Brilliant 'What If'

[Annie]

So many links, found at site:

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/002535.html

What if They had a Tet Offensive and Nobody Came?
Instead of one from the front today, here's a bunch. See if you notice a trend.

Boots on the Ground, Baghdad, 3 Apr

All hell seemed to have broken loose yesterday. There were many fire fights and attacks going on all throughout the day. Some of our guys got stuck out for almost 24 hours straight. A car bomb went off taking out one of the armored vehicles. They had mass casualties, but only one that had to be flown out. It's a little surprising the news hasn't covered this at all. Plus a bomb killed some innocent bystanders. Some of the guys were pissed off that they weren't out on the patrols out there because they wanted to get in on the action.
Minneapolis Star Tribune Staff writer Mark Brunswick blogs from Taji, Iraq, 3 Apr
The camp was hit with four mortar shells yesterday. No one was hurt and there was no significant damage. We spent 40 minutes in a concrete bunker waiting for the signal that everything was clear.
Dave's Not Here, Baghdad, 3 Apr
Following attacks of any kind rumors abound.

Last night, between about 7 pm and 8 pm there were thumping sounds every few seconds. The sound seemed to be coming from either the checkpoint, or from the logbase. I'm not sure which, and I don't really care to become more precise about OPSEC matters anyway.

What does matter though is that there was a sustained firefight around the area of the attacks and that, to quote the SGM, "every [insurgent] we saw, we killed."

More importantly though, and more media worthy, was the attack against Abu Ghraib Prison. I have fellow friends out there, working for my company.

Boots in Baghdad 3 Apr
Sorry it has been a little while since the last entry. It has been a busy week. We spent several days in the field doing dismounted missions and did a mounted mission yesterday morning. I had just gotten back from dinner last night and was looking forward to a nice relaxing evening. I was getting ready to take a shower and was planning on a good night of solid sleep when my team leader busted in my room and screamed, “GET YOUR GEAR AND GET TO THE COMPANY TOC, ABU GRAIB IS UNDER ATTACK!”

An anniversary went almost unnoticed this past week. This time last year four contractors were murdered, their bodies then mutilated and hung on a bridge in Fallujah. An odd coincidence that a spate of attacks occurs in Iraq almost a year to the day? Perhaps.

But by comparison, this year's events drew little notice, with the exception of the Abu Ghraib attack. Here's the official CENTCOM news release detailing events at Abu Ghraib last weekend:

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Soldiers and Marines successfully repelled a well-coordinated attack by 40-60 terrorists on Forward Operating Base Abu Ghraib April 2 at about 7 p.m. Abu Ghraib is a detention facility for 3,400 detainees as well as an Iraqi-run prison.
In an attempt to gain access to the prison, terrorists launched a simultaneous attack in multiple locations using indirect fires, rocket-propelled grenade fire, small arms fire and a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. Just as the sun was setting, indirect fire from 81 mm and 120 mm mortars began impacting the operating base. This was followed by multiple RPG attacks and a large volume of small arms fire focused on two guard towers, one on the northwestern and the other on the southeastern corner on the operating base. Using the cover of the mortar fire and the intense fire on the guard towers, the terrorists launched a VBIED to penetrate the perimeter wall near the southeastern guard tower. Marines defending the base returned fire and the VBIED exploded before it reached the perimeter. Marines in the tower were forced to evacuate but were quickly reinforced by a quick reaction force.

The terrorists, using residential areas for cover and concealment, then conducted a ground assault towards the southeastern tower. With reinforcements from the quick reaction force, Marines and Soldiers halted the advance of the terrorists. Additionally, Apache helicopters and artillery fire began to engage the remnants of the attackers. The terrorists were forced to withdraw after suffering an estimated 50 casualties. The attack was over by 9 p.m.

US forces sustained seven wounded who were evacuated to a combat support hospital and sixteen minor injuries from shrapnel who have been returned to duty.

Additionally, thirteen detainees were also wounded from indirect fire, and all detainees remained accounted for.


Early press reports had the number of American wounded at more than 40, but as noted above only seven were serious enough to require evacuation. And as was noted on the Boots in Baghdad blog, the attack was repelled without need for reinforcements. Still, it was an event of some significance - certainly a reminder that the war isn't over, and if looked at in light of other attacks throughout the country at the time perhaps cause for more concern.

I survived a "vacation" in Baghdad. Looking back it seems foolish to have ever anticipated any other outcome of my tour of duty there. Of course I survived. I wasn't in combat, after all. And ignoring the rockets that flew overhead from time to time to detonate a few hundred yards away and the British C130 that may or may not have been shot down on the day I was supposed to have flown out I was never in great danger.

But that's true only in hindsight. And while there I couldn't help but realize I was playing Rocket Bingo. Some days the tension was higher than others. The weeks leading up to the US elections saw a gradual increase of pucker factor; each day without something big going boom left a certainty that the big day was just around the corner. Having successfully castrated Spain on the eve of elections in that country it seemed plausible that terrorists would want to try the same with the US. (And they had the largest collection of weapons in the world to do it with.)

When election day came and went with little violence the conventional wisdom was that they were 'saving it up' for special days later in Ramadan. That month was forever long, with some days known to be better than others for glorious death by Jihad. We could only shrug and wonder when those days passed with minimal and ineffective violence. The month passed. Just prior to Christmas a suicide bomber struck a DFAC at Mosul. The terrorists earned media praise for a new level of cunning. Wild claims of terrorist manpower numbering in the hundreds of thousands were trumpeted in the New Year as the Iraqi elections approached. Tet was on everyone's mind - but the best the enemy could do was a series of car bombs that detonated without ever reaching their targets.

Given the numbers of terrorists that were supposedly operating in Iraq, I was surprised each and every day that a thousand or so didn't rush the walls of my happy home, just to create a news story. Obviously the numbers were inflated, but I could think of only two explanations for that. One - the opposition was never the force that the media made it out to be, or two - we had utterly crushed the insurgency, something I thought possible last October but confess I left as a question for fear of a jinx.

What was increasingly obvious was that the reality of Iraq was significantly different from the picture presented to Americans at home. Sure, insurgents can lob mortars over walls, or detonate truck bombs, or assassinate election officials, judges, and others - but where were the thousands wanting death to the point they'd charge the walls of the infidel strongholds? Every passing day it seemed less likely that such a force existed.

Fast forward to the present, and in the story above we see a pale hint of what I always thought was likely, the attack on the walls. But once again the attackers are destroyed, repulsed, routed - their mighty truck bomb detonated short of it's target, their rockets and small arms fire largely ineffective, their mission a failure. But this time they even lack something else: their cheerleaders have melted away. There's apparently no one left in Iraq to report on what an amazingly sophisticated and coordinated assault was launched nationwide this past weekend. No one to declare the insurgents 'increasingly bold'.

Was that Tet? Was that all the bad guys could bring? Is something bigger coming in the near future?

Are we seeing the result of the influx of French teenagers into the Al Qaeda cells? Are the Sunnis ready to pack it in?

We're not just about photography, after all. Whatever comes next, it's good to know the MilBloggers will be there ready for it.

With pen and sword.

 

[Merlin1047]

Very nice find Kathianne. I always enjoy reading first-hand accounts. They're not always the most accurate, but they usually are the most truthful and contain the least bias. Plus it's from the people who are actually there with their butts on the line.