[Dean's World] Dave Price: The Plan For Baghdad II

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
The Plan For Baghdad II
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1156360764.shtml


   More details on efforts to establish order from Bill Roggio [1]here.

     Baghdad has been difficult to secure for a variety of reasons. It
     is difficult to fight all-out counterinsurgency in a dense urban
     area such as Baghdad, a city with over six million residents. The
     potential for high civilian casualties along with the wholesale
     destruction of neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure would be
     politically untenable for both the Maliki government and the Bush
     administration.
     To combat the insurgency, and sectarian and criminal violence in
     Baghdad, the Iraqi government and Coalition announced Operation
     Together Forward. USA Today provides a simplified breakdown of the
     operation. "The offensive is planned in stages and is designed to
     avoid an all-out attack. In the first phase, launched July 9, Iraqi
     security forces positioned checkpoints throughout the city. In the
     second phase, launched last week, Iraqi forces supported by U.S.
     troops began isolating and clearing parts of the city block by
     block. Iraqi security forces will remain to provide security once
     areas are cleared. When areas are stable, the government will bring
     economic assistance into blighted neighborhoods." This strategy is
     essentially what the Marines call the "3 Block War."
     While many pundits have dismissed the operation as a failure as it
     did not secure the city within weeks of launch, the Coalition
     appears to have a longer time line to secure Baghdad measured in
     months, not weeks. As USA Today reports, the second phase of the
     operation began in the second week of August.

   In fact, the media reports were even more ill-informed than Roggio
   suggests, as they immediately started writing things like "despite the
   new security plan, violence continued" the day after the plan was
   announced, as though the announcement itself was the plan and should
   have immediately brought about the intended effects thereof.
   Early results appear [2]promising.

References

   1. http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/08/the_ongoing_battle_for_baghdad.php
   2. http://powerlineblog.com/archives/015090.php