some higher code or occasionally committing the unpardonable sin of a false positive.
...meanwhile thousands of absolute negatives die in the streets as the beat goes on.

8/05/2005 08:21:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Same here at home where the argument seems to be that it is better to risk a suitcase Nuke than to offend someone by choosing them for a few extra questions.
How Inhumane, and so much reminiscent of Hitler and Stalin, right?

8/05/2005 08:23:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

...meanwhile Tony Blair speaks like people did in WWII:
If you're not on our side, you don't belong here!
Way too simple for us sophisticates across the pond.

8/05/2005 08:25:00 PM  
Blogger Karridine said...

I LOVE IT!

The OODA Loop strikes again! America and the West is winning PRECISELY BECAUSE of Western values of self-reliance, education and INTELLIGENCE.

Without training (almost ALL of Islamic madrassas are exclusively ROTE memorization!) they're shackled to rote responses, occasionally winning a small encounter, but only on the way to ever more egregious death, capture and confrontation with REALITY!

"It is incumbent on all to independently investigate the truth." "The Best-Beloved of all things in My sight is Justice. Turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me. By its light thou shalt know of thine own knowing, and not through the knowledge of others..."
Baha'u'llah, the Glory of God

8/05/2005 09:13:00 PM  
Blogger Wild Bill said...

I just wonder if the presence of Coalition forces up and down the Syrian border will draw more Syrian troops to their side of the fence ?? If more forces are on the other side of the fence, and arhabi and munitions still pour over the border, dont you think Coalition forces would go over the border and clear the area ?? Is Quick Silver an operation to put added pressure on Syria to stop infiltrations, or is it to make them show their hand that is supporting infiltrations?? I think its all going to depend on force strength.. If it goes very far above the 2000 (est. now) that this could be the start of some serious shit.. If the number drops, it could have been a diversion to send more forces to the Iranian border area.. Remember the "Hail Mary" of Gen. Stormin's in GW I ?? A right jab, then a quick left hook !! Works for me ..

8/05/2005 09:46:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

I just cannot believe that Baby Assad is in charge of ANYthing in Syria. The man has no chin, for God's sake! So I keep looking for some kind of smoke signal or rift or something about who is actually doing what there.

Without being an expert on anything and simply because of my chinless prejudice, I would have to believe that his father's cohorts and/or the current military and/or whatever radical Islamists that Syria has homegrown are responsible for sending insurgents across the border.

The protestations and whines about how much they're doing to prevent the infiltration strike me as coming from Baby Assad, who I'll betcha doesn't have a clue as to what his military and/or religious types are up to. Or maybe he's trying really really hard to remain clueless on the grounds that curiosity killed the cat.

Finally, I have to believe that there's some heavy-duty budget-cutting going on there since they've been evicted from Lebanon. I wonder how much Syria was getting under the table from Saddam, too. So Syria *might* be funneling insurgents through and being paid for their cooperation by Our Friends the Saudis, who are being increasingly shut down in their "charitable" efforts elsewhere around the world.

Finally -- what happened to all those lovely Weapons of Mass Destruction that Saddam ferried into Syria in the weeks leading up to the invasion while we were in an enforced waltz with the French at the UN? Shouldn't we be expecting an earth-shattering Ka-Boom! from the direction of Damascus one of these days?

8/05/2005 11:29:00 PM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

I think that Assad is doing whatever he thinks he needs to to stay in power. Up to this point, he is more worried about the Islamic groups and his generals than about the U.S.

8/05/2005 11:33:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Some Bombs Used in Iraq Are Made in Iran, U.S. Says .
Well, isn't that special?
If it were up to me, the Air Force and Navy would be getting some assignments, but what do I know?

8/06/2005 03:35:00 AM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

Wretchard,

Elaborate on your ROK comment, that seems worthy of a full blog in itself.

8/06/2005 06:22:00 AM  
Blogger ledger said...

Doug said...

So why not have Sadr just mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again?

This is one of the times I have to agree with you. Sadr is nothing but a mobster cloaked in a robe. He has caused many American deaths. He should have been nutrailzed long ago.

8/06/2005 07:06:00 AM  
Blogger Tony said...

Seconding Marcus Arelius - Yes please, Wretchard, let's hear more about Iraq as a long-term bulwark in the face of surrounding, powerful, seemingly irresistible enemies.

I've suggest Berlin as the fifty-year model, but I'll buy SoKo. Imagine an economic dynamo arising in the Mideast, where right now there is only one world-class economic power - Israel. Compare Taiwan (and the former Hong Kong) to PRC, compare SoKo to NoKo, if a future free Iraq succeeded as these examples have, perhaps the medieval lure of sharia will fade.

