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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: FaultLine who started this subject	6/5/2003 12:28:08 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) of 281500

Hi all; Kill ratio in Iraq takes worrisome turn. Our first Gulf war killed about 20,000 Iraqi soldiers at a total US loss of around 150, for a kill ratio of around 140 to 1. This was quite an achievement. And the first part of the second Gulf War also had a very high kill ratio. But over the last few weeks, as the war in Iraq develops into a guerilla war, our kill ratio has gone down to very close to 1 to 1. Reports are regularly coming back of one or two US soldiers being killed in fire fights that only kill one or two enemies. And explosions are taking out vehicles, killing Americans, while not a single Iraqi is hurt. The inversion of the kill ratio shows the limits of the "revolution in military affairs". The US can rule by military force only so long as it can put a kill ratio on the other guy that is so high that US losses are negligible. That appears to be no longer the case. In short, the US military is singularly badly equipped to fight a guerilla enemy who hides in civilian areas, and Iraq is no exception. -- Carl

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