The Battle of Baghdad

[RTK]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060915/D8K5CH7O1.html

Please don't tell me they're going to try "Clear, Hold, Build" strategy around Baghdad....

[SWJED]

16 September Washington Post - Security Ring for Baghdad Underway by Sudarsan Raghavan.

U.S. military and Iraqi security forces have begun a massive effort to seal off Baghdad with a ring of reinforced checkpoints, berms, trenches, barriers and fences in an attempt to clamp down on insurgents, officials said Friday.

A few dozen checkpoints will be placed along key arteries in and out of Baghdad to ensure that people move through "predictable paths" that can be controlled, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, said late Friday night. Iraqi forces will man the checkpoints and patrol the terrain, with support from U.S. troops...

The construction of a ring around Baghdad would be the most ambitious security endeavor yet for the U.S. military and its Iraqi allies as they try to block militias, death squads and insurgents from funneling in weapons, explosives, funding and recruits from outside the capital...

[SWJED]

Anbar Called Secondary to U.S. Efforts in Baghdad by Ann Scott Tyson.

American troops face "significant challenges" in western Iraq's volatile Anbar region -- the deadliest province for U.S. forces -- but military efforts there are secondary to the priority of quelling sectarian unrest in Baghdad, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq said yesterday.

"Al Anbar today is a supporting effort to what we're doing in Baghdad," Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of Multinational Corps-Iraq, said in a videoconference with Pentagon reporters. "Baghdad is our main effort right now," he said, explaining why a battalion of U.S. troops was recently moved from Anbar to Baghdad.

On a day of sober talk about Iraq, Chiarelli also issued a dire warning on the risks of pulling out U.S. troops and allowing the country to slide into civil war, drawing an analogy from the 1980s Iran-Iraq war to suggest the loss of life from such a conflict could be staggering...

[SWJED]

16 September Reuters - U.S. Denies Baghdad Trench Plans

The U.S. military denied reports on Saturday that Iraq plans to dig a giant ring of trenches around the city of Baghdad.

Iraq's Interior Ministry announced earlier this week that it plans to set up 28 checkpoints that would allow controlled access to the city, while closing off other roads as part of a security crackdown.

The New York Times quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman on Saturday as saying the Iraqis would also dig a giant trench around the city of seven million people...

But Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said the description sounded like an exaggeration of a plan that mostly would rely on existing terrain features to ensure that traffic moved through the 28 checkpoints...

[aktarian]

What happened to plans to dig trench around Mosul (kicked around in summer 05)? Were they shelved or what?

[RTK]

What happened to plans to dig trench around Mosul (kicked around in summer 05)? Were they shelved or what?

I don't remember a plan for Mosul (I was in Tal Afar last summer) but we did do it around Tal Afar in preparation for September's I'Ada Al Haq (Operation Restoring Rights).

This works in towns without linear infrastructure. It works when you can isolate the town, particularly the worst parts, from outside influences and support basins. I don't think it would work in Mosul without a division (+). I am skeptical of its success in Baghdad. It would work in a town like Fallujah if a good ISR plan was implaced to isolate the rat lines egressing the town. I think it would work in Ramadi with a good deal of military forces, since you could isolate the city from the surrounding areas with air and checkpoints along Routes 1 and 10. To the west is a big-ass desert. To the east is Habaniyah and Khalidiyah. A robust force with a good ISR plan an countermobility plan could do it.

The largest piece of these types of operations is Phase III, "Building." The Interior Ministry needs to get on board before the first trenchline is dug to allocate the resources necessary to rebuild the place after combat operations. Units need to wargame and template their forward fire bases of, for lack of a better term, occupation after the combat operation. Units need to realize that their placements in the towns need to be married to both police and Iraqi army units with a combined front during all phases of the operation.

There is debate and skepticism as to how detailed and dynamic the "clear and hold" portions of the operation are. Whatever the case may be, it needs to be formed as a zone reconnaissance with information based deliberate frontal attacks during phase I. Upon completion of "clearing" operations, that's when units need to be able to transition to a deliberate defense and the emplaced firebases within the town. Concurrently, Hold and Build can take place, but the amount of planning it takes to pull this off successfully is amazing.

I don't see it being able to be pulled off in Baghdad the way we sit right now.