THE WAR HAS BEGUN

[Syanide]

The war has now begun as i speak the allies are bombing major iraqui denfences the time being 23:20 (uk GMT), this is before the 48 hour deadline has ended. No troops have enterd baghdad as yet (all 280,000 of them), but will enter shortly. PLZ can peopl update this post with recent news becuase i will miss bits out http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Irs2k3]

^^^^^^^^^^^
C&C:Generals http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Syanide]

20th march - 2 S.C.U.D missles have been fired at allied forces but were intercepted by allied patriot missles, one fell near an allied base and no-one was hurt.

people in base are now wearing biological suits.

protest tomorrow in london http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/devil.gif

[Bucky]

First ground engagement:
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Kifner is traveling with the U.S. 1st Marine Division, which engaged Iraqi troops south of the Iraqi border in Kuwait, in what is believed to be the first ground combat of the war.

He said the Marines encountered two Iraqi armored personnel carriers and destroyed them.
[/b][/quote]
Link (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/20/sprj.irq.war.main/index.html)

In other news: there was an anti-war demonstration in downtown Cincinnati today. The 3 (three) protestors were fined when they refused to leave when their permit expired.

[Bucky]

Looks like things are starting to happen fast over there.

The Pentagon has confirmed that US Marines have crossed the border and are now in Iraq.

There are also reports of "intense" air and artillery attacks into Southern Iraq, and reporters in Baghdad report several large explosions there.

It sounds like this is the big attack they have been talking about.

[Syanide]

UPDATE: the S.C.U.D missles might not be SCUD missles iraq have denied they have any and they could be old russion missles that are less powerfull.

US says that an bio/chemical attack is imminent (they&#39;ve been saying this all along).

[Syanide]

Tomahawk Cruise Missles bombardment over baghdad &#39;Target- sadaams family house&#39;, it is beleives that his sons were in the building.

sadaam is beleives to be dead, but he has so many doubles US government isnt sure weather he is still alive.

second raid last night.

[Irs2k3]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Wich Sadam, because there is at least 4 of SADAMS http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif

[Ah.. the power of lead]

THE DOUBLES ARE COMING RUN&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33; http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif

[Irs2k3]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Wait for me &#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33; http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif

[Syanide]

This just in&#33;&#33;, sadaam hissainwas caught in a field tending to some sheep in his defence he says "I have never seen theis creature before, I was just testing it out"

[Syanide]

Sadaam beleived to be alive and well, US and UK belkeive he has Weopons of mass Destruction and Tony Blair says he will not stop fighting until Sadaam Hussain is out of iraq.. or beter still dead http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Sarafan Lord]

Blair is taking part in the fighting? WOW&#33; That&#39;s almost as good as the pictures of Bush fighting over at the Onion. I&#39;m glad these valiant men are not just throwing their troops into a war, but actually fighting alongside them. Â*http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

As a sidenote, if Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, shouldn&#39;t he like, you know, use them or something? I mean he IS losing the war, so now would be a great time to throw the kitchen sink into the fray. Or SCUDs loaded with biological toxins. Whichever he feels will inflict the most damage.

As another sidenote, if i was in charge of the US troops, i&#39;d import a couple of SCUDs filled with bio/chem toxins. Just in case Saddam doesn&#39;t have any of those. If it&#39;s revealed that Iraq didn&#39;t have any weapons of mass destruction, well, it would be nice to plant those imports in a suitably remote bunker. Otherwise the ensuing hoopla would make the protests(political and civilian) taking place now seem like a jolly good picknick. Â*http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Syanide]

Even iff the US & UK dont find any W.M.D, they will still pin some on him, and id put a bet on that (if it could be proved) - The US & UK *allience* would never want to be humiliated infront on the whole world http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Dennis S.]

As all of you I&#39;ve been spending a lot of time watching the so-called "news" about Iraq, which in essence is not a lot of news, as CNN, ABC and most other western broadcasting companies don&#39;t have crews located INSIDE the war fronts on the Iraqi territory, so there&#39;s a lot of void here on actual operations status, realtime losses and such. Also some other things sound pretty much fictitious to me, such as the obviously exagerated Iraqi vs. coalition forces casualty ratio (CNN reporting around 500 Iraqi troops killed in action on Thursday or Friday, I believe while coalition has had 8 or 10 people KIA... Whaddya think are the chances of ANY army in the world in suburban warfire in enemy territory? How about 50:1 in this case? Don&#39;t really think so.) and unsubstantiated reports (Such as stories of Iraqi troops executing civilians attempting to flee towns, which are essentially stories, as there&#39;s no evidence to show any of that - no corpses, no victims crying or anything of that sort.)... At the same time when they (rarely) show what the Iraqi TV has on, it&#39;s just mostly exagerated figures and facts of their own...

So lately I&#39;ve been trying to find some information sources, until a few days ago I&#39;ve found a source of my own, coming from a Russian website, focused solely on the war in Iraq. It has lots of different articles coming form various English, Arabic and Russian sites and newspapers, but the one thing that really caught my attention, were the daily status reports written apparently by a military analyst for Glavnoje Razved Upravlenye or Central Intelleigence Agency (yep, same name as its American counterpart) in English, which is the military intelligence service. He uses live - from the field information collected by Russia&#39;s satellites, as well as radar and radio monitoring facilities (Sidenote: a prominent Russian news site gazeta.ru confirmed after contacting him that he is indeed with the GRU) to write and post his report daily. The facts and numbers he&#39;s providing strike me as accurate, but the thing that really surprised me was that he often has information that CNN, ABC and all report a few hours or days after his report is online. So I was thinking that I&#39;d bring you this daily report for 28/03/03 and let you see what the real data from the war is (the report for 29/03/03 is only available in Russian right now, so I&#39;ll post it as soon as the English version will appear there).


War in Iraq - Russian Military Intel Update, March 28 2003

(Source: http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-ev....lang=en (http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-event_lenta_w.php?archdts=2&sesid=1&userlang=en) )

According to the latest intercepted radio communications, the command of the coalition group of forces near Karabela requested at least 12 more hours to get ready to storm the town. This delay is due to the much heavier losses sustained by the coalition troops during the sand storms then was originally believed. Just the US 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division sustained more than 200 disabled combat vehicles of various types. The 101st Airborne Division reported some 70 helicopters as being disabled. Additionally, the recently delivered reinforcements require rest and time to prepare for combat.

At the same time the US forces have resumed attacks near An-Nasiriya? and An-Najaf? since 0630hrs and are continuously increasing the intensity of these attacks. During the night and early morning of March 28 the Iraqi positions in these areas were subjected to eight aerial assaults by bombers and ground attack aircraft. However, so far the coalition was unable to penetrate the Iraqi defenses.

Also during the early morning the British units begun advancing along the Fao peninsula. Latest radio intercepts from this area show that under a continuous artillery and aerial bombardment the Iraqis have begun to gradually withdraw their forces toward Basra.

First firefights between troops of the US 82nd Airborne Division and the Iraqi forces occurred in northern Iraq in the area of Mosula. At the same time the arrival of up to 1,500 Kurdish troops has been observed in this area. So far it is not clear to which of the many Kurdish political movements these troops belong. Leaders of the largest Kurdish workers party categorically denied participation of their troops. They believe that these may be units of one of the local tribes not controlled by the central authorities of the Kurdish autonomy and "ready to fight with anyone" for money.

According to verified information, during the past 48 hours of the Iraqi counterattacks the coalition forces sustained the following losses: up to 30 killed, over 110 wounded and 20 missing in action; up to 30 combat vehicles lost or disabled, including at least 8 tanks and 2 self-propelled artillery systems, 2 helicopters and 2 unmanned aerial vehicles were lost in combat. Iraqi losses are around 300 killed, up to 800 wounded, 200 captured and up to 100 combat vehicles 25 of which were tanks. Most of the Iraqi losses were sustained due to the artillery fire and aerial bombardment that resumed by the evening of March 27.

First conclusions can be drawn from the war

The first week of the war surprised a number of military analysts and experts. The war in Iraq uncovered a range of problems previously left without a serious discussion and disproved several resilient myths.

The first myth is about the precision-guided weapons as the determining factor in modern warfare, weapons that allow to achieve strategic superiority without direct contact with the enemy. On the one hand we have the fact that during the past 13 years the wars were won by the United States with minimum losses and, in essence, primarily through the use of aviation. At the same time, however, the US military command was stubborn in ignoring that the decisive factor in all these wars was not the military defeat of the resisting armies but political isolation coupled with strong diplomatic pressure on the enemy&#39;s political leadership. It was the creation of international coalitions against Iraq in 1991, against Yugoslavia in 1999 and against Afghanistan in 2001 that ensured the military success.

The American command preferred not to notice the obvious military failures during expeditions to Granada, Libya and Somalia, discounting them as "local operations" not deserving much attention.

Today we can see that in itself massed use of strategic and tactical precision-guided weapons did not provide the US with a strategic advantage. Despite the mass use of the most sophisticated weapons the Americans have so far failed to disrupt Iraqi command and control infrastructure, communication networks, top Iraqi military and political leadership, Iraqi air defenses. At the same time the US precision-guided weapons arsenal has been reduced by about 25%.

The only significant advantage of the precision-guided weapons is the capability to avoid massive casualties among the civilians in densely populated areas.

What we have is an obvious discrepancy between the ability to locate and attack a target with precision-guided weapons and the power of this weapon, which is not sufficient to reliably destroy a protected target.

On the other hand, precision-guided munitions demonstrated their superiority over conventional munitions on the battlefield. The ability to attack targets at long ranges with the first shot is the deciding factor in the American superiority in land battles.

The second myth disproved by this war is the myth propagated by the proponents of the "hi-tech" war, who believe in the superiority of the most modern weapons and inability of older-generation weapons to counteract the latest systems. Today the technological gap between the Iraqi weapons and those of the coalition has reached 25-30 years, which corresponds to two "generations" in weapons design. The primary Iraqi weapons correspond to the level of the early 1970s. Since that time the Americans, on the other hand, have launched at least two major rearmament efforts: the "75-83 program" and the "90-97 program". Moreover, currently the US is in the middle of another major modernization and rearmament program that will continue for the next five years. Despite of this obvious gap, Iraqi resistance has already been publicly qualified by the US as "fierce and resilient". Analysts believe that the correlation of losses is entirely acceptable to the Iraqis and they the analysts do not see any strategic coalition advantage in this war. Once again this proves that success in modern warfare is achieved not so much through technological superiority but primarily through training, competent command and resilience of the troops. Under such conditions even relatively old weapons can inflict heavy losses on a technologically-superior enemy.
.

[Dennis S.]

Two enormous mistakes made by the US command during the planning stages of this war resulted in the obvious strategic failure. The US has underestimated the enemy. Despite the unique ability to conduct reconnaissance against the Iraqi military infrastructure through a wide network of agents implanted with the international teams of weapons inspectors, despite of unlimited air dominance the US military command has failed to adequately evaluate combat readiness of the Iraqi army and its technical capabilities; the US has failed to correctly asses the social and political situation in Iraq and in the world in general. These failures led to entirely inadequate military and political decisions:

The coalition force was clearly insufficient for a such a large-scale operation. The number of deployed troops was at least 40% short of the required levels. This is the reason why today, after nine days of war, the US is forced to resort to emergency redeployment of more than 100,000 troops from the US territory and from Europe. This, in essence, is the same number of troops already fighting in Iraq.

The buildup and distribution of the coalition forces have been conducted with gross neglect of all basic rules of combat. All troops were massed in one small area, which led to five days of non-stop fighting to widen this area. The initial attack begun without any significant aerial or artillery preparation and almost immediately this resulted in reduced rate of advance and heated positional battles.

Today we can see that the US advance is characterized by disorganized and "impulsive" actions. The troops are simply trying to find weak spots in the Iraqi defenses and break through them until they hit the next ambush or the next line of defense.

