Odawg's Blizzog

2003-07-09T13:41:00.000-05:00

CLAUDETTE UPDATE

Not much new in the latest advisory.

The most recent discussion pretty much reinforces the earlier one. In the short term, conditions are unfavorable for strengthening, and high altitude shear could wipe out the circulation.

But if it holds together and gets far enough west, it'll slow down, turn more to the north and west, and perhaps strengthen after crossing the Yucatan into the Gulf.

UPDATE: Folks on the Texas Gulf Coast might want to check out this.

2003-07-09T09:29:00.000-05:00

CLAUDETTE WATCH

She's still moving west at about 25 mph.

This morning's NHC discussion paints a worrisome picture. Conditions are unfavorable for strengthening now, but as she moves west, that will change. Some 85 mph winds were recorded by a reconaissance plane this morning, but the central pressure has gone up and the satellite imagery shows decreasing organization. So she's not a hurricane yet, but she's close and could get there.

That's not really the worrisome part, at least for New Orleans. The discussion goes on to talk about "the guidance", which I'm guessing is the term NHC uses for their hurricane forecasting and prediction tools. That's where it gets it worrisome:

"THE GUIDANCE IS GENERALLY IN GOOD AGREEMENT ABOUT A SLOWING WEST-NORTHWESTWARD TRACK FOR 3 DAYS BRINGING THE STORM ACROSS THE YUCATAN PENINSULA AND OVER THE SOUTHWEST GULF OF MEXICO. GUIDANCE DIVERGES SOME BY DAY 5 WITH THE GFS MODEL SHOWING A LOCATION OVER THE BAY OF CAMPECHE AND THE NOGAPS HAS THE CENTER OVER THE NORTH CENTRAL GULF. THE OFFICIAL FORECAST FOLLOWS A CONSENSUS OF THE GUIDANCE IN BETWEEN THESE EXTREMES."

I certainly hope the NOGAPS model is wrong.

UPDATE: She won't die:

"CLAUDETTE RETAINS A SMALL CORE...AND THE ONGOING SHEAR COULD STILL CAUSE WEAKENING. HOWEVER...SO FAR THIS SHEARING PUNCH TO THE JAW HAS NOT BEEN A FATAL BLOW."

In a nutshell: she might be a hurricane by the time she hits the Yucatan. She'll weaken a bit when she makes landfall, then perhaps strengthen again in the Gulf.

Not what I wanted to read.

2003-07-08T16:23:00.000-05:00

MEET CLAUDETTE

Bill apparently has a distant cousin.

And today is her birthday.

Fortunately for New Orleans, she's is the Carribean right now, moving west at 30 mph. That would send her plowing into Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.

Of course, the NWS discussion leads one to believe that Claudette could strengthen and take on a more northern track. Something about a weakness in a "strong subtropical ridge" being worsened by a "deep-layer trough" over the Eastern US...yadda yadda...Claudette ends up in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, and Owen and Lucie must board up the house again.

But the discussion goes on to read:

"HOWEVER... CURRENT TRENDS SUGGEST THAT CLAUDETTE WILL BE WEST OF THE TROUGH AXIS IN 72-96 HR...WHICH WOULD PRODUCE A SLOWER AND MORE WESTWARD MOTION."

So the "current trends" suggest she goes west, not northwest. Fine. As usual, wait and see.

2003-07-08T16:21:00.000-05:00

JULY 9TH...

...is a big day in Iran this year. The anti-thugocracy student movement has been planning for weeks now massive protests against the mullahs for tomorrow. That's resulted in some harsh crackdowns by the ruling class, frequently using imported thugs.

How massive will the protests be? How much attention will they attract in the West? And how much can they impact the mullahs?

We'll find out tomorrow. You can count on bloggers Jeff Jarvis, Andrew Sullivan, and Glenn Reynolds to be on it, even if the mainstream press isn't.

If you can tomorrow, put those protestors in your prayers. Their cause is just, but their task is dangerous.

2003-07-03T12:56:00.000-05:00

WET, WET, WET

I can't remember the last day it didn't rain here.

Tuesday was almost dry. But it rained around 6:30 in the evening, and that lasted a half hour or so.

It's just rain, rain, and more rain.

To give you an idea of how wet it's been: from June 1 through 0400 on July 2, New Orleans International has recorded 17.65 inches of rain. The normal for that period is 7.27 inches.

Not that the rain wasn't appreciated. After all, after that 17 inches of rain, the city is only 2.6 inches over normal for the year.

But it's making life complicated. The storms have a habit of blowing up around noon, making getting out and about during a lunchbreak problematic. And it's not like it's gentle little showers that an umbrella can handle. I'm talking about heavy downpours that immediately start to overwhelm the drainage system, combined with wind that makes an umbrella useless.

The rain has turned this city into a slimy, disgusting mess (those who have spent time in the French Quarter might wonder how that is a departure from the norm). There's all kinds of trash and debris strewn from TS Bill. All kinds of crap floated into our yard. We'd go out and clean it up - if it ever stopped raining.

And oh, the yardwork. The grass grows like East German swimmers on HGH in this weather. We'd go out and mow it - if it ever stopped raining.

And I don't know what it is with some of the plants around here that shed petals and pollen in this rain. All of that inevitably ends up on your car, then gets wet and forms a paste that doesn't come off without scrubbing. I'd wash it off - if it ever stopped raining.

And then there's the humidity when the sun comes back out. We haven't even hit the hot part of the year yet.

Anyway, enough bitching. I'm off work tomorrow for the 4th, and looking for something patriotic to do. PBR seems in order - it's domestic and comes in a red, white, and blue can.

Hope everyone else has a good one.

2003-07-03T12:07:00.000-05:00

NOLA DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIPS

Since 1997, the city of New Orleans has extended benefits to unmarried domestic partners of city employees - the same benefits extended to married partners. To get the benefits, partners simply pay $35 and sign some paperwork.

That policy is now being challenged in court:

"The lawsuit was filed Friday in Civil District Court against the city and the City Council by Mike Johnson, a Shreveport lawyer who is affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona Christian law firm. His clients are Vieux Carre Assembly of God pastor Gregory Pembo and five other people, most of them members of his Dauphine Street congregation."

...

'"A city can't decide what marriage is," Johnson said. "The (New Orleans) domestic partnership ordinance equates non-marital live-in relationships to traditional marriage."'

"Moreover, both the state Constitution and many Louisiana laws "expressly state that Louisiana favors traditional marriage and the traditional definition of a family, so the domestic partnership ordinance thwarts the purpose of all those laws," Johnson said."

"The suit asks Judge Yada Magee both to declare that the city lacks the legal authority to grant health or other benefits to the unmarried domestic partners of its employees and to stop the city from continuing to spend public money for that purpose."

As to the legal merits of the case, I'm not a lawyer and I don't know the Louisiana laws or constitution well enough to speak intelligently about that. But I am aware of the national debate over gay marriage, which has heated up in recent weeks. One of these days, I'll probably do a long post on the topic. My own pending marriage has got me thinking a lot about the institution and what it means.

For now, I'll say that I believe Mr. Johnson is on a fool's errand. His lawsuit could backfire on him entirely, and end up enshrining legal recognition of that which he objects to. Like I said, I'm not well-versed with the relevant Louisiana law. But right now, legal activists on both sides of the gay-marriage issue are looking for winning cases, and this may prove to be one of them. But for which side?

2003-07-01T16:30:00.000-05:00

TAX CUTS

My federal income tax withholdings have diminished by about $45 per month, thanks to the recently approved federal income tax cuts. That's right - I'm a rich guy! I must be, because according to any Democrat you talk to, only rich people get tax cuts.

Suffice to say that I'm overjoyed at this good news. I somehow failed to get the memo that I'm a member of the wealthy big-business elite, which explains why I wasn't cheerleading for the proposal on this blog. However, I'm clearly in the club, and I expect to receive my 16-year-old-disadvantaged-lesbian-single-mom-subsidized Dom and caviar allotment for the month any time now. I'll call the local GOP office and see if they can hurry that up.

Does this mean that I have to contribute money to the Bush campaign, wear a pin-striped suit and tophat, and use a monacle? I mean, I don't feel rich, ya know?

So I guess I need a sinister plan to use my new-found wealth to stick it to the less fortunate and reward my rich buddies. I know: I'll blow it all at the Bulldog tomorrow night! I'll be sure to laugh maniacally between swallows of Sierra Nevada IPA - "BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!". Take that, Sen. Daschle!

Meanwhile, the last part of Louisiana's tax-overhaul takes effect today, when all food sold for home consumption will become tax free. My God, with all of the tax savings, I'll soon be able to undertake my first leveraged buy-out! I have arrived!

2003-07-01T16:28:00.000-05:00

TS BILL ROUNDUP

The initial post-mortems on Tropical Storm Bill can be found here and here.

Something I noticed was that many local pols and appointees commented that this was a "learning experience" and will help everyone get ready for "The Big One" which could come anytime.

Great, glad we're learning so much.

Cuz, golly-gee willickers, we ain't dun never had one 'a them thar storms be'fo'. We best be lernin somethin to git ready fer the Biggun.

I'm pretty sick of that attitude. Look, there's a list of things South Louisiana needs to do to be ready for The Big One, and we've known it for years now. But nobody wants to acknowlegde the threat - it's just too mind-boggling. Much like the threat of terrorism before 9/11, plenty of people are aware of just how bad things can be, but nobody wants to come to terms with reality. That would mean diverting money from politically popular and useful initiatives to gargantuan, long-term construction projects that are ugly, controversial, and utterly necessary.

2003-07-01T16:27:00.000-05:00

NEED A CONDO?

As has been rumored, Anne Rice has sold St Elizabeth's on Napoleon. It's going to be converted to condos.

The condos will sell for between $225 and $260 per square foot, Khoury said. Units will range in size from 1,500 square feet to more than 3,000 square feet, depending on buyers' wishes.

The building won't need any variances for conversion. That's not going to go over well in that neighborhood, because I suspect that parking will be a problem over there with 10-30 additional cars needing a spot every night.

2003-06-30T21:51:00.000-05:00

OVER FOR US

Made it back to the house around 12:15 today. I'm pleased to report the Lucie, Cat, and I all made it through the storm just fine - our third tropical cyclone in nine months. The house is standing and intact, though we did discover one slightly leaky window sill. I'll see how the yard did in the morning. It's still very windy and going outside doesn't seem like a great idea.

Elsewhere, however, things aren't so great. The wires haven't completely caught up with everything. Seems like a number of places south of New Orleans took it pretty bad. For example, Grand Isle issued a voluntary evacuation at 10am. Grand Isle is a barrier island. The storm made landfall around 2pm.

There's only one road into and out of Grand Isle - LA Route 1. The last 20 miles of it, south from Golden Meadow to Grand Isle, is outside of the levee. Many residents leaving Grand Isle got caught on this road in rising waters. According to the TV report I saw, vehicles started stalling in high water near the Leesville bridge on LA 1, causing a traffic pileup, made worse as the roadway became covered with water. Keep in mind, this is all just tidal marsh. Police from Port Fouchon, Leesville, and elsewhere had to mount a rescue of these stranded motorists.

Elsewhere, in a city called Montegut, the same levee that failed in the storms last fall had not yet been repaired. It failed again, and that city is seriously flooded. Other examples will probably turn up. In the suburbs, residents who reported flooding mostly blamed storm drains which weren't working properly and about which they had been complaining for weeks. Tornadoes touched down in Reserve, Eastern New Orleans, and elsewhere, injuring several people and destroying some buildings (including, of course, trailer homes). No fatalities anywhere yet that I've heard of.

Anyway, this is, by all measures, a very small storm compared to the worst-case scenario. It snuck up on us in a big way. This storm was 14 mph short of being a category one hurricane. It would have made it with another 12 - 24 hours of strengthening. That's something to think about.

2003-06-30T11:47:00.000-05:00

HEADING HOME

It's really coming down here, and the office is being closed.

2003-06-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

TROPICAL STORM BILL

Back in a familiar situation.

No boarding of windows this time around, though. Doesn't look like the winds will be strong enough to justify that.

Watch here for the latest AP updates.

The most recent NWS warning is here.

You can check out Bill's ugly mug here.

The question here at work is whether or not to shut down. The problem is the rain. We're expecting 8 - 12 inches. With that much water, our street will flood, making it very difficult to leave the building. The building has to be flood-proofed before it's vacated. We have some bolt-on gaskets that cover the doorways that can take up to 12 inches over the sill, which is itself about 12 inches over street level.

Wait here too long, and you won't be going home until 10 pm. Leave too early, and it's always possible that things will fizzle, or the storm takes a turn, or the rain isn't bad. Then you've wasted a day.

2003-06-27T11:50:00.000-05:00

MORE SCOTUS STUFF

Regarding the Texas sodomy law, read the majority opinion here, and the dissent here.

I liked how Ramesh Ponnuru summed it up here:

"I agree with Justice Thomas that the Texas law was "uncommonly silly." We should rejoice in the fact of its demise, but not the manner."

That's it, really. The majority did all kinds of things: they overturned a 17 year old decision, not because of any change in the constitution, but because of a change in culture. They asserted that the law was irrational; certainly, the sodomy law in question was, but as Ponnuru points out, "rational basis" is simply an extra-constitutional way for judges to act as legislators.

Our real rulers - the nine justices of the Supreme Court - are a fickle bunch, aren't they? The same folks who praised the court and hailed yesterday's verdict as a victory for gay rights were calling this same court a bunch of partisan hacks in 2000 for "appointing" George W. Bush as president and bewailing it's dictatorial powers.

Legal precedent, constitutional principles, legislators, voters - none of that matters anymore. All that matters is convincing five members of the Supreme Court. And given the tools of "rational basis" and a "living constitution" that may be ammended from the bench, rather than by the democratic process, it's hard to see where, exactly, their power ends.

2003-06-26T11:10:00.000-05:00

SCOTUS

For those of you who are confused, I'll give it to you in a nutshell. Here's what the Supreme Court said this week:

You can't discriminate againts gays when it comes to private, consensual, non-commercial sexual acts. But you can discriminate against gays when it comes to college admissions, except if they are black or hispanic, in which case it's actually ok to give them preferrential treatment. If you want. At least for the next 25 years.

Easy, see? It's right there in the Constitution.

Oh, wait a minute. Never mind.

PS. No word on whether or not you can discriminate against those same gays if they live in a historically black voting district.

Here's the WaPo SCOTUS wire.

2003-06-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

ISSUES

Lots of stuff in the news. Instead of dedicated posts, I'll just throw a few blurbs up.

I'm still thinking that as far as Iraq and WMD goes, the worst the administration is guilty of is rhetorical excess, at least so far. Let's remember a few things: Saddam's regime was lying and stalling, clearly to cover for something. After 9/11, the standard for evidence with these kinds of things is clearly more like "probable cause" than "beyond a reasonable doubt". The world doesn't miss Saddam, and never will. The president and his administration have nothing to apologize for.

Of course, the occupation still isn't going swimmingly. But I think it's hard to tell precisely what's going on there, and what the overall mood is. As with the war, so with the occupation: time and perspective will give us the opportunity to assess just how well we've done.

Here at home, I remain under-whelmed with the gaggle of Democrats seeking their party's presidential nomination. That's pathetic, considering how vulnerable I think Bush is. Sure, a lot of folks see him as invincible. But someone who could get to his right on the budget and match his credibility on national defense would have a chance. The explosion of federal spending on his watch is undeniable, even leaving the war on terrorism aside. Equally undeniable is that there are no democratic candidates who can credibly claim to be fiscally conservative, and none of them have staked out a position on the war that is simultaneously reasonable and consistent from week to week, day to day, or even talk show appearance to talk show appearance. What's a small government guy like me to do? If only the Libertarians would drop Harry Browne for a real candidate...

Life goes on here in the Big Easy. Technically, the Louisiana governor's race has started, but I challenge you to find ten people outside of the professional punditry who give a damn. The field so far is uninspiring, but that could change. The legislative session just ended this week, but other than banning sex in public, I can't think of any substantial issues it tackled. It almost changed the state sodomy laws to something far less draconian, but that was headed off by legislators who feared it might result in people thinking that it was OK to, well, engage in sodomy. Legislators voting against changing the law departed yesterday to return to their home planet many lightyears from here.

2003-06-25T12:57:00.000-05:00

HOWDY FOLKS

So what's up with me? Here's a few notes:

* Lucie has been in Houston this month of June helping her mom fix up her house. She's been busily tearing down wallpaper, tearing up carpet, painting, and rearranging. After almost four weeks of that, I think both of them are ready for a break. I'll be flying over there on Friday to help with the last couple of things, then Lucie and I will start driving back Saturday afternoon.

* I've been kicking it bachelor style for the last four weeks. That hasn't been nearly as exciting as it might sound, however. Mostly, I've tried to finish rearranging our stuff in the house and catching up on some reading. Which is not to say that I haven't made it out for a few pints. Wild and crazy is something I simply have not been in a long time. But I've watched a helluva lot of the Speed Channel, which is something Lucie has no interest in.

* New Orleans continues to be pelted by rain. It has every day that I can recall recently. Yesterday, we got another big storm over the city as two fronts collided. They dumped another two inches of rain on us. I managed to mow the yard on Saturday, literally beween rain showers, and it's already tall enough to cut again.

That's about it. July will see a good bit of travel as we go to a wedding in Bloomington, IN, followed by a trip to Chicago to see my sister and her husband. Should be a good time, as well as a respite from the heat, we hope.

2003-06-20T15:56:00.000-05:00

THE WHOLE STORY

The whole story on yesterday's rains can be found here.

2003-06-19T16:57:00.000-05:00

TIME TO KILL

While waiting out the rain, I surfed.

The following quote illustrates why "Modern Drunkard Magazine" is one of my links:

You give me Pat Robertson, an abortionist illegal immigrant homosexual communist Jew, a case of good beer and a liter of Wild Turkey, and I'll bring you back two guys with permission to date each other's sisters.

Have a nice day.

2003-06-19T15:36:00.000-05:00

MORE RAIN

It's still coming down, but it appears the pumps have caught up.

Locals: When driving this afternoon, you'll want to stay off of St Charles near Lee Circle. Traffic was stopped completely for about 90 minutes and has only recently begun crawling along.

The water has gone (mostly) down. But something has happened at the apartment building across the street from us and the cops/fire/rescue folks are blocking traffic.

The bar is open here at 1140 St Charles if you want to stop for a drink. We've got Guiness and Jack Daniels.

Our view of the action has been illustrative. The beer delivery driver for the Audubon Club dutifully stopped his truck - in traffic - on the only dry spot he could find to unload his product. We cheered from our windows - true job dedication in a fearsome downpour. Others booed. It's a matter of perspective.

Voodoo BBQ was handing out free food to people stuck in traffic and pedestrians wading down the street. Beautiful when people look out for each other, eh?

