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(archived) really interesting article about how the much-vaunted lightning-fast invasion of Iraq was nowhere near as impressive as portrayed by American propaganda. How do these paper tigers keep getting in my imperialist militaries?

The US invasion of Iraq, begun almost exactly twenty years ago, on March 20th, 2003, is often sold to us as a gloriously flawless campaign, where heroic US forces valiantly marched forward, vanquishing hordes of elite Iraqi Fedayeen numbering in the hundreds of thousands. ... But there remains one important facet to the image that has continued to endure the test of time, despite the general acknowledgment these days that the war was an egregious mistake. And this facet is the actual view, the historiography of the war itself from a militaristic, rather than political or social, perspective. Despite acknowledging the war as a mistake, most people still vacuously adhere to the vision of the war as some resounding, exemplar achievement of military science par excellence.

The most obvious thousand-ton elephant in the room must first be swiftly gotten out of the way: There was no actual ‘war’. ... What was once oft-discussed in those days, but is now conveniently buried in the memory-holes of American alt-history is the fact that almost every Iraqi general was paid off by the CIA and various US intelligence services to lay down their arms, along with the men under their command, and surrender. ... Even the US Army Supreme Commander for the war effort, General Tommy Franks attested to the fact:

General Tommy Franks, the US army commander for the war, said these Iraqi officers had acknowledged their loyalties were no longer with the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, but with their American paymasters. As a result, many officers chose not to defend their positions as American and British forces pushed north from Kuwait.

Like something out of a Tom Clancy novel, the MI6/CIA teams even carried cold hard gold bullion in briefcases to effect the bribes ... And a Salon article from late March 2003, on the eve of the war also lifted the lid on the secret, massive CIA effort to completely denude the Iraqi army of any resistance whatsoever. They go on to explain how, as bombs were already devastating Baghdad in the ‘shock and awe’ portion of the conflict prior to the full-on ground invasion, the Iraqi Defense Ministry headquarters was left standing. The reason was self-evident: the CIA had already established quite a rapport with the Iraqi military leadership, and was busy successfully bribing them to lay down their arms.

As the American columns continued to leisurely drive down the highways toward Baghdad, they faced the occasional light small-arms resistance. However, even with such paltry opposition, they were experiencing massive problems. They go on to outline how the Marines continued driving into Iraqi territory for two weeks (with little to no resistance, mind you) in their AAV’s (Assault Amphibious Vehicle), which began to break down en masse ... So they lost a whopping, unheard of 1/3 of their vehicles in the first week or two of the road march just from systemic break downs?

Western wunderwaffe strikes again, expect this time it isn't even some kind of fancy ultra-amazing tank, it's literally troop transports breaking down from the arduous task of... transporting troops, on a fucking highway, not even trudging through mud or anything

At 15:27 of the NBC Nightline special, they even groan about how badly the supply situation deteriorated, the commander explaining how ‘nervous’ he got when they had to ration down to two meals a day for four days straight. ... Here again, at 57:11 of the NBC doc, they describe completely running out of supplies during a sandstorm, where US troops were rationed down to 1 MRE per day, and almost no water. ... In fact, this was a well known occurrence for US forces even back to the 1991 Gulf War conflict. ... They go on to mention the systemic normality of this problem, highlighting how US ground forces virtually ran out of fuel on only day 3 of the 1991 hostilities.

YOU RAN OUT OF FUEL ON DAY 3

Something that Western military "analysts" never bring up when heaping praise on their wunderwaffe and shitting on Soviet/Russian stuff is the logistical footprint - it doesn't matter how amazing your tanks are if they just run out of fuel a few days into the goddamn offensive. I've wondered previously if Western countries' obsession with lightning-fast wars is because deep down they understand they simply have no capability for sustained warfare...

At 44:37 of the NBC documentary, they report an incident where a US serviceman ‘traitor’ threw a grenade into a command tent, killing and seriously wounding ~15 American officers. And this was in the famously elite 101st Airborne division. ... a US Marine Corps Major being run over by a bulldozer, and an elite 101st Airborne command tent being blown away by grenades thrown by a disgruntled US soldier shows what, exactly—exemplary martial spirit? The famed American Esprit de Corps?

lol. lmao. get fragged assholes

At one point, the correspondents describe one of the most eventful parts of their war march toward Baghdad being an incident in Al Kifl—about at the haflway mark—where they came under fire of ‘four mortars’. And scary 105mm mortars at that. Yes, you’ve read that right, a grand total of four mortars and a light drizzle of sniper fire led to an entire US Army unit relocation under major alarm.

When they finally did enter Baghdad, they admit that the only minor skirmishes that flared up were against ‘small teams’ of lightly armed men in civilian clothing; i.e. typical insurgent, light guerilla squads—and not even well armed, trained, or numerous ones at that. Notice how you’ve never seen any footage of real ‘battles’ as we know them from the Iraq invasion, despite the fact that it was billed as the first truly ‘televised war’, and had hundreds of embedded journalists with cameras literally riding along with the US force convoys? ... And notice how, despite several of the so-called key ‘battles’ revolving around capturing critical bridges in approaches to Baghdad, not once did the Iraqi ‘forces’ even attempt to blow up a bridge to hamper the US advance ... There are myriad other ways the US experienced shortages and problems during the invasion. Here, Harper’s DC editor Andrew Cockburn explains how “families of US soldiers in Iraq had to go into debt to buy them adequate armor, nightvision goggles, and other critical gear” because their command was unable to supply them.

The actual enemy combatant losses during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the invasion and capture of Baghdad, which were officially “observed and recorded” as per wiki, were 4,895–6,370. ... And it should be mentioned that, while the US and coalition suffered a ‘celebrated’ total of ~5,000 KIA in the entire Iraq war (including insurgency period), the actual total Allied Force losses (which includes the Iraqi militia that did the heavy lifting) is listed on wiki as: Total dead: 25,071 - Total wounded: 117,961. This is compared to the estimated total dead enemy combatants of: 34,144–71,544. Viewed from that perspective, especially if we assume for argument’s sake the lower end of that range, the war wasn’t as ‘lopsided’ of a victory as it seems—25k Allied vs. 34k enemy dead. After all, it also falls upon the merit of US military skill and prowess if their own militia which they used as cannon-fodder was killed under their watch, does it not? When the US forces work in tandem with them, operating from their ‘rear’ with the overwatch of various systems (artillery, airpower, etc.), it reflects on the US’s military capabilities, if they can’t keep the total forces under their purview from suffering nearly as many casualties as the completely outmatched (no airpower, no artillery, no heavy weapons) enemy. Not to mention, as others have pointed out, these figures don’t count the likely thousands of secret US contractors/mercenaries (Blackwater/Xe, etc.) killed ‘off the books’. ... The fact of the matter is, had US faced even an Iraqi Army (much less a far superior Ukrainian one) that had the same conditions imposed on Russian forces (not taking bribes, for one, and being armed, supplied, aided by a coalition of other major countries), and had the initial invasion therefore stretched out over a longer period, you would have seen those same pratfalls and foibles already outlined above, but at an exponentially greater scale.