Not a single goal set before the coalition forces was met on time.

During the nine days of the war the coalition has failed:

- to divide Iraq in half along the An-Nasiriya? - Al-Ammara? line,
- to surround and to destroy the Iraqi group of forces at Basra,
- to create an attack group between the Tigris and the Euphrates with a front toward Baghdad,
- to disrupt Iraq&#39;s military and political control, to disorganize Iraq&#39;s forces and to destroy the main Iraqi attack forces.

A whole range of problems that require their own solutions was uncovered directly on the battlefield. Thus, combat in Iraq raised serious concerns about the problem of coordination between units from different services. Limited decision-making time and the ability to detect and to engage an enemy at a great distance make "friendly fire" one of the most serious problems of modern warfare. For now the coalition has no adequate solution to this problem. At one location or another every day of this war the coalition troops were attacking friendly forces.

The second problem of the coalition is its inability to hold on to the captured territory. For the first time since the war in Vietnam the Americans have to deal with a partisan movement and with attacks against their the US lines of communication. Currently the coalition is rushing to form some sort of territorial defense units for guarding its supply lines and for maintaining order in the occupied territories.

A range of technical problems with equipment has been revealed during the combat operations. Most operators of the M1A2? Abrams main battle tank agree that the tank was inadequate for performing the set combat tasks. The primary problem is the extremely low reliability of the tank&#39;s engine and its transmission in desert conditions. Heat from the sun, hot sand and the constantly present hot dust in the air nearly nullified the advantages offered by the turret-mounted thermal sights. Visibility range of these sights did not exceed 300 meters during movement in convoy and reached up to 700-800 meters during stops. Only during cold nights did the visibility range reach 1000-1,500 meters. Additionally, a large number of thermal sights and other electronics simply broke down. The tiny crystalline sand particles caused electrical power surges and disabled electronic equipment.

This was the reason for the decision by the coalition command to stop movement of troops at night when a contact with the enemy was deemed likely.

The main strong side of the coalition forces was the wide availability of modern reconnaissance and communication systems that allowed to detect the enemy at long ranges and to quickly suppress the enemy with well-coordinated actions of different types of available forces.

In general the US soldiers showed sufficiently high combat resilience. Even in the extremely difficult weather conditions the troops maintained control structure and adequately interpreted the situation. Combat spirit remained high. The majority of troops remain confident in their abilities, while maintaining belief in the superiority of their weapons and maintaining reasonable confidence in the way the war is being fought.

It should be noted, however, that the way the war is being fought did create a certain sense of disappointment in most of the troops. Many are feeling that they&#39;ve been lied to and are openly talking about the stupidity of the high command and its gross miscalculations. "Those star-covered Pentagon idiots promised us a victory march and flowers on the armor. What we got instead were those damned fanatics fighting for every dune and the sand squeaking in your ass&#33;" said one of the wounded recuperating at a hospital in Rammstein. Reverse translation from Russian

Nevertheless, despite of the sand storms the terrain favors the coalition actions by allowing it to employ their entire arsenal of weapons at the greatest possible range, which makes it difficult for the Iraqis to conduct combat operations outside of populated areas.

Overestimating the abilities of its airborne forces was a weak side of the coalition. Plans for a wide-scale use of helicopters as an independent force did not materialize. All attempts by the US command to organize aerial and ground operations through exclusive use of airborne forces have failed. Because of these failures by the end of the fourth day of the war all airborne units were distributed across the coalition units and used by the attacking forces for reconnaissance, fire support, and for containing the enemy. The main burden of combat was carried by the "heavy" mechanized infantry and tank units.

Another serious drawback in the coalition planning was the exceptionally weak protection in the rear of the advancing forces. This resulted in constant interruptions in fuel supply. Tank units sometimes spent up to 6 hours standing still with empty fuel tanks, in essence, being targets for the Iraqis. Throughout the war delivery of food, ammunition and fuel remains a headache for the US commanders.

Among the US soldiers there has been a wide-scale discontent with the quality of the new combat rations. Servicemen are openly calling these rations "shitty." Many soldier just take the biscuits and the sweets and discard the rest of the ration. Commanders of the combat units are demanding from the coalition command to immediately provide the troops with hot food and to review the entire contents of the combat ration.

Among the strong sides of the Iraqi troops are their excellent knowledge of the terrain, high quality of defensive engineering work, their ability to conceal their main attack forces and their resilience and determination in defense. The Iraqis have shown good organization in their command and communication structures as well as decisive and and well-planned strategy.

Among the drawbacks of the Iraqi forces is the bureaucratic inflexibility of their command, when all decisions are being made only at the highest levels. Their top commanders also tend to stick to standard "template" maneuvers and there is insufficient coordination among the different types of forces.

At the same time commanders of the Iraqi special operations forces are making good use of the available troops and weapons to conduct operations behind the front lines of the enemy. They use concealment, show cunning and imagination.

The first strategic lessons of the war

Lessons of the war in Iraq are discussed here with a focus on a possible similar war between Russia and the US

The main of such lessons is the ever-increasing significance of troop concealment as one of the primary methods of combat. Concealment and strict adherence to the requirements for secrecy and security become strategic goals of the defending forces in the view of the US reliance and that of its allies on precision-guided weapons, electronic and optical reconnaissance as well as due to their use of tactical weapons at the maximum possible range afforded by these reconnaissance methods. Importance of concealment is being seen in Iraq and was clearly demonstrated in Yugoslavia, where the Yugoslav Army preserved nearly 98% of its assets despite the three months of bombing. Within our Russian/European battle theater concealment methods will offer us the Russian army an enormous advantage over the US.

The second lesson of this war is the strategic role of the air defenses in modern warfare as the most important service of the armed forces. Only the complete air dominance of the coalition allows it to continue its advance toward Baghdad and to achieve the critical advantage in any engagement. Even the short interruption in air support caused by the sand storms put the US and British troops in a very difficult situation.

Elimination of the air defenses as a separate service branch of the Russian Armed Forces and its gradual dissipation in the Air Force can be called nothing else but a "crime". [This statement refers to the recent unification of the Russian Air Force (VVS) and the Air Defense Force (PVO) and the secondary role of the air defense force within this new structure.]

The third lesson of the war is the growing importance of combat reconnaissance and increased availability of anti-tank weapons capable of engaging the enemy at maximum range. There is a requirement on the battlefield for a new weapon system for small units that would allow for detection of the enemy at maximum distance during day or night; for effective engagement of modern tanks at a range of 800-1000 meters; for engagement of enemy infantry at a range of 300-500 meters even with the modern personal protection equipment possessed by the infantry

[Dennis S.]

War in Iraq - Russian Military Intel Update, March 29 2003

(Source: http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-re....sesid=2 (http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=1069&sesid=2) )


During the past day the situation on the US-Iraqi front remained largely unchanged. The US is continuing reinforcing the attack group near Karabela for a thrust toward Baghdad. By the morning of March 29 up to 20,000 coalition troops were massed in the area of Karabela. This forces includes up to 200 tanks, 150 artillery systems and more than 250 helicopters. The order for the attack will be given by the coalition commander Gen. Tommy Franks, who, according to intercepted radio communications, will personally inspect the troops during the next several hours.

Around 1900hrs yesterday an Apache attack helicopter crashed. Intercepted radio communications show that the helicopter was heavily damaged in a combat mission. The helicopter&#39;s pilot lost control during landing and the helicopter crashed, causing serious damage to another helicopter that landed earlier.

The coalition troops have so far failed to take An-Nasiriya? despite of the categorical orders from the command and more than 800 combat missions by the strike aircraft. All attempts to break through the Iraqi defense were met by Iraqi counterattacks. After 24 hours of fighting the coalition troops only managed to advance several hundred meters in two sectors near An-Nasiriya? at the cost of 4 destroyed armored personnel carriers, no less that 3 Marines killed by sniper and mortar fire, 10 wounded and 2 missing in action. The exact Iraqi losses are being determined.

The Americans have also failed to advance near An-Najaf?. Every coalition attack was met by massive artillery barrages from the Iraqi side. Later during the day the Iraqis mounted a counterattack throwing the US forces back by 1.5-2 kilometers. No fewer than 10 Marines were killed or wounded. After exchanging fire for six hours both warring sides remained in the same positions. Iraqi losses in this area are estimated to be 20 killed and up to 40 wounded.

Near Basra the British troops pushed the Iraqi defense lines on the Fao peninsula but were unable to capture the entire peninsula. The British advance was a maximum of 4 kilometers from the highway leading to Basra. Radio intercepts show that in this attack the Iraqis shot down a British helicopter. Additionally, two tanks and one APCs were destroyed by landmines. At least 2 British servicemen were killed, around 20 were wounded and 15 were captured by the Iraqis.

Exchange of fire continued in the area of the Basra airport. The Iraqis destroyed one coalition APC wounding two coalition soldiers. The Iraqi losses are difficult to estimate, but available information suggests that up to 20 Iraqi soldiers and local militia members might have been killed in the air and artillery strikes.

All attempts by the British troops to break through the Iraqi defenses from the south along the Al-Arab? river have yielded not results. The British command reported that it is unable to storm Basra with the available forces and will require no less than two additional brigades and at least five additional artillery battalions. Thus, to avoid further casualties the British are adopting defensive tactics, while trying to maintain a tight blockade around Basra and trying to improve their positions with small localized attacks. The British are also maintaining pressure on the Iraqi positions on the Fao peninsula.

The psychological levels among the city&#39;s residents, according to interviews, is far from critical. The Iraqi military made several public announcements to the residents offering them a chance to leave the city. However, most of the residents do not want to leave, fearing the faith of the Palestinian refugees, who, after losing their homes, gained pariah status in the Arab world. Basra&#39;s residents were extremely depressed by the video footage aired by the coalition command showing Iraqis on the occupied territories fighting for food and water being distributed by the coalition soldiers. The city&#39;s population views this as a sample of what awaits them if the Americans come...

At the Al-Kuwait? airport the unloading of the 4th Mechanized Infantry Division is continuing and is expected to be completed by the night of April 1. During a night flight one of the US military transport aircraft requested an emergency landing. What happened to the plane is still being determined.

Currently the coalition command is deciding how better use the 4th Infantry Division. The complete deployment of the division and preparations for combat are expected to take at least 10 days. However, the combat units require immediate reinforcements and it is possible that the [4th Infantry} Division will be joining combat in stages, as the units become ready. This will mean a considerable reduction of the Division&#39;s combat effectiveness.

A report was obtained, prepared by the Al-Kuwait-based? coalition Psychological Operations Tactical Group for the coalition Special Ground Forces Command. The report analyzed the effectiveness of the information and propaganda war. According to the report, analysis of the television broadcasts, intercepted radio communications, interrogations of Iraqi POWs show that psychologically the Iraqis are now "more stable and confident" that they were during the last days before the war. This, according to the report, is due primarily to the coalition&#39;s numerous military failures.

"...Following nervousness and depression of the Iraqis during the first days of the war we can now observe a burst of patriotic and nationalistic feelings. ...There has been a sharp increase in the number of Iraqi refugees, who left the country before the war, returning to Iraq. A "cult of war" against the US and the UK is now emerging among the Iraqis...", the report states. Reverse translation from Russian&

Coalition analysts believe that if this attitude of the Iraqis is not changed within the next 7 days, a "resistance ideology" may take over the Iraqi minds, making the final coalition victory even more difficult. In response to this report the US Army Psychological Operations command decided to combine all Iraqi POWs into large groups and to distribute the resulting video footage to the world media. A more active use of the Iraqi opposition was suggested for propaganda work in the occupied villages. The same opposition members will be used to create video footage of the "repented" Iraqi POWs and footage of the local Iraqi population "opposing Saddam."

Radio communications intercepted during the last five days suggest that the coalition is using Israeli airfield for conducting night air strikes against Iraq. Combat aircraft are taking off regularly from the Israeli Hatzerim and the Navatim airbases do not return to the same bases but fly toward the border with Jordan while maintaining complete radio silence.

