Beach landings, commando raids deep into enemy territory and plans for mass paratrooper assaults behind the lines. The opening days of the latest war in the Gulf are reminiscent of another, more daring era in military tactics, World War II.
After two decades of post-Vietnam caution, during which US forces have only gone to war on their own, overwhelming terms, this amounts to a transformation. In the last Gulf war, 12 years ago, the US-led force pulverized the Iraqi military with five weeks of air bombardment before advancing across a broad front in massed armored columns and half a million troops.
That war was the ultimate realization of the Powell doctrine, named after Colin Powell, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and current secretary of state. He is not having a good week.
Just as his diplomatic efforts ran into a dead end, his greatest legacy at the Pentagon was swept aside on the beaches of the Faw peninsula.
"Shock and awe" is still clearly on the agenda, with B-52s in the air friday night and officials talking about a "big blast" ahead, but in this war it has not been the strategy of first choice.
That strategy has been to hit the core of the regime with "decapitation strikes" while prodding its perimeter to test its will to fight, with the outside expectation that the whole structure might implode.
While the opening blows of the 1991 Gulf War were aimed at killing as many Iraqi soldiers as possible, obliterating them in their camps as they stood waiting in the sand, the first moves of this conflict have been designed to give them a chance to live.
They have been given repeated offers to surrender, with millions of air-dropped leaflets, radio broadcasts on hijacked frequencies and even secret contacts through the friends and families of individual officers. The discreet e-mail to the enemy general has become a new weapon of war.
Even as US and British troops were rolling across the Iraq-Kuwait border, the US defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was still insisting that there was "no need for a broader conflict."
British sources say this is the main reason why the promised "shock and awe" air strikes did not materialize at the start of the campaign. The aim of keeping as much of Iraq's infrastructure in place -- as well as the need to avoid civilian casualties -- was the main reason why ground troops were sent in so quickly, the British sources say.
However, military planning has been hampered by events beyond the US' control.
Turkey's refusal to host US troops meant a whole division, the 4th Infantry Division, stayed at its bases in the US, while its equipment bobbed in the Mediterranean on board three dozen transport ships.
"The US military has had transformation thrust upon it in the last few weeks," Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, said, pointing out that "it is unprecedented for the US military to begin a campaign with so many of the required forces still in transit."
The failure to obtain UN backing for the war meant the deployment of equipment was seriously delayed and US military planners had to be even more nervous than usual about the prospect of causing civilian casualties, or even killing significant numbers of Iraqi soldiers.
"The last thing we want is industrial warfare," said one senior British officer, referring to prolonged airstrikes, tank fire, and artillery barrages.
He added: "We want a stable Iraq and as much as possible of their armed forces in one piece. We do not want to destroy every large tank of the Republican Guard."
British military officials say they will rely on the help of existing Iraqi forces to maintain law and order in a post-Saddam Iraq.
Military sources paint a picture of "British brigadiers alongside Iraqi brigadiers", after the "implosion of the regime," as one put it.
The last, perhaps the most important, part of that transformation came when the CIA became convinced on Wednesday that it had tracked down Saddam Hussein to a building in southern Baghdad. The decision to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles and stealth bombers turned the military plans on their head.
The Iraqis responded by burning oilfields near Basra and lobbing missiles at the coalition forces in Kuwait. The decision was made to send the British and US Marines into battle 24 hours earlier than scheduled, in an offensive on Basra and the oilfields. Consequently, the ground war got off to a staggered, almost gradual, beginning. It was a long way from the Powell doctrine.
Beijing’s continued provocations in the Taiwan Strait reveal its intention to unilaterally change the “status quo” in the area, the US Department of State said on Saturday, calling for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait issues. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) reported that four China Coast Guard patrol vessels entered restricted and prohibited waters near Kinmen County on Friday and again on Saturday. A State Department spokesperson said that Washington was aware of the incidents, and urged all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from unilaterally changing the “status quo.” “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is in line with our [the
EXTENDED RANGE: Hsiung Sheng missiles, 100 of which might be deployed by the end of the year, could reach Chinese command posts and airport runways, a source said A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday. Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China. They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said. The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at
READY TO WORK: Taiwan is eager to cooperate and is hopeful that like-minded states will continue to advocate for its inclusion in regional organizations, Lai said Maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, and peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region must be a top priority, president-elect William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday after meeting with a delegation of US academics. Leaders of the G7, US President Joe Biden and other international heads of state have voiced concerns about the situation in the Strait, as stability in the region is necessary for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world, Lai said. The vice president, who is to be inaugurated in May, welcomed the delegation and thanked them for their support for Taiwan and issues concerning the Strait. The international community
COOPERATION: Two crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank off Kinmen were rescued, two were found dead and another two were still missing at press time The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was yesterday working with Chinese rescuers to find two missing crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank southwest of Kinmen County yesterday, killing two crew. The joint operation managed to rescue two of the boat’s six crewmembers, but two were already dead when they were pulled from the water, the agency said in a statement. Rescuers are still searching for two others from the Min Long Yu 61222, a boat registered in China’s Fujian Province that capsized and sank 1.03 nautical miles (1.9km) southwest of Dongding Island (東碇), it added. CGA Director-General Chou Mei-wu (周美伍) told a