Creating a Tet Offensive in Iraq

[stratego]

Fighting a guerilla warfare in Iraq is difficult if not impossible to win. But what if we draw the rebels out into a conventional war. What if we had our troops fake weakness and chaos in a certain area, and make it seem like the place can be taken over if Al Queda and other rebels launch a large scale offensive. We'll build cheap remote-controlled tanks that can the enemy can destroy, and make the fort seemed like it's weakly fortified just so we can draw the enemy out into actual combat. In the same time, we can use our special forces to try to figure out where enemy reinforcements are coming from. (We have the tactics, we just need to apply more strategy).

 

[Vanadorn]

The propblem with that is that the Iraqi guerilla's are not a) organized in such a way a standard army would be, b) have no centralized location that this information can be disseminated to, c) most likely have enough sympathizers and friendlies that the truth of such a vaunted weakness would be disproved before they "took the bait".

As mentioned by DP in another thread, we cannot think like a Westerner in regards to fighting and tactics in this battle, for our enemy does not.

June cannot come soon enough, let's hand the reins over to the new de facto gov't and get out.

My 2 cents.

PS - hopefully our special forces can get believeable missions accomplished with minimal loss of life, instead of blitzkreig style attacks against possible insurgents with dubious levels of results. Hell, we're still getting rocket grenaded on convoys in areas we patrol and consider "safe".

 

[Little Raven]

stratego, you obviously possess some kind of jamming device that renders my sarcasm detector useless. I can never tell if you're joking or not.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Originally posted by stratego
Fighting a guerilla warfare in Iraq is difficult if not impossible to win. But what if we draw the rebels out into a conventional war. What if we had our troops fake weakness and chaos in a certain area, and make it seem like the place can be taken over if Al Queda and other rebels launch a large scale offensive. We'll build cheap remote-controlled tanks that can the enemy can destroy, and make the fort seemed like it's weakly fortified just so we can draw the enemy out into actual combat. In the same time, we can use our special forces to try to figure out where enemy reinforcements are coming from. (We have the tactics, we just need to apply more strategy).

You just described perfectly the Iraqi strategy against us. Gotcha again Stratego!

 

[Capulet]

The Iraqis tried conventional warfare - that's what there was when there was an Iraqi army and at the beginning of the war. They sucked horribly. I was just watching Fox News (I know I know) and they were saying that an ORGANIZED ARMY is attacking a Coalition Compund in Ramadi. They also said that the Sunnis of Ramadi have joined the Shi'a against the U.S. Looks like the Iraqis are uniting aganst their common enemy X_x

 

[The Yankee]

It's not going to work. Even if we "gave" them successes (a very dangerous proposition, IMHO), they would just rather continue with what was working for them, a concentrated guerilla movement in key cities with both Sunni and Shi'a support. That will just feed the inferno.

 

[The Yankee]

Originally posted by Musa
The Iraqis tried conventional warfare - that's what there was when there was an Iraqi army and at the beginning of the war. They sucked horribly. I was just watching Fox News (I know I know) and they were saying that an ORGANIZED ARMY is attacking a Coalition Compund in Ramadi. They also said that the Sunnis of Ramadi have joined the Shi'a against the U.S. Looks like the Iraqis are uniting aganst their common enemy X_x

I think it's less of an organized army than it is a general uprising of a bunch of people with guns that came into the open to exploit weaknesses in our patrolling strategy (and also the fact that you have these security mercenary types of ex-military running security that fell into some traps).

 

[stratego]

Originally posted by Vanadorn
As mentioned by DP in another thread, we cannot think like a Westerner in regards to fighting and tactics in this battle, for our enemy does not.

That may be true, but the enemy also have some basic knowledge about westerners warfare, and they know how much of a humiliation it would be for America if they were able to defeat us in battle. North Vietnam was successful with guerilla warfare, but they still participated in the Tet Offensive. The difference with Iraq is that we won't be the ones that are surprised in the battle. If the don't attack, fine we're not losing anything, but if they do they're falling into our trap. As long as the enemy doesn't know our plan, it's all good (hope there are no Saddam sympathizers here)

Originally posted by Little Raven

stratego, you obviously possess some kind of jamming device that renders my sarcasm detector useless. I can never tell if you're joking or not.

Isn't that the whole point? If people know what I'm thinking then I wouldn't be much of a strategist and therefore undeserving of the title Stratego.

 

[covok48]

"North Vietnam was successful with guerilla warfare, but they still participated in the Tet Offensive."

North Vietnam was sucessful with the propoganda warfare. They participated in the Tet offensive and failed badly. The Viet Cong ceased to exist after this offensive and the North suffered extensive losses.

As for this "strategy" I'm sure the defense department threw this idea out a long long time ago.

 

[h4ppy]

the rebels can't openly get to concentrated mass like the tet was.

 

[Archer 007]

This would never work for many reasons.