Possibly these are just Israeli Air Force exercises, However, Russian radio intercept and radar units observe increased intensity of radio communications coming from the Jordanian air force and air defense communication centers during such overflights, as well as changes in the operating modes of the US Army "Patriot" tracking radars deployed in Jordan. This indicates the Israeli airbases as used as forward airfield or that some of the coalition air force units are based there. Normally the IAF F-15I fighter-bombers and A-4N strike aircraft operate from the Hatzerim airbase and the F-16 fighter-bombers operate from the Nevatim base.

Experts believe that these airbases may be used by the F-117 stealth bombers "officially" based at the Al-Udaid? airbase in Qatar. Using these two locations minimizes the risk to the F-117s by allowing them to fly along the left bank of the Euphrates (in the direction of Turkey) and to avoid the dangerous maneuvering over Iraq.

The destruction of the telephone stations in Baghdad did nothing to disrupt the communications of the Iraqi army. The coalition command acknowledged this fact after analyzing the dense Iraqi radio traffic. Because of that the USAF was ordered to employ the most powerful available conventional munitions against predetermined strategic targets. This attacks will be carried out immediately before renewing ground advance.

[Syanide]

wow that report is exelent, thanks alot for that website Dennis S. http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Dennis S.]

Ya&#39;re welcome http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif And yes, it&#39;s no doubt that the reports are written by a real pro... Beats scavenging CNN for information http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

BTW the report for 30/03/03 was already available for the last hour or so, no English translation yet. I&#39;ll see what I can do about translating it into English myself...

[Bucky]

Interesting fiction, but that is all it is, fiction.

This supposed "information" is coming from radio intercepts.
Take a closer look at that.

To get details of battles, they would have to be intercepting short range, tactical radios. Considering that:
1) The Russians aren&#39;t there.
2) Those radios have a range of a few kilometers.. nothing like the power that would be needed to reach Russia.
3) Our radios are VERY secure. We use a process call Frequency skipping. To talk to each other, you have to have radios synched together, so that they are on the same channel. Otherwise, you might hear one transmission, but that would be it.

To get information from transmissions about theater wide stuff, they would have to be intercepting and cracking digitally encrypted satellite radios. Not very likely.

Not to mention, if this stuff was legit, those articles would be pasted on the front page of the BBC, Al Jazeerah, CNN, NBC,....etc. Â*Take a look.. see anything?

Oh yeah, they say we are getting hammered and are incapable of moving forward... then way is 3ID recon elements engaging the Medina division as we speak?

[Bucky]

A great news infomation page. (http://www.drudgereport.com)

[Dennis S.]

Bucky, I don&#39;t think I need to remind you that:

&#33http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif Russia STILL posesses a large amount of radio intercept stations positioned throughout the former Asian republics of USSR, such as Tadjikistan, Kazakhstan, etc... , some of which go as far as bordering Afghanistan. Those are the ones that are OFFICIAL, in addition to that some information points to the possibility of Russian stations being positioned inside Iran, a country to which Russia has supplied (and still supplies) large amounts of weapons and military advisors.
2) As well, the Iranian intelligence service - and that&#39;s a fact - was mainly &#39;brought up&#39; by Russians. Furthermore, even the Iraqi intelligence service is very close to Russia&#39;s - it&#39;s a well known fact that most of their operatives were studying in Russian universities.
3) And well, Russia&#39;s military satellites are still operational, and I&#39;d believe that they&#39;re all focused on Iraq right now.
4) Not only that, but GRU also has OWN operatives in most countries in the world - just like CIA does. So saying that &#39;they&#39;re not there&#39; doesn&#39;t exactly sound logical to me http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
5) Don&#39;t forget that the situation in Iraq is very important to Russians, mainly because of oil prices possibly dropping (and Russia&#39;s economy heavily relies on oil exports), as well as large amounts of contracts and debs from the current Iraqi government to Russia.

Now, about the information not appearing on BBC/CNN/etc... Don&#39;t you think the American administration wouldn&#39;t want this information to appear? I mean just put on Fox where they&#39;re ALREADY talking about the &#39;projected oil prices after Iraq falls&#39;... The focus of the media and journaLists &#39;embedded&#39; into US army (and practically being able to see only what the military wants them to see) is not to accurately portray the picture from the front, but lift up the spirits of the troops / citizens, as well as demoralize Iraq. That&#39;s the only reason you can see such figures as &#39;500 Iraqi KIA in heavy fighting - no American casualties&#39; in the news. Or reports of the ENTIRE 51st Iraqi brigade surrendering (which later on have proved to be FALSE - and were most probably given by American prpaganda department in order to demoralize Iraqis). Um Qasr was reported as being completely secured ONE WEEK AGO. Last reports we&#39;re hearing from THE SAME AGENCIES THAT REPORTED THE ABOVE indicate that there&#39;s STILL resistance and troops positioned inside the town are being attacked every night. I could go on forever with the false or incorrect information we&#39;ve been fed in the last few weeks on the news. Like I said, it&#39;s not objective reporting - it&#39;s mostly half truths or lies.

Of course, if you&#39;ll look into Arab media, such as Al Jazeera (http://english.aljazeera.net) you&#39;ll hear reports that go the other way around, such as thousands of American KIA&#39;s, tenths of vehicles destroyed every day, etc... Doesn&#39;t take a genius to understand that they&#39;re lying as well. The Drudge report essentially combines both of those media positions, but it doesn&#39;t have any own information. So it&#39;s a no-no.


Now, the one reason that I can give you about GRU&#39;s information being true, is for example that information about the additional 100,000 US troops being relocated into the region has appeared in a daily report on that site ONE FULL DAY before CNN et al had that information. Luck? Hardly. Analytical thinking? Maybe. But I&#39;d vote for them actually GETTING the information from a radio intercept or an operative INSIDE the US army.


Ya know, I&#39;ve got a suggestion for ya, I&#39;ll be translating and re-posting the GRU reports right here daily, so you could see the exact post dates and times. Now if you&#39;ll read them here first, and the next day or a few hours later some of the given information will appear on CNN or BBC or whatever, would you be convinced that they&#39;re in fact not fictious?

[Bucky]

If they have such great and reliable info, then explain these "Intel Updates" from 3/22:

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Elements of the US 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Infantry Division ended up in an exceptionally difficult situation. While attempting to encircle Basra from the north and to block An-Nasiriya? elements the 3rd and 1st infantry divisions found themselves wedged between the defending Iraqi forces. The Iraqi command used this situation and delivered a decisive counterattack with up to 80 tanks in the open flank of the US forces, slicing through their combat orders. As the result of this counterattack these US units are now at risk of being separated from the main coalition forces and being surrounded. [/b][/quote]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">By 1100hrs MSK Iraqi units advanced into the US attack front by 10-15 kilometers and Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of the coalition forces, ordered his troops to switch entirely to defensive operations. [/b][/quote]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Analysts believe that, if during the next 3-5 days Gen. Franks fails to achieve any significant results, than it is entirely possible that he will be replaced as the commander of the coalition forces. [/b][/quote]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The coalition forces still do not control Umm Qasr and appear to be losing territory.[/b][/quote]

And this from 3/24:
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The Iraqi forces used this opportunity to attack the US flanks with two brigades, breaking the US combat orders and causing panic among the US troops. [/b][/quote]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">According to the intercepted radio traffic, the US forces have sustained up to 40 killed, up to 10 captured and up to 200 wounded during the fighting near An-Nasiriya[/b][/quote]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Several intercepted reports by the US field commanders stated that their troops are unable to advance due to their soldiers being demoralized by the enemy&#39;s fierce resistance and high losses.
[/b][/quote]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Around 2300hrs (MSK, GMT +3) March 23 a British platoon was ambushed by Iraqi Special Forces unit near Basra. Following a powerful initial artillery barrage the Iraqis engaged the British in close combat and destroyed several armored vehicles. After the Iraqis withdrew the British commander reported up to 8 killed, two missing and more than 30 wounded British soldiers. Thus over the 30% of the unit&#39;s troops have been disabled in the attack. [/b][/quote]

This stuff is so much made up fantasy. The numbers quoted are blatantly untrue.. hell, they say we lost 40+ in one battle alone, and that is close to our total casualties to date, 6 days later.

btw.. deployment of 100k from here in the State has been planned for months, and certainly wasn&#39;t any shocking news. I saw it on my local TV news station before CNN announced it. CNN et al. are trying to make this deployment sound like some panicked reaction to the situation over there, when in fact this is a pre-programmed deployment under way.

These are the folks who are going to occupy Iraq and help them rebuild.

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ Mar. 30 2003,19:50)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">[/b][/quote]
With pleasure&#33;

If they have such great and reliable info, then explain these "Intel Updates" from 3/22:

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Elements of the US 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Infantry Division ended up in an exceptionally difficult situation. While attempting to encircle Basra from the north and to block An-Nasiriya? elements the 3rd and 1st infantry divisions found themselves wedged between the defending Iraqi forces. The Iraqi command used this situation and delivered a decisive counterattack with up to 80 tanks in the open flank of the US forces, slicing through their combat orders. As the result of this counterattack these US units are now at risk of being separated from the main coalition forces and being surrounded. [/b][/quote]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">By 1100hrs MSK Iraqi units advanced into the US attack front by 10-15 kilometers and Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of the coalition forces, ordered his troops to switch entirely to defensive operations. [/b][/quote]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/23/sprj.irq.war.main/index.html - 507th Maintenance Company - 5 soldiers Captured in an Iraqi ambush at Nasiriya on March 23, 2003 - number of others dead / MIA. Reported by CNN exactly one day after this report... Coincidence?


</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">By 1100hrs MSK Iraqi units advanced into the US attack front by 10-15 kilometers and Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of the coalition forces, ordered his troops to switch entirely to defensive operations. [/b][/quote]


"EDITOR&#39;S NOTE: CNN&#39;s policy is to not report information that puts operational security at risk. " Explains why you&#39;d never see any news of an Iraqi counterattack with its exact location in the news. At the same time, I read a report in Al Jazeera&#39;s English edition that seemed to have confirmed the Iraqi counterattack on the same date... And there&#39;s a bit like this there... http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/23/otsc.irq.vinci/index.html "Again, a significant number of casualties, more than 10, I would say. And we are still trying to assess the correct number, Bill. "


</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Analysts believe that, if during the next 3-5 days Gen. Franks fails to achieve any significant results, than it is entirely possible that he will be replaced as the commander of the coalition forces. [/b][/quote]

Can&#39;t comment on that for now - you&#39;ll have to wait a few more days to see what&#39;s up. Today&#39;s report (30/03) already available in Russian only confirms that tensions are still rising between Franks and Rumsfield.


</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The coalition forces still do not control Umm Qasr and appear to be losing territory.[/b][/quote]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/23/sprj.irq.umm.qasr/index.html - UMM QASR, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. Marines waged a four-hour firefight with pockets of Iraqi troops in the southern city of Umm Qasr on Sunday, a day after British troops captured the strategically important port. - on the 22nd coalition forces controled only the PORT of this city, counting up to 500,000 population.



