Jed Babbin: There is a lot of SGO in the war.
SGO
It is Day 5 of the war. Every American should be appalled by the lack of condemnation of Iraqi abuse of POWs from the "civilized" world, particularly the U.N. Kofi Annan spoke a little while ago. When asked about possible abuse of POWs, he warned both sides to care for POWs according to the Geneva Conventions. His moral lens is so clouded he sees no difference between our handcuffing prisoners and Iraqi torture and murder of our soldiers. Annan also said that the "oil for food" program will begin again as soon as possible. That program allowed Saddam's regime to sell oil and use the money--at least allegedly--to buy food. We will deliver food aplenty, and cannot allow any "program" that will do anything to help Saddam by putting money in his pocket. Annan also warned that the citizens of Basra are facing a "humanitarian disaster," laying the foundation for later condemnation of our actions. The contempt in which we hold this man must be so large as to be unmeasurable.
There is a lot of SGO in the war. (SGO being the term invented by one of my ex-SEAL pals, Al Clark, for "s#@t goin' on.") Speaking of the SEALs--and the Rangers, Green Berets, Marine Recon, Brit and Aussie SAS, and the Brit SBS--CENTCOM says their operations are "on track" and include both strategic reconnaissance and "direct action." What that means is that they are continuing the work of pinpointing Republican Guard and other specific targets for air attack. Direct action, well, you know what that means. The term "targets of opportunity" comes to mind.
The main Republican Guard divisions--the Medina, near Najaf, and the Nebuchadnezzar, to the south and east of the Medina--are being hit by the continuing bombardment of Air Force and Navy aircraft. I am sure that is also true of the Nebuchadnezzar division, wherever it is. Because most of our ground forces are light and not the heavy armor, we should be knocking these guys down substantially for another night before we push to the outskirts of Baghdad. The more we destroy from the air, the fewer will be left to shoot at the guys on the ground. Some forces may get to Baghdad tonight, and more are on the way.
Iraq is placing more and more civilians near military equipment and formations of soldiers. It is likely that the only way we can reduce the numbers of civilian casualties is by obtaining the surrender of more senior Iraqi officers, and by special operations direct action against them. The spec-ops guys have already earned their keep, but will have to do it again and again, just like everyone else. We may lose a bunch of them in the next few days.
Saddam's command-and-control systems still function, but are much reduced. One of the puzzling factors is why Iraqi government television is still broadcasting. At this point, it must be one of the ways Saddam's government is communicating with its remaining forces. This is another reason why we should have allowed the formation of a provisional government. We could have taken Saddam's TV off the air, and established a way for the new government to broadcast. If there's a good reason why we haven't done this, it escapes me. More later.
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