 

[The Commander]

Keep in mind the Tet offensive was a massive backfire for the Viet Cong, they actually took tremendous losses and didn't do much real damage to the U.S. The thing is, it also had big psychological effects on us, because we were amazed a bunch of tunnel rats were able to pull off such an organized attack without us figuring out it was coming.

Of course the whole situation was shot by then anyway, there was such overwhelming pressure at home to bring our guys back that we had to, regardless of military success.

The thing is, i don't think there are enough Iraqis to even organize a real military offense, because we're killing them way more than they're killing us, and i doubt they can be tricked.

Remember, we win by killing the dissenters and setting up a self-governing Iraq so we can bail out before pressure at home forces the government to bring our soldiers back, the insurgents just have to make the scene over there so horrific that we are forced to leave and someone just like Saddam will come into power.

 

[Flak]

Originally posted by stratego
What if we had our troops fake weakness and chaos in a certain area, and make it seem like the place can be taken over if Al Queda and other rebels launch a large scale offensive.

Al Queda is involved in Iraq? Do you have any evidence? This would be a big boost to morale for Americans right now. Atleast we'd know we're actually fighting the terrorists responsible for 9-11.

 

[The Yankee]

Well, we're pretty certain al-Qaeda elements are in Iraq, now.

However, retreating for victory in a case like this is just plain silly. It will give them even more propagandic fodder. Sure, they will fight to the death even when losing, but a victory, even if WE know it is fake, will just inspire many others and give these people that defeated big, bad America and even wider audience. Think how much further their messages of hate were spread after the Arab Afghan veterans got the Soviets to pull out of Afghanistan. Bin Laden was a hero after that.

 

[allhailIndia]

Well, the US is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

If it pulls out troops and all, on the 1st of July, wholescale chaos will erupt and Iraq will go down in a massive civil war.

If on the other hand, the US sticks around, troops and all, it will give the Shias the impression that it is bringing democracy at the barrel of a gun and hence, is indirectly ruling the country. Shia clerics will be enrgaed and demand a full US withdrawl, which will consequently lead to another Somalia-like situation.

A middle path may be for the US to eat a little humble pie and go to the UN and get a few UN troops to take over peacekeeping ops and gradually reduce troops in say 3-4 years. THis should be enough time for the Iraqis to get used to the concept of democracy and get rid of some of the misconceptions they have been dealing with. It will be seen less as an occupation and more as an effort of "nation building"

 

[Double Barrel]

Their culture is too tribal and their hatred for each other and foreign powers too deep for any positive outcomes to be had anytime soon. I'm afraid that whatever "democracy" we set up will be overthrown within a year after our troops are withdrawn.

I do believe that we are in this thing for a serious long haul...most likely we'll have troops stationed there for a least a decade, if not two.

That being said, I do not think that previous military strategy will do us much good, as we are now an occupation force that are in a damned if you do/damned if you don't type-of-conundrum.

I just don't see how the reality of the situation jives with our idealism of what we hope happens in the end. Its the Bryar rabbit in the Briar patch!

 

[EmpireofVirtue]

We must admit something I had never expected : We thought we would have to fight against Saddam and not against the Iraqi people... and finally, we didn't really need to fight against Saddam and we are fighting fiercely against the Iraqi people. The war was fair and deserved to be fought for the good of our security and the one of iraqi people. I've always been a strong defender of the liberation of Iraq, but I must admit that was unexpected.

 

[betazed]

Originally posted by EmpireofVirtue
We must admit something I had never expected : We thought we would have to fight against Saddam and not against the Iraqi people...

heh, many will admit no such thing.

Anyone with half a wit (which rules out many people unfortunately ) could have seen that we would have ended up fighting Saddam and at least some Iraqi's. I just hope this does not lead the way I see it going. Those some Iraqi's changing to all Iraqi's.

 

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by allhailIndia
Well, the US is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

If it pulls out troops and all, on the 1st of July, wholescale chaos will erupt and Iraq will go down in a massive civil war.

Odd, here I was thinking the 30 June 2004 deadline was to turn over control to the provisional government and not withdraw all troops.

As for Creating a Tet Offensive, that's what the folks desperate to see the US lose want to do (while supporting the troops, of course) -- or at least the propaganda used to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Too bad for them Walter Cronkite is retired.

(Stratego appears to want to emulate the crushing defeat the US forces inflicted on the NVA/NLF in 1968 instead, so I'm not referring to him.)

 

[stratego]

Originally posted by The Yankee
However, retreating for victory in a case like this is just plain silly. It will give them even more propagandic fodder. Sure, they will fight to the death even when losing, but a victory, even if WE know it is fake, will just inspire many others and give these people that defeated big, bad America and even wider audience.

We're not going to give them the victory. We're going to give them the hope of victory, draw them in and crush them in a week long fight. (Of course we're going to have to document the whole process to show to the public that the situation was under control the whole time.)