And this from 3/24:
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The Iraqi forces used this opportunity to attack the US flanks with two brigades, breaking the US combat orders and causing panic among the US troops. [/b][/quote]


</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">According to the intercepted radio traffic, the US forces have sustained up to 40 killed, up to 10 captured and up to 200 wounded during the fighting near An-Nasiriya[/b][/quote]

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/page2.html - according to the casualties list, a lot of marines from 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment have died near An Nasirya on the 23rd (while others are marked as MIA or POW - the majority of MIA&#39;s is probably dead as you might know). The GRU report summarizes &#39;up to 40 KIA&#39;, which in effect is the data for last 24 hours of fighting, obtained through radio and other intercepts. That data might be preliminary and not final, but it seems that indeed the heaviest casualties were inflicted on the coalition around that time, and around the same place. Also note that the current OFFICIAL CNN report states 59 KIA, 18 MIA and 5 POW as the most up-to-date information. That means more than 80 people lost alltogether. They might still be missing some bits of info tho, right? So &#39;up to 40 KIA&#39; sounds really, really fair to me.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Several intercepted reports by the US field commanders stated that their troops are unable to advance due to their soldiers being demoralized by the enemy&#39;s fierce resistance and high losses.
[/b][/quote]

If you saw even one interview with US&#39;s lower level military commanders on TV (not the ones that are as experienced in the art of propaganda as Franks and Rumsfield), all of them say that the Iraqi resistance was &#39;unexpected&#39; at the least. Certain soldiers speaking on the TV have also suggested that it wasn&#39;t what they were bargaining for. That does draw me to the conclusion that a demoralization element IS there.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Around 2300hrs (MSK, GMT +3) March 23 a British platoon was ambushed by Iraqi Special Forces unit near Basra. Following a powerful initial artillery barrage the Iraqis engaged the British in close combat and destroyed several armored vehicles. After the Iraqis withdrew the British commander reported up to 8 killed, two missing and more than 30 wounded British soldiers. Thus over the 30% of the unit&#39;s troops have been disabled in the attack. [/b][/quote]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/03/25/sprj.irq.basra/index.html - "British troops turned back a "battalion-sized" counterattack by Iraqi forces Tuesday southeast of Basra and destroyed about 20 armored vehicles, a British military spokesman said"


*** SIDENOTE *** : just to show you how full of **** CNN&#39;s reporting really is, here&#39;s a quote from that last article that cracked me up "On Monday, there was 10 hours of fighting between Britain&#39;s 7th Armoured Brigade and Iraqi forces on the outskirts of Basra. There were no British casualties and there was no word from coalition forces on any Iraqi casualties. ". So, hrm.... 10 hours of fighting, Iraqi c"battalion-sized" counterattack, up to 20 destroyed Iraqi vehicles and ---0--- (ZERO?&#33http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif casualties form the side of the brits? No offence to CNN / coalition military command, but only a kid can think that such an attack wouldn&#39;t leave some killed or wounded. So there you have your 8 killed, etc...

==============================================

So... As you might see, while some of the info given by GRU is not 100% accurate, such as EXACT number of casualties, most if not all all those engagements and/or events were reported by CNN, with a slight delay and missing information...



Last edited by Dennis S. at Mar. 30 2003,20:58

[Dennis S.]

War in Iraq - Russian Military Intel Update, March 30 2003

No significant changes have been reported during March 29-30 on the Iraqi-US front. Positional combat, sporadic exchange of fire and active search and reconnaissance operations by both sides continue along the entire line of the front.

American troops continue massing near Karabela. As was mentioned in the previous update, the US group of forces in this area numbers up to 30,000 troops, up to 200 tanks and up to 230 helicopters. Latest photos of this area suggest that the [US] troops are busy servicing and repairing their equipment and setting up the support infrastructure.

According to radio intercepts, the coalition commander Gen. Tommy Franks has visited the US forces near Karabela. He personally inspected the troops and had a meeting with the unit commanders. Currently no information is available about the topics discussed during the meeting. However, it is believed that the [coalition] commander listened to the reports prepared by the field commanders and formulated the main objectives for the next 2-3 days.

The current technical shape of the coalition forces was discussed during the meeting at the coalition central headquarters. During a personal phone conversation with another serviceman in the US one participant of this meeting called this technical state "depressing". According to him "...a third of our equipment can be dragged to a junk yard right now. We are holding up only thanks to the round-the-clock maintenance. The real heroes on the front lines are not the Marines but the "ants" from the repair units. If it wasn&#39;t for them we&#39;d be riding camels by now..." [Reverse-translated from Russian]

Based on the intercepted radio communications, reports from both sides and other intelligence data, since the beginning of the war the coalition lost 15-20 tanks, around 40 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, more than 50 military trucks and up to 10 helicopters. In addition to that there have been at least 40 more disabled tanks, about the same number of disabled APCs and IFVs, about 100 disabled wheeled vehicles of all types and around 40 disabled helicopters. These numbers are based on the analysis of non-classified technical reports received daily by the Pentagon.

During the attack last night up to two US Marine battalions attempted to push the Iraqis out of their defensive positions near An-Najaf. Despite of the preliminary 4-hour-long artillery and aerial bombardment once they approached the Iraqi positions the US troops were met with heavy machine-gun and RPG fire and were forced to return to their original positions. One US tanks was destroyed by a landmine and two APCs were hit during this night attack. Radio intercepts show that 2 Marines were killed and 5 were wounded. The latest attempt by the US troops to improve their positions on the left bank of the Euphrates near An-Nasiriya was also a failure. Despite of all the precautions taken to ensure the tactical surprise the US forces were met with heavy fire and returned to the original positions. According to the reports by the [US] field commanders, three Marines were missing in action and four were wounded in this engagement.

These failed attacked have once again confirmed the fears of the coalition command that the Iraqi forces were much better technically equipped than was believed before the war. In particular, the DIA [US Defense Intelligence Agency] intelligence report from February 2003 insisted that the Iraqi army practically had no night vision equipment except for those systems installed on some tanks and serviceability of even that equipment was questioned. In reality, however, the coalition troops have learned that the Iraqis have an adequate number of night vision surveillance systems and targeting sights even at the squadron level and they know how to properly use this equipment. A particular point of concern [for the coalition] is the fact that most Iraqi night vision systems captured by the coalition are the latest models manufactured in the US and Japan. After analyzing the origins of this equipment the US begun talking about the "Syrian connection". In this regard, the US military experts have analyzed Syria&#39;s weapons imports for the past two years and have concluded that in the future fighting [in Iraq] the coalition troops may have to deal with the latest Russian-made anti-tank systems, latest radars and radio reconnaissance systems resistant to the effects electronic counter measures.

In the same area [An-Najaf] a coalition checkpoint manned by the US Marines was attacked by a suicide bomber - an Iraqi soldier - who detonated a passenger car loaded with explosives next to the US troops. At least 5 of them were killed.

In a closed radio address to the coalition troops the coalition command asked the soldiers to show "patience and restrain" and "not to let loose their emotions and feelings of anger" [Reverse-translated from Russian] The radio address was recorded following an incident in the area of Umm Qasr when, in plain view of the locals, British soldiers executed two Iraqis after finding a submachine-gun in their house; and after a US attack helicopter returning from a combat mission opened cannon fire on a passenger car and its occupants. It was announced [by the coalition] that both of these incidents will be investigated. However, military psychologists believe that these incidents are the result of the troops being subjected to enormous stress; psychologists say that these soldiers require medical treatment.

Near Basra the British forces have completely abandoned offensive operations and switched to positional warfare. Isolated attacks continue in the airport area - still not under full British control - and on the Fao peninsula where the Iraqis continue to hold a large staging area.

According to the British field commanders, the troops are extremely exhausted and are in dare need of rest and reinforcements. Three British soldiers went missing and two more were wounded in this area during the past 24 hours.

A supply convoy of the 3rd Motorized Infantry Division was ambushed last night to the south of An-Nasiriya. In the course of the attack 10 fuel trucks were destroyed, one escorting APC was hit, 8 troops were wounded and 1 is missing. So far it is not known who was behind the attack: the Iraqi army combat reconnaissance units or the partisans operating in this area.

Analysis of the information coming from the combat zone shows a rapid decline in the [coalition&#39;s] contacts with the media and increasing restrictions on all information except for the official reports. For example, since yesterday morning all phone and Internet lines used by the coalition troops to maintain contact with relatives in the US and Europe have been shut down at the division level and below. Not only does this indicate that the coalition command is trying to change the course of the information war, but this also points to a possible upcoming massive coalition attack against the Iraqi forces and an attempt on the part of the [coalition] commanders to prevent any information leaks.

[Russian] analysts believe that all the talk about a "two-week timeout" in the war is nothing more than a disinformation attempt by the coalition. Forces and equipment currently available to the coalition will be sufficient for at least 1-2 weeks of active combat; this is comparable to the duration of a major combat operation. It is likely that such an operation may take place during the next day in the area of Karabela. Goals of this operations have already been discussed in previous reports.

At the same time the coalition is already planning a new large-scale operation that will utilize the new forces currently being deployed to the region. Based on our [Russian] intelligence and that of our allies [Russian] military experts believe that this large-scale operation will be launched from the general vicinity of Karabela and will develop into a wide maneuver around Baghdad from the west ending in the area of the Tartar lake east of Al-Hadid (or east of the Tartar lake at Samarrah). From this point a part of the force will continue advancing toward Saddam Hussein&#39;s home town of Tikrit and from there it will turn toward Baghdad from the north through Samarrah and Baahkuba; meanwhile the rest of the [coalition] force will strike the rears of the Iraqi forces fighting in the north near Kirkuk and Mosul. Such an operation would require up to 60,000 troops, no less than 300 tanks and 200 helicopters. It is believed that such forces can be put together by April 15 and by April 18 they should be ready to attack.

Certain available information points to a serious conflict between the coalition command and the US political and military leadership. The [US] Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld - the main planner and lobbyist of the military operation against Iraq - accuses the coalition command and Gen. Tommy Franks personally of being passive and indecisive, which [in Rumsfeld&#39;s opinion] led to the lengthening of the conflict and the current dead end situation. In his turn Franks in front of his subordinates calls the Secretary of Defense the "old blabbermouth" and an "adventurist" who dragged the army into the war on the most unfavorable terms possible. However, most [US military] officers believe that both military leaders are responsible for the coalition&#39;s military failures. Rumsfeld allowed gross errors during the planning of forces and equipment required for the war, while Franks did not show enough strength to get the right forces and the right training for the troops in this campaign and, in essence, surrendered to the whims of the politicians...

It is entirely possible that the future of this war will see the departure of one of these two commanders. Some reports suggest that Rumsfeld has already proposed to President Bush a change in the coalition command. However, Bush declined this proposal calling it untimely and damaging to the morale of the troops and that of the American people.



Last edited by Dennis S. at Mar. 31 2003,22:15

[Dennis S.]

^^^^^^^

Replaced my translation with the official English one.



Last edited by Dennis S. at Mar. 31 2003,22:14

[Irs2k3]

^^^^^^^^
Dennis, can you tell us how to end this war cause i am feeling that his war will be like no other http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (irs2k3 @ Mar. 31 2003,03:10)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">^^^^^^^^
Dennis, can you tell us how to end this war cause i am feeling that his war will be like no other http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif[/b][/quote]
I highly doubt this war can *end*. Bush, Blair and their administrations put way too much on the &#39;scales&#39;, while Saddam has nothing to lose anymore and is smartly using Islam and &#39;war against occupants&#39; as primary motivational reasons for the war with his people. Expect a long and bloody war I&#39;d say - not only in Iraq but outside of it too.

[Irs2k3]

^^^^^^^^
It will be a long war, no doubt about it http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[Dennis S.]