2003-06-19T15:03:00.000-05:00

QUITTING

The rain continues, on and off. Can't leave the building. We've been instructed by the VP to abandon work in favor of Jack Daniels. Being the company man that I am, I don't question orders.

2003-06-19T14:18:00.000-05:00

STATIONARY STORM

It hasn't moved for an hour. We're expecting 3 to five inches of rain.

Here's the deal: link. (Requires registration). The relevant part for me:

"While there are no street closures, there have been reports of rising water in the streets throughout the city. St. Charles Avenue reportedly had close to a foot of standing water near Lee Circle and cars were forced to drive on the streetcar tracks."

That's where my office is.

The animated local dopler sums it up nicely.

2003-06-19T13:45:00.000-05:00

BOOM...BOOM

Two tranformers on our block just blew.

The rain is slacking, but hasn't ended.

2003-06-19T13:32:00.000-05:00

AND IT GETS WORSE

Just got this email from a friend downtown:

"So, is everyone enjoying the rain???

It sure is pleasant here on the corner of Carondelet & Julia.

One of the ceiling tiles in Nanci's office has given in.

Both the kitchen and the garage are flooded and the staff has begun taking turns floating around the garage in a pirogue [that's a Cajun canoe - ed.]. Not quite Noah's Ark, but hey, it's Louisiana."

2003-06-19T13:30:00.000-05:00

RAINING LIKE HELL

It's coming down big-time today. The $20 per month to park on high ground has proved it's value today, as I've watched other coworkers fighting through the high water to move their cars.

We're taking water on the lower level of the building. Cars parked on the street bob up and down when another vehicle drives by and sends up a wake.

Our suspicion here is that the city was caught flat-footed and didn't get the pumps turned on. I'm going to poke around and see what I can find out.

2003-06-02T13:29:00.000-05:00

LINK

For those who are interested, the wedding web page can be found at lucieandowen.com.

2003-06-02T13:25:00.000-05:00

KICK-OFF

Hurricane season is officially underway, as of yesterday. This year's big story: the new NWS five day forecast.

The National Weather Service is going to start making five-day forecasts of hurricane strength, path, and landfall projection. They've been going with three-day forecasts for the same since 1965. The new system was adopted at the behest of the Navy, which requires five days to deal with moving it's fleet.

The new forecast is great for the Navy, but it's nearly useless for everyone else. Why? At the five day mark, meteorologists can only predict hurricane landfall accurately to just over 400 miles - in either direction. That means that at the five day mark, people in Brownsville may be worried that they are under the gun for a storm that ultimately lands in Tampa. That has a real impact, especially for businesses like offshore oil and tourism.

Rather than provide earlier warning for people in the path of the storm, the new forecast is just going to lengthen the period of anxiety. Or that's the concern, anyway. I think most people know when to get worried and when not to. I can't imagine it's going to make a difference for me, anyway.

2003-06-02T13:22:00.000-05:00

INTELLIGENCE FAILURES

I'm still uncertain what to make of the possible intelligence failures regarding Iraqi WMD. Even without hard proof, the circumstantial evidence is still pretty damning. And let's face it: the world is better off without Saddam in charge of Iraq.

Still, after 9/11, it's hard to have confidence in our intelligence apparatus, and this situation doesn't help.

2003-05-30T13:51:00.000-05:00

MORE HURRICANE NEWS

Bill Gray has updated his season forecast, increasing the named storm count from twelve to fourteen. He's still predicting eight hurricanes, but with a higher than average probability of landfall.

Meanwhile, the Corps of Engineers is running out of money for hurricane protection and flood control projects in Southeast Louisiana. A number of workstoppages look likely, starting this week, until the beginning of the next federal fiscal year on Oct. 1, unless funds are transferred from other (also badly under-funded) Corps projects elsewhere.

Behold the wonders of the federal appropriations process: everything you think you want, but nothing that you acutally need.

2003-05-30T13:44:00.000-05:00

LOWE'S IN THE EAST

The city council seems set to appove a tax subsidy to get Lowe's to build a new store on Elysian Fields.

Well, at least there's two types of businesses the council will bend over backwards for - tourism and big box retailers. Others need not apply.

2003-05-27T12:09:00.000-05:00

HURRICANE SEASON AGAIN

On the down side, hurricane season starts on Sunday. NOAA says six to nine hurricanes this year. Hurricane experts at the Tropical Meteorology Project - William Gray et al - predict eight hurricanes for the 2003 season. Gray puts the probability for a hurricane landfall on the US Gulf Coast (Florida panhandle to Brownsville TX) at 38%, which is above last century's average of 30%. The Weather Research Center says six hurricanes with a 46% chance of Gulf Coast landfall.

Last year, we had to deal with Lili and Isidore. Both were hyped to be much bigger than they ended up being, though Isidore did take out my plantain tree - before I even got any plantains from it. Grrr.

Lili had been a 145 mph category 4 hurricane at one time. She was going to be "The Big One", turning The Big Sleazy into the Big Squeegee. Then the wheels came off and she came ashore as a 90 mph category 1. I didn't complain.

Folks in Southwest Louisiana, however, did, since there was a lot of damage and some fatalities over there. New Orleans just got lucky.

If you want to know what "unlucky" would look like, read a couple of articles from last year's Times-Picayune hurricane season preview here, particularly this one and this one.

Want it in a nutshell? New Orleans sits in a lovely spot where water really wants to be: below sea level. It's also surrounded by lakes, rivers, and swamps, and the levees can't handle more storm surge than a fast-moving category 3. Above that, if the storm hits in the right place, New Orleans = Atlantis. It takes 72 hours to evacuate the city. But storm strength and landfall forecasts 72 hours out can be wildly inaccurate, by hundreds of miles and 1-3 categories of strength.

If you evacuate too soon, you risk sending hundreds of thousands of people the wrong way and into the path of a huge storm. Evacuate too late, and they all drown.

Lovely stuff.

In light of the potential for death and destruction, the wise New Orleans resident stocks up on crucial hurricane supplies - bottled water, flashlights, batteries, canned food, first aid kits, and booze. The first three you need should you lose power or water. The first aid kit comes in handy if you get hurt by flying debris, though it helps if your tetanus shot is up to date. The booze you'll need in any case - either to pass the time until it's safe to go outside, or numb the pain as you wait for the world to end.

2003-05-27T12:03:00.000-05:00

WHAT'S UP

Hey y'all. Thought I'd drop a few notes and let everyone know what's up. See the post below on stuff of local interest.

Had a busy weekend. I was supposed to have Monday off from work, but that changed on Friday. New projects moving forward, old ones coming to a close. Came in Sunday afternoon to get started, worked yesterday as well. Better to have too much work than not enough.

Plus, I got a fly client-logo polo shirt for my contributions to a recently finished project. It's bright red with a big embroidered jackup unit on it. Who says engineers can't be fashionable and sexy?

Lucie is pretty busy too, finishing end-of-year paperwork for school, as well as her portfolio for her certification. And we're still unpacking, rearranging, and reorganizing the house.

We had time for some fun, however. We went to see Down With Love and enjoyed it. We also had some nice dinners with friends on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We're thinking of getting a wine, cheese, and bridge group together.

Insert wise-ass comments about getting old here.

2003-05-27T11:59:00.000-05:00

LOOZY-ANNA NEWS

Once again, New Orleans is one of the worst cities in the country when it comes to car maintenance costs directly related to road conditions. NOLA is third worst.

Interesting quote at the end:

"State Department of Transportation and Development spokesman Mike Bourgeois said the report should not come as a shock to anyone. The state is pushing for one source of money that might help the problem: getting a better return on the federal gasoline tax dollars it sends to Washington. This year, he said, the state is getting only about 90 percent of the federal gas tax it sends to Washington. Other states, such as Alaska, he said, don't send as much and get a 200 percent return on what they send."

Another way to look at that might be to say that 10% of Louisiana's federal gasoline tax is transferred to Alaska.

It's too bad nobody in either party believes in federalism anymore.

The good news here is that the cops have issued an arrest warrant in the serial murderer case. Here's hoping they have the right guy.

2003-05-20T14:59:00.000-05:00

WEEKEND UPDATE

Had a decent weekend, despite the fact that Lucie was out of town in Minnesota. I did some yard work, but not as much as I wanted. The damn vines trying to take over the backyard take in inordinate amount of time and effort to uproot. I went after them for an hour, and probably didn't even get half.

Not to mention that it just won't rain. Since Easter, we've only had two rather pathetic little showers. I'm getting tired of watering so often, but otherwise everything dies in this (ever increasing) heat. After last fall, I never thought I'd complain about not getting enough rain. Oh, what I would give for a little early-season tropical depression.

Went to a coworker's wedding on Saturday night. As I have with all of the other weddings I've been to in recent years, I took a whole lot of mental notes. What's odd is that despite living here for more than three years, I had not yet been to a wedding in this town. I was glad to have the chance.

We've visited a lot of reception venues and tasted at several caterers, but we had not tried the ones featured Saturday night. That's just as well, since the facility was a little too small for the size group we expect to end up with, and the caterer was in-house. I didn't check to see if they do off-site stuff.

It was a pretty standard catering menu, at least compared to what other groups around here do. They had a big steamship round of roast beef with condiments, crawfish pasta, and a fruit, cheese, and brie display. The passed hors d'oeuvres used a lot of local seafood, which is nice. Like I said, that seems to be your standard, basic wedding buffet menu here, and you can get it for a reasonable price per head. But Lucie and I have a lot of ideas, and we really want to end up with something unique. We'll see.

Anyway, I think we've made the right call on a lot of things, so far. As promised, the wedding website will soon be making it's public debut, and I'll put the link up at an appropriate time. Our church made a bit of a mistake and scheduled another wedding on the same date as ours - the priest made a committment over the phone without consulting the paperwork. That caused some heartburn, but it's sorted out now. We're having the wedding at our church at the time of our choosing. It's good to be members.

The other weekend highlight was the Austrian GP. I've watched qualifying and the F3000 race. I'm hoping to watch my race tape tonight. If I have time.

2003-05-14T13:11:00.000-05:00

A FEW NOTES

Hey, y'all. Blogging has been light. Three words: planning the wedding. It eats up an inordinate amount of time.

Lucie and I are doing well, though. We have the church, reception facility, and the rehearsal dinner nailed down. We've been dealing with caterers and we'll be picking one soon (at least we hope). And our wedding website is almost ready for it's public roll-out.

Domestic life is also moving along swimmingly. We're slowly unpacking Lucie's things and reorganizing the house. But there's a lot of stuff, both hers and mine, yet to be sifted through and dealt with. We're throwing a bridal shower for a friend on May 30th, so that gives us a target date to get our act together.

Integrating your life with someone else is definitely a challenge. "Yours" and "mine" slowly become "ours". Seemingly trivial decisions each person is used to making unilaterally become more important and controversial. You have to think of each other. Of course, it's also possible to carry things too far and make every decision by committee, which can be grossly inefficient. Trust, therefore, is crucial, since you have to have faith in each other to make the right decision when you can't discuss it first (or don't want to).

I'm very happy with how things are. I could use a vacation, though. I'll get something of a break in July, when we're going to a wedding in Indiana, then road-tripping to Chicago for a couple of days. That will be nice. But I could really use a few days off of work to get myself completely organized. That's not going to happen, especially considering how busy things are at work these days.

Anyway, I will update the blog whenever possible. I'm hoping to do it twice a week. We'll see.

2003-05-14T13:08:00.000-05:00

SOME THOUGHTS ON RECENT EVENTS

Lots going on, and while I've been paying attention, I just haven't had much time to think and write about things. But here's a few bits...

The situation in Iraq is clearly unsatisfactory right now, but I still think it's being blown out of proportion. Most interesting, however, is the continuing lack of clear evidence of weapons of mass destruction. I don't think we need a "smoking gun" to justify the war, but I would feel better if we'd found more than what we have so far. But, it is important to note what has been found: evidence of meetings between Al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence as far back as 1998; evidence of payoffs to western politicians; evidence of sanctions violations by a number of countries, notably Germany, France, and Russia; evidence of not just political repression and torture in Iraq, but of outright mass murder. The circumstantial case is stronger than ever.

As for the rest of the Middle East, I think the "Who's Next?" stuff is also way overblown. I don't see us going to war with Syria or Iran anytime soon, for many reasons. The best thing to do right now is to try to impress on those nations the lesson of Iraq: we're serious about terrorism and WMD. Cross us at your peril. I think they'll get it. Moving those nations towards democracy would be nice, but as always, security first.

Regarding France, Germany, and Russia, there's a lot of loose talk about how to "punish" them for opposing us. Personally, I think exposing their intimate connections with the late Iraqi regime is punishment enough. But it's high time to rethink the existing international order. Many have suggested that the US needs to reform or abandon the UN in favor of an organization composed exclusively of democratic nations. It's also been suggested that we alter or withdraw from NATO. All of that deserves some thought, though perhaps not action.

As for the indignation at the president's aircraft carrier photo-op, I only have one thing to say: yawn.

For the real political junkies, the flaps over Rick Santorum's pro-sodomy law comments and Bill Bennett's gambling habits have certainly caused a stir. Both incidents are illustrative of the ongoing battle inside the Republican Party between small-government, leave-me-alone libertarians vs. scolding, interventionist theocrats. As part of the former faction, I'm happy to see both men taken down a notch.

Finally, as to North Korea, it's funny how the appeasement and rewarding of blackmail we were told to expect from the Bush administration hasn't materialized. His position all along has been: no bilateral talks and no aid until the cessation of nuclear weapons development has been verified. What has changed is the North's position, and that's good news. As I've said before, Kim has only one card to play, and that's war. It's a war he can't win - not now, not in the future, nukes or not. That's a crappy hand to play, and he knows it. After Iraq, he now knows that we know it, too.

2003-05-07T12:10:00.000-05:00

OTC.03 NOTES

Spent yesterday at OTC in Houston (unexpectedly). Did the usual walking around the show, bumping into friends and colleagues, checking out the cool booths, etc. Pretty good turn out, plenty of interesting new stuff.

In the afternoon, I went to the general session on West Africa offshore developments. Billed to be a discussion of the challenges facing the industry as the west Africa theater of operations grows, I was hoping for an enlightening discussion. After all, Africa really is challenging, with much of the current and future development coming in very deep water off the coasts of countries with limited existing infrastruture and often fragile political situations. What a great opportunity for an industry panel to have a good discussion.

Unfortunately, I had to leave about halfway through the session. I missed the last three speakers, as well as the Q&A. So keep that in mind when reading the following.

As is the trend at OTC of late, the panelists spent most of their time discussing the market positions of their organizations. Look, it's interesting and relevant to discuss the size of a particular organization's reserves and plans for future exploration and development. But the main point is to discuss the particular challenges facing the industry in the area, not convince those attending the session that any particular company is well positioned for the future.

I had a lot of questions in mind going into the session, and they can be boiled down to this: What specific considerations drive engineering, financial, and economic decision-making in the offshore Africa arena, and how do those considerations differ from other areas? I wanted to hear about the specific experiences of these people in their work in that area - the challenges they faced and overcame, the lessons they learned, their thoughts and strategies going forward. Most of the presenters I saw barely scratched the surface of that, at best.

And I couldn't believe that I sat through half of the session, and not once was the very recent hostage situation in Nigeria brought up, nor was the continuing unrest there. For a panel supposedly talking about challenges facing the oil industry in that area to neglect such critical current events is shocking.

It's a "Technology Conference" folks, not a "Stock Sales Pich Conference". It would be nice to see more presentations made with that in mind.

There were a few good nuggets of information, however. The most interesting was this: future development offshore of Nigeria will have to be linked to the extent to which the Nigerian government wishes to adhere to it's OPEC quotas. If they stick to their quotas, future developments will have to compete against each other for shares of that quota. That's an enormous risk, since an expensive deepwater production system depends on consistent long-term production to be profitable. With that production arbitarily and unpredictably limimted, the economics all go to hell.

How do you deal with that risk? For that matter, how do deal with hostage taking? It would have been nice to find out. Maybe they got around to discussing that. I certainly hope so.

2003-05-05T16:53:00.000-05:00

NOT SO BAD

If you've been keeping up with the Iraq situation, you've probably gotten the impression that A. it's a mess, B. we didn't do enough to stop looting, and C. we're not very welcome there.

Well, there's some reporting to the contrary out there, and Glenn Reynolds has links here, here, and here.

Nobody should be shocked that the press is f'ing up the coverage of post-war Iraq, considering how badly they performed during the war...

2003-04-30T09:58:00.000-05:00

I NEEDED AN EGO BOOST

Norman Mailer has just exposed the Collective White Male American Hivemind: America went to war against Iraq because the collective white American male ego needed a perk:

The US economy was sinking, the market was gloomy and down, and some classic bastions of the erstwhile American faith (corporate integrity, the FBI, and the Catholic Church, to cite but three) had each suffered a separate and grievous loss of face.

Well Norman, somebody had to say it, and you did. Indeed, the market has been gloomy. My 401(k) plan has been doing horribly (as has my IRA, my 529, and my universal life). It's so depressing to open those quarterly statements and see things like "-1.5%" and "(254.18)" all over the place. I would often collapse on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, ashamed that my white maleness was insufficient to guarantee my rightful financial success. Oh, the slings and arrows of cruel market forces! Woe is me!

And thanks, Norman, for pointing out that those bastions of white maleness in America - corporations, the FBI, and the Catholic Church - have all taken a shameful drubbing recently. Of course, I don't work for a big corporation, haven't been terribly trusting of the FBI since Waco and Ruby Ridge, and am not, and will never be, a Roman Catholic. But those are institutions run by some of America's finest white males, and dammit, that's all I really care about. Yes Norman, if they're down, so am I.

My heart bled with every revelation of Enron's perfidy in the fall of '01, because dammit, the Collective White Male American Hivemind should be able to get away with it! The FBI's failure to prevent 9/11 was an enormous blow to the pride of the Collective White Male American Hivemind, because dammit, we should be second only to the Zionists and Jews in the conspiracy game! Who do those uppity A-Rabs think they are?! And the Roman Catholic Church? Don't those priests know that hazing, that great, time-honored tradition of the Hivemind, is not to be revealed to the public under any circumstances?

As a matter of collective ego, the good white American male had had very little to nourish his morale since the job market had gone bad, unless he happened to be in the Armed Forces.

Hit it on the head there, Normy. I know a couple of people who have lost jobs in this economic slowdown, and that pains me enormously, especially the ones who are white males. Every time I think about it, it's a slap to my white maleness. I can barely face the world when I wake up in the morning, shamed at the collective failure of my white male brethren to hold jobs, even when times are tough. How could we fail so miserably, so publically?

For better or worse, the women’s movement had had its breakthrough successes and the old, easy white male ego had withered in the glare.

