U.S. forces to face "something that is not conventional" tonight?

[mnischalke 0]

Did anybody else notice that part of the story Mark posted?
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/04/sprj.irq.war.main/index.html

I would hate to find out definitively that he does have WMDs. This is not good news if he means it.

mike

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills--You know, like nunchuk skills, bow-hunting skills, computer-hacking skills.

[quade 4]

Quote

He said U.S. forces will face "something that is not conventional" Friday night.

Sahaf said Iraq will not use weapons of mass destruction against advancing U.S. or British troops, but he threatened widespread use of "martyrdom," and said the action would be "not by military."

Of course, they'd never lie would they?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[billvon 3,120]

I have a feeling at this point it's all for show. Iraq has made such announcements before.

[mnischalke 0]

Well, the poorly defended airport is a sign to me. Asking civilians to walk to the airport is another sign. The civilians will a) prevent the forward movement of the US troops and b) create a whole bunch of martyrs if he launches something. Kinda like a little snare, I think.

Fortunately, I haven't seen many reports of a mass of people moving toward the airport. Nonetheless, if he's gonna do something in desperation, now's the time. God help everyone if it happens.

mike

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills--You know, like nunchuk skills, bow-hunting skills, computer-hacking skills.

[Guest]

Quote

Of course, they'd never lie would they?

Those who are rooting for the Iraqis are saying that Saddam actually made significant changes to his defense strategy that plays on our apparent weaknesses, namely they want to get us downtown where our overwhelming firepower can't be used. That evens the odds quite a bit.

A lot of PGM were wasted in PGW1 on bogus targets. The Bosnians also shared with Saddam how they used WW2-vintage "maskirovka" tactics to hide their assets, and they were largely successful.

However, it isn't working for Saddam for several reasons:

1)This ain't Bosnia. That area is some of the most rugged and mountainous territory on Earth. Even the Waffen SS couldn't dislodge Tito from those mountains.

The nearest mountains to Baghdad, IIRC are the Zagros range to the East, on the Iranian border.

2. A disgraced former UN weapons inspector says that Iraqi command-and-control has been decentralized. All well and good, but this relies immensely on the individual initiative of your troops.

I'm guessing that besides blowing a lot of hot air at us, the Iraqi leadership expects to do a lot of kamikaze attacks against our forces, in order to get us bogged down in a war of attrition, which will open the way for a cease-fire to be forced on us. This will make Saddam the winner.

That is, of course, unacceptable.

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."