I have a question about the Iraqis...

I have a question and I am hoping to get some opinions on why the Iraqis don’t seem to be showing much resistance to British and US troops without everyone getting into whether they support/do not support the war.

The Iraqis don't seem to be showing as much opposition as expected, although I did read this on MSN:

And while it appeared that the British and U.S. forces were making ground Friday, the Iraqis weren’t giving up without a fight. The First Marine Division needed air support to suppress Iraqi mortar and small arms fire while seizing Route 80, which leads from Kuwait to Basra. “Every now and then they pop off to let us know they’re still there,” Lt. Col. Steve Holmes, a Marine in charge of clearing berms for troops and armor to enter Iraq. Supported by Cobra attack helicopters and howitzers, Marine tanks and armored vehicles rolled down Route 80 through the demilitarized zone between Kuwait and Iraq.

My dad mentioned last night that Iraq supposedly has the 7th largest military in the world so I am trying to figure out what is going on. I have a feeling that Saddam is waiting and will eventually strike back, but maybe I am wrong. I do not know much about military strategy, but I would think after this long in power he would not give up without a fight. I was thinking, why not just surrender if you are not planning on really trying to maintain your stronghold but then I thought maybe it has something to do with pride. Does he know that he is not much against us? Is he waiting? Is he letting us believe that we are ahead of the game so that we maybe become to overconfident?

I was hoping someone with some knowledge could maybe give some insight and opinion into what is going on…and without an argument of why or why not the war is wrong...

Is it your opinion that he has enough power to really fight back against us? I am trying not to become to overconfident myself...I figure we shouldn't count our chickens before they have hatched..

when we go in door to door in bagdadh(sp) thats when we have 40-60% of us troops dead..believe it.

Didn't we already bomb Bagdad?

Okay, maybe I am confused, but I saw this on BBC.com:

Massive air raid rocks Baghdad

The Iraqi capital Baghdad has come under a massive bombardment after American officials declared that a planned major escalation of its attack on Iraq was under way.

Huge explosions reverberated, sending great plumes of smoke into the night sky.

"Every single building I can see is in flames," said the BBC's Paul Wood as he surveyed the city from his vantage point in the city.

He said there was so much smoke it was hard to identify which buildings were on fire.

For the rest:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2873811.stm

Please correct me if I am wrong...

[Infrared]

As of now (as I have just seen on TV from the Rumsfeld briefing) only major tactical and military targets have been bombed in Baghdad, including presidential palaces, communications sites, and a residential bunker, allegedly housing Saddam and/or his sons.


I think it is going to be an insane fight once the US forces arrive on foot in Baghdad.

Urban warfare is not pretty, and our casualties will be enormous if this happens. They do have tons of officers, republican guard, and even civilians on their side.

[Infrared]

And that picture of the flaming building on that website was one of the presidential palaces.

[hepkatmama]

i just don't believe that our weaponry is that precise.

i can't believe that our military intelligence is that accurate that we kno where everything is.

i REFUSE to believe that fires don't spread and that smoke doesn't suffocate ppl.

the media is lying about who we have hit cause if they told the truth & showed dying civilians, there would b a huge emotional response just like cambodia & vietnam.

so the media shows explosions, smoke & fire but where are the faces of the dying???

Originally posted by hepkatmama
i just don't believe that our weaponry is that precise.

i can't believe that our military intelligence is that accurate that we kno where everything is.

i REFUSE to believe that fires don't spread and that smoke doesn't suffocate ppl.

the media is lying about who we have hit cause if they told the truth & showed dying civilians, there would b a huge emotional response just like cambodia & vietnam.

so the media shows explosions, smoke & fire but where are the faces of the dying???

The JDAM and other GPS-guided munitions are accurate to within one meter. You don't see any dying civilians because we are pounding the living hell out of military targets only. Once Saddam starts using his own folks as human shields, then there will be some civilian casualites, but it won't be our fault.

We know where everything in Baghdad is. We know where the population centers are. We know this because we overfly Iraq spy satellites EIGHT times a day, every day, year-round.

[Element4040]

i just don't believe that our weaponry is that precise.

There are many places that will give all the info on the weaponry. GPS guided bombs are pretty damn accurate. But from what I read, it's the laser guided bombs that are the most accurate. Supposedly you could put one on an individual person from 20 miles away.

But you do bring up a good point in that the fires etc. can and will cause civilian casualties. But something of interest that I have seen in the coverage today is that the Emergency Crews in Baghdad are not responding. That makes me wonder, if that is on purpose to have more civilian casualties as some people are implying. Or is it just a simple matter of not responding in fear that the Emergency Personnel will become casualties because the bombing is still going on?

[hepkatmama]

i'v even heard that the missles have cameras on them. this fello i know who served during the persian gulf said that he could see the guy drop his cigarette before he got hit.

i recognize that they target very precisely, but how do we know our intelligence about WHERE & WHAT military targets they are aiming for are precise?

it will suck when he starts using human sheilds. & its not if, it is when.

actually it may b now.

what if they told the Emergency crews to just let it burn till the oil fields catch, then halliburton will come get paid to put it out?

[Element4040]

i recognize that they target very precisely, but how do we know our intelligence about WHERE & WHAT military targets they are aiming for are precise?

My gut feeling from the beginning of this whole thing is that we have CIA contacts pretty high up in Saddam's Party giving the CIA the inside scoop. They've probably already struck up some deals with us for their assistance. I may be wrong, but just the way the initial stages have played out kinda support that theory.

Originally posted by PhatBuddha
My dad mentioned last night that Iraq supposedly has the 7th largest military in the world

That was in 1990 before the first Gulf war. Saddam will fight in Baghdad where technology can't play too big apart without causing too many civilian deaths

[Krash]

The one other major problem with such munitions, as with all machines, is that they fail.

Even if you take a low rate, say 10%, that fail and that 10% of them will fail in civillian areas that is 1% of total precision munitions fired killing civillians. Rumsfeld is talking of 10,000 such munitions.

Even if they only result in single casualties each, you are still looking at 100 innocent, dead. Not "collateral damage", "machine failure". As we have seen yesterday this also effects our troops.

[Big Andy]

Originally posted by Threecurl
The JDAM and other GPS-guided munitions are accurate to within one meter. You don't see any dying civilians because we are pounding the living hell out of military targets only. Once Saddam starts using his own folks as human shields, then there will be some civilian casualites, but it won't be our fault.

Wait a minute, we're not talking about dismantling buildings and executing certain people here. We're talking about using powerful explosives. The specific building/people being aimed at will NOT be the only damage done. The weapons are quite accurate when it comes to making them land in the right places, but that doesn't mean they won't send a chunk of brick from a building flying through the air and smack an innocent kid in the head, killing him. People are often in the wrong places at the wrong time. Just because they think they know what they are aiming at doesn't mean that they aren't killing hundreds of innocent civilians.

Also, the fires that are started by these bombings can (and will IMO) spread, causing more damage to civilians and civilian buildings/property. This kind of thing is easy to disregard if you have a conservative redneck view on the war to begin with, but for those of us who have moral objections to the war, it's pretty sickening to see the capital of another country ravaged like this for no real reason.