War in Iraq - Russian Military Intel Update, March 31 2003

(Unofficial ROUGH translation by Babelfish and yours truly, original Russian report is available at http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-re....esid=1) (http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=1234&sesid=1))

On the evening-night of 30-31 March situation on the American/Iraqi front has escalated. All signs are present that coalition troops began a new assault.
In Karbala region, after three-hour artillery strike and several night aviation bombing raids, the coalition troops entered combat with the Iraqi military, while attempting to go around the positions of Iraqis from the east.
Thus far allied attacks were limited to probing the forward edge of Iraqi defenses, while attempting to reveal the density and organization of Iraqi defenses after almost five days of bombings and artillery strikes. There are no reports of wedging into the Iraqi defense in this sector of the front as of yet. In the meantime, morning photographs and data of wireless interception revealed an advance of a large column of American troops around the Razzaza(?) lake. It is not thus far clear what is the target of this march - yield to the town of Er-Ramadyah(?) or a circling maneuver followed by yield to lake crossning (junction?) under the city Al-Falludja(?).
Another column (counting up to 100 vehicles) was noted in the district of the city of Al- Hill, moving in the southeast direction. Currently it is in 30 km from the strategic route Baghdad-Basra. Already in the evening, if they do not meet resistance, advance units can “saddle� this important road.
Thus far there&#39;s no data about casualties from this region.
Under An -Nadjaf(?) attacks of American subdivisions were renewed on the Iraqi positions. American grouping here was intensified, as a minimum, by three battalions of marines transferred from the reserves, and currently Americans are attempting to conquer this key city. From reports of American reconnaissance we know that Iraqi garrison here counts to 3 thousand soldiers and officers, and up to 1500 volunteers and party activists. The arsenal of Iraqis there consists of approximately 30 T -55 and T -62 tanks, up to four batteries of artillery and more than 300 different means of anti-tank equipment / guns. The city is being stormed by 1 division of marines with a total number of up to 6 thousand soldiers and officers, with the support of 80 tanks and 60 artillery guns. Furthermore, air support is provided by 40 helicopters.
American forces thus far did not achieve any noticeable progress against the enemy. Early this morning an American tank was destroyed in a suburb of An -Nadjaf(?). As a minimum two of its crew members were declared KIA.

In An -Nassiriya(?) region active skirmishes continue. American marines thus far did not succeed to expand the bridgehead/beachhead on the left shore of Euphrates(?), occupied seven days ago. The bridge which connects the bridgehead/beachhead with the main forces of coalition is practically destroyed and is shot through by Iraqi snipers, which hold positions in coast blocks of the city. Therefore it is possible to move only small subdivisions equipped with light small arms to the aid of the garrison of bridgehead/beachhead, and only at night. Only within the last night on the bridgehead/beachhead marines lost 2 people KIA and 5 wounded.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the residential sections, which the defending Iraqis occupy, approach close to the water, which gives a great advantage to the defenders who control the river and approaches to it. Now artillery and aviation of allies systematically destroys these blocks, attempting to push Iraqis aside from coast feature.
Data of wireless interception makes it possible to draw the conclusion that the engineer-sapper parts of marines are posed with the problem of directing pontoon crossing up the river from An -Nasiriya(?) and to move up to three battalions of marines and landing force members of 82nd airborne division to the left shore of Euphrates river for organizing an attack into the rear of the garrison of An-Nasiriya(?). The allied command would be prepared to go around other defended crossings through Euphrates river, if not for the fact that the entire engineer-sapper troop composition of grouping proved to be only two field-companies. However, the arrival of new engineer-sapper subdivisions is expected not earlier than the middle of April.

In Basra region, opposition of British marines and Basra garrison continues. Britons by local attacks try to move as close as possible to Basra and to stiffen the blockade, but thus far little was achieved. During night - morning the Englishmen attempted to take the satellite city of Basra, Al -Qasyb(?), located in 7 kilometers to the southeast from Basra and, after advancing to Al- Arab(?) river, cut through Iraqi defense in this region, and cutt off from Basra those detachments defending the Fao peninsula. At 8 A.M a battalion of Englishmen with support of assault vehicles entered the city (Al Qasyb) from the South, but already after an hour they were stopped by heavy fire and requested the aid of artillery and aviation. Now combat for the city continues. In the combat at least 2 British marines have died, 3 soldiers obtained injuries. One APC was burned down.
From the reports of British commanders a minimum of 50 Iraqi troops were killed in combat, while 10 soldiers were taken into captivity.
In the region of the river port of Ez-Zubair, which was declared to be under complete control of coalition troops a week ago, an English military light boat with crew and group of marines aboard was shot at in an ambush. As a minimum 4 British soldiers were killed, 9 people are injured.

Declared yesterday numbers of the losses of coalition appear to be as a minimum late. 57 KIA, acknowledged by the command of coalition are the number of losses suffered by coalition by the morning of 26th March. This was reported in a confidential conversation by one of the leading physicians from the military hospital constructed in El-Kuweit to a correspondent of BBC. “There is an order to recognize the death only of those soldiers, who were delivered to the hospital, those that were identified, brought into appropriate order and were prepared for the sending to the native land.The process of identification, if it is necessary - identification and subsequent required standard embalming oakes a certain time. Sometimes days. But only commanders know, how many troops we lose every today, and you find out about this only one to three days later..� - this conversation was written down by correspondent to his dictaphone film, which was sent to the editorial staff through a wireless phone communication.

According to the data of wireless interception and intra-net information of American hospitals, the number of losses of the coalition comprises to today&#39;s morning of not less than 100 KIA American soldiers and not less than 35 killed Britons. Furthermore, the acknowledged number of soldiers MIA is 22 Americans and 11 Britons, the fate of approximately 400 soldiers is now being refined. The number of injured exceeded 480 people.

Working with the coalition staff American experts studied the hit and destroyed M1A2 tanks and armored carriers. They came to the conclusion that Iraqis undoubtedly have contemporary anti-tank means, capable of striking tanks of all available in coalition modifications, but thus far the application of these means it bears very limited nature. Only three tanks were struck by the controlled weapon, which from the first entry destroyed the targets. Rest were disabled by conventional means. The most common forms of damages are: projectiles of anti-tank guns (of about 40%), impacts of manual grenade throws (25%) and mines (25%). In this case the high effectiveness of antitank artillery was noted. “The high-speed projectiles do not always destroy the tank and its crew, but in 90% of cases the hit targets are rendered inoperable, forcing crew to leave the tank on the field of battle...� - it was said in the report.The report itself was disseminated for studying amongst the commanders of the advancing/attacking units and transmitted to the commanders of the central allied headquarters.

Russian military analysts warn the command of Iraqi army against superfluous optimism. It goes without saying that the coalition army did not succeed to master Iraq by blitzkrieg and destroy its army; it is obvious, that the Americans will stay in Iraq for a while and the military campaign dates clearly slip, but the danger of underestimation of the enemy now appeared before the Iraqi army commandment. As yet there are no reasons to doubt the persistence of Americans, and their resolution to attain the presented goal - the complete military occupation of Iraq.
In reality, in spite of obvious errors and errors of the highest military command of coalition, troops, which were wedged into Iraq preserve high combat efficiency and readiness to battle. The losses, carried in twelve days of combat, although are extremely unhealthy for the pride and impressive for the public opinion, are completely not essential from a military point view. Initiative is also tightly located in the hands of coalition.
Under these conditions promises of a fast victory over the coalition can lead into error friendly forces and population of Iraq and, as a result, lead to demoralization and weakening of the potential of resistance.
According to the estimations of Russian military analysts, a critical period of war for the allies will be a campaign with a duration of more than 90 days, with the condition that at the same time allied forces will lose more than 1000 people KIA. Under these conditions a serious political crisis can not avoided both in the coalition countries and the international community.

[Dennis S.]

^^^^

Bucky, feel free to read this report and let me know what&#39;s wrong with it this time http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Note that it was filed at 18:28 MSK (Moscow time), which means it&#39;s about 9-10 hours dated now, and doesn&#39;t contain the possible latest information.



Last edited by Dennis S. at Mar. 31 2003,22:17

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Dennis S. @ Mar. 30 2003,21:18)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">[/b][/quote]
Bucky, one more interesting point.... The following excerpt was taken from the 30/03 report:

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">and after a US attack helicopter returning from a combat mission opened cannon fire on a passenger car and its occupants. [/b][/quote]

Here&#39;s basically the same thing reported by Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/newsArt....2482588 (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=WSGPZXS2Y2WMOCRBAELCF EY?type=topNews&storyID=2482588) , only a few hours later. So how does a news agency get beaten by some Russians that write &#39;fiction&#39;? http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Bucky]

I&#39;m not going to enter into a point by point debate on the problems with this stuff. You are convinced it is real. I am convinced it&#39;s fake.

Interesting how coalition forces are being hammered on left and right, and being thrown back constantly, and yet have achieved the fastest advance in military history, eh?

Try and tell me that this "news" site is neutral, and justify "Russian Intelligence Sources", which are highly prized national assets, being displayed across the internet?

Somebody has access to the news wire. Nothing very impressive.

[Bucky]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Dennis S. @ Mar. 31 2003,21:33)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Dennis S. @ Mar. 30 2003,21:18)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">[/b][/quote]
Bucky, one more interesting point.... The following excerpt was taken from the 30/03 report:

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">and after a US attack helicopter returning from a combat mission opened cannon fire on a passenger car and its occupants. [/b][/quote]

Here&#39;s basically the same thing reported by Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/newsArt....2482588 (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=WSGPZXS2Y2WMOCRBAELCF EY?type=topNews&storyID=2482588) , only a few hours later. So how does a news agency get beaten by some Russians that write &#39;fiction&#39;? Â*http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif[/b][/quote]
WAITAMINIT&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;

The incident you are referring to occurred 3/31 at 1630 GMT.


It involved a roadblock, not a helicopter. The "Russian Intel" was posted before this incident occured.


ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/Primetime/iraq_checkpoint030331.html)
CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/31/sprj.irq.van.shooting/index.html)

[Irs2k3]

Bucky,

>>Interesting how coalition forces are being hammered on left and right, and being thrown back constantly, and yet have achieved the fastest advance in military history, eh?

Oh yeh, your right.

[Bucky]

Now this is potentially disastrous&#33;

Marines running out of smokes&#33; (http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WAR_DESPERATE_DIPPERS?SITE=OHCIN&SECTION=HOME)

[Syanide]

Why are people stealing my thunder&#33; the war post was for me to post reports, Ah alast i have been spammed by the admins http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

joke guys, great work&#33;

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 01 2003,00:20)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">[/b][/quote]
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Interesting how coalition forces are being hammered on left and right, and being thrown back constantly, and yet have achieved the fastest advance in military history, eh?[/b][/quote]


Actually having anywhere between 2-10 KIA per day (average number taken from the reports - with the exception of larger battles) in a guerilla war AND on foreign soil with its own features can hardly be called &#39;hammered&#39;. My country fought a war similar to this one in Afghanistan in the 80&#39;s. Every day we were getting back anywhere between 10 to 50 &#39;load 200&#39;, so those reported American losses are VERY, VERY acceptable. You don&#39;t hear about your troops being &#39;thrown back&#39; or ANY details about ANY opretations because this info is classified and sensitive, and any American media reporting this can and WILL face serious reprecussions. That&#39;s why all you see on TV live through videophones goes a little something like "Right now we&#39;re in SouthEast part of Iraq, advancing towards Baghdad. I can&#39;t tell you more because operation&#39;s security is at stake". Just see what happened to that NBC reporter guy that drew an approximate route of where his convoy is heading... Also for the argument&#39;s sake, Hitler&#39;s Blitzkrieg of Russia was &#39;slightly&#39; faster, as for the first two weeks of war he advancing at a speed of almost 100km per day. http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif


</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Try and tell me that this "news" site is neutral, and justify "Russian Intelligence Sources", which are highly prized national assets, being displayed across the internet?[/b][/quote]

I cannot comment on the entire site as it contains a lot of clippings from different sources. All I can comment about is the daily reports signed by "Ramzaj" (Name of a Russian operative that &#39;worked&#39; in Nazi corps situated in Japan during WW2. Was caught and executed, but not before he gave out loads and loads of secrets to Russian intelligence, including the exact date of Hitler&#39;s Blitzkrieg on Russia - which Stalin unfortunately didn&#39;t believe... Kind of a symbolic name in this case, I guess.) - which as you might have seen are written in a very professional manner, with a lot of different data and war analysis.

