Body counts

I have not been to Iraq. I don’t even play someone who has on TV. I don’t even know anyone in a high level position in Iraq. So what follows may well be wrong, but after all this page is about “the truth I see it” not how it is. Hopefully, more times than not, the two are one in the same.

There is great ballyhoo over the number of US casualties in Iraq dropping precipitously this month. It’s hard to look at the numbers and not see good news. I look at the numbers and wonder what’s up. I’ve often said that more troops will lead to more casualties. That’s particularly true when those troops begin to squeeze the enemy. Well we have more troops and they are squeezing enemy - hard. We know that this is a ruthless and clever enemy capable of adjusting his tactics quickly. So, where are the casualties?

Here are a few explanations:

First, our constant pressure on the enemy’s command control have placed us so far inside his decision cycle that he cannot mount a coordinated attack. There is the famous OODA Loop – Observe – Orient - Decide – Act, which describes combat decision making by leaders. It is possible that the al Qaeda leadership in Iraq is under so much pressure just to survive day-to-day that it cannot observe what is happening, orient on a coalition weak point, decide how to attack the weakness or muster forces necessary to act on that weakness. As a result, we see scattered uncoordinated attacks with no strategy other than inflicting pain and suffering on civilians at soft targets.

Next, the enemy may have reached a culminating point (CP). A CP is when a military force has used up a good portion of his men and or material and needs to regroup. We know that early on in the surge the enemy resisted in a big way. That resistance may have caused him to use up an inordinate amount of his men and or material. If that’s the case, we will see him regroup, rest and rearm for a new round shortly. What would be useful at this point is to know what kind of enemy body count we are achieving. If we are routing them and rolling them up, enemy body counts should be high. If he's resting and hiding, the count would be lower. We don’t play the enemy body count game anymore, so it’s hard to know.

Last, the enemy is simply husbanding resources for an all out push at the right time. Think of a Tet Offensive type maneuver. This is exactly what I’d be doing. Were I bin Laden, I could easily see that a poor US Army September report is what my allies in the Democrat controlled congress need to pull US troops from my most important front. I know I cannot beat the US in a straight up fight, so I pull back until about mid-August. Then I let loose with everything that I have. I kill, maim and blow up everything in sight just in time for the congressional hearings. It doesn’t matter if I win or lose this last big push. It didn’t matter in Vietnam when the Tet Offensive failed miserably. The center of gravity in this fight is not the US military. It is US public opinion and the Democrat controlled congress.

Trust me, if I’ve considered the last scenario, so have the great minds on the coalition staff. The way to defeat such a strategy is by increasing pressure on enemy supply lines, hide outs and recruiting; disrupting enemy cells and communications in every manner possible; getting inside his OODA Loop, and not allowing him to plan and coordinate. Such efforts should cause increased coalition and enemy casualties.

But that’s where we came into this piece.