Oh God, yes. We just can't stand seeing women succeed in the workplace at traditionally white male jobs. Can't tolerate it - our Collective White Male American Hivemind DNA is simply hardwired to stand stridently against women's rights. When I see women at my office, and the offices of clients and colleagues, my hackles turn bright red in outrage. How could my white male brothers stand for such insults? The Hivemind has allowed this stain on it's honor for far too long!

The great white stars of yesteryear were for the most part gone, gone in football, in basketball, in boxing, and half-gone in baseball. Black genius now prevailed in all these sports (and the Hispanics were coming up fast; even the Asians were beginning to make their mark).

Right on, Norm! It was so hard to sulk and pout as blacks took over so many great sports. I, and other white males, were so disgusted that we could barely bring ourselves to watch hours of those sports every week, and collectively spend billions of dollars on tickets and merchandise. It was so humiliating to us to gather together at sports bars, drinking beer - often not even made by fellow white American males - sullenly watching game upon game featuring Afrian American successes at the expense of white American males, choking down our buffalo wings in dismay and disgust. Between the ascendancy of African Americans in sports and the plunge of the white-male dominated stock market, I've contemplated suicide every day for at least three years!

On the other hand, the good white American male still had the Armed Forces.

Yes! My saviors! Let me embrace thy white American maleness, and worship at the pure ivory of your altars!

But thank God for the Collective White Male American Hivemind. With all of the shame, despair, and failure of our collective lives in recent years, we knew we had to act to preserve our whiteness, our maleness, and our Americanness. Our Great White Male American leader, Dick Cheney (who took over upon the death of John Wayne), culminated Our Collective Thoughts and he prevailed upon our puppet figurehead - W. - to produce the salve for all of our wounds: war with Iraq. What better way to bring up our spririts?

Indeed, now that our Collective White Male American Hivemind has succeeded in the war with Iraq, all will tremble before Collective White Male American greatness. I propose we use that greatness to our advantage. We must revitalize the holy trinity of our great white male institutions: Enron, the FBI, and the Roman Catholic Church. We must reinflate the stock market, so that we may all carry our White Male American heads high with pride. We should drive the women from our workplaces, and the African Americans from our sports. Forward to The Ultimate Victory of the Collective White Male American Hivemind! Each White Male American will share in it's fruits! Huzzah!

Because when we are feeling this good, we are ready to go, and go again. We must. We have had a real taste. Why, there’s a basket-full of billions to be made in the Middle East just so long as we stay ahead of the trillions of debt that are coming after us.

Great, Norm! Glad you're on board with us! MEIN FUHRER! I CAN WALK!

Ahem...

All of the above, obviously, is not to be taken seriously.

Neither is Norman Mailer.

UPDATE: Comments from around the blogosphere...

Andrew Sullivan: "So apart from the fact that the military is a showcase for feminism and racial integration, it's a symbol of white male supremacy? Does no-one even edit this drivel?"

Steven Green rips Mailer: "Beautiful writer that Mailer once was, his only expression now is a sneer and his last remaining literary weapon is the velvet whoopee cushion of pseudo-intellectual insult."

As usual, Glenn Reynolds finds good responses, like you see here.

2003-04-25T10:02:00.000-05:00

ANOTHER ONE BAILS

Thinking of a future in engineering in New Orleans? Think again.

Exxon Mobil Corp. announced Thursday that it will close its New Orleans office within the year, eliminating 380 jobs, including 300 technical, engineering and management positions.

But New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin hopes to keep many of the skilled workers in New Orleans with an unusual plan: He will offer the workers $25,000 each as a "staying bonus" if they go to work for a local company.

So they can do what, Mr. Mayor? Clean hotel rooms? Barback? Sell beads?

According to the plan, two-thirds of the bonus money would come from public sources, while the rest would come from the businesses that hire the workers. In essence, an oil and gas firm would be able to offer a former Exxon Mobil worker a signing bonus of $25,000 at a cost to the company of about $8,000.

What oil and gas firms? The ones which aren't contemplating consolidating to Houston, like all of their customers, colleagues, and competitors? How many of those are left? How many will be left in five years?

Exxon Mobil, now the world's largest oil company with 100,000 workers worldwide, joins a sizable list of energy companies that have moved thousands of jobs from New Orleans since the 1980s oil bust, almost always to Houston. In recent years, Amoco and Louisiana Land & Exploration have deserted the Crescent City, as have oil-service companies Friede Goldman Halter Inc. and Transocean Inc.

Oil and gas is going to Houston, period. It's a wonder my firm is still here.

So it's good that Nagin at least recognizes that it's useless to try to retain ExxonMobil. Let the oil and gas companies go - Houston has won that battle. Nagin also recognizes that the brain power and tax base represented by those employees is vital to the city's future. Problem is, a short term inducement is not going to keep those people in a city with dwindling long-term opportunities in the field.

What really bothers me is the lack of effort to find a replacement for the oil and gas industry. Somebody could do some math and see that plentiful, cheap office space + relatively low cost of living + unique environment = the possibility of luring jobs to New Orleans from expensive, crowded places like New York and California. With technology the way it is, all many businesses need are phone lines to get started. With so many empty downtown office buildings, surely someone could put them to use.

On the plus side of the balance sheet, some businesses have been successfully lured to New Orleans in recent years, like the movie industry, by tax incentives. But there's a difference between a movie studio sending people to film here for a few weeks, and actually establishing a permanent presence.

And it's a permanent presence that this city needs.

2003-04-23T11:29:00.000-05:00

SOME SANTORUM STUFF

Andrew Sullivan is all over it, as you'd expect. He has this link to a transcript of the Santorum interview that started this little tempest. Sullivan's comments are mostly spot on.

Here's an interesting quote:

"So I would make the argument that with President, or Senator or Congressman or whoever Santorum, I would put it back to where it is, the democratic process. If New York doesn't want sodomy laws, if the people of New York want abortion, fine. I mean, I wouldn't agree with it, but that's their right. But I don't agree with the Supreme Court coming in."

Well, at least he's a federalist.

By and large, I feel that sodomy laws ought to go. The only good reason to keep them is that they provide extra prosecutorial and sentencing firepower in sex crimes cases. That doesn't seem a sufficient reason to keep them, especially since sentencing guidelines for other crimes can be altered.

The thing that I think Sullivan forgot to mention, however, is that when discussing legal standards of behavior, harm has to come into the equation. There are some things undertaken by nominally consenting adults which are harmful to them, and to others, and that harmfulness sometimes reaches a point where society is justified in intervening.

Santorum is arguing that the harm to society caused by gay relationships, and other types of relationships he mentions, justifies legal prohibtions and policing. Sullivan takes issue with that, as well he should. Sweeping generalizations that homosexuality is responsible (partially or entirely) for this country's social ills simply aren't supportable. However, Santorum is right to at least inclue harm as an issue to consider when weighing whether or not acts by consenting adults ought to be prohibited.

Let's make an illustrative comparison. Polygamy is illegal pretty much everywhere, even Utah, since it is widely regarded as harmful and destructive, both to the adults who enter into it, and to the children who are raised with it. Despite the fact that it is a private institution, undertaken by (nominally) consenting adults, the public chooses to ban it. The informed public examines the facts, decides that harm outweighs consent in that case, and makes a decision to ban the practice.

On the other hand, society allows consenting adults to consume alcohol and smoke tobacco, despite the known dangers of both. Hell, alcohol and tobacco abuse has harmed far, far, more people than polygamy. But again, an informed public weighs the situation and reaches a conclusion about the harm it is willing to allow consenting adults to subject themselves to.

These two positions seem contradictory at first, but under the dual spotlights of experience and common sense, they are rational. Experience has shown polygamist marriages to be generally harmful, so the public opposes them. Experience has also shown that while alcohol and tobacco can be dangerous and harmful, the benefits of keeping them legal, within some limits, far outweigh the known dangers of prohibtion. Common sense dictates that you aim to do the least amount of harm. Hence the laws.

I think this comparison points out the value in allowing the democratic process to work when dealing with these kinds of issues. If the legislatures or the courts were to impose a uniform standard for behavior - adult consent, without regard to harm - then many harmful things which common sense shows we should avoid would be permissible, along with the unharmful things we want to permit. Similarly, if the legislatures or the courts were to impose a parallel uniform standard for behavior - avoiding all harm, without regard to consent - then many harmful things which experience and common sense shows we should keep legal would be lost, along with the harmful things we ought to avoid.

So take it one issue at a time. Simply accepting the mere presence consent or mere presence of harm as universal standards for all behavior is dangerous. Common sense dictates that it is usually sufficient to simply weigh them against each other. Indeed, there is no justification for government to police all private acts between consenting adults. But certainly, mere consent is not enough to allow some behaviors, and government is right to intervene. The point where actions involving consenting adults pass from legal to illegal should be based on the level of danger and destructiveness an informed society decides it can bear.

Republicans are supposed to believe in limited government, as well as the good sense of the public to govern itself. It would be nice to see that principle in action. So Sen. Santorum's remarks, generally speaking, ought to be rebuked, as the mere possibility of harm isn't enough. But regarding polygamy and some other issues, we need to recognize that he has a point.

2003-04-22T14:31:00.000-05:00

DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK

For some of us, it was never gone. But it seems that young East Coast hipsters have "rediscovered" Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Those of us who kept the dream alive for so many years won't, of course, get any credit.

2003-04-21T13:30:00.000-05:00

SARS NOTE

I haven't been following SARS much. But I found this story notable. Some Chinese officials have been fired for covering up the extent of the SARS outbreak.

I note it because this article misses an important point: Chinese government officials, like bureaucrats from oppressive regimes throughout history, are from Day One trained to suppress information which might be embarrassing to the regime. I can assure you that Baghdad Bob has plenty of professional sympathizers throughout the world.

It's important for regimes like the Chinese Communist one in Beijing to avoid any notion that the paradise they are benevolently building for their people (at the point of a gun) could in any way be disrupted by forces outside of the all-powerful central government's control. So bad news is generally suppressed. If the bad news reaches a point where it can no longer be denied, the solution is to sack a few individuals and blame them for the problem. Thus, the failure of the state and the centralized system is never to blame, but rather greedy, selfish, and corrupt individuals are. All the more reason to tighten central control by the benevolent state power, to save the people from wrongdoers in their midst.

So I assure you, those individuals sacked by the regime over the SARS virus had 100% support and encouragement from their superiors, right up until the moment that the lies could no longer be covered up. In nations like Red China - and Iraq - not even joining the regime and participating in it's lies is enough to keep yourself safe. The state destroys it's own to save itself.

2003-04-21T13:27:00.001-05:00

MORE REVOLTING NEWS

The full accounting of the insanity of Saddam's regime is only beginning. This story continues that accounting.

2003-04-21T13:27:00.000-05:00

THOUGHTS ON THE WAR

Haven't blogged much at all lately, nor on the war in particular. This Andrew Sullivan piece gets my feelings about right:

Yes, this is real. And the tears are real as well. And some kind of silence is the most appropriate response.

Yep. When you see such a complete victory, accomplished by such wonderful people, greeted with joy by so many, yet with so much tragedy from so many years of suffering being so evident, it's hard to think of anything to say.

But I think I can say a few things, without going overboard. I'm just so awed and inspired by our service members over there, who have done such a magnificent job. As they say, all gave some, and some gave all. And that giving of themselves isn't over.

I'm happy that Iraq's people are rid of Saddam and his henchmen. I'm also sad at what they've endured, and that they have yet to face the tests still ahead of them. Their future looks brighter than their past, but is also fraught with danger, and a happy outcome for them is by no means certain.

I'm also glad that another breeding ground for terrorists has been eliminated, and that we have succeeded in dealing with a major threat to peace and security. But I know that it is but one of many, and that danger is still present.

In times like these, avoiding overconfidence and "irrational exuberance" is wise. As always, keeping events in proper perspective is crucial, despite the ups and downs of the news cycle.

Thus, I think Sullivan is right on in pointing out that we shouldn't buy into the idea that our plan for post-war Iraq is a "failure", as is being widely insinuated. Just like in late March, it is early days yet. Germany and Japan weren't rebuilt in a day, a week, a month, or a year. Iraq won't be any easier.

2003-04-18T12:55:00.000-05:00

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

Lucie and I are engaged!

Not that anyone didn't see it coming. Actually, I did the proposal two weeks ago, on April Fools Day. It has been a whirlwind of emotions and activity since, and I've wanted some time to get it in perspective before blogging it. Which is not what blogging is supposed to be - you're just supposed to throw unexpurgated thoughts on the web, consequences be damned. But I didn't want to handle this that way.

I'll tell the whole engagement story sometime, probably on a wedding webpage that Lucie and I will eventually set up. I'll link to it when it's up and running. We'll probably use The Knot. My sister found it to be an excellent resource, and it's already come in handy in terms of starting the planning process.

We're very happy, and every excited. I can't say that our relationship has "changed", but the way other people treat us has. Not friends and family, but people you meet, or are only somewhat acquianted with. People get all excited for you.

And yes, there is the planning process.

Lucie and I have attended a number of weddings in recent years, both together and seperately. Since 1997, I've been to 13 weddings. They all have something in common: they cost money.

The average cost of a wedding in America today is about $19,000, according to the books Lucie has been reading. Did I mention that Lucie reads books? When she started thinking about law school, she bought about eight books on the topic, not including LSAT prep books. When we started thinking seriously about getting married, she bought four books on marriage. She just likes to be informed and to see what kind of ideas and information are available. It's one of the great things about her. I like my information in small packages, like magazines and articles on the web, while she goes for the thick books about longitudinal studies.

In the first thrilling moments of delirious excitement following her acceptance of my proposal, we resolved to avoid wedding planning for a couple of weeks. We thought we wanted to just enjoy being engaged for a while. That plan lasted about 24 hours, then it was off to the bookstore to start reading up.

After more than two weeks of wedding planning, we have concluded that throwing a wedding is like buying a car. A car you only own for one day. You never get to drive it. You just hand the keys over to your family and friends, then they get drunk and crash it into a school bus full of children at 80 miles per hour.

Believe me. I've been one of the drunks.

And certainly, many car-buying stories include a sleazy car dealer. In the case of planning a wedding, that role is played by the catering and reception industry. I have begun to think of them as the "Wedding-Industrial Complex". Or, to bring the anti-capitalist complaint-politics lingo up to date, "Big Cake".

Big Cake has spent years cultivating and nuturing a cultural shift in America. You don't just get married anymore; you throw "The Event of a Lifetime". It's now "Your Most Important Day". You create "Memories That Last Forever". You "Celebrate Your Love".

So when the flowers come in for the same cost as the down payment on a house, well gee, that just makes sense. After all, it's the most important day of your life. Everything has to be perfect. Nothing else you do will ever be anywhere nearly so important. Ever. EVER.

Oh honey, really, when you see those fresh-cut Dutch flowers - flown in on the Concorde that morning - as you make your grand entrance to your Dom and Beluga reception (from your well-appointed private luxury helicopter), you'll just be blown away. Your guests will be blown away too, especially by the portable pyrotechnics and laser light show unit you'll have strapped to your back. You'll be so glad you went with the Imperial Grandeur Production, rather than merely the Queen's Fantasy Ensemble. The table centerpieces will accent the foie gras and lobster main course perfectly. Trust us - you just have to have it.

C'mon, you can afford that second mortgage, with interest rates being so low right now.

In all seriousness though, it really isn't that bad. We knew what we were getting into. With New Orleans being a wedding "destination city", we had figured on having to do some leg work to put together the wedding we would like at the price we can afford. That's the journey we're embarking on now.

It's been fun so far. We've toured some reception facilities and done a couple of food tastings. No clear front runner has emerged, but we feel like we're making a lot of progress. Of immense help has been a friend of ours who works in the biz. She knows what's up around town. Big Cake tries to screw you, and the only way to avoid it is to Know the Enemy.

Also, my folks are in town now for Easter, and Lucie's mom is on the way today. Should be a great "get-to-know-you-better" thing, as they only had a short "ice-breaker" meeting back during Christmas. We have a lot going on at church as well - woke up early for the overnight vigil thing today - and we're hoping to maybe drag the rents to some venues and maybe try some food.

Hope all of y'all have a good weekend.

2003-04-18T12:54:00.000-05:00

BECHTEL WINS

San Fransico-based Bechtel has been awarded the USAID contract to rebuild Iraq.

This is an interesting article, particularly because of all of the criticisms it raises, both of the contracting process and Bechtel itself. For example:

They use the word reconstruction," said Patrick Reinsborough, an organizer with Direct Action to Stop the War. "To us, this appears much more a second invasion of Iraq, a carving up of the country by U.S. corporations."

Yeah, Bechtel is going to carve up Iraq. Tom Hash, president of Bechtel, will likely get his own duchy, with the capital in Tikrit, and thousands of servants, plus his own personal army. Bechtel board members will split the other major cities - Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk, etc. - and VPs will get private villas. Subcontractors will be invited to bid over the fertile regions of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. Yep, that's the entire point of the contract, carve up the paradise that is Iraq for private coporations.

Snicker.

There's the usual campaign contribution "watchdogs" barking:

Government watchdogs noted that all six of the companies bidding on the contract Bechtel won Thursday donated heavily to American politicians -- $3.6 million between 1999 and 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Most of the money went to Republicans. Bechtel and its employees contributed $1.3 million to federal campaigns and candidates over the past three years, with 59 percent going to Republicans and the rest to Democrats.

I dare you to find a large corporation that doesn't contribute heavily to politicians. Since Congress, the Executive, and the Supreme Court have decided to ignore the Constiution's limits on federal power, you pretty much have to contribute to the poltical process to protect yourself from being legislated out of business. But why is it that it is always the corporations who are blamed for this, never the politicians who have twisted the system? But no, the story is always "Oh, the horror of a corporation and it's employees corrupting the democratic process. Why can't they just stay out of it so the objective 'public interest' non-profits and well-meaning and wise politicians can run the show?"

And then there's Bechtel's "connections":

Bechtel's corporate board includes George Shultz, secretary of state during the Reagan administration. Riley Bechtel, the firm's chairman and chief executive, was recently appointed to President Bush's export council. Caspar Weinberger was a Bechtel director, vice president and general counsel before become Reagan's secretary of defense in 1980.

Yeah, and Tom Hash's third cousin once when to the same Lakers game as Dick Cheney's college roommate's best friend's niece. Puh-leese.

So of course, all those contributions and connections prevented any real competition:

"It raises the possibility that the companies specially invited to bid on this huge government contract were those with deep pockets and strong connections," said Steven Weiss, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. "And companies that may have been just as qualified but didn't have as much money or didn't have the connections weren't invited."

Here's a clue, folks: Mom and Pop Concrete & Rebar, LLC, of Savannah, Georgia, has no friggin' chance in hell of carrying out a $680 million contract to rebuild the infrastructure of nation halfway around the world, like Iraq. In fact, there are but a handful of companies in the US with the resources carry out this kind of contract.