About justifying the appeareance of "highly prized national assets" I&#39;ll just quote a comment left under the English version of his latest report, to clarify the situation:

http://www2.iraqwar.ru/iraq-re....lang=en (http://www2.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=1310&;comments_threshold=0&comments_offset=70&comments_sort_mode=points_desc&comments_maxComments=10&lang=en)

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Re: sorry
by polaria on 01.04.2003 [11http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif6]
A few things about Military Intelligence and how it is processed:

I was amazed at the comment that these �GRU reports� include too many intercepted radio-transfers. That comment only shows one of the common misconceptions on how military communication work and how they are intercepted. US military in the Gulf sends massive numbers of data daily through radiolinks.

Most of the links used have no system to prevent others from listening them with suitable equipment. Even the securing methods used in tactical communication can be circumvented and the messages opened in a matter of hours. Usually this is no problem since most of the tactical data transferred is on something like: �…Turtle 6, turn left. I’ll watch your six…� or �…Turtle 6 low on ammo and fuel. I’m returning to the base…�

Information like this has already lost its tactical value during the few hours it takes to decipher it and so there is no need to use more powerfull (and expensive) systems. The main problem GRU might have in following the US actions on the Gulf is not that of being uncapable of intercepting and opening the radio messages but that of being overwhelmed by the cheer number of intercepted messages. After all, opening the meassage is not enough. You also have to transalate it since very few Americans speak russian on open tactical radio. A regular tank platoon can send hundreds of messages in an hour. Just imagine what the whole coalition army sends…

In addition to intercepting messages and opening them ELINT can also recognize and follow units based on the network their radios form. With the modern analysis-programs counting and indentifying underlying patterns in the network this is actually quite easy. You can also tell a lot about what happens to the unit at any given moment by analyzing the way radios are used. Stationary units do not use radios that much, mobile units use them more and messages tend to be long (directions and chit chat). A unit in battle can be recognized easily as it is sending out huge number of short messages, even a call for air support or artillery fire can be identified without opening the message. It is not very hard to figure out what is happening when an tank platoon first starts to send out a number of short messages followed by a short call to Ai-Support Liason who then transfers the call to a pair of F-16s&#33;

Another matter concerning the authentity of these �GRU reports�. Today I was reading the lates report when a thing hit me: I had read reports written in the similar pattern before&#33; I had even written quite a few. These reports were not written for military leaders or intelligence officers. They were written in a way that enables leading officials in the government to follow what is really happening in the war. Everything fits that pattern. The way language is used, the lack of professional terms and abreviations…

I would say that it is highly likely that these GRU reports are originally written for the Russian foreign services and other Russian governmental organization. In this case the report would be circualted, in various forms, to at least a few thousand people and it would be at most classified, possibly even open for distribution. Just as yourself, what are the chances that the report could end up here on the web site? Stranger things have been known to happen…

�Polaria� (Military Intelligence Officer, Ministry of Interior, Finland)
[/b][/quote]

[Bucky]

US POW rescued http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif (http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WAR_US_POW?SITE=OHCIP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 01 2003,01:06)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">WAITAMINIT&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;

The incident you are referring to occurred 3/31 at 1630 GMT.


It involved a roadblock, not a helicopter. The "Russian Intel" was posted before this incident occured.


ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/Primetime/iraq_checkpoint030331.html)
CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/31/sprj.irq.van.shooting/index.html)[/b][/quote]
As a matter of fact, I&#39;ve read yet another account of what has happened on some English news site (BBC I believe? will try to find the link for you), it said the car in question was actually attacked by an American Bradley armored vehicle. That&#39;s already three versions of same event...

The fact remains that the vehicle WAS shot at, and my source was the first one to report it (it even said that the matter is under investigation - which was later on reported by CNN). As about the time given by CNN - all I can say is they were not on the scene (as neither were present any other reporters) and were using time given by US central command... In such a situation, I believe, some time is given to blocking off the place of the incident, evacuation of dead/wounded, cleaning up of the place and preliminary investigation (which includes questioning of the soldiers involved, any eyewitnesses and the victims - the latter speaking Arabic, mind you) - all that needs to be done before the press gets this information. That&#39;s where the time difference between actual RAW radio intercept of the preliminary report from the scene that was done by GRU and news sources getting and posting this info occurs.

Conclusion? The fact that media sources reported such an incident some time after this report was available, only makes my belief of GRU&#39;s involvement even more solid.

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 01 2003,21:33)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">US POW rescued http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif (http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WAR_US_POW?SITE=OHCIP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)[/b][/quote]
All I can say is kudos to the specop guys. Just wish they&#39;d get the other POWs out as well http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Bucky]

Here is a view of what&#39;s going on that is a response to all of the doom and gloom being mouthed by the media.

This is an interesting essay. (http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030401-055326-1812r)

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Dennis S. @ April 01 2003,21:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 01 2003,21:33)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">US POW rescued http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif (http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WAR_US_POW?SITE=OHCIP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)[/b][/quote][/b][/quote]
Wow&#33; I went to a friend&#39;s place shortly after CNN announced that they saved a POW, and upon arriving I discovered that they&#39;ve rescued Jessica Lynch... By coincidence yesterday I was browsing the POW list on CNN and saw her being listed as well, it also had a photo of her there. When I saw here I just thought to myself "jeez, what the hell is such a cute young girl doing in that hell?" http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif . I mean she&#39;s only 19, doesn&#39;t look too big or muscular and is actually pretty damn cute... http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/WORLD/meast/04/01/sprj.irq.lynch.rescue/vert.lynch.2000.jpg

I really hoped that she&#39;s still alive and that they&#39;ll find her... I guess it was her luck... http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Really kudos once again to the specops... Must&#39;ve been a real complicated job. Let&#39;s hope they&#39;ll be able to get the others too&#33;

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 02 2003,00:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Here is a view of what&#39;s going on that is a response to all of the doom and gloom being mouthed by the media.

This is an interesting essay. (http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030401-055326-1812r)[/b][/quote]
Well, I read the whole editorial. It&#39;s generally well written, but it seems the author isn&#39;t a big military expert or isn&#39;t fully aware of the situation... While most of the stated facts are right, others are incomplete or terribly wrong. Let me quote you a few examples with my comments, I&#39;d of course love to know what you think about the points I&#39;m mentioning.


</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">What should be first said is that this stronger-than-expected Iraqi resistance is still not very strong. It consists of irregular soldiers, generally disguised as civilians, harrying the armored column and picking off the occasional straggler. It manifestly failed to halt the allied advance and, if it delayed that advance slightly, it still failed to prevent the allies from setting a new world record in seizing enemy territory. This falls several notches below the defense of Stalingrad on any scale of heroic resistance. [/b][/quote]

I do not believe that the writer understands the weather and geographic conditions of Iraq... In Iraq in particular or the entire Middle East the warfare tactics are different from any other battlefield in the world. This is due to the simple fact that there is desert everywhere - and there&#39;s no possible way to find reliable cover in it, or build a defence line. e.g.: if anywhere in North America or Europe trees and grass would provide cover for soldiers, various vehicles, guns or batteries, there&#39;s no such thing in Iraq. With America&#39;s satellite technology large groups of soldiers massed out in the desert or bunker / guns positions would be instantly discovered and destroyed by bombs or missiles. That&#39;s why the optimal position for the defending army would be inside an actual city. Now remember that Saddam and his generals all know those basic rules of desert combat, having been involved in quite a few wars until now, and being natives of this region.

Now, why am I saying that? I believe that before the war the total number of Saddam&#39;s army was 370,000 troops (not counting loyal Baath party members of course, and I am sure there are quite a few of those). In the last two weeks of fighting, according to allied commanders themselves, Iraqi might have lost up to 20,000 troops - killed, wounded and taken prisoner. Don&#39;t you think that it&#39;s somewhat suspicious that the coalition troops made such a huge encursion into Iraq and only 20,000 troops were there to show resistance this whole time? Well, that&#39;s because Saddam indeed IS following the rules of desert combat. Most of his troops, especially the elite Republican Guard are massed in cities surrounding Baghdad, and Baghdad itself. By now their defence lines and firing positions must&#39;ve been established - mostly at night, when coalition satellites can&#39;t &#39;see&#39; in a large spectre.

Now, I&#39;d just like you to check and see that An-Nasirya, not the largest city in Iraq and located way to the South from the center of the country - which means cut off from supplies and reinfocements, as well as with all their anti-air means destroyed, wasn&#39;t taken in the last week of fighting. Speaking about Basra, brits aren&#39;t even attempting a large-scaled assault on it, while leaving it under siege. It will probably take a couple of weeks to &#39;clean up&#39; both of the cities &#39;door-to-door&#39; of remaining oppositon forces. Now just add to this the fact that around 300,000 Iraqi troops are massed around Baghdad, where they still control their 5% of Iraqi sky, have well established defences and so on (as a matter of fact Saddam&#39;s air force still appears to be in fact, as it never made one sortie... He&#39;s most probably saving it for the &#39;last decisive battle&#39; in some underground hangars). Well, if you took all that into consideration you might understand how much stronger the resistance WILL be in Baghdad.


The approach to Baghdad, while impressive, was achieved only due to the fact that no large cities were taken in the way (yet) - excluding Umm-Qasr, while of course useless to defend due to the proximity of the main coalition forces. Therefore it wouldn&#39;t be smart to think that the opposition met later on in the war will be the same as the one encountered until now. The real war will begin later - with all the surprises and traps of urban warfare. It is also my belief that when the coalition command HQ said that they&#39;ve encountered "stronger-than-expected resistance", they actually meant that they were surprised by the fact that Iraqi soldiers don&#39;t say "Hey, it&#39;s not my way, I&#39;m gonna lay down my arms and surrender to them" no matter how isolated, outgunned and outnumbered they are, while continue fighting instead - and even try to use disguise, and tricks, to which the term &#39;guerilla warfare&#39; certainly applies. So the conclusion (I know I bored you by now http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif ? Author is unfortunately wrong, and his "This falls several notches below the defense of Stalingrad on any scale of heroic resistance." statement simply doesn&#39;t correspond to the current situation in Iraq (while he obviously proved that he never took the &#39;combat tactics 101&#39; course or thought about such things much at all).



</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">At present, the "Arab street" outside Iraq, that sees the air attacks on Baghdad through the distorting lens of al-Jazeera, seems more likely to harbor resentment and revenge than the city&#39;s inhabitants who know just how precise the targeting has been.[/b][/quote]

This statement is wrong in two parts...

I&#39;ll start with the simple one: no matter how PRECISE the missile strikes are, they do kill civilians. Bypassers and employees of the bombed locations (such as communication centres or Iraqi TV) die from this bombings. Now we can add to this the &#39;human factor&#39;, as it still takes someone to analyze surroundings, enter coordinates and drop bombs - at any of those stages the system might make a mistake and innocent lives will be lost. Finally, add to it the fact that Iraqi still posesses a limited number of GPS jammers (this was proven by coalition&#39;s Tomahawks falling into neighboring coutnries, such as Turkey, Iran and Syria) and the &#39;smart&#39; bombs and rockets might malfunction as a result of an action of a GPS jammer, and fall at a destination which wasn&#39;t intended for bombing (that&#39;s how I&#39;d personally explain the two markets hit by coalition missiles that fell in Baghdad last week - as I hope that those hits weren&#39;t intentional)... More civilian casualties again. I guess you realize they&#39;re inevitable. Now I&#39;m no expert in psychology, but in fact the people that are being attacked are actually likely to "harbor resentment and revenge", in author&#39;s own words. Baghdad was bombed for the last two weeks, a lot of civilians died (around 400 until now, according to Iraq&#39;s ministry of Information), others were injured. The phones are dead and there are problems with electricity and water. That can provoke either civil unrest against current government or antipathy to the &#39;aggressors&#39;, or both. I&#39;d agree with the author that Saddam&#39;s regime is ruthless, so a rebelion against him in Baghdad is unlikely. That leaves the second variant - *RESISTANCE* to *AGGRESSORS*. So naturally I wouldn&#39;t expect coaliton troops entering Baghdad to expect hugs and flowers, if anything its citizens will be organized into militia to support the regular army, or will represent local points of resistance (After all even one guy with an old rifle and a nice shooting position can take out a few advancing troops before being taken out himself). Will that represent a problem for the coalition? Certainly, I would say.

