Soldiers Shift to Baghdad Outposts

[cal04]

Smaller Bases Expand Troop Presence in Capital but Also Pose New Risks
American soldiers are leaving their sprawling fortress-cities and establishing many small outposts in the capital's most violent neighborhoods in a major tactical shift under the two-week-old Baghdad security plan.

Informed by counterinsurgency theory that calls for placing units full-time among the people they want to sway, U.S. troops are using their new bases to work with their Iraqi counterparts, uncover more battlefield intelligence, and reinforce, by their sustained presence, the message that they will not allow militants unfettered freedom of movement.

But along with these advantages, American soldiers say these outposts pose new risks to their own safety and require pulling soldiers off patrols to protect their lodgings. The threats became apparent this month when a car bomb exploded at a U.S. outpost in Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding 29 others.

(snip)
"These little combat outposts, they are more exposed: Your routes in here are very limited and they're definitely watching us," Staff Sgt. Marcel Weaver, 35, said of the insurgents operating in the neighborhood around the base. A grenade "attack is coming, I can guarantee that."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/28/AR2007022802217.html

[grytpype]

1. This is going to be a disaster.

Total disaster.

[caligirl]

9. Yep, and if the 'collapse' happens as Petraeus was just warned

about(see LBN for the article)these guys are the prime targets. its bad, as bad as anyone can imagine and then worse still. Bush is about to get a legacy far worse than he saw coming even 6 months ago.


Link to article and partial quote:

Elite officers in Iraq fear low morale, lack of troops and loss of political will

An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

The officers - combat veterans who are experts in counter-insurgency - are charged with implementing the "new way forward" strategy announced by George Bush on January 10. The plan includes a controversial "surge" of 21,500 additional American troops to establish security in the Iraqi capital and Anbar province.

But the team, known as the "Baghdad brains trust" and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations.

"They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about 'Plan B' by the autumn - meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it's getting harder every day," he said.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2023865,00.html

[uppityperson]

2. This does not sound like a good use of people's bodies or minds.

[IChing]

3. the british and the other BUSH/CHENEY world coalition

are making their own local presence known in this exercise.


GET THE FUCKING TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ NOW.

but leave the contractors.

[youngdem]

4. What a BAD fucking idea. eom

[catnhatnh]

5. Okay...if I'm on the red team....

we have 2 options...Tet or Dien Bien Phu....a date coordinated attack on all outposts of the oppressor or a single protracted siege threatening a single outpost with being over run....either can succeed and brilliantly...if I'm down on forces and under pressure, we Tet...a single suicide crash at each outpost, coordinated to the second. If things are cool and I have my shit together, force a siege over several days at a relatively large outpost...this is MUCH harder as air power is available so the target must be picked so that use of air power must either inflict the worst possible collateral damage (think orphanages and hospitals or mosques and historical buildings) or make it possible to "grab the belt buckle" of the defenders so that use of air power assures friendly fire incidents....know this much-the insurgents have considered this course of action and DO have a plan....

[sanskritwarrior]

10. DBP doesn't work

due to the nature of the topography in Iraq. Urban areas make a Dien Bien Phu type siege nearly impossible, add to that the fact that US forces will not be outnumbered nor outgunned as the French were. So that type of attack would be a massacre of the insurgents.

As for a TET, it is possible but do the Iraqi insurgents have the ability to mass 50,000 fighters that would give them a 1:1 parity with US forces. Again it comes down to numbers, I do not believe the insurgents or militias could mass the numbers neccessary to do what they want to do...........

[daleo]

6. A cunning plan by Bush

He will draw the insurgents out in the open, using U.S. soldiers as human targets. Then...well, they haven't figured that part out yet.

[NelsonMuntz]

7. Baghdad's security has brought a startling drop in crime — as much as 80 per cent,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/01/wiraq501.xml

To Lt Col Dean Dunham, Loyalty's deputy commanding officer, the battleground is transformed, less than a month after the launch of the new approach. He said: "Right now it's noticeable just how much has changed. Now part of that is down to Sadr and his change in method; telling his people to lay low. But we got so much more – two new battalions for our sector and the extra Iraqi security forces."

The strategy is to ratchet up pressure on militias, posting soldiers every few streets. In a circular action, Americans and Iraqis will move out to the streets before US troops pull back to act as a rapid reaction force.

Capt William Billeter claims that the level of street activity has soared. "It's exciting for us to see things change. Before when we saw an empty street that was a signal that a bomb was there and people had pulled their kids in. We want to see crowds. It's a good thing."

Phase one of the plan to transform Baghdad's security has brought a startling drop in crime — as much as 80 per cent, according to estimates. But there is still the fear that the men of violence are biding their time.

[IChing]

8. Job done go home------MISSION accomplished

the troops haven't even got there so then send them home,
mean while bombing and deaths have increased how much?
Mr. snow job?----no crime there.

I check my sources and read between the lines do you?


OK, you win and we go home just like the Brits.
Argument won.

[Tempest]

11. And yet Iraqis are still dying from car bombs in Baghdad

http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2910619

[uppityperson]

13. bye

[Mika]

12. Can you say "trip wire"?

Of course some of the outposts are going to be attacked.

BushCrimeInc will use these outposts as a trip wire to accuse Iran of attacking and killing our troops.