In the offshore business, we call it an "epic contractor". With oil exploration moving into ever-deeper waters, the costs and risks involved are growing immensely. Floating production hubs in 3,000 or more feet of water can cost $400 million to discover, evaluate, develop, and bring on-line. The risks are enormous. You have to build the things in pieces in shipyards - yes, that's plural - all around the world. The hulls get towed into position, sometimes thousands of miles from where they are built, and are flooded and upended into the proper position. Floating crane units are used to place the production modules on the platform offshore. The modules cost tens-of-millions of dollars, and must be lifted from floating barges onto floating platforms, and then mated up. Those modules often weigh thousands of tons. They can be - and have been - dropped into the drink.

Then you have to connect all of that to the wells, thousands of feet below the surface of the water. And those pipes ain't cheap...

With that much risk and money on the line, the customer needs an "epic contractor" who is capable of handling the overall responsibility for bringing the entire project together, often coordinating layer upon layer of subcontractors and vendors. Providing the managerial capacity and expertise requires a corporation with a real legacy of experience and success.

And it's no coincidence that that contractor happens to have deep pockets. When the federal government has a $680 million contract on the line, do you want to give it to a company on shaky financial ground? An organization with a solid balance sheet is a must. Any delays, overruns, or emergencies have to be covered, either with the contractor's own resources or taxpayer dollars.

For example, my company was part of a partnership with several others a few years ago to design and build a deepwater floating production hub. My company designed the hull - I poured a year of my life into that thing. In the end, we lost, and the biggest reason was that the value of the contract was greater than the total market cap of the team of companies we were a part of. If things had gone awry, we all could have gone bankrupt, leaving the client in a world of trouble.

I think it's safe to say that it was precisely that kind of reasoning that determined which companies were invited by USAID to bid. This project, which will require the prime contractor to oversee everything from rebuilding sewers to repairing ports to replacing bridges, is simply so huge that the contractor has to meet a very specific set of criteria to even contemplate doing it.

Bechtel is one of them. There aren't many others with that kind of infrastructure in place and ready to go. They've done business in that part of the world for decades. Not that I'm endorsing Bechtel at all, as I don't know any of the specifics. But the critics are going to have to do better than innuendo and tired anti-capitalist rhetoric.

2003-04-11T16:52:00.000-05:00

CNN

The CNN thing is turing into a real scandal. See more here. Also, as I linked below, here and here. Click this to read the story that started it all.

The gist of the objection is this: if CNN had publically cried foul when it's employees were arrested and tortured, they would have risked expulsion, but also might have prompted a mass western media exodus. That might have forced the regime to treat the international press with more respect, in order to get them to come back. And there's other questions: what else is CNN not telling us? At what point would it refuse to cover events in a country ruled as it once was?

Like I said earlier, I'm not a journalistic ethics prof, and my gut reaction is to say that some press is better than none. But CNN's critics do have a point. Could a CNN walk-out have prompted some sort of change? I doubt it. The regime's crimes have been known for years, but some people have chosen to ignore them. As the brutality of this regime has been confirmed in the past few weeks, I've not noticed any lack of people willing to take to the streets to protest our overthrow of it. As for credibility, I've never ascribed much to them anyway - any network happy to let the likes of Paul Begala and James Carville debate with the likes of Robert Novak and Pat Buchannon doesn't hold much water with me.

2003-04-11T12:10:00.001-05:00

QAIM

Another city demanding attention, besides Tikrit, is Qaim. It's close to the Syrian border and has played a role in Iraq's nuclear weapons program in the past.

The big problem, with both Tikrit and Qaim, is getting enough heavy units to those cities to be decisive. Right now, Qaim is under attack from special ops-types supported by airstrikes. Tikrit is being bombed, and I suspect we have plenty of spec ops there as well.

Last night, I saw some news footage of American armor, presumably in Iraq, still painted in woodland camoflage. Since everything we've seen so far has been in desert tan, I suspect that those vehicles were from a newly-arrived unit. Didn't see any distinguishing marks, nor were the shots labelled as being in northern or southern Iraq.

There are three possibilities. They could be from the 4th ID, moving up from Kuwait. Since the 4th was supposed to be attacking from the north at the time the vehicles were loaded onto ships, they probably would not have gotten the desert paint scheme.

The second possibility is that these are vehicles from one of the V Corps divisions in Germany - either the 1st ID or 1st AD. Global Security seems to confirm this. They report that 300 soldiers, along with an unknown number of armored vehicles, from 1-63 Armored, which is part of 3rd BDE, 1st ID, are the ones being flown into that airhead seized by the 173rd a couple of weeks ago. They speculate that it will be a battalion-sized task force and will be attached to the 173rd, along with some elements of the 10th Mountain Division.

I find this to be a pretty plausible report. Given the length of time necessary to fly in that many armored vehicles, and the logistics necessary to support them, a battalion sounds about right. The airhead opened two weeks ago, while the overland supply lines from Turkey were opened last week. Now would seem like the earliest possible time that armored force could get moving.

The third possibility is that these are 4th ID units being flown into northern Iraq from Kuwait, as reported by Strategy Page. They cite the shorter distances involved. I'm not sure about this, since the reports of armor being flown into northern Iraq go back two weeks, and at that point, 4th ID's stuff wasn't being offloaded yet.

Meanwhile, Orbat now claims that the 2nd ACR is now deployed protecting supply lines. They also say that some armor (6 M1s and 6 M2s) is in northern Iraq, which gibes with both Global Security and Strategy Page. Orbat continues to report that 4th ID units are moving into Iraq on their way to Tikrit.

Someday, maybe CENTCOM will say just who and what is where, and how that happened. For now, they are keeping quiet.

Logistics will be the driving consideration in how long it takes to deal with what's left of the resistance. The 4th ID's supplies will have to share space on the roads from Kuwait with the units already engaged in the south and in Baghdad. And with humanitarian supplies, for that matter. Once the 4th gets north of Baghdad, it may have to contend with the same kind harrassment of supply lines seen in the south during the first week or two of the war.

For the 173rd and attached units, they won't have to share the road with so many other units. Their line should also be much more secure, given how much of it is controlled by Kurdish allies. But their base is in Turkey, which is politically squirrely.

We still have a couple of weeks to go, maybe more.

2003-04-11T12:10:00.000-05:00

COMING SOON TO IRAQI TV

Looks like, besides the Bush & Blair show, it will soon be Friends with subtitles and Oprah.

2003-04-11T12:09:00.001-05:00

UGH

Everybody is linking to this piece from CNN's news director about all of the things they knew but could not report in order to continue to have a presence in Iraq.

I'm not a professor of journalistic ethics, so I can't comment intelligently on it. CNN certainly had good reasons to keep mum about what they knew of the regime's brutality - namely, protecting the lives of Iraqi nationals who worked for them - and they did the right thing on at least one occaision by reporting something they did know to the right people.

Really, these are questions that any business faces when trying to work in a country under less than ideal human-rights conditions, let alone brutal dictatorship. At what point do you decide that continuing on there is no longer worth the moral burden? Tough call. I think CNN did the right thing - some sunshine is better than no sunshine. What would you have done?

UPDATE: A lot of people disagree, for good reasons. See here and here.

2003-04-11T12:09:00.000-05:00

NEXT ON MTV "CRIBS"

Tariq Aziz's Tigris River pad.

2003-04-10T17:10:00.000-05:00

ON TO TIKRIT

Checking with the order-of-battle from Global Security and Orbat, it seems that elements of the 2nd ACR and the 4th ID may be moving into Iraq now, or will start soon. The 3rd ACR is still on the way. Orbat also claims 2 companies of the 1st Armored Division are in northern Iraq.

All of this is still important - the war ain't over. It's 100 miles from Baghdad to Tikrit. That's another 100 miles for supplies to travel from Kuwait. Baghdad IAP will help alleviate that problem, but only so much.

How much force will be required to keep the peace in Baghdad? How much to secure the supply lines from Baghdad to Tikrit? How much to capture Tikrit? Iraqi resistance seems to be vanishing. And while Tikrit's defenders may be more loyal than Baghdad's, it doesn't mean they will be any smarter or better equipped than their comrades to the south.

There's also the issue of the border with Syria - it's porous, and it's been a source of willing morons from various nations who wish to die for Saddam, suckered by propaganda and the spin of the Arab media. Hopefully, yesterday's graphic display of American success and Iraqi jubilation will change that. Still, the border needs to be closed.

In short, moving to the next phase of combat - which may be the last - will probably take more troops. Good thing they're available.

2003-04-10T17:09:00.000-05:00

CAPTIAL-D DRUGS

Tim Leary had nothing on this guy.

Thanks to Bobby B for the link. Wonder where Baghdad Bob is these days? A cave? Tunnel? Tikrit? Syria?

On a similar, but far less absurd, note, here's National Review's Hall of Shame.

Of course, some of the people on that list could be given a pass. Take, for example, Gen. McCaffrey, who speculated that there could be as many as 3,000 US casualties, made clear that that was assuming that the Iraqis chose to fight. By and large, they have not. They certainly could have inflicted those kinds of casualties had they used better tactics.

Similarly, Chris Matthews could still be shown to be right. Our occupation is just beginning. How well will it go? How long will it take? How many more casualties will we suffer? Nobody knows, and it will be difficult. Sure, he's got some things wrong, but his basic critique is still valid. Thing is, I don't think Matthews knew at that time (the essay quoted was written last August) the depth of support the President would have now.

Otherwise, a lot of people ought to be feeling very, very, foolish right now. Especially the repeat offenders after the Afghanistan campaign.

Andrew Sullivan has similar sentiments, with his "Von Hoffman Awards" for grossly inaccurate wartime predictions. There's a bunch here and more here.

Sullivan's examples are generally better than NRO's. His nominees make clear that as recently as yesterday, many people were declaring the plan a failure and long war inevitable. They were woefully wrong, and calling them on it is useful.

But still, it's important to keep what we've won so far in perspective. We have much of Iraq under some level of control, and the regime has been removed from Baghdad. It is presumably running or hiding. The Iraqi people seem happy to see them go. What resistance materialized has since collapsed, and is unlikely to gel into something more effective at Tikrit. That's a huge accomplishment. But there's still a long ways to go.

2003-04-10T17:02:00.000-05:00

THE ARAB REACTION

How's the "Arab Street"? Confused as hell.

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footalls links to this story on the reaction in the Palestinian Territories, particularly angry Saddam fans who had been looking forward to the slaughter of US troops in Baghdad - on live TV - as promised by the Arab media and Iraq's Information Minister. Johnson responds with this gem of a quote:

I rarely use profanity on the front page, but this is pure mind-boggling dumbshittery at its absolute finest.

I prefer "dipshittery" myself, but the message is the same.

2003-04-10T12:40:00.000-05:00

HOW IT'S GOING TO PLAY OUT

Still lots of fighting ahead. But it's useful to think ahead a bit about what comes next: getting Iraq back on it's feet.

There's just tons of questions about how that's going to happen. Suffice to say I hope we handle the peace as well as we've handled the war.

The biggest obstruction to that effort, I fear, won't come from the Iraqi people, the "Arab Street", Osama bin-Laden, or any other tough-guy wanna-bes. Nope, it's going to come from the same Europeans and Americans who tried so hard to sabotage the overthrow of the regime in the first place.

Start, for exmaple, with this article I found via Jeff Jarvis. You see, the only people unhappy to see the Marines in Firdos Square yesterday were (1) members of Saddam's regime, (2) the Islamakaze-types who came to Iraq to fight from other nations, and (3) European and American human shields.

Here's a bit from the story:

Some American and European "human shields" were there, antiwar activists who had come to Baghdad and placed themselves in front of power plants and other potential targets. They chastised the Marines for attacking Iraq and promoting war.

That angered some of the soldiers. "I didn't bury two of my fellow Marines just so someone like that could call us murderers," said one, angry and teary, referring to an Iraqi artillery attack that killed two of his colleagues on Monday. "They died for this country."

Meanwhile, two Iraqis held up a sheet bearing the message: ""Go home Human Shields, you U.S. Wankers."

That's just a taste of what's to come, really. The France-Russia-Germany axis is already lining up at the UN to impose their will on a post-war Iraq. They'll want their oil contracts protected, repayment of Iraq's massive debts to them guaranteed, and any evidence of their complicity in the regime's crimes - even under the sanctions program - swept under the rug.

Meanwhile, the human shield-types will take to the streets in protest. Every act of charity will be labelled "colonization". The presence of US and British troops to keep the peace and support a fledgling government will be called "imperialism". Businesses who look to establish themselves in Iraq will be accused of pursuing the evil doctrine of "globalization".

And as was the case before the war, the feelings and opinions of the Iraqi people will be ignored by those who say they have them at heart. The human shields encountered by the Marines in Baghdad represent that movement perfectly. As far as they are concerned, all of the evil is on one side, and they simply don't care that the regime they sought to prop up was a monstrosity.

World Wide Rant did those jokers a favor and wrote them an open letter to the people of Iraq. Those who feel so inclined are invited to sign. Gist: Dear Iraq, We didn't want you to be free, and we still don't. Wonder how many takers there will be?

For the conspiracy theorists, Vodka Pundit outlines the Bush Administration's plans for colonization, a la Poland in 1940.

Anyway, it's not over - not the fighting, not the politics, not the recriminations. We're watching the world change. Some people don't like it.

2003-04-09T12:19:00.000-05:00

A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT

This morning, before I left for work, the live shots on TV were all of US Marines entering that traffic circle in Baghad - you know, the one we've seen on TV so much, with the big statue of Saddam. Anyway, the Marines had just arrived, and were waving a flag from an Amtrack. A crowd of Iraqis was gathering, chanting and waving their shirts in the air. A Sky News reporter went form Marine to Marine, asking each his name and how things were going.

I was moved. Those guys had just gone hundreds of miles through the desert in three weeks - fighting, dealing with all kinds problems and hardships, getting little rest and less comfort. Yet they still smiled, were calm and professional, didn't make much of their struggles, and mainly wanted to say hello to their families back home.

Equally moving was the crowd gathering at the feet of that statue. They were throwing rocks at it when I left for work. Later, with the help of an American tank, it was toppled. Go to any news website and you can see the video.

Glenn Reynolds has a good post on it, and another one here. Read his whole page.

The war isn't over. Won't be for a while. There will be more casualties. Tikrit lies ahead, and many Baghdad neighborhoods have yet to be touched.

But the symbolic victory has been won, even if the military one is still some time off. It's worth pausing for a moment and reflecting with thanks on those who made it happen.

Our troops persevered through ambushes, snipers, and suicide attackers. They worked under the constant threat of chemical weapons. They dealt with the suspicion and mistrust of knowing that even pregnant women could be driving explosive-laden cars. They knew that men in civilian clothes could fire at them from hospitals. They grappled with all of that through heat, cold, sandstorms, rain, mud, dust, and sand, by day and by night, for three weeks. They grappled and prevailed.

Their military and political leaders endured the doubts and smears of the ciritics, the willful moral blindness of anti-war radicals, and the attrocious reporting of parts of the international press. They dealt with second-guesssing of their plans and outrageous accusations, from being labelled bumbling idiots on one hand to cold, calculating war criminals on the other. They had to answer imbecile questions, questions based on a total lack of understanding and complete absence of thoughtful reflection. They rebutted lines of questioning that even doubted their very humanity.

But they all stuck with it, carried on, and are now on the verge of total victory.

In all, it was an enormous effort that made this happen. Now, there is a chance for the Iraqi people to remake their society. The same courage and character that brought us this far must now be brought to bear helping the Iraqi people help themselves.

2003-04-09T12:11:00.000-05:00

CATCH-UP

Didn't blog yesterday, was very busy. Anyway, here's some articles I noted:

The WaPo continues it's excellent first-hand reporting with this report from the 3rd ID in Baghdad, graphically demonstrating the dangers for unarmored vehicles in street fighting. This other story is from the Marines on the other side of town.

The NYT has a moving story on an Iraqi exile returning to his home town as a Marine translator, and being reunited with his son.

Today's WaPo details operations by the 101st Airborne in clearing Hilla

2003-04-07T17:33:00.000-05:00

NEXT STOP: TIKRIT

Baghdad is getting all of the attention in the press these days. But everyone might want to remember all of that territory Baghdad between the coalition troops advancing from the south on Baghdad and the Kurdish forces in the north.

It is widely believed that most of the RG units assigned to this area were sent south to defend Baghdad from the 3rd ID and I MEF. After all, 4th ID wasn't approaching from the north, and the 173rd Abn BDE airhead had yet to develop into a real threat.

In that area north of Baghdad is Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam and the spiritual home of his most ardent supporters. Tikrit must be seized.

This article suggests that the Tikrit mission will be assigned to elements of the 4th ID as they become available. The division's equipment has been unloading for about a week, and all of it's personnel are now in Kuwait. It will probably take another week or two for the entire division to become available, but seems possible that one brigade will be ready sometime this week or next.

That would be useful, as there's no telling how long 3rd ID might be engaged in Baghdad. Things look good at the moment, but that could change.

Other forces could also be brought to bear. After the 173rd landed in northern Iraq, it was widely reported that armored vehicles were being flown into the airhead. I've read speculation that those were elements of the 1st ID coming in. With the opening of Turkey as a logistics base, the idea of an armored brigade striking from the north seems feasible. But I've seen nothing in the news to confirm that any armor was actually flown in, or that any armor unit was ever named as being deployed in that manner. Was that disinformation? There are no "embeds" with the 173rd, and it's certain that there's stuff going on up there we aren't being told about. But at this point, I think it's an open question whether or not any heavy units are being flown into northern Iraq. We may not know for sure unless and until they engage.

The 173rd itself does appear to have acquired a bit of mobility, in that it has been equipped with Humvees and trucks, and it now has a solid logisitcal base. They could form a fast-moving force to drive on Tikrit from the north. But it would seem very hard for them to break through Iraqi defenses without any heavy units, even with Kurdish help and airpower. There's also the Kurds themselves: the Turks want them under control. The 173rd may have to be kept in the north to keep Turkey from intervening.

Then there's the 2nd ACR. "ACR" isn't really accurate - they've traded their tanks and armored vehicles for Humvees, as they are transitioning to a lightweight, more deployable force. 2nd ACR's mission is as a security and recon force for XVIII Airborne Corps. Eventually, they'll have the Stryker light armored vehicle, and later they'll get whatever is the Army's new 20 ton armored vehicle around 2010. For now, it's Humvees armed with machine guns, grenade launchers, and anti-tank missiles.

There's scant information that I can find about the status of 2nd ACR's deployment. It's mentioned here, but there's no details. Operational security, no doubt. In any case, 2nd ACR's arrival on the battlefield is crucial: they are badly needed to free up elements of the 82nd Airborne and I MEF from convoy security. Once that happens, those units could be committed to Tikrit or Baghdad.

