It’s smart, dependable and, I’d say, worrying. Money quote:
In an important sense, the [fedayeem] attacks have worked. As Col. William Grimsley, commander of the 1st Brigade, put it, “They are diffusing some of our attention, causing us to fight them instead of focusing all our attention on our larger objective.”
The division commander, Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, is candid about the threat. “The Baath Party is very well organized and very active with a lot of forces in Najaf and Samawah,” he said in an interview Monday night. “And they are capable of responding fluidly to us.”
It has always been the hope of the American war planners to avoid Iraq’s cities, so as to minimize both American and Iraqi casualties. But there are doubts. “I think these guys are going to keep coming out and harassing us,” Blount said. “I think eventually we’re going to have to go in there and kill them. I think we will have to kill them unless we can get rid of the top guy in Baghdad.”
If we are indeed shifting tactics to respond to the Southern threat of random Baath guerrillas, maybe it’s a good thing. Flexibility in war plans is not defeat. It’s an essential part of victory.
THE STRATEGY: Here’s a useful examination of the Rumsfeld strategy in Iraq. What is making armchair generals and some bloggers like me nervous is all, apparently, part of the plan.
IN DEFENSE OF THE STRATEGY: “Thus far the campaign resembles the brilliantly successful, life-sparing, WWII island-hopping strategy of Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur. Yet no critic seems to have the depth of knowledge of military history to have recognized, let alone to have praised, the similarity. Bypassing, and leaving to die on the vine, cut-off pockets of resistance is an exemplary tactic. It is also one forced on CENTCOM by the Turkish denial of a second front to the 4th Infantry division. In the absence of the advantage a second front would have conferred, CENTCOM’s bypassing of cut-off Iraqi units is also exemplary of the flexibility afforded it by its existing preponderance of combat power on a single front. The long coalition supply lines may be harassed, but the bypassed enemy units – which will function only so long as their in situ ammunition lasts – haven’t the offensive power to sever them for long enough to defeat coalition forces, or even to delay significantly the concentration of forces for the assault on Baghdad.” – other reader insights, including a defense of Barry McCaffrey and a guffaw at Eric Alterman, on the Letters Page.
READ JONAH: A lot of common sense. I agree with him about the military being more helpful in galvanizing domestic morale. We need to know more about how we’re winning. We need a useful summary-cum-pep-talk. C’mon, Rummy. Tell it like it is.
The Dish 