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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Techplayer who wrote (6748)4/2/2003 7:48:29 PM
From: thames_sider  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 21614
 
Here's today's...
aeronautics.ru

Looking at the map, I can't see how important this bridge is. They discuss fighting and around the key towns (which evidently include at least one Tigris crossing.
Anyway, here's the interesting analysis.

Rough estimates show that the territory "captured" by the coalition forces still contains at least 30,000 Iraqi regular troops and militia engaged in active combat. Military experts are already warning the US command about the danger of underestimating the enemy: doing so may seriously complicate the situation of the attacking forces and foil the coalition's very optimistic plans.

On the other hand, the Iraqi command is being forced to withdraw its troops under the protection of towns. Iraqis are also forced to minimize all active combat operations outside the city limits as the desert terrain maximizes the enemy's advantage in aviation and its technological superiority in reconnaissance and targeting systems. This robs the Iraqis of their mobility and forces them to resort to "fortress-like" type of warfare, which, clearly, is significantly reducing their combat effectiveness.
...
Military analysts believe that today and tomorrow will decide the outcome of the attack on Baghdad that begun two days ago. If the coalition forces fail to break the Iraqi defenses, then by the weekend the US will be forced to curtail all attacks and to resort to positional warfare while regrouping forces and integrating them with the fresh divisions arriving from the US and Europe. Such a tactical pause in the war, although not a complete halt in combat operations (the coalition command will continue trying to use localized attacks to improve its positions), may last seven to fourteen days and will lead to a full re-evaluation of all coalition battle plans.


So they think the next two days are crucial. This should be clear and short enough to see how accurate they are...