Don't get caught up in the ups and downs of the news cycle. The initial talk of this war was all about "shock and awe". After a week, the talk was "quagmire". Now, it's upbeat again, with US forces fighting in Baghdad. But I suspect that operations in Baghdad could go on for days or even weeks, and unless Gen. Franks presents Saddam's head to the press corps in Doha by Wednesday, the critics will be back to calling it a quagmire again: "US Forces Bogged Down in Baghdad", etc. Don't buy any of it: I believe this will take a few more weeks, and nothing about that amounts to a failure or a defeat. It's just the way it's going to be.

2003-04-07T17:26:00.001-05:00

ITEMS OF INTEREST

James Dunnigan has guidelines for urban warfare at Strategypage.

The future of the tank in the US military is discussed here.

2003-04-07T17:26:00.000-05:00

LILEKS

James Lileks weighs in on the disappointment of so many in the Arab world who thought we'd quit at the first sign of casualties:

The lesson of Mogadishu: don’t draw any lessons from Mogadishu.

Lileks goes on, discussing an interview he watched on TV:

The guest, it turned out, was the ambassador from Syria, a nation whose bootheel has been pressed against the Lebanese jugular for how many years now?

It reminded me again of an interview I heard a few weeks ago with the CEO of some big Middle-eastern Internet company; he said that Arabs hate the US because of the oppressive governments we support. The host asked if people were pleased when the Taliban was deposed, and he said of course not - the US was attacking a Muslim nation!

At some point the entirety of the American Street’s reaction to Arab concerns will be: whatever.

2003-04-07T13:21:00.000-05:00

IRAQ STUFF

Watched some news on and off over the weekend, when I had time, and read a bit today.

Things still seem to be going well, all in all, though the Iraqis still get lucky sometimes.

Read this account of British forces taking Basra.

More opinion on the force debate within the Pentagon here.

As for Baghdad...

The US military is once again suprising people. We've yet to see much house-to-house fighting, or American troops storming dense neighborhoods. Instead, we've been seeing thrusts by armored forces on wide roads directed at political targets, with little emphasis on sercuring and controlling a whole lot of territory. You could see this happening all weekend from the embedded reporters - they were moving with armored columns, not dismounted searching every building.

The idea is to compel the regime to engage US forces on disadvantageous terms. The Iraqis may want to fight in densely populated areas with narrow streets and many buildings. But by directly aiming operations at high-value political targets, and using wide, clear roads, the US is instead provoking the Iraqis to respond by fighting in relatively open areas. The regime doesn't want to suffer the propaganda blow of losing presidential palaces and key government buildings, so they have no choice but to respond.

This is a good role for the 3rd ID, especially since elements of the 101st and 82nd still seem tied down to the south. It essentially is a continuation of US doctrine, adapted for urban terrain. It seems to have had some success, so far.

It also has a downside. Commanders will want to maintain flexibility with the 3rd ID. Cities are dangerous places for vehicles, as they can be struck from close range with little or no warning, and trapped in umfamiliar streets with unexpected obstructions. This is especially bad for unarmored vehicles, like the ones used to move supplies to combat units. Thus, 3rd ID's command group may want to use the division's striking power to seize important targets, destroy any Iraqis who come out to counter them, then withdraw to replenish, rather than risking logistics units in unsecured terrain. Those withdrawls may be incorrectly interpreted as "retreats", "reversals", "failures", or "defeats" for US forces, as is the case with this report from Robert Fisk. Our Army works best when not tied down to any geographic location, and can use their superior mobility and information dominance to control the time, place, and terms of combat. The 3rd ID will want to keep that advantage, whereas the press will see only what id occupied and what is not.

Again, there's no telling how long this all might take. But I was a little surprised at how quickly our forces made it into certain areas of Baghdad, especially the presidential palace. I mean, the regime has had months to establish a defence - set up ambushes, tank traps, etc. Right now, they look as if they were completely unprepared, or else utterly defeated in those efforts. Impossible to say which for sure right now.

2003-04-07T12:57:00.000-05:00

UPDATE

No time to blog over the weekend - lots of yardwork and a largely unsuccessful effort to catch up on some needed sleep. Also went to a Final Four party at a friend's place on Saturday night, followed by visits to Twiropa, F&M, and St. Joe's. Long night, especially with the time change.

Anyway, hope all of you out there had a nice weekend...

2003-04-04T14:36:00.000-06:00

RELIEVED?

Rumors abound that the commander of one of the marine regiments was relieved today. The rumor has it (follow the link and scroll down to the 12:48 EST entry) that some marines have been captured in a botched landing attempt (I assume air assault) in southern Baghdad.

2003-04-04T14:35:00.000-06:00

THE WORST IS ON THE WAY?

This post at the Command Post is chilling. Apparently, the Iraqi information minister is promising "unconventional" attacks against US forces at Baghdad International Airport. Nobody knows what that means, but it's bound to be ugly.

2003-04-03T17:24:00.000-06:00

OOPS

Turns out that the NYT slightlyly misquoted Lt. Gen. Wallace, V Corps commander, in charge of Army forces in Iraq. A few days ago, he started a media firestorm by saying that the enemy he was fighitng was different than the one he had wargammed against. It should have read:

"The enemy we're fighting is A BIT different from the one we war-gamed against."

They left out the "a bit" before. Remember, this was the story that finally allowed the idea that the war plan was flawed to get some real traction. The press had a feeding frenzy - Rummy wanted a force that was too small, we way underestimated the opposition, we weren't prepared to defend our convoys, etc.

Turns, out, the Iraqi resistance was only "a bit different". How much difference do those words make? Depends on how you look at it, of course. It could reduce the impact of the statement, but it could also add emphasis, I suppose. If I could hear the man's voice as he said it, it would be clearer to me what he meant.

But, either way, it's obvious at this point that while operations by irregulars against our supply lines have had some impact on our operations, they clearly haven't been decisive. If they slowed us down at all, it couldn't have been more than a day or two. It's hard to imagine this thing going any faster than it has.

The real question is whether or not those two words would have made a difference in how the first week of the war was reported. I think the answer is no. The press needed a story, and as usual, they made one up. The misquote just made it easier.

Of course, the debate within the defense department over strategy, and the size and composition of the force, is real, and it's important. But any meaningful debate over that won't take place until weeks or months down the road, when a full accounting of what took place in this war is done. I'll wait until then.

2003-04-03T17:21:00.000-06:00

OUTSKIRTS OF BAGHDAD II

Here's an account of the battle of Karbala Gap and the seizure of the bridge beyond. Sounds like the Iraqis did put up a bit of a fight. Reading Fisk's report I mentioned earlier, you do have to wonder if the guy really thinks at all before he writes. Gee, slit trenches and bunkers. Think our guys have some ways of dealing with that? No, Fisk just can't see how we could do it.

Well, 3rd ID seems to have done it, and damn quickly too. No way to tell right now if the RG has been as badly damaged as CENTCOM is saying. But with our troops already at Saddam International and the Baghdad skyline on the horizon, I think it's safe to say that Mr. Fisk's assessment was way off.

UPDATE: Michael Kelley, author of the above-linked WaPo story, has been killed in a Hummvee accident, along with a US serviceman, story here.

2003-04-03T12:47:00.000-06:00

OUTSKIRTS OF BAGHDAD

If you've been reading The Command Post, as you should be, you'd have seen this post, noting this report filed by the infamous Robert Fisk (the subject of the first "Fisking") about the Iraqi defences south of Baghdad.

Said Fisk:

How, I kept asking myself, could the Americans batter their way through these defenses? For mile after mile they go on, slit trenches, ditches, earthen underground bunkers, palm groves of heavy artillery and truck loads of combat troops in battle fatigues and steel helmets. Not since the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War have I seen the Iraqi Army deployed like this; the Americans may say they are “degrading” the country’s defenses but there was little sign of that here Wednesday.

That report was filed Wednesday from the town of Mussayib along the Euphrates. Mussayib is the site of the last bridge over the river between the 3rd ID and Baghdad. By Thursday, the Washington Post was reporting this:

U.S. ground troops overran Baghdad's outer defenses today in a swift attack along two fronts that drew only patchy resistance from Iraqi soldiers and catapulted the American invasion force to within striking distance of President Saddam Hussein's nucleus of power.

Notably, that bridge, near where Fisk filed his report, was captured.

The WaPo report includes this quote from a Marine officer:

"There's an old military saying: If your attack is going well, it's an ambush," said Col. Larry Brown, the chief operations officer for Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, the top Marine commander in Iraq.

[...]

A U.S. intelligence official said Republican Guard troops were given hasty orders to retreat toward Baghdad, but that under a hail of precision-guided bombs and artillery, the Iraqi soldiers "just couldn't move." Now, the official said, the path to Baghdad is "wide open."

Hmmm.

Here's another WaPo report, this one from Baghdad, also filed today:

It was difficult to gauge the depth of unease in a government that, at one time, said it was deliberating what religious rites should be guaranteed for the corpses of U.S. and British soldiers and whether they should be buried in mass pits or individual graves. In more understated moments, Ramadan, the vice president, and other officials have said they intend to prolong the war, but offer little assessment of how it will end. Today, Ramadan suggested that giving U.S. forces a good fight might be a victory in itself.

Hmmm.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: the situation seems to be looking up, but there's still a lot of unknowns. Has the Republican Guard been dealt a devastating blow, or is it pulling us into a trap? Have the survivors simply fled the battlefield, never to be seen again, or will they make a stand in Baghdad? And just how hard - and well - will the defenders of Baghdad fight?

I'm asking these questions because we're now facing what everyone expected would be the toughest part of the campaign. Everything that we've done so far has been aimed at getting us to the gates of the city. Now it's a matter of going into Baghdad and finishing the job. What awaits our forces there? Fanatical resistance? Helpful civilians? Apocalyptic use of weapons of mass destruction?

2003-04-03T08:50:00.000-06:00

UPDATE

Thanks, everybody, for all of your (mostly) beautiful thoughts below. They are appreciated.

Note that I misspoke a bit. Lucie is planning to start law school next fall, not this one. She took the LSAT late last year and did well, but it was too late to apply for financial aid at that time. So she's going to teach one more year while we try to save money like mad.

2003-04-02T17:08:00.000-06:00

MOVING ON

As usual, check today's update from Strategy Page.

The offensive is rolling again from the south. The defeatism of the talking classes has proven very premature. But it's still anybody's guess as to how well Saddam's loyalists will fight in Baghdad itself.

It seems to me that while the use of chemical weapons remains a distinct possibility, Saddam's chances to use them are rapidly vanishing. If he wants to use it, it has to count - he must incapacitate enough coalition troops to make a difference. Otherwise, he risks losing whatever advantages he might have in the propaganda war and strengthening US resolve for no gain. Thing is, he's running out of the means to deliver those weapons. Iraqi artillery is an endangered species. Islamakaze bombers have made every vehicle a target, diminishing the effectiveness of using that approach. The Iraqi air force has been a no-show.

His best remaining deployment method is probably surface-to-surface missiles. These have been 100% useless so far, but they've also proven to be survivable - we can't seem to find most of the launchers. Saddam could still get lucky. One option would be to fire as many missiles as possible at a city like Najaf, where almost an entire US division, the 101st, is concentrated in a relatively small area. The results could be horrific. Especially for civilians.

I'm still wondering what's going on in the west and north. The rumors about II MEF deploying from Jordan haven't panned out. Notably, Turkey has allowed logistics units to go into Iraq through their territory, which will eventually take much of the load off of our airhead in northern Iraq. From what I understand, logistics units have been in Turkey for weeks. Now that they can be used to support any units in the north, the airlift can begin focusing on moving in more heavy armor (1 M1 or two M2s per C-17; takes a while to land a brigade that way) than could be supported by airlift alone. Still uncertain which unit is going in up there.

The deployment of the 4th ID into Kuwait is getting a lot of press. What isn't is the deployment of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, from Fort Polk, LA. Supposedly, all of it's personnel and vehicles are moving by air. Not sure how that's working and if they're bringing their heavy stuff or not. In any case, 2nd ACR deployment may be more time critical than 4th ID. The 2nd is probably going to be assigned a force-protection role along the supply lines in southern Iraq. That would free up elements of the 82nd and 101st, as well as Marine Corps units, who are going to be needed for Baghdad. The 2nd ACR stands a much better chance of being in position to do that in time to speed up the campaign, whereas the bulk of the 4th ID won't be available for at least another week, probably two and maybe even three.

2003-04-02T16:48:00.000-06:00

MORE GOOD JOURNALISM

Riveting stuff from a reporter with the 4-64th Armored, 3rd ID. Click here then click on the scroll bar at the top, and select "Streetfight is first taste of war for G.I.'s".

2003-04-01T17:10:00.000-06:00

THE LATEST

Don't miss Strategy Page's latest update.

Steven Den Beste has a nice write-up on how reporters who are used to determining victory and defeat in politics by the points spread are misapplying that standard to the war.

At NRO, David Frum notes how that points spread keeps getting bigger:

"The allies win ONLY IF they (1) overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime and (2) find Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and (3) do so with minimal casualties and (4) also with minimal Iraqi casualties while (5) being hailed and welcomed by the Iraqi population and (6) without upsetting Arab public opinion too much also (7) without irritating the European allies too much and now (8) without any alterations of their original plan." In other words, allied success can be discounted if along the way the allies make any adjustment of their plans to circumstances.

2003-04-01T17:09:00.000-06:00

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Read "Saddam's" message to his people today here. Some highlights:

Yes, these are the days of unparalleled honor for 700 years. God has granted us with this great opportunity and affliction that God wants to test our faith and our allegiance, which we testified to before the Almighty, so that God shall give us this opportunity to turn the words into deeds to bestow upon us his mercy and raise the influence of his banner through us as it flutters on the mast of Allahu Akbar.

[...]

Therefore, jihad is a duty in confronting them. He who dies in this quest God bestows on him light in eternal paradise and in his blessing. Seize the opportunity, my brothers, it carries one of the two virtues for the sake of God and the great principles.

I have to say, he's no Gen. George S. Patton. You can read his pep-talk for troops about to land in Normandy in 1944 here. Some highlights:

We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket.

[...]

We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!

Which do you find more compelling?

2003-04-01T12:19:00.000-06:00

REMARKABLE STORY

Read this account of 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry's 24-hour fight up the Euphrates which took place a week ago. Very interesting stuff.

2003-03-31T16:54:00.000-06:00

BACK TO THE WAR

Check out Glenn Reynold's column at Tech Central Station about the press and the war. Pretty much says everything I'd want to say today.

Strategy Page has a good update on the situation in Iraq, as well as this discussion of British armor tactics.

CNN's military analyst Maj Gen. Don Shepperd calls the battle plan "bold, audacious, and prudent". Unlike the halfwits asking the questions at Pentagon and CENTCOM briefings, he actually knows what the hell he's talking about.

2003-03-31T10:15:00.000-06:00

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Stayed home again on Friday. Was feeling marginally better Friday evening, which was useful for certain things I had planned...

Last Tuesday, I bought Lucie a contractor-grade DeWalt cordless drill - multiple speeds and torques, keyless chuck, 30-bit screwdriving set, etc. Shut-up back there in the peanut gallery - my woman likes power tools more than I do, and she really wants one for her birthday. But I had other plans.

On Friday, I gave it to her as a suprise gift. Having been feeling bad, she came over right after she left work to check on me and offered to make me dinner. Previously, I had wrapped the gift and placed it outside on the garden bench she had given me for my birthday. I made an attempt to get her to eat dinner outside, but she was certain she wanted to see the end of "From Martha's Kitchen". I had to employ some guile to get her to notice the big box by looking out the window.

So we went out and she opened it, and was very excited. With it, I included a card, telling her of my intentions to ask her to marry me I soon as I could get the bloody damned ring arranged (except without the "bloody damned" part). In the meantime, would she please move in to my house?

Some of you may be wondering, "What the [expletive]?"

Sometime back, I mentioned here that there would be some "big announcements" on this blog. Unfortunately, my plans regarding those "big announcements" went awry sometime back in February. Many noticed my lack of blogging that month, and "The Operational Pause", as CENTCOM would say, had as much to do with my struggles re: The Ring as anything else. My mind was completely focused on that one thing, and it was hard to think about anything else. Because Lucie reads this, it was impossible to go into any detail here at all. Now, I can kind of get it off my chest, which is a good thing.

You see, I did things backwards. Most people buy houses after getting married. I bought one before getting married. It's good, I'm glad I did it. But I see now the sense in buying a house with two incomes, rather than one. With the house comes responsibility for maintaining and improving it, which costs money. It has taken a while to get a full grip on that budgetary situation and adjust things accordingly.

Anyway, my big goal has been to save money for an engagement ring. But, to get what I want, and what I know my prospective bride deserves, I've had to try to save money like a mad fool. Suffice to say that since there's this house to deal with, and a truck that is approaching that mileage where expensive things start to break, there's always some expense to worry about.

Not to mention that all jewelers are liars and thieves. Since Lucie reads this, I can't divulge details, so I'll leave it at that.

So, my engagement ring plan is continually delayed, much to my frustration - and to Lucie's. I had given her the signals a while back that the time was drawing nigh. I had also discussed and sought approval for my plans with her family and mine. When things weren't moving along, I felt I was on the verge of blowing it. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

You see, we're on a timeline here. Lucie wants to start law school next fall. Law school is expensive. For her sanity and mine, we ought to get married before she starts. That means we have to start planning and saving for the wedding - and law school - right now. The fact of the matter is that maintaining two households while we do that - her $485 rent plus utilities and expenses - is a big drain on money which could be put to other uses. Why not just let her move into the front bedroom of the house?

Sunday evening was spent making the obligatory phone calls to bring everyone up to speed. My parents took it well, though they wanted to know if we had consulted our priest about the whole situation. That's on the list of things to accomplish this week, as Father Ben took this past weekend off.

Her mom was startled, given that I've kept her appraised of the situation, but had not warned her - or anyone else - about this departure from the plan. But she was also very understanding. This move will ruffle some feathers, no doubt, but I feel that the stakes were too high at this point to do nothing. I made a "command decision", and I'm fortunate that Lucie agreed.

Of course, Lucie and her mom spent some time last night trying to persuade me that one does not necessarily need an engagement ring to be engaged. Others have tried to convince me of this as well. I am aware that other people I know have gone that route. I have thus far resisted that idea, but I'm having second thoughts. I'm starting to worry that perhaps my pride is getting in the way here. I suppose that I want a make-everyone-happy, traditional-down-the-line, "proper" process. But talking about it at length with Lucie over the weekend, maybe that's just not us. Maybe my desire to "do it right" is keeping me from "doing the right thing" in the longer view of the situation. That's what I'm coming to grips with right now.