Secondly, I must object to the author&#39;s neglective attitude towards the "Arab street". It&#39;s not just an "Arab street", it&#39;s a common religion, culture and moral values. That&#39;s why only Quatar and Kuwait (who heavily reply on USA) officially supported the action. Right now the "Arab League" prepares a new resolution for the Global Assembly of the UN, which will try to stop the war. Certain agencies report that 4,000 volounteers-martyrs have already assembled in Baghdad - ready to give their lives for Iraq. Here a more complicated issue comes at play - Islam, which basically states that any muslim attacked by a non-muslim MUST be helped. Right now ultra-conservative Islamic religious leaders are already calling for a Jihad - holy war against the non-believers - in the entire muslim world. If the war will go for longer and Al Jazeera will keep showing more photos of bloody Iraqis (I must mention that American propaganda machine can&#39;t do much about it, and is certainly losing the information warrfare battle among the Arabs and certain Europeans - but that&#39;s a different issue), and then even the moderate religious leaders will join the call for Jihad, and then USA will also have to fight like Mubaraq said &#39;100 bin ladens&#39;. Also Syria is helping Iraq with weapons, and as Israeli intelligence reports might be hiding all the restricted for Iraq weapons and possibly Iraqi weapons of mass destruction on own territory - hiding them there from the UN inspections and ready to use them upon request. So what&#39;s the second lesson? No country can underestimate the "Arab street", because it is very, very dangerous.



Hope you didn&#39;t fall asleep while reading this http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Waiting for comments. http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Dennis S.]

War in Iraq - Russian Military Intel Update, April 1 2003

http://www2.iraqwar.ru/iraq-re....lang=en (http://www2.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=1398&lang=en)


As of the morning of April 1 active combat operations continued along the entire US-Iraqi front.

The town of Karabela – one of the key points in the Iraqi defense – is subjected to a continuing artillery barrage. The town outskirts are being attacked by the coalition aviation. However, so far the US forces made no attempts to enter the town. Available information suggests that after evaluating Karabela’s defenses the US command made a decision to delay storming the town. Orders were issued to the coalition troops to move around the town from the east and to take control of the strategic Al-Hillah, Al-Khindiya, and Al-Iskanderiya region. Several largest highways are intersecting in this area, which also contains the three strategic bridges across the Euphrates. Gaining control of this “triangle� will finally open the way for the coalition troops into the valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates and the route to the Babylon-Baghdad highway. Yesterday and today early morning most heated combat continued in this area.

During a night attack the US forces were able to reach the center of Al-Khindiya by 0800hrs and to move to the right bank of the Euphrates. However, their further advance was stopped by heavy fire from the Iraqi positions across the river. Al-Khindiya is being defended by up to 2,000 Iraqi soldiers and militia armed with up to 20 tanks and around 250 anti-tank weapons of various types. During this battle one US soldier was killed, 2 were missing in action and seven were wounded. For now it is impossible to determine the Iraqi losses. Throughout the night the US field commanders have reported at least 100 killed and 30 captured Iraqi soldiers and militia members. However, by morning the number of captured was revised down to less than 15.

The [coalition] effort to capture Al-Hillah was unsuccessful. All attempts by the US troops to enter the town during the night have failed. Every time they were met with heavy Iraqi fire near the town. Intercepted radio communications show that one US APC was destroyed and at least 5 soldiers were killed and wounded.

Fighting is continuing near An-Najaf. The town is currently surrounded from three sides by the US Marines, who are still unable to enter the town. The Iraqi positions are being subjected to artillery and aerial bombardment. No information is available about any losses in this area.

Since 0700hrs reports are coming about large-scale attacks by the US Marines and infantry units against An-Nasiriya. As was previously expected, up to two Marine battalions deployed on the left bank of the river to the north of the town have begun advancing on An-Nasiriya from the north and are now trying to break the Iraqi defenses and to capture this strategic town. More than a hundred of aerial strikes have been delivered against the Iraqi positions [at An-Nasiriya] just during today’s morning. There is a continuing artillery barrage. All this indicates the US Marines are determined to fulfill their orders and take the town. However, so far neither Marines nor the paratroopers were able to widen their staging area or to break through Iraqi defenses. Radio surveillance indicates that during the morning hours of today there were 5 medevac helicopter flights to this area. At least 3 US soldiers were killed.

Another US combat convoy crossed to the left bank of the Euphrates and by today’s morning reached the outskirts of the town of Ash-Shatra located 40 kilometers north of An-Nasiriya. This unit is now engaged in combat. For now there is no additional information about this convoy’s losses or movements.

Localized fighting is continuing near Basra. Throughout the last night and today’s early morning the British forces were making attempt to capture the neighboring villages of As-Zubair and Suk-al-Shujuh, but, despite of overwhelming artillery and aviation support, the British were forced to return to their original positions. During these battles 1 British soldier was killed, 1 is missing and up to 5 were wounded. No information is available about the Iraqi losses. According to the reports by the British, at least 200 Iraqi troops were killed and no less than 50 were captured. However, only under 10 captured Iraqis were delivered to the British camp and only 4 of them were in military uniform. This was reported by one of the US journalist located in this area during a phone conversation with the editor.

Active combat reconnaissance operations by both sides are continuing in the north of Iraq. There have been reports of an attack launched by an Iraqi battalion against the positions of a US combat unit from the 82nd Airborne Division. It was reported that during the night the Iraqis moved around the US position and in the morning attacked the US forces from the rear. A fierce exchange of fire is continuing in this area. The US forces have requested aviation support.

The combat activity of the Kurds supported by the US forces was limited to clearing several areas occupied by its long-time enemy – the militant Islamic group called “Ansar al Islam�, after which the Kurdish units have stopped. Amid calls by the US military for a continuing offensive the Kurdish troops appear to be in no rush to engage the regular troops of the Iraqi army and are more interested in reaping the spoils of war. The Kurdish leadership is not particularly interested in “leading� the advancing forces. Instead they are calling on the US to strengthen the US forces deployed in this area. With at least another 2,000 paratroopers and to “bomb the Iraqis some more.� This indicates that the Kurds are not willing to move their forces too far from the home bases fearing an attack in the back by the Turkish troops. Their fears are reinforced by the continuing assurances by the US to respect Turkey’s territorial integrity. The term “territorial integrity� in this case covers almost 40% of the territory of the current Northern Kurdistan, which has the de facto independence from Turkey and Iraq. It is likely that the Kurdish forces will move forward only after the complete military defeat of the Iraqis, when their desire for the war booty will make them less cautious.

Analysis of the present state of the US-British coalition fighting in Iraq suggests that the current active combat phase will last for about 4-5 days. After that the troops will once again require time for rest, repairs and reinforcement. Most analysts believe that this time the coalition will require more downtime than the last time, when it stopped for just long enough to get resupplied and immediately continued their advance so not to lose the initiative and not to let the enemy come to their senses. The price of putting this “squeeze� on the troops is enormous exhaustion and extensive wear of equipment, which is long overdue for serious scheduled maintenance.

At the same time the fresh forces arriving in Kuwait from Europe and the US will not be able to join the combat before Monday April 7 as deployment of troops is progressing with many delays and is poorly organized. The units that already arrived [in Kuwait] cannot get to their weapons and the weapons already delivered here are sitting here without the troops to which they are assigned.

Because of this the coalition command has ordered the attacking forces to be as aggressive as they can be to use this short time to break the Iraqi defenses along the entire line of the front. The troops are ordered by the end of this operation to advance to the starting positions for the final assault on Baghdad and to begin preparing to take the Iraqi capital. This order is specifically referring to the importance of An-Nasiriya, An-Najaf and the Karabela – Al-Hillah– Al-Iskanderiya “triangle�. These areas will see the most combat action in the upcoming days.

Additionally, we should expect elements of the coalition forces reaching the Amman-Baghdad highway, currently controlled only by small US paratroop and special operations units and to form here in the area of Al-Khabbania the western side of Baghdad’s blockade. The Al-Khabbania region also contains three strategic airfields and large stores of weapons causing serious concern on the part of the coalition.

[ translated by Venik ]

[Irs2k3]

^^^^^^^^^^^
Guys the war hasnt begun yet http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[Syanide]

The war has begun, where have you been Irs, the main war with many troops in iraq has not begun yet but as soon as missles were launched at iraq, that was when it started&#33;

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Syanide @ April 02 2003,18:53)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The war has begun, where have you been Irs, the main war with many troops in iraq has not begun yet but as soon as missles were launched at iraq, that was when it started&#33;[/b][/quote]
I think he means &#39;real war&#39;, Syanide http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Syanide]

oh, that makes more sense http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif , sry Irs, misunderstanding

[Bucky]

To the Iraqi Republican Guard:



















http://www.tm001d6792.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/owned24.jpg

[Irs2k3]

Oh god, Its A honda accord 2.2 EX, damn it Bucky choose another car to crash http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Bucky]

It was a pretty nice car. Bet he gets out of the way next time he see a Hummer coming at him&#33; lol

[Bucky]

WW IV? (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/03/sprj.irq.woolsey.world.war/index.html)

Kinda interesting take on things. Guy is mostly out to sell his speaking engagements with this kind of sensational talk though.

[Sarafan Lord]

Ah, so the French and German troops have finally decided to join the fray? No? So it&#39;s still just the US, the UK and Iraq? Well, those three countries DO make up most of the people and landmass on the Earth so i guess we can still call it WWIV. Â*http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

Christ, who let that monkey out of his cage? Â*http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Bucky]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Sarafan Lord @ April 03 2003,11:27)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Ah, so the French and German troops have finally decided to join the fray? No? So it&#39;s still just the US, the UK and Iraq? Well, those three countries DO make up most of the people and landmass on the Earth so i guess we can still call it WWIV. Â*http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

Christ, who let that monkey out of his cage? Â*http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif[/b][/quote]
Actually, the Germans are finally waking up to the reality of the situation and "hoping that Saddam falls quickly."

I heard the French were trying to find somebody to surrender to. http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[Sarafan Lord]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 03 2003,18:33)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I heard the French were trying to find somebody to surrender to.[/b][/quote]
LOL&#33; That one caught me completely off guard, and my monitor got a nice spray of coffee as a result. Thanks, Bucky&#33; Â*http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Bucky]

Welcome http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Bucky]

For the first time I am very concerned. US forces have overrun Saddam Heussein (sp) airport against almost no opposition, and overall, have been advancing at will.

Republican Guard units are abandoning equipment and running in the face of the mere presence of US troops.

Lights are out in Baghdad, and the Iraqis have closed off all external news agencies.

They are avoiding contact, and are making sure that nobody can see what is coming... sounds like the preperations for a chem attack to me.

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 03 2003,16:45)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">For the first time I am very concerned. US forces have overrun Saddam Heussein (sp) airport against almost no opposition, and overall, have been advancing at will.

Republican Guard units are abandoning equipment and running in the face of the mere presence of US troops.

Lights are out in Baghdad, and the Iraqis have closed off all external news agencies.

They are avoiding contact, and are making sure that nobody can see what is coming... sounds like the preperations for a chem attack to me.[/b][/quote]
Same thoughts here as well, actually. It&#39;s my firm belief that right now the troops headed towards Baghdad are entering a trap... My thoughts are with those guys and girls, and I just hope they&#39;ll be OK - just like the Iraqi civilians.

