Reaping the Whirlwind
Barely past the first week the Coalition has had to twice change/adjust its war strategy. Instead of a cataclysmic strike by 3000 precision guided munitions (PGMs) hitting Baghdad and other Iraqi command centers, in a major surprise the war started with a limited surgical strike to take out (the exact words “decapacitate”) Saddam Hussain and his inner coterie. The Coalition checked for effect, if any, for 24 hours before launching the ground war with an attempted end run (blitzkreig) around major urban areas to Baghdad, an outflanking maneuver through the Southern Iraqi desert. Rumsfeld’s “shock and awe” massive strike came a day after the ground war started. The Iraqis were supposed to roll over and play dead or better still, surrender in droves (Gulf War I – circa 1991) on primetime TV. With the Iraqis fighting back at virtually every major urban area crossing, the plan deviated from the script. For a change, the Iraqis used their military (rather than emotional) head in not giving pitched battle in any open areas (“he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day”) where the Coalition would have loved to pulverize them by superior firepower. Using classic guerrilla tactics, the Iraqis resorted to small unit “hit and run” attacks, providing very few fixed targets for the PGMs (precision-guided munitions) to be effective.