Feel free to weigh in with your opinion in the "comments" section. "Owen, you're a bloody genius" is a welcome compliment, but "Owen, you're a bloody idiot" is also acceptable feedback, if that's how you're inclined.

This blogging break from work has now gone on far too long. I better get back at it. Just had to get this off my chest.

UPDATE: To clarify, Lucie is not starting law school this fall, but next fall. Sorry for the confusion.

2003-03-28T10:18:00.000-06:00

HISTORICAL ANALOGY

Alan E. Brain writes at The Command Post that the most appropriate historical analogy for this war is the final thrust through Nazi Germany in the spring of 1945.

Very good read, and very insightful. Wish I had thought of it. Makes sense - that was the last time that a nation ruled by a totalitarian regime was invaded by an army looking to destroy it's government. If we'd been thinking of this, would we have been expecting the behavior of the regime's supporters we're seeing right now? As the author points out:

Coalition forces are now within 100 km of Baghdad, and still rolling forward. It's virtually a replay of May, 1945 in Western Germany. Even with some of the original cast. Many conscripts who surrender at the first opportunity. Small pockets of Nazi - or in this case, Ba'athist - fanatics, who, knowing their own crimes, are prepared to fight to the death in ambushes. A populace going about their normal lives, just wanting for it to be all over, and deeply mistrustful of the Liberators. Some people who think "Saddam's a bastard, but he's our bastard." Some people who are saying "Thank God you came when you did, what kept you?".

2003-03-28T10:09:00.000-06:00

STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSES'S MOUTH

Lt. Gen. William Wallace, commander of V Corps, which has tactical control of Army ground forcs in Kuwait, lends credence to the idea that Iraqi irregulars are having an impact on operations. [Given that the guy's name is William Wallace, subject of the movie "Braveheart", I now have a picture in my head of a kilted Mel Gibson commanding US troops in the desert. Dammit.] Gen. Wallace would know, unlike various talking heads and "senior defence officials" at the Pentagon, so I'm inclined to believe this now. It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, the guys back at CENTCOM Forward in Doha will have to say about that.

A couple of things to note from the article:

For now, the two divisions that form the heart of V Corps -- the 3rd Infantry and 101st Airborne -- have paused indefinitely to allow thinly stretched logistics troops to amass a roughly 10-day stockpile of water, ammunition, food, fuel and other supplies. Sustained combat over the past week has depleted the 3rd Infantry's stocks of water, fuel and ammunition, and CH-47 Chinook helicopters today ferried in additional stacks of artillery shells from Kuwait, according to Army sources.

This is that shift of base thing I was wondering about.

"We knew we'd have to pause at some point to build our logistics power," Wallace said. "This is about where we'd expected."

What Wallace is saying is that "the pause" was an entirely predictable move, and would have been prudent, with or without irregulars striking at our supply lines. But despite what their military analysts were saying to their faces, some sectors of the press insisted that this was a setback. Anyway, operating from forward-positioned stockpiles will reduce the workload on logistics units, enable faster replenishment, and reduce the force necessary to secure the logistical tether back to Kuwait.

A senior Army officer said the number of Iraqi combatants at Najaf, including those allegedly forced to take up arms, is estimated at 3,000 to 6,000. He added that Army strategists have concluded that "if you can't get Najaf to fall, you probably aren't going to go much farther."

[...]

Everybody's frame of reference is changing," Col. Ben Hodges, commander of the 1st Brigade of the 101st, said shortly after arriving here Wednesday night. "The enemy always gets a vote. You fight the enemy and not the plan. I personally underestimated the willingness of the Fedayeen to fight, or maybe overestimated the willingness of the Shiites to rise up."

U.S. aircraft struck several key targets in Najaf today, including a training base, an air defense headquarters and a checkpoint that was using a taxi fleet for military traffic, Army sources said. It remained unclear how much street fighting will be necessary in Najaf and other cities, a prospect most commanders want to avoid.

"If you're really serious about that, you have to do it the Israeli way, with tanks and bulldozers," a senior Army officer said.

And there is no doubt that we're trying to avoid that, at least for now. Deciding to engage in serious street fighting in cities other than Baghdad depends on this tipping point: the cost in American lives to engage in this dangerous fighting, versus the complications resulting from leaving these cities in enemy hands, versus the cost in civilian lives of maintaining a prolonged seige, versus the cost of civilian lives of going in. That's a tough decision to make. We're trying to win the support of Iraqi civilians here, and how what we do impacts them is one of the key issues driving our decisions in the field.

A case in point is Nasiriya. We hold the bridges there, but the area around it is teeming with Iraqi irregulars skirmishing with our forces. As this story details, we're content to accept that situation right now, despite the loss in people and equipment whenever a unit "runs the gauntlet" to cross those bridges. At what point do we decide that we have to deal with those irregulars more aggressively, accepting the civilian casualties likely to result? As I outlined above, that's a tough question, as it's a moral and political one, as well as military.

Here's what our Marines around Nasiriya are dealing with, as described by some wounded Marines speaking to the press in a field hospital in southern Iraq:

At one point, Merkle recalled, some Iraqi fighters pretended to surrender. "As they're surrendering, the Marines told them, 'Put down your weapons, put down your weapons,' " he said. "They ran back into the building and pushed the kids out the windows and doors. The kids started running because they were scared and then the men ran out shooting."

[...]

Hale, who broke his leg scaling the wall to avoid the U.S. artillery, served during the 1991 Persian Gulf War but said he never saw anything like the fighting in Nasiriyah. The Marines, he said, found tanks dug into the ground in wait for passing U.S. convoys and small caches of weapons everywhere so the irregular fighters could simply walk up, grab pre-positioned guns and open fire.

So there are things to think about today. Unlike "senior officials" at the Pentagon, who love to leak so as to curry favor with reporters, the generals in the field have no reason to spin this thing. They want us to know back home how tough and how long this war might be.

2003-03-28T09:59:00.000-06:00

EXPECTATIONS?

Andrew Sullivan finds evidence that it wasn't just the hawks who raised expectations about how quickly we would win.

WILLIAM CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This war is going to be over in a flash, so we can wait to do that. You can always kill somebody next week. You can't bring them back next week, so... (APPLAUSE) (END VIDEO CLIP)

Over in a flash, eh? And it was the administration and "neoconservative hawks" who supposedly gave people false hopes?

2003-03-27T22:19:00.000-06:00

ANOTHER DAY

Interesting day today, not so much for what we saw as what we didn't see.

Having spent the day at home sick in front of the TV, I can say that there wasn't much reporting from the "embeds" with the combat troops, which leads one to believe that they were either heavily engaged or busy doing something that CENTCOM doesn't want folks to see. My general impression of the situation is that 3rd ID has spent Wednesday and Thursday both fighting off sporadic attacks by irregulars and preparing to resume the drive on Baghdad.

Meanwhile, as the press has endlessly wondered about whether or not we're moving fast enough, and if the resistance in the south has been stronger than expected, the 1st Marine Division has in fact driven north, and has added an eastern column to the force advancing on Baghdad. Other Marines and UK units remain in the south securing convoys and suppressing irregulars.

It seems now that the 101st Airborne has vaulted forward into Iraq and has established a forward operating base fairly close to Baghdad. I suspect that their mission right now will be to provide a screen between 3rd ID and 1st MD to help cover their advance on Baghdad, particularly using their large Apache units.

That advance should start in the next few days, I would think. Right now, the ground forces are providing a nice anvil to the hammer of air power, now unimpeded by bad weather. Given the length and vulnerability of the supply lines back to Kuwait, I think planners are probably going to want to make sure that the logistical situation is satisfactory before beginning the attack.

I don't know how long that will take. But as soon as they're ready, they'll go forward. There's no disadvantage to waiting, at least in the short term. It would provide more time for air and artillery assets to soften up resistance around Baghdad.

That leaves the west and north. This article, as well as this one, support the idea that there is a lot going on in western Iraq that we're not hearing about. We may yet get a surprise from there if the rumors about II MEF are true (and they may not be).

In the north, the 173rd's airhead is reportedly being used to ferry in armor, and Global Security suggests that it's elements of 1st ID. This makes sense, as they've been alerted for some time, and are already fairly close to the theater, based in Germany.

The big question there in the north is how large a force can be used, and when it can get rolling. Historically, large armored formations have been exceptionally difficult to support by airlift alone. They are time-consuming to move in - only certain aircraft can carry the M1, and there's a maximum of one M1 per flight because of it's 72 ton weight - and they eat up huge amounts of fuel, ammo, parts, and equipment in combat.

I suspect we'll see a reinforced battalion task force, something like 3-6 companies, mixing armor and mechanized infantry, and supported with some small amount of artillery and helicopters, as well as the attendant support units. If Turkey could ever be brought around, this force could be significantly enlarged by follow-on forces at some point. In any case, this task force will add some mobility and punch to the Kurdish militias in the north. Those militias have already been strengthened by Special Forces units, who can coordinate air power and provide expert advice on training, tactics, and strategy.

Things are clearly unfolding to the coalition's liking. Despite some losses, and the threat posed by irregulars in the south, things have indeed gone well. Hopefully, it will continue to do so.

2003-03-27T13:32:00.000-06:00

SOME OTHER THOUGHTS

Andrew Sullivan notes here that pro-war hawks like himself may have underestimated the ability of Saddam's regime to motivate people to fight for it.

Why did conservative hawks like me not believe our own rhetoric about the horrors of totalitarianism? The point about such systems, as Orwell showed, is not just their brittleness and evil, but their success in indoctrinating and marshalling the shock troops. I'm chagrined at my own optimism in this regard. I should not have been surprised by the ferocity of the elite's defense of itself.

But he also argues, as many others have, that ferocity and fanaticism doesn't necessarily translate into effective resistance or forcing us to change our plans.

But a failure of expectations is not a failure of war. And this past week's emotional gyrations might even, if we're lucky, prompt Saddam to make mistakes. He might listen to the BBC and think he's winning. He won't.

I agree. Much has been made of the hold-outs in the south and the Islamakazes going after 3rd ID near An Najaf. But there's been little perspective offered in those reports about the actual effectiveness of these Iraqi efforts.

Meanwhile, Ralph Peters makes some good points regarding Saddam's moves and how effective his strategy is:

Saddam's remaining "elite" troops are indeed hiding behind civilians and breaking the laws of war by placing tanks, artillery and other military systems next to mosques, hospitals and schools. Yes, they're using their own people as human shields. But the pundits - and Saddam - have utterly misread the consequences.

Certainly, this dispersal of his remaining divisions makes targeting them harder - because we don't intentionally kill innocent civilians. So the destruction of Saddam's last armored forces may go a bit more slowly. But that's only an annoyance. In the greater scheme of things, Saddam has done us a favor.

By breaking up his most-loyal brigades and divisions of his own free will, Saddam has thrown away his last chance to use them as a coherent military force. They're not only out of his control now, they're out of the control of their battalion and brigade commanders.

He continues, and fires a shot at Rumsfeld in the "is the force large enough?" debate:

Despite the warnings - even the pleading - of his generals, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to send as many heavy ground forces to the Gulf as our military planners requested. In many ways an admirable and inspiring leader, Rumsfeld let himself be persuaded by a gang of civilian theorists and by mercenary defense contractors that airpower could win this war and that ground forces would just go in to tidy things up.

So the generals did not get the extra armored divisions they wanted to provide maximum punch on the battlefield and as insurance should unexpected difficulties emerge. Now we have no significant ground reserves in the theater of war, we lack adequate combat units to fully protect our supply lines - and the weary troops at the front must continue the fight by themselves.

Again, I think it's still too soon to make that assessment. Would we be in this same situation had 4th ID been advancing simultaneously from the north? Hard to say. But I think Peters sells the political and logistical angle on the size of the force short. It's not entirely Rumsfeld's doing. And besides, it was probably better to go ahead and roll than to wait for the 4th to arrive anyway.

2003-03-27T10:37:00.000-06:00

SUMMIT SMACKDOWN

Dubya had me chuckling, and Tony B had me whistling "God Save the Queen".

Pretty impressive press conference. Both men's styles were on display. Bush: direct, succinct, focused on The Big Goal. Blair: rhetorical style, combative flair, takes on his critics directly. It's interesting to see them next to each other like that. And you have to give President Bush a whole lot of credit for knowing when to shut up, saying "I have nothing to add to that" after a particularly effective Blair answer to a question, and simply ending the press conference after Blair forcefully defended the coalition's position, implicitly rejecting the idea that the approval of France and Germany is the sole measure of international support. You could hear Bush, as he walked over to Blair after the conference, saying "Good job, good job". That's the Bush-as-CEO style: let your teammates do what they do best, support them, get out of their way.

The message was this: timetables aren't the measure of successs, acheiving the goal is. However long, whatever it takes. War crimes will be punished. The coalition is large, broad, and determined. The cause is just, and the war will be won.

2003-03-27T09:54:00.000-06:00

THE DEBATE OVER FORCE SIZE

Here's a WaPo report that "some senior U.S. military officers" are concerned that this war will require a lot more combat power than what is currently deployed.

This debate has been going on since before the war started, and has as much to do with geopolitics as military strategy. The problem the article outlined seems to be this: the threat of Iraqi paramilitaries operating against our supply lines in the south has forced CENTCOM to use elements of the 101st and 82nd to guard supply lines.

These units were probably being held for action in Baghdad. If diverted, that would mean that we would have fewer troops to engage in battle there, which is a fight expected to be dangerous and lengthy.

Of course, this article is full of a whole lot of speculation by a whole lot of critics. Overall, it's pretty balanced.

First off, the Iraqis are a finite force - they won't get bigger, and can't get more war materiel. As our forces in the south gradually kill or capture more of the irregulars harrassing our supply lines, that threat will diminish over time, allowing more forces to go forward. Similarly, the 3rd ID is clearing the units south of Baghdad, and Saddam can't replace them.

Something else that's being neglected here is the impact of the weather so far. It's done more to impede our movement than the Iraqis. It's also proved to be the only means they've had of getting close enough to our tanks to damage them. That weather won't last forever, and indeed, it's seemed to clear up already. As that happens, they can't use it to mask their approach to our units or to avoid detection by aircraft anymore. In fact, I would say that the sandstorm was their best chance to stop the 3rd ID. But the best they could do was damage two M1s and destroy one Bradley. That may come as a shock to some halfwits who thought all of our stuff was magically impregnable. But from an objective viewpoint, bagging two tanks and a fighting vehicle is simply insignificant.

As for bringing up more forces, I think we're already well on the way to having enough. Remember, we started the campaign without one of the divisions we'd planned to have - the 4th ID. Considering what we've accomplished going in short, I think you still have to consider the plan pretty sound and successful. It's not going to take forever to get there - the 4th ID is already well in motion. It's arrival will have a significant impact.

And you have to wonder what these same people would be saying right now if Gen. Franks was still waiting for 4th ID to get to Kuwait before unleashing the offensive. Some people like to second-guess because it's simply in their nature.

The article definitely ends on a note I agree with:

One senior general at the Pentagon, listening to both sides of the argument, said he thinks that in short term the pessimists will look right, but will be proved wrong by mid-April. "There are some tough days ahead," he said. "I think this whole thing is at the culminating point. Within the next week to 10 days, we will find out about the mettle of the Republican Guard." But he concluded, "Once we smash the Medina and Baghdad divisions, it's game over, and I think Baghdad will fall."

2003-03-27T09:24:00.000-06:00

THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

Jay Nordlinger of NRO brings up the issue of the rules of engagement in yesterday's Impromptus:

Are we playing too nice? Are we sacrificing and endangering our troops by "asymmetrical warfare," as the New York Sun puts it? (By the way, Israel does this, on the West Bank - but gets no credit for it, of course.)

"I lost a scout this morning to sniper fire, and my first sergeant was hit by a mortar yesterday. That means I am taking it a little bit personally. How am I meant to protect my men when the generals are denying me the ability to bomb enemy positions?"

Those are the words of Captain David Waldron of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team. I realize that these are the typical complaints of war, but it sounds a little Vietnam-y to me, which is troubling.

And here is a tank commander, Robert Byrd (no, not a West Virginia senator): "It's time to stop trying to be Mr. Nice Guy. They are bombing us. Let's start bombing the hell out of them."

The Sun points out that Iraqi propaganda is still on the air because the U.S. and its partners have refused to bomb television stations, etc., for fear of injuring or killing civilians. Very well. But the paper also points out that President Bush has said, "I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half-measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory."

Very well to that, too.

Others have brought this up as well, since the beginning of the war. It's a valid moral question, and far more crucial to success and failure, as well as cost in lives on both sides, than much of the press's idiotic emphasis on wondering if this is all going exactly as anticipated.

Personnally, I'm unconvinced the rules of engagement should be changed - yet. I think erring on the side of compassion for non-combatants forced into the crossfire is the better way to go. But I think that might have to change if the resistance in urban areas in the south persists.

PS - Home sick today, feel crappy.

2003-03-27T00:27:00.000-06:00

BEAT ME TO IT

Aftering finding this story linked from Drudge, I nearly ripped into it here for all of it's inaccuracies and spin, until I saw that Vodka Pundit had already done that.

I'm so furious about the media's coverage of this thing that I'm going to have to stop writing about it. I'm having some insomnia this evening, related to an allergy-triggered sinus and chest funk. So I watched the news for a while, since I hadn't turned on the TV since before I left for work this morning. But despite it being 12 hours later with an entirely different broadcast crew, the same questions were being asked, over and over and over: Are we where we thought we would be? Didn't we think this would go faster? Isn't resistance stiffer than we anticipated? Hasn't the shock and awe campaign been a failure?

You can just tell that what they really want to ask is: Isn't Bush an idiot? Aren't our generals stupid? Isn't Rumsfeld arrogant? Did they totally miscalculate, or is Saddam simply 20 times more brilliant than anyone thought? Isn't this a total and unmitigated failure? Aren't we headed for disaster? Why couldn't we win in 48 hours, as several low-level former Defense Department interns speaking to us on background over beer and bong hits assured us we would?.

I see a sick day in my future tomorrow. Unfortunately, given the craptacular coverage of the war I can expect to find, that's nothing to look forward to.

2003-03-26T22:07:00.000-06:00

THEY AIN' T STOPPING US

That's the main thing I get from reading this.

The move south by the Iraqis is puzzling. Two possibilites: they were trying to use the sandstorms to cover movement of these troops into cities like Najaf south of Baghdad to buy time and room to maneuver for the regime. Judging from the quotes in the article, the sandstorm didn't provide enough cover for that to completely work. How many Iraqi units we destroyed from the air, and how many made it to the front, I'll guess we'll just have to see.

The second possibility: trying to mass his forces in the open and engage and fix the 3rd ID, to force them to mass as well. Then, Saddam goes to the gas. The article mentions a narrow strip of land between the Euphrates River and Lake Razzaza. He may be seeking a way to maneuver elements of the 3rd ID into that confined space, where he can gas them. He has no intel, no recon, no air survellaince, so there's no accurate way to target his chemical weapons at our troops. Since he can't figure out where they are with enough accuracy, he might just try to maneuver them into a spot of his choosing for a planned ambush. Who knows? I don't. But there aren't many other good reasons to do what he's doing.

2003-03-26T17:03:00.000-06:00

MISSING PIECES

Let's just put all of the puzzle pieces together and see what we get right now, shall we?

3rd ID is engaged near An Najaf, fighting a mixed Iraqi force which may or may not include Republican Guard, Saddam Fedayeen, Baath loyalits, and others. The 3rd's mission is still to advance on Baghdad, as far as we know.

The 1st MEF is engaged in several skirmishes in southern Iraq, and according to CENTCOM and press reports is helping to guard key positions along 3rd ID's communications.

The UK's forces are engaged near Basra, as well as elsewhere, and are also guarding key positions along 3rd ID's communications.

In northern and western Iraq...

...say, what the hell is going on in northern and western Iraq, anyway?

I think the lack of info about this is intentional. I'm aware of no reports from embedded journalists with any units in western or northern Iraq. The only journalists in the north are unattached to any coalition units - pretty much just hanging with the Kurds. In the west, I haven't seen any reports from anyplace other than Iraqi-Jordanian border, and that from the Jordanian side.

There are rumors that II MEF has staged out of Jordan into Western Iraq, and played a role in seizing the H2 and H3 airfields. Or perhaps not, as other rumors indicate that that was a special ops/Ranger deal.

In the north, the rumor is that the 173rd Abn BDE may have deployed, but I haven't seen any confirmation of that. There are special ops guys there, and a USMC major general. But no embeds.

It's possible that this advance from the south is a massive sucker punch. Embedded reporters are allowed to broadcast and babble endlessly from southern Iraq, while CENTCOM and the Pentagon carry out vague briefings and provide vaguer answers to pointed questions. The whole point could be to draw attention to the offensive from the south, so as to pull Iraqi forces away from Baghdad to engage. They'll be fixed in place and destroyed. At some advantageous moment, airmobile units - Special Forces, Rangers, 101st, 82nd, Marines, whomever - swoop in on Baghdad for a sudden strike aimed at finishing the regime in one stroke.

Who knows - I'm wildly speculating. This is all just outrageous pixel-general bullshit from a cake-eating civilian. But it makes sense that when the US military works hard to draw your attention in one direction, it's because they don't want you to see something coming from the another direction. Don't forget that the goal isn't seizing control of Basra or some other southern city, or killing every Iraqi yahoo with an AK-47 and a thirst for martyrdom, or to destroy every tank, truck, jeep, and bicycle in the Iraqi inventory. The goal is to get rid of Saddam. Nobody at the Pentagon has said that the advance from Kuwait is the exclusive tool of acheiving that end.

I think the battle plan may be more complex than what we have seen yet. As has been the case all along - we shall see.

UPDATE: The 173 Airborne Brigade, normally based in Italy, has parachute-assaulted into northern Iraq. Probably ought not to expect much right away, as they need to establish an operating base and have the rest of their equipment flown in, particularly the Humvees they'll need to have any mobility.

2003-03-26T16:56:00.000-06:00

TACTICAL RISK...

...for long-term strategic gain. That's the strategy, in a nutshell. A canny assessment from UPI's Pamela Hess spells it out. I tried saying this the other day, just not very well.

I also liked this bit from Austin Bay at Strategy Page, particularly how he ends it:

The margin for error provided by another high-tech armored infantry division would virtually eliminate any "what ifs." The 4th Infantry Division was originally slated to attack from Turkey, but ground attack from Turkey was not permitted. That unit has yet to debark in a Persian Gulf port. Should friction foil plans, it will be a long 10 days before the 4th ID can enter the battle.

I think he's right on. If we end up having to wait for 4th ID to come up, it will mean that we took a gamble that we could win with what we had, and came up short.

2003-03-26T16:55:00.000-06:00

AN NAJAF UPDATE

An intense fight indeed. Reports here and here indicate that some M1s and/or M2s may have been disabled or destroyed, with some American casualties. As many as 1,000 Iraqis may have been killed, with scores of vehicles destroyed.

Some Iraqis appear to at least be fighting hard, if not well. These have got to be some of the worst conditions to fight in, ever. Imagine you're with 3rd ID - you're in a swirling sandstorm, exhausted from a 200 mile march through hostile country, dealing with inhospitable terrain, hampered by lack of sleep, with poorly trained fanatics who have more suicidal zeal than brains attacking you. "The Rock of the Marne" may well become "The Rock of the Euphrates" after this.

I guess that whole rest and replenishment will have to wait.

This quote from the NYT story stood out:

One soldier with the 3rd Infantry Division, a loader on a tank, was killed on Monday. Also two tanks and one Bradley fighting vehicle with the division's 3rd Regiment, 7th Cavalry Squadron were destroyed by anti-armored missiles. Officers here believe the missile may be a new Russian variant, known as a Cornet, purchased despite United Nations sanctions on arms sales to Iraq.

Ah, our good friends the Russian, allies in our war on terrorism. Here's a bit on the Cornet ATGM. Wonderful. Sounds like the President needs to call 'ol Pooty-Poot again for another ass-chewing.

Another disturbing quote:

Despite the American foothold on the eastern side of the Euphrates, Iraqi forces continued to attack in what soldiers described as futile, almost fanatical assaults against M1-A1 tanks and Bradley armored fighting vehicles.

Cpl. Benjamin R. Richardson, who was among the engineers who went to the bridge, said he saw two civilian vehicles with armed Iraqis drive straight toward Americans. A tank drove simply over one of the vehicles without firing a shot, while a Bradley raked the other vehicle with gunfire.

Grisly.

It's eerie how the horrors of war don't really change, no matter how the weapons and tactics might. I'm reminded of the Chinese army's human-wave attacks against US forces in the Korean War. The Chinese hoped to negate our advantage in firepower by simply forcing our men to keep shooting at wave after wave of troops until running out of ammo. Chinese troops in the follow-on waves sometimes didn't even have weapons, and were ordered to get them from their fallen comrades ahead of them.

2003-03-26T11:51:00.000-06:00

MORE ON THE PAUSE

The Washington Post reports on the 3rd ID's pause, taking a slightly different tone than the NYT article I cited earlier. Reading this, it sounds like the 3rd ID was going to stop anyway, resistance in the south or not.

That's because the drivers of the convoy's 7,000 vehicles had been driving almost non-stop since Thursday, getting only 1-2 hours of sleep per night. Exhausted from sleep-deprivation, they were driving off the road and easily confused. They were simply in no mental condition to go any further.

I dare any jackass in DC to tell these guys that they weren't moving "as fast as expected". Going any further would have required superhuman effort. Hell, going as far as they did was superhuman. 3rd ID just pulled off one of the most amazing marches in military history, while the press corps carped and bitched about "fierce resistance" and "delays". Our troops should be proud, and we should be proud of them.

The 3rd ID's emphasis now is on preparations for the battle of Baghdad, and for that, a pause is necessary. Especially considering how badly the troops needed sleep.

WaPo points out that 3rd ID's convoys total 7,000 vehicles. That's huge. At this point, given the burden of having to supply all of those vehicles and 20,000 troops so far from their logistical bases (more than 250 miles just from Kuwait, in some cases), CENTCOM would probably want to focus on transporting as much material forward as possible to establish forward operating bases. By building up supplies in Iraq near Baghdad, they significantly reduce their logistical worries when the attack begins in earnest.

This would be consistent with other things we're hearing about - that the advance north is paused, and that forces in the south are redeploying to protect convoys and key road junctions and bridges. CENTCOM may be in the process of shifting 3rd ID's base forward. While they do that, they can mop up in the south and pound the Republican Guard with air and artillery assets.

If all that's the case, then I'd say things really are going well. Atfer less than a week, 3rd ID is in position to assault Baghdad, and will probably begin that attack soon (A day? A few days? A week? No way to tell). There is resistance to deal with in the south, but it can be overcome. More good reasons for cautious optimism.

2003-03-26T11:47:00.000-06:00

AN NAJAF

Details about the fighting that took place near An Najaf on Tuesday and Wednesday are starting to emerge. It's starting to sound like this really was a big fight, with Iraqi forces trying to use the cover of the sandstorm to close with and destroy 3/7 Cav and other elements of 3rd ID. Sounds like they were bloodily disabused of that notion.

Our casualties are as yet unknown.

This story implies that things were pretty bad. Given the tone of the British press during briefings, as well as their shameful misreporting of the Jenin "massacre" last year, I take everything from them with a grain of salt. We'll see.

2003-03-26T10:07:00.000-06:00

THE STANDARD FOR SUCCESS

This is my big gripe right now: the standard for success that the critics have laid out for the war is not an objective measure - casualties inflicted vs those sustained, cities and other landmarks captured, enemy targets destroyed, or distance travelled. Instead, the standard is this: is the war going exactly as well as some people thought it would?

There's a 600 pound gorilla in this debate. Even those who are speculating that this war has been tougher than expected aren't saying that we're not winning. They have not, and indeed, cannot prove that it actually matters one damn bit that things are slower than they think the administration thought it might be. So, some lose-lipped administration hacks talking on background predicted an easy win - who give's a rat's ass? Yeah, people are using things Cheney said in his appearance on "Meet the Press" on the Sunday before the war started as ammo in this debate, but listening closely to what he said, there's no prediction of easy victory. For the most part, what he said would happen has happened.

We are still acheiving a rather lopsided success so far. The resistance has been from fanatics using detestable tactics, which have no chance of long-term sustainabiity or success. A few small paramilitary units are harrassing our convoys, and they are being dealt with. And some larger Iraqi formations, including tanks and other vehicles, have fought us, with distastrous results for them. Obviously, it's still early days, and anything can happen. Overconfidence would be stupid, as would thinking that just because resistance has been ineffective so far, it will remain so. They can still hurt us, and will try to.

But if we're moving more slowly than we expected in a war barely a week old, how far off could our "miscalculations" have been? A day or two? Hours? Minutes? I mean, how much better could it really be going? We're 50 miles from Baghdad. Saddam hasn't gassed our troops, nor has he attacked Israel. That in itself is a huge success, and God willing, will remain so. True, Iraqis may not have greeted us as warmly as expected. But they haven't exactly risen up against us either, as some people on the other side of this thing suggested they would.

So enough with it already. They can talk this up all they want, and I imagine they will. The press has made up it's storyline for this war: not as fast as the administration predicted. Accurate or not, relevant or not, they're going to stick to it.

2003-03-26T07:30:00.000-06:00

CHANGE IN PLANS?

According to the NYT's Michael Gordon, CENTOM is shifting emphasis to the south. Gordon reports that CENTCOM will slow the drive on Baghdad to free up assets to suppress irregulars in the south.

Again, let's go back and put this in context. Ground troops began crossing into Iraq on Thursday night. The 3rd ID made a rapid advance towards Baghdad, advancing more than 200 miles in a few days. The Marines and British forces seized a key port, oil facilities, and bridges. During all of this, and as far as I can tell, the Iraqi resistance accomplished three things. Around Nasiriyah, they managed to ambush a lost army support convoy, capturing some soldiers, killing some others (perhaps executing them), and destroying some number of trucks. Later, in that same area, Iraqi troops pretending to surrender ambushed and killed some Marines, damaging or destroying one or two armored vehicles. Monday, they got lucky a third time, capturing an Apache crew which may or may not have been forced down by hostile fire.

That's really not much to resist an invasion of three divisions, with more on the way. Other than these three incidents, Iraq has had zero military success. The 3rd ID has been taking all comers for over 200 miles of Iraqi territory and defeating all of them. The press seems shocked - shocked - that anybody is shooting back at us at all, and that we're having to commit to urban combat in some Iraqi cities. Every time Iraqi forces counterattack in large numbers, it's mischaracterized as a "wall of resistance" or a "huge battle". Little mention of how bloodily and totally these efforts are being repulsed. AK-47s and mortars firing at tanks is called a "firefight" or "stiff resistance", rather than "acts of desperation" or "sheer lunacy". I remember distinctly the possibility of having to fight in Basra and other cities besides Baghdad being discussed and anticipated before the war. I remember distinctly the idea of Iraqi paramilitaries fighting for some time after the invasion, perhaps even weeks or months, being discussed before the war. The question being asked over and over (and if you're watching CNN, it is being asked of everyone who ever had anything to do with the US military or the federal government) is "Did we underestimate the potential resistance?" My answer to that "No, but the press apparently expected this campaign to last all of one day".

Anyway, back to the article. It seems to me that we're shifting our focus southward not because of anything the Iraqis have done, but rather what they could do. CENTCOM may feel that there is a chance that Iraqi irregulars operating around our supply lines could be more effective than they have been so far at disrupting our supply efforts to the 3rd ID in the north. So they're going to put more effort into protecting the logistics units. Again, they knew this was a possibility. They probably hoped for the best and tried to prepare for the worst. That's just how things work.

There's also the possibility that the shift is taking place as a practical result of weather conditions in the north. The sandstorm has been awful, limiting what 3rd ID can do. If they have to slow down anyway, why not just halt them? Remember, they just drove more than 200 miles across inhospitable terrain, facing some resistance. They're tired, and their equipment has been harshly tested. It may be a good idea to give them some time to do maintenance, rest, and replenish.

If you're going to beef up security along our supply routes, you have to have forces to do so. It seems to me that as we defeat Iraqi resistance in places like Umm Qasr, Nasiriyah, and eventually Basra, that will free up units for force protection. That's going to impact our drive north if those units were intended to join the drive on Baghdad instead. The same could be said of using units from the 101st and 82nd, who may have been intended for other things.

There's also the issue of civilians. Most have concluded that the civilian population may be hesitant to get on board with the coalition because of the presence of so many Iraqi troops, and the continued broadcast of Iraqi TV propaganda (seems we're trying to put an end to that).

Anyway, getting to the bottom line, this is probably a good move. A "delay" at this point is rather hard to define. We've gone a long way in a short period of time. Despite the navel gazing, jumping to conclusions, and the ignoratn and sometimes defeatist premises of some of the questions being asked at CENTCOM and Pentagon briefings (particularly from the European and Arab press, who have decided that this campaign is already a hideous disaster, and they don't seem to understand why our generals haven't committed ritual suicide in front of the President to atone for their disgraceful failure) this campaign is going pretty well. It may actually be a vote of confidence in ultimate success from CENTCOM that they're willing to redirect efforts southward at this point. Before, driving north to Baghdad and getting there as soon as possible was probably seen as worth risking leaving some Iraqi resistance behind. Now that we're so close, we probably wouldn't slow that advance unless we were confident that delaying the beginning of the seige by some amount of time wouldn't have an deleterious impact on our prospects for success in Baghdad. So we're consolidating our gains and securing our logistic tether before the advance.

That's not a reverse. That's not a setback. That's not an indication that "resistance has been stronger than anticipated". That doesn't mean that it's "taking longer than expected". That means we're being prudent and we're laying the groundwork for victory.

2003-03-25T17:15:00.000-06:00

IRAQI TACTICS

There's been plenty of discussion and debate of the coalition strategy: the value of decapitation strikes, the "shock and awe" campaign, and the bypass-and-dash advance to Baghdad. The merits of these things have been examined and dissected at length, on TV as well as in print.

Interestingly, while there have been plenty of descriptions of the Iraqi strategy, little has been said about it's merits, at least that I've seen or heard. The Iraqi strategy - fight in cities using human shields while attacking our supply lines with irregular forces and unconventional tactics - is well known at this point, but it's military value has not been much discussed. Perhaps that's just because nobody expects them to win (including me).

So it's useful that retired US Army Brigadier General David Grange has outlined Iraq's "economy of force" strategy. He also talks about what we'll have to do to defeat it, which is something that frequently gets left out.

Link found via the Command Post. It's one of the blogs I've tried to add to my list lately, but bloody Blogger seems unable to update my template.

2003-03-25T16:45:00.000-06:00

SIZE OF THE FORCE

There is a valid and ongoing debate about whether we have enough troops to drive on Baghdad while protecting our lines of communication back to Kuwait. I posted on this yesterday, noting that we could have had a larger force, but for political complications. Porphyrogenitus has some thoughts along these lines, plus some other things. One of many questions of strategy which can only be answered fully when it's over.

On another note, NRO's Jed Babbin has some further information on the Apache clash with the Medina Division. Turns out things may indeed have not gone according to plan, but for reasons which escaped the NYT and WaPo previously. Interesting stuff, and a little unexpected, at least to me. In that same post, he discusses Iraqi TV, and agrees it needs to go off the air.

2003-03-25T16:40:00.000-06:00

MORALE

Jonah Goldberg makes the case that our morale matters too:

The reason I bring all this up is simple: Our morale matters too. And this is perhaps my only criticism of the Pentagon. While it's obviously too soon to criticize the planning of Franks and Rumsfeld, it's not too soon to object to the means by which they've been explaining how everything is going. Tommy Franks and his crew keep saying, "We will win." Well, no kidding - we all know that, intellectually. But we want to know that we are winning. This is not a game, but sports can provide a useful analogy. It's great to hear a coach say with confidence, "We will win!" But that doesn't mean we don't want to know the score at the end of the first quarter.

I think that's probably much of the reason for so much of my own irritation with the press today. They know how much our own forces are suffering, but they're having a hard time ascertaining how much suffering we're inflicting. So they naturally focus on what they do know. He goes on:

Obviously, the media's preoccupation with POWs and their bizarre, almost childish shock at the news that the enemy is actually firing back from time to time is a problem. But the press sometimes needs to be led by the nose. It needs to be told - and shown - that we are winning by a huge margin. CENTCOM claims it doesn't have solid numbers on casualties. Fair enough. But when you watch these briefings, you almost get the sense that they feel sheepish about admitting that the U.S. army is killing lots of Iraqi soldiers. And that strikes me as misguided. Wars involve the killing of soldiers. In any war involving Americans, Americans will want to hear that the other guy's soldiers are dying. That may not be true of the diehard antiwar types. But these people don't believe anything the Pentagon says anyway, and will never take any word of success as good news. So screw 'em. The rest of America - liberals and conservatives alike - want to know that we are winning. They want to know the score.

I wouldn't have entirely agreed a few days ago. Avoiding the body count in the 1991 war was probably a good move - it avoided distraction from the goal of liberating Kuwait. But I think I agree now, at least up to a point, that the Pentagon needs to make some sort of statement about Iraqi losses.

This morning, I had the CENTCOM briefing on as I drove to work. Very little detail on anything before taking questions. Having offered only some very general statements, the briefer was on the defensive during the question period. So it might be useful to add some detail there, particularly an estimate of how much damage we've inflicted on the enemy. It would put our own losses into better perspective.