[Bucky]

Bingo&#33; (http://www.msnbc.com/news/895185.asp?0cv=CA01)

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 04 2003,11:30)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Bingo&#33; (http://www.msnbc.com/news/895185.asp?0cv=CA01)[/b][/quote]
Still says nothing tho. The location of the bio/chem weapons in question isn&#39;t controled by Saddam or Iraqi army; it&#39;s located in the so called &#39;Kurdish Northern Iraq&#39;, so now according to Bush&#39;s logic Kurds should be bombed and eradicated from the face of the planet... No? http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/devil.gif

[Bucky]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Dennis S. @ April 04 2003,11:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 04 2003,11:30)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Bingo&#33; (http://www.msnbc.com/news/895185.asp?0cv=CA01)[/b][/quote]
Still says nothing tho. The location of the bio/chem weapons in question isn&#39;t controled by Saddam or Iraqi army; it&#39;s located in the so called &#39;Kurdish Northern Iraq&#39;, so now according to Bush&#39;s logic Kurds should be bombed and eradicated from the face of the planet... No? Â*http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/devil.gif[/b][/quote]
Oh please&#33;

Inside Iraq and not under Sadam&#39;s control. What are you smoking?

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 04 2003,13:25)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Dennis S. @ April 04 2003,11:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 04 2003,11:30)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Bingo&#33; (http://www.msnbc.com/news/895185.asp?0cv=CA01)[/b][/quote]
Still says nothing tho. The location of the bio/chem weapons in question isn&#39;t controled by Saddam or Iraqi army; it&#39;s located in the so called &#39;Kurdish Northern Iraq&#39;, so now according to Bush&#39;s logic Kurds should be bombed and eradicated from the face of the planet... No? Â*http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/devil.gif[/b][/quote]
Oh please&#33;

Inside Iraq and not under Sadam&#39;s control. What are you smoking?[/b][/quote]
Mostly weed, but that&#39;s besides the point http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Northern part of Iraq (the part where US troops were for the last few weeks - without any firefights) is NOT controled by Iraq since the 1991 war; the so-called America&#39;s Kurdish &#39;allies&#39; occupy this territory (and as it appears now fabricate WMDs there) along with parts of south Eastern Turkish soil - it is their ambition to make an own self-governed country, Kurdistan, in the future there (which Turkey opposes). I could even show you a map of pre-war political and territorial control of Iraq from CNN.com, but you&#39;re probably old enough to find it yourself http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/devil.gif

[Bucky]

You&#39;re forgetting I&#39;m senile http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

The section of Iraq in question is not part of the Kurdish controlled region. It&#39;s an area that the CIA has long said was a terrorist training ground under the protection of Hussein.

Why do you think we blew it up and made a bee-line to it?

[Bucky]

Now this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2919249.stm) is genius&#33;

[Nxs]

And they said military and intelligence shoudnt be used in the same sentence http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 04 2003,20:45)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Now this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2919249.stm) is genius&#33;[/b][/quote]
LOL&#33; I&#39;d hate to be the poor SOB that they&#39;ll drop a tonn of concrete on... Will probably give a whole new spectre of work for identifying &#39;people&#39;. http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Irs2k3]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">And they said military and intelligence shoudnt be used in the same sentence [/b][/quote]

Well You are right NXS, Military Forces IN Kurdish regions Killed yesterday a Group of Journalist and Kurds and Intelligence Members http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (irs2k3 @ April 07 2003,08http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">And they said military and intelligence shoudnt be used in the same sentence [/b][/quote]

Well You are right NXS, Military Forces IN Kurdish regions Killed yesterday a Group of Journalist and Kurds and Intelligence Members &#60;&#33;--emo&http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif[/b][/quote]

Bah, that&#39;s not really military intelligence. Either the specop soldier that gave the coords for airstrike fucked up and called it on himself, or the plane pilot made the mistake. But then again it seems friendly fire happens all the time in Iraq... I&#39;d say by now 2 tanks, 1 APC, 2 planes and a chopper were destroyed in friendly fire accidents (and around 20 soldiers got killed)...

But another recent incident REALLY shocked me tho - US troops shot TWICE at a column of Russian diplomats and journalists leaving from the embassy to Syria, wounding 5 people including Russia&#39;s ambassador to Iraq. Coalition command headquarters were contacted in advance in order to find the safest way from Iraq to Syria and coordinate the passage of the column, knew the exact time when it will pass, and the column itself had clearly visible Russian flags and diplomatic plate numbers on the cars. While making their way to Syrian border American forces shot TWICE at the column; a short time after the Russian column spotted an American armored column again and signaled them to stop as they needed medical assistance. At that point Americans simply didn&#39;t stop and kept going on their way - all of this was reported by journalists that were in the column, and some of which were wounded. Later on M16 bullets were extracted from the bodies of the wounded men...

http://pics.rbc.ru/img/top/2003/04/08/rd_s.jpg

http://pics.rbc.ru/img/top/2003/04/09/amd_160.jpg


Pentagon representatives at first (as usual) denied any involement and blamed it all on Iraqis... A day later they admitted shooting at the Russian column, but claimed that it followed a path different from the one suggested by coalition command. However today Russia&#39;s foreign affairs minister at a press conference INSISTED that the vehicles were following the exact path suggested by coalition forces... Anyone have any ideas about what exactly went wrong and why Pentagon is trying SO HARD to cover it up?


EDIT: On the other hand I do not understand why Russians didn&#39;t send specop troops from Kaskad or any other special forces division specializing in operations in hostile territory to to protect the column... At least that way they could protect the column and return fire, and THEN US would have a hard time covering this incident up, as some dead bodies and burned up vehicles left on the exact passage path of the column wouldn&#39;t give US officials a chance to lie so many times in a row. Also president Putin&#39;s reaction surprised me, to say the least... When China&#39;s embassy in Serbia was bombed in 1999 by NATO forces, Chinese leader slammed down the phone when Clinton called him to apologize, and here Putin is clearly downplaying the incident... wtf is going on.

EDIT #2: Don&#39;t get me wrong, I hold no grudges against the American people or America as a country... As a matter of fact I love you guys&#33; But Bush&#39;s administration&#39;s habit to constantly lie to EVERYONE to cover up their mistakes is something that they deserve to be smacked REALLY hard for. And if we&#39;ll consider that wounding diplomats for unclear reasons by MILITARY FORCES back in the good old days would be classified as an act of WAR, I&#39;d say Bush&#39;s web of lies is growing a bit too big and is getting really annoying at this point. You guys should really consider having a lie detecetor connected to your presidents at all times, just to know if they&#39;re telling the truth (Not to say that Clinton, for example didn&#39;t lie as well - he might have lied about his sexual life, but the way I recall it he never lied on such a &#39;high&#39; international level&#33; ).



Last edited by Dennis S. at April 08 2003,18:06

[Dennis S.]

Also does anyone know where the HECK are Saddam&#39;s 150 war planes that he had before this war started? I didn&#39;t see any news about them being destroyed, and I&#39;m pretty sure Pentagon would let the media know as soon as it&#39;d happen if that was the case...

[Bucky]

Sadam&#39;s airforce was widely dispersed throughout the country. The best guess I have seen is that Sadam was concerned about a mass defection by his air force like in Desert Storm, and knew that anybody that attempted to get into the air in one of those would be committing suicide.

I saw some intel photos of A plane hidden in a cemetary, which of course was targetted and destroyed.

[Dennis S.]

Roger the first part of your theory, it is one of the most plausible indeed... Hiding planes in underground complexes and such sounds like something he would do.

But why not attempt to use even ONE of them until now? I mean the coalition forces are in Baghdad, more and more are massing up every day, and Baghdad will most probably fall in a matter of a week or so... Now would be the optimal time to get all his planes to try and inflict maximum casualties in one last strike, yet he isn&#39;t doing it... I mean, he MUST have some loyal pilots left, judging by the amount of ground troops that are loyal to him... What do you think he&#39;s waiting for?

Also I&#39;ve heard yet another theory on the Russian part of the messageboard of iraqwar.ru, someone said that he thinks Saddam might have given away the planes to Syria or let&#39;s say Iran, in return for *something*... That *something* might include (but not limited to) hiding weapons of mass destruction for him in their countries, or at the end of war give him, his family and surviving top ranked members of the government secret evacuation means and refuge... I think it&#39;s plausible, as it&#39;d at least explain why no WMDs were found in Iraq as of yet - and around 150 (even tho somewhat outdated) planes must be worth a bundle in that region... What do you think?

[Bucky]

Scary&#33;

Only problem I see with that theory: I don&#39;t think he believed he would lose, and that we would never make it into Baghdad.

If he would have understood reality, he would have left Baghdad 2 weeks ago. Then again, maybe he did.

Who knows. I do know that Syria is acting rather salty considering the outcome in Iraq.

[Irs2k3]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Who knows. I do know that Syria is acting rather salty considering the outcome in Iraq.[/b][/quote]

The Question is : IS syria The next target ?

[Bucky]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (irs2k3 @ April 09 2003,04:22)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The Question is : IS syria The next target ?[/b][/quote]
That is going to depend on Syria. Our government has made it pretty damn clear by now that we are deadly serious about eradicating terrorism, so Syria has a very clear decision to make.

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 09 2003,06:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Scary&#33;

Only problem I see with that theory: I don&#39;t think he believed he would lose, and that we would never make it into Baghdad.

If he would have understood reality, he would have left Baghdad 2 weeks ago. Then again, maybe he did.

Who knows. I do know that Syria is acting rather salty considering the outcome in Iraq.[/b][/quote]
Scary indeed. And yep, I believe he did leave Baghdad quite a while ago, that&#39;d explain all their defences failing there. The man that was shown on TV walking amongst the cheering crowd of Iraqis is probably one of his doubles - according to Forsyth that wrote a book about Saddam and his regime, Saddam has up to THREE (&#33;&#33;&#33http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif doubles that he uses for participation in public events, because he&#39;s afraid of being assassinated. Actually, I think that even when (and if) &#39;his&#39; body will be found it&#39;ll be yet another one of his doubles that he&#39;ll use to take the fall for him.

However considering planes, WMDs and other Iraqi &#39;unwanted&#39; stuff possibly being hidden in Syria or Iran - do you think either of those countries would have the guts to openly support Saddam (in a way of letting Saddam use either FROM their territory, or at least attempt to move those thigns to Iraq)? I personally doubt it as both of those countries&#39; armed forces were worse than Iraq&#39;s, and you could see what happened to them...



Last edited by Dennis S. at April 10 2003,01:06

[Bucky]

Personally, I think Sadam is going to got the way of Elvis or Hitler... kind of fade away, with a billion rumors of where he really is.

Regardless, he&#39;s finished.

[Dennis S.]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bucky @ April 10 2003,02:51)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Personally, I think Sadam is going to got the way of Elvis or Hitler... kind of fade away, with a billion rumors of where he really is.

Regardless, he&#39;s finished.[/b][/quote]
Elvis mebbe, but not Hitler http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Hitler was found shot dead in his bunker in 1945 by advancing Russian units... He spared them some ammo by taking his own life, lol

[Bucky]

Yah, and Elvis was buried in Memphis. You and I know that, but conspiracy theorists love it.

Cripes, just today I have already seen four different reports about where Hussein might be&#33;

The list:
The Russian Embassy
A Mosque
Hiding in a small town between Baghdad and Tikrit
In Tikrit already

[Dennis S.]

^^^^

And I can assure you that they&#39;re true&#33; His doubles are in all those 4 places&#33; And Saddam is sipping champagne with Hitler in his super-secter hideout, watching CNN and laughing his ass off http://www.gamershell.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Bucky]

Originally posted by Dennis S.+Mar 31 2003, 06:04 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Dennis S. @ Mar 31 2003, 06:04 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--irs2k3@Mar. 31 2003,03:10
^^^^^^^^
Dennis, can you tell us how to end this war cause i am feeling that his war will be like no other :(
I highly doubt this war can *end*. Bush, Blair and their administrations put way too much on the &#39;scales&#39;, while Saddam has nothing to lose anymore and is smartly using Islam and &#39;war against occupants&#39; as primary motivational reasons for the war with his people. Expect a long and bloody war I&#39;d say - not only in Iraq but outside of it too. [/b][/quote]
:rolleyes: