: "The first official Army history of the Iraq war reveals that American forces were plagued by a 'morass' of supply shortages, radios that could not reach far-flung troops, disappointing psychological operations and virtually no reliable intelligence on how Saddam Hussein would defend Baghdad.
Logistics problems, which senior Army officials played down at the time, were much worse than have previously been reported. While the study serves mainly as a technical examination of how the Army performed and the problems it faced, it could also serve as a political document that could advance the Army's interests within the Pentagon.
>>>It also found that the Pentagon's decision to send mostly combat units in the weeks before the invasion had the "unintended consequence" of holding back support troops until much later, contributing greatly to the logistics problems.
>>>Other problems cropped up. While divisional commanders could communicate with one another, officers at lower levels often could not. Units separated by long distances in the fast-moving offensive found their radios suddenly out of range, leaving troops to improvise solutions using mobile phones or secure e-mail messaging.
Commanders were relying on an extensive psychological operations campaign of leaflets and broadcasts to coax Iraqi soldiers into surrendering, as they did in large numbers in the 1991 gulf war, and to refrain from sabotaging Iraq's oil fields.
The study found that those messages either had failed to reach many of the intended Iraqi units or had baffled the Iraqi soldiers who got them. In addition, Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary fighters inserted in Iraqi Army units threatened and, in many cases, killed Iraqi soldiers who tried to desert or surrender.
Leaflets were prepared for the first 48 hours of combat, but the system to approve new written messages was so cumbersome that psychological operations teams on the ground were forced to rely solely on loudspeakers. "It is clear that on the whole, psyop produced much less than expected and perhaps less than claimed," the report found.
Despite elaborate Army planning for a final battle in Baghdad — including the mapping of every section and building in the city of 5.5 million people — commanders and intelligence analysts were at a loss to determine how the Iraqis would defend Baghdad, if at all.
"Intelligence officers at all echelons continued to have great difficulty accurately describing the threat in the city," the study concluded.
Not until armored columns carried out probes, called "thunder runs," through Baghdad, the study found, did American commanders realize that the city was not heavily defended.
The study also found that future adversaries could draw several lessons from the war: that American forces' reliance on high-tech surveillance satellites and aircraft could be countered by decoys and the imaginative disguise of weaponry; that more powerful warheads for rocket-propelled grenades, already effective against helicopters and light vehicles like Humvees, could offset American armor; that American forces could be drawn into a protracted, costly urban war, more effectively than they were by the Iraqis; and that American forces are vulnerable to classic insurgency tactics, like car bombs."
Logistics problems, which senior Army officials played down at the time, were much worse than have previously been reported. While the study serves mainly as a technical examination of how the Army performed and the problems it faced, it could also serve as a political document that could advance the Army's interests within the Pentagon.
>>>It also found that the Pentagon's decision to send mostly combat units in the weeks before the invasion had the "unintended consequence" of holding back support troops until much later, contributing greatly to the logistics problems.
>>>Other problems cropped up. While divisional commanders could communicate with one another, officers at lower levels often could not. Units separated by long distances in the fast-moving offensive found their radios suddenly out of range, leaving troops to improvise solutions using mobile phones or secure e-mail messaging.
Commanders were relying on an extensive psychological operations campaign of leaflets and broadcasts to coax Iraqi soldiers into surrendering, as they did in large numbers in the 1991 gulf war, and to refrain from sabotaging Iraq's oil fields.
The study found that those messages either had failed to reach many of the intended Iraqi units or had baffled the Iraqi soldiers who got them. In addition, Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary fighters inserted in Iraqi Army units threatened and, in many cases, killed Iraqi soldiers who tried to desert or surrender.
Leaflets were prepared for the first 48 hours of combat, but the system to approve new written messages was so cumbersome that psychological operations teams on the ground were forced to rely solely on loudspeakers. "It is clear that on the whole, psyop produced much less than expected and perhaps less than claimed," the report found.
Despite elaborate Army planning for a final battle in Baghdad — including the mapping of every section and building in the city of 5.5 million people — commanders and intelligence analysts were at a loss to determine how the Iraqis would defend Baghdad, if at all.
"Intelligence officers at all echelons continued to have great difficulty accurately describing the threat in the city," the study concluded.
Not until armored columns carried out probes, called "thunder runs," through Baghdad, the study found, did American commanders realize that the city was not heavily defended.
The study also found that future adversaries could draw several lessons from the war: that American forces' reliance on high-tech surveillance satellites and aircraft could be countered by decoys and the imaginative disguise of weaponry; that more powerful warheads for rocket-propelled grenades, already effective against helicopters and light vehicles like Humvees, could offset American armor; that American forces could be drawn into a protracted, costly urban war, more effectively than they were by the Iraqis; and that American forces are vulnerable to classic insurgency tactics, like car bombs."
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