2003-03-25T16:31:00.000-06:00

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

Check out this story in the NYT detailing anger from Iraqi civilians in Nasiriyah over the fighting taking place in their streets. That anger is directed at the US, at least as far as one can ascertain from the article. If the objective is Saddam, and he's in Baghdad, why in fight there?

The answer, of course, is that Saddam's regime ordered it's forces to mix with civilians while fighting the Americans. They're hoping to (1) make it harder for us to fight, since we try to avoid civilian casualties, (2) make us inflict civilian casualties anyway, by fighting amongst them, perhaps turning US public sentiment against the war, and (3) drive an emotional wedge between the liberators and the liberatees. Liberation or not, nobody wants war in their streets, or in even in their homes. Nasiriyah, where crucial bridges must be held, has thus become a battleground, to the frustration of those who live there.

That same hope to drive a wedge may be behind the deliberate airing of footage of US POWs on TV, particularly footage of some who appear to have been executed. US forces are outraged and are talking payback. Our troops are professional and well-disciplined, but they're also human. By inciting hate amongst our own troops, Saddam's regime hopes that our forces will be more trigger-prone when confronting potentially surrending units, as well as less compassionate and more stand-offish with civilians.

Between the urban combat and the incitement, Saddam's regime is hoping to wage a psychological war of it's own. The ultimate goal is to turn the Iraqi public against the invasion, ensuring a longer, more costly war, which will be especially hard on non-combatants. This, in turn, they hope will reduce public support for the war in the US and Britain. Thus, as long as Saddam can stay alive and encourage resistance, he has a chance to win. Remember, this guy's whole schtick is public relations. Other than chemical weapons, it's all he has left. His spin machine puts western politicians to shame. He's even trying to use videotaped evidence of potential war crimes by his own forces to his advantage.

Andrew Sullivan says it's too soon to tell what, exactly, the Iraqi public thinks, but that it's safe to say that war supporters might have overestimated the pro-US response the Iraqi people would give. That might be true. Despite hating Saddam, they still have their national pride and patriotism. Makes failing to support their revolution in 1991 all the more of a blunder.

Right now, perhaps it should be considered a mistake that the US did not seize control of Iraqi TV earlier in the war. That's an issue that can only be examined accurately in hindsight. Right now, Saddam's presence on Iraqi television has left him the ability to spin events from his bunker. That, and the continued presence of Saddam's loyalists in by-passed cities and the countryside of southern Iraq, may have left Iraqi citizens fearful that he is still in control, and maybe even winning.

But again, it's awfully early to be making definitive statements about something like this. Instapundit has a good quote from Nicholas von Hoffman from three-weeks into the Afghan campaign, in which he describes the US efforts as inept and ineffective, and the war strategy as a fantasy. We all know how that turned out.

And then there's reports of a civilian anti-Saddam uprising in Basra, and at NRO, there's talk that Iraqi TV was struck today.

2003-03-25T12:45:00.000-06:00

SOME PERSPECTIVE

The Washington Post has a story here claiming that the pending battle between the 3rd ID and the Republican Guard south of Baghdad "will determine the length of the war", according to the headline. According to the opening graf, the battle "...promises to be a decisive engagement that signals whether the new Gulf War will be over in a week or two or drag on for a month or more."

While it's accurate, by and large, there's a whole lot of context and perspective missing in this article as you read through it. I think they've oversold this fight.

First off, they are correct in saying that this coming fight is going to be decisive: both sides have to win this one, no doubt. If Iraq's best forces get pushed back into Baghdad, then they are done for, in the long run. Sure, they can put up a long and bloody house-to-house resistance, hoping to sap our will to fight. But I don't see that working for them. Immobile and cut off from help, they will lose, eventually, even if it does result in a long seige.

Certainly, if there is a major delay now on the drive to Baghdad, that stretches things out for the US, which could have negative consequences. Heavy casulaties for either side would mean having to redeploy forces from other areas and missions. It could have a psychological impact on both sides that affects future engagements.

But much of the cause-and-effect the author is claiming here doesn't really follow. This battle could go very well for the US, driving the Republican Guard back into Baghdad in a day or two. But how will that impact the irregular forces in the south? It's not clear there will be any impact at all on their resistance from this battle. In fact, if Medina gets completely wrecked, it might encourage more Iraqi commanders to switch to guerilla tactics. The northern front hasn't even opened yet, and we have no idea how hard Saddam's forces north of Baghdad will fight the Kurds. We don't know how well the Kurds will respond to working with the special forces units sent there to train them, help them plan and execute operations, and coordinate air support from the coaltion. We don't know if, and how much, the Turks may interfere with all of that.

There's a ton of unknowns that could impact the length of the war, regardless of what happens in the ongoing battle between 3rd ID and Medina. Anyway, on with some quotes the article:

If the fight against the Medina Division ends in just a day or two, or if parts of the unit even surrender without a fight, that will send a powerful signal that the climactic battle for Baghdad won't be as difficult as some have predicted, or won't occur at all.

There's no reason to believe any of that. The morale of loyalists in Baghdad could be much higher than those of the troops in the field. Baghdad's defenders may know nothing about what happens outside the city. They may not care. Ba'ath Party loyalists who are complicit in the regime's crimes have every reason to fight to the death, or at least believe they do. Convincing them otherwise has been hard. They know that their best chance, once they are pinned in Baghdad, is to wage as bloody a battle as possible, so as to encourage second-thoughts in the west and convince us to give up. What happens south of Baghdad doesn't necessarily change that. If Medina fights effectively (and there is a difference between fighting hard and fighting effectively), that delays our approach to Baghdad, giving the defenders more time to prepare. It also gives more time for the 4th ID to come up.

Concerning the Medina Division:

Early indications are that it will be a tough battle. In the first engagement between the U.S. Army and the Medina Division, before dawn yesterday, about 35 Apache attack helicopters flew over part of the division, which is spread out in wooded and built-up areas east of the town of Karbala, about 50 miles southwest of Baghdad.

Officials portrayed the foray as "reconnaissance by fire" and declared it a success. At a briefing in Qatar, Army Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks said the helicopters "were very effective in their mission." But returning pilots sounded less certain, saying they hit a handful of tanks and armored vehicles but were forced to cut short their effort because of heavy ground fire. They also said their rules of engagement had prevented them from firing on some targets. One helicopter was downed either by fire or a mechanical failure, and its two crew members were declared missing.

If reconaissance by fire was the mission - sending forces forward to attack a target about which you have little information, so as to see what shoots back, and from where - then the mission was a success, judging from 3rd ID's success this morning. The returning pilots may have seemed less certain, but remember that they want to hit and destroy targets, and were frustrated they couldn't do more. Plus, there's the discouragement of that whole getting shot-at thing. That doesn't make the mission a failure, especially if their efforts allowed later attacks to be successful. Indeed, those later strikes, which have barely been discussed, sounded very effective indeed.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, himself a retired Army general, sounded optimistic yesterday as he described in an interview with Fox News how the U.S. offensive would defeat the Medina Division. "After the ground forces have fixed them, air power goes after them, and then the ground forces go in and finish them off," he said.

That's the Army's preferred mode of combat, used to devastating effect in the first Persian Gulf War, during which Powell served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This time, however, the engagement will take place in vastly different terrain from the open desert where that war was fought, and could involve the weapons greatly feared then, but never used.

It wasn't just used to devastating effect in the first Gulf War, but also in Vietnam and Afghanistan. The terrain changes our tactics a bit, but the idea remains the same. Finding and fixing the opposition with ground forces, then destroying it with air power and artillery, is not just the Army's "preferred mode of combat", it's our doctrine, and it works in all weathers, day or night, in any terrain. Our forces are flexible, very capable, and they have a decided battlefield advantage over the Iraqis. It's not like we have an Army that only works in the desert, or can only fight one way. As for those "other weapons", using them is far easier said than done.

Indications are that Iraqis now are applying hard lessons learned during the Gulf War and then, by the Yugoslav military, during the 1999 Kosovo air campaign. The tanks and heavy weapons of the Medina Division weren't arrayed for battle, in tight formations that would make them easy targets, but instead were dispersed under trees and in the farming villages of the Euphrates River valley, defense officials said.

That setup makes them difficult to hit with punishing B-52 carpet bombings. Instead, Air Force A-10s and F-16s and Navy F/A-18s are flying smaller "tank-plinking" strikes, which are riskier for pilots. While those retail-style raids do destroy some armored vehicles, they don't have the effect that heavy bombers do of disrupting other essentials of military operations, such as resupply and communications.

Fine, let 'em disperse. We've got plenty of aircraft to find them. And we have plenty of other means of going after supply and communications other than B-52 strikes. There's more than one way to skin a cat; we'll get them. CENTCOM is saying that they are now dedicating a majority of sorties to striking Republican Guard units. It's also important to note that while the dispersion makes them less vulnerable to air attack, it makes them more vulnerable to ground attack. It's bad enough that their weapons are inferior. But scattered about the countryside, they're at an even worse disadvantage.

Smaller than a U.S. armored division, which typically would have 15,000 to 20,000 troops, the Medina Division has about 10,000 troops manning 250 tanks, about 250 armored personnel carriers and perhaps 60 artillery pieces, Pollack said. Some of that artillery, he noted, is the same type as that being fielded against it by the 3rd Infantry Division -- tank-like U.S.-made M109 self-propelled howitzers captured during the Iran-Iraq war. Also, the Guards, unlike regular Iraqi units, are equipped with SA-14 and SA-16 handheld surface-to-air missiles, the Russian version of U.S.-made Stinger missiles.

Their M109s aren't like our M109s. Ours have had more than 20 years of technological upgrades put into them. A 1978 Ford Mustang is not a 1998 Ford Mustang. They also can't buy spare parts for those M109s, at least legally. And while those SA-14 and -16 missiles serve the same purpose as our Stinger, they aren't nearly as good. In both cases, having them does not necessarily translate into using them effectively. An Apache helicopter would be target #1 for a guy with an SA-14 or -16. Doesn't look like the Iraqis had any luck with those. I've heard little to nothing about US troops actually receiving artillery fire.

The unit has a reputation of being disciplined and well-led dating to the Iran-Iraq war, when it spearheaded five complex offensives that, according to Pollack's 2002 study of "Arabs at War," forced Tehran to accept a ceasefire that ended the eight-year struggle.

In 1990, the unit was one of the four Republican Guard divisions that invaded Kuwait. It executed a flanking maneuver, entering the emirate from the west with the intention of surprising any Kuwaiti defenders on the side.

The division had a harder time seven months later during the Gulf War. A brigade of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division ran into it Feb. 27, 1991, near the end of hostilities, and destroyed about 70 T-72 and T-55 tanks and scores of other vehicles. The U.S. forces lost one soldier in the process.

A "harder time"? That's a harder time? They didn't have a harder time, they had their asses handed to them, in a most violent and horrifying manner. It's not funny: whoever it was on the Iraqi side who decided it was a good idea to fight again this time around is a war criminal for sending such troops agaist us with that kind of record. The 1991 war was outright, total, and complete deafeat and failure for them. And keep in mind: they haven't gotten better. Their equipment is worse shape than it was then. Their troops are more poorly trained and less experienced than they were in 1991. Meanwhile, our Army has only improved over the last 12 years.

Meanwhile, the New York Times coverage suffers from the same lack of perspective.

Nearly all the gunships sustained damage, and military commanders said they were disappointed in their initial failure to destroy the entrenched Iraqi forces from the air.

This is directly at odds with the WaPo's version, namely that the goal wasn't destruction of enemy forces so much as locating them for further strikes. I don't know which is right. Of course, it's only an "initial failure", and being disappointed with that doesn't have any broader meaning. Of course our commanders are hoping for easy initial success. They don't want to lose anybody, and they're hoping the Iraqis give up. A short and relatively bloodless war is good for everyone.

It's also notable that that "initial failure" lasted but hours; Medina has already been pushed back. War is a transient thing, and little should be read into "initial" anything.

In a day of regrouping and a possible shift in strategy to take on the Medina Republican Guard Division's armor from safer altitudes, allied forces tonight unleashed a heavy aerial bombardment on targets south of Baghdad.

I really, really, doubt we've spent much time "regrouping", nor has there been a "shift in strategy". Look, in order to hit targets, you have to know where they are, what they are, and what kind of resistence to expect. The Apache attack exposed that kind of information. Following up the Apache raid with artillery, surface-to-surface missiles, and fixed-wing air strikes isn't a change in strategy, it is our strategy. In the case of both the NYT and WaPo, they simply aren't reporting how we exploited what we learned from the attack. Maybe that's for reasons of filing deadlines, or perhaps operational security. Whatever the reason, it's frustrating.

The press is digging for a story that isn't happening. They're looking at isolated incidents and reading way too much into them. They're making some assumptions they shouldn't make. Look, there's a lot that can potentially go wrong. Our forces have suffered, and will continue to suffer, even as they advance and win. They may suffer some real, actual setbacks. I certainly hope they don't. But it's almost a certainty that these Iraqi soldiers are going to suffer much, much worse. It's a shame. I hope those guys just give up, for everybody's sake.

UPDATE: Instapundit has a round-up of stuff along these lines. Vodkapundit also has notes on this. He also has a link to this flash presentation on Army armored tactics.

2003-03-25T12:21:00.000-06:00

THE UPDATE

There's a report here from the Washington Post detailing recent events. Since it was published, it appears that the 3rd ID has pushed back the Medina Division and seized a bridgehead over the Euphrates River. Things are now stuck while the troops wait out a big sandstorm.

In a nutshell, Iraqi resistance is mainly based on guerilla tactics and using human shields. So far, it really hasn't worked very well strategically, and we're still driving on Baghdad. That's the context to remember when listening to reports resistance, firefights, or downed aircraft. They can hurt us, but they're not stopping us.

Consider this quote from General Franks:

Franks acknowledged that his strategy of marching quickly toward Baghdad has meant troops have intentionally bypassed areas of Iraqi resistance in the south, where the Iraqis may continue to harass U.S. forces and their lengthening supply lines. He predicted that U.S. and British forces would be involved behind front lines for days in fighting with Iraqi paramilitary units -- among them Saddam's Fedayeen, a militia run by Hussein's elder son, Uday.

"We know that the Fedayeen has in fact put itself in a position to mill about, to create difficulties in rear areas, and I can assure you that contact with those forces is not unexpected," he said. "You can expect that our cleanup operations are going to be ongoing. It isn't that we don't know where they are."

Something the press seems a bit confused about is the use of close air support and artillery. I hear a lot of the embedded journalists saying in their live reports that coalition troops "had to fall back" and call in support after engaging Iraqi forces. It's important to remember that while that might be true on occaision, in most cases we're not being forced to do that by the Iraqis, but rather we're choosing to do that because it is our doctrine. Our ground forces are going to find and fix the opposition, combing their firepower with their ability to maneuver to force their foes to stand and fight. Once engaged and standing still, the enemey is a sitting duck for our superior air and artillery firepower. Our forces pull back a bit to avoid taking friendly fire, then advance again to finish off the remaining opposition.

A few other things:

* If Saddam is really redeploying troops from Baghdad and moving them to the south to try to stop the advance, as the WaPo article above claims, then he's probably making a big mistake. His best chance is to fight in the cities, where our moral and ethical prohibitions against inflicting civilian casualties works to his advantage. In the open field, his troops can be easily defeated, as they have been so far in this war, and as they were in 1991.

* It is possible to be in control of a city, even if a few isolated die-hards are holed up in some houses and harrassing our troops. If a few gunmen barricade themselves in a building in Manhattan and take potshots at people on the street, does that mean that the mayor has lost control of the entire city for all practical purposes? Clearly not.

* Things are pretty sketchy in Southern Iraq right now. But keep in mind, these irregulars in the south have been unable to siginificantly disrupt the flow of supplies and personnel northward. It simply isn't necessary to kill or capture every single Iraqi resisting the invastion in the south. If they can't do anything to affect our advance, leave 'em behind. The goal is to break the regime in Baghdad sooner rather than later. Mopping up can wait.

And indeed, the first story I linked to above indicates that the 4th ID is now starting to fly troops to Kuwait to link up with their equipemt, which is transiting on ships from the Mediterranean. It will probably take some time to get them up and running. But once they are operational, they can move into Iraq and perform several different missions. The 4th is the most technologically advanced division in the Army, and very flexible. Once they engage, the already lopsided situation against Iraq will become irretrievably worse.

It's possible that things could change. The irregulars in southern Iraq might be able to get more organized at some point, making them more effective. I'm not in a position to judge how likely that is. The Republican Guard could resort to using chemical weapons, which would slow us down, at least in the sense that our troops would have to put on their MOPP gear and operate under more stringent proceedures, even if the Iraqis can't use the chemical weapons effectively. That scenario seems more likely than a sudden intensification of Iraqi harassment efforts. But it also seems highly unlikely that it will be enough to actually change the course of the war.

It seems to me like the coalition strategy is actually working rather well, despite the second-guessing I'm hearing in the press. We're winning, and Saddam is losing. He's going to have to do a lot more than what he's done so far if he's going to change that.

2003-03-25T07:24:00.000-06:00

PROGRESS

Sounds like we're moving forward again. Listening to Walt Rogers, with the 3/7 Armored Cavalry (Paula Zahn is still calling them Calvary), it sounds like the "softening up" against the Medina Division went very well, and they rolled right over the resistance, meeting only some small arms fire. Not much good against against the M1s and M3s that the cavalry uses.

The big fear is that the chemical weapons will finally come out, now that we're near Baghdad. The pictures this morning don't show the troops wearing their MOPP gear, so I'm guessing that the troops remain at the same state of readiness as before, while the warning is primarily for public consumption. Of course, if chemical weapons are used, the press will probably still speculate that the defense department "didn't do enough" to brace Americans for the possibility.

Of more immediate concern is the nasty sandstorm which has kicked up, limiting visibility and impeding operations. I can't imagine what it would be like to try to function in that. The sandstorm could provide an opportunity for Republican Guard troops to withdraw under cover - hard to observe them with such limited visiblity. It's a obstacle. But once it's gone, I'm sure things will pcik right back up again.

2003-03-24T22:07:00.000-06:00

CLOSING IN

Looks like the stage is being set for the fight for Baghdad.

It would seem that so far in that battle, we've had one Apache helicopter downed with it's crew captured. Considering what we've being throwing against the Medina Division for the past few hours, it seems a fairly lopsided fight so far. Here's hoping it stays that way.

Digging through some email, I discovered that my brother-in-law's brother Jeremy, whom I met at the wedding in October, is in the Iraqi theater. He's a 2nd Lt. with the 40th Transportation Company supporting 3rd ID. At this moment, I'm assuming no news is good news regarding him. Our prayers are with Jeremy, and if you're so inclined, I'd ask you to do the same.