Then again, isn't our Constitution based on our spiritual and philosophical heritage? Japan got to keep their Emperor and Shinto and Buddhism. We can not become this terrified of Islam in general that we fear the very mention of the Koran. This is not a war of civilizations, but it is a world war.

Finally, among all these calls for "going into Syria" ... don't we all assume we've been "in Syria" (and Iran) all along? As many have suggested, the generals most likely know what they are doing. Perhaps we are seeing a nascent DMZ, the quiet establishment of unnamed free fire zones.

I can only imagine the mortal fear the dictators of Syria, Iran and the rest must feel with two new Western concentrations of power growing precisely in what used to be two of the most fervent bases of Islamic terrorism only four years ago - Afghanistan and Iraq.

In a way, the wacky lefties are right - we ARE causing terrorism in Iraq. Our enemies are fighting back. That's not a surprise. Y'gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelet.

8/06/2005 10:09:00 AM  
Blogger al fin said...

The arab people suffer from low intelligence, statistically speaking. Persians and Kurds are less afflicted, but are still not up to European or East Asian levels.

Islam is not generally a religion for the intellectually gifted, not in these times. You must check your brain at the entrance to the mosque if you wish to get along with most co-religionists.

That is why the physicians, engineers, and other educated muslims who go over to the dark side of islamism are so rare. When they die they leave a huge void, much larger than the death of such a professional leaves in the western world.

This scourge of intelligent islamists who rush to martyrdom represents an irreplaceable asset of Islam that is being thrown away. Very much like the deaths of educated blacks in sub-Saharan Africa. The waste is profound.

In ancient times Baghdad welcomed top intellectuals, scientists, mathematicians, poets, and other gifted individuals from all over the known world. Perhaps that will be the case again, if the Iraqi constitution can avoid being drowned by Islam.

8/06/2005 03:36:00 PM  
Blogger Abakan said...

Doug said,

"So why not have Sadr just mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again?"

It would be far more effective to force him to play our game by our rules as a human being, than to kill him and make him a powerful idea.

8/06/2005 08:55:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

aba,
But so far, with Iranian backing, he owns the Basra Police that the Brits and us armed.
Did you read the Vincent Posts?

8/06/2005 09:34:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

...the Police that have an assasination team that goes out frequently to enforce Islamic Standards:
Kill the Prostitutes,
Kill the honest Journalist,
Kill the "wayward" wife,
etc
This ain't exactly what we had planned!

8/06/2005 09:36:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

All I can say, Allah help us if Sistani dies.

8/06/2005 09:42:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

We can make it a reality TV show, put him on a vegetarian diet and send him Jane Fonda work out tapes. Does he smoke cigars? If the bad guys can have the indestructable and immortal Castro we can have Sistani...right? Please?

8/06/2005 09:46:00 PM  
Blogger Abakan said...

Doug said,
"aba,
But so far, with Iranian backing, he owns the Basra Police that the Brits and us armed.
Did you read the Vincent Posts?"

If that is all he has at this point then he doesn't have very much.
In the end he will still be a small player in a large game.

8/06/2005 10:35:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

wrt only havingg Basra, that's what I don't know, do know the Brits always bragged about how much kinder and gentler they were than US Forces.
...a little too kind in Basra, it turns out.

8/06/2005 11:34:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

goug
It is not that the people of NYC have forgotten, far from it.
They go on with their daily lives because they are not consumed by fear of another attack.
They are not afraid of 'suitcase nukes, no more than they were afraid of Soviet ICBMs.
If these 'suitcase nukes' really exist and were in the hands of UBL, we'd know it, there would be a small mushroom cloud to indicate where it had gone off.

8/07/2005 09:40:00 AM  
Blogger Gene Felder said...

I always love your “Speculation Alerts” and hope you are right that a “possible reason why this operation has been kept low key, despite its size, is that it may be literally ripping up the insurgent base of support along the upper Euphrates.

But how could six U.S. snipers get killed? What a loss! I would think the insurgents take as much joy killing snipers as infantrymen do when they overrun an artillery battery.

Even in 1st Battle of Fallujah, U.S. snipers were very potent.
“The Marines believe their snipers have killed hundreds of insurgents, though
that figure alone does not accurately portray the significance of sniping. A
sign on the wall of sniper school at Camp Pendleton displays a Chinese
proverb: ‘Kill One Man, Terrorize a Thousand’.” By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times April 17, 2004 at
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/287940.shtml

Tony Snow filled in for Fred Barnes on Fox News “Beltway Boys” and mentioned “Iraq Index” by the liberal Brookings Institution at
http://www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/fp/saban/iraq/index20050714.pdf

Is it correct? If so, lots of progress see “Facts from Iraq” at http://felderlaguna.blogspot.com/

Gene Felder

8/07/2005 07:00:00 PM  

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