US war machine nearly fell apart, army reveals

[muchacho]

The first official army history of the Iraq war reveals that United States forces were plagued by supply shortages, radios that could not reach far-flung troops and virtually no reliable intelligence on how Saddam Hussein would defend Baghdad.

While it is well known that many army units ran low on fuel and water as fast-moving armoured forces raced towards the Iraqi capital, the study offers vivid new details of a supply system nearing collapse.

Tank engines sat on warehouse shelves in Kuwait with no truck drivers to carry them north. Broken-down trucks were scavenged for usable parts and left by the roadside. Artillery units cannibalised parts from captured Iraqi guns to keep their howitzers operating.

In most cases, soldiers improvised solutions to keep the offensive rolling.

"The morass of problems that confounded delivering parts and supplies - running the gamut of paper clips to tank engines - stems from the lack of a means to assign responsibility clearly," the report concluded.

The unclassified study was ordered last year by the former army chief-of-staff General Eric Shinseki, who clashed with the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, over troop strength for postwar Iraq. It draws on interviews with 2300 people, 68,000 photographs and nearly 120,000 documents.

<snip>

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/03/1075776064461.html

[ixion]

1. gee, just imagine if we had attacked a country that wasn't defenseless

I mean, if there had truly been a threat, and if the war had truly been a 'just' war (which it was not), we would have screwed the pooch and lost thousands of troops because of supply issues. :-(

[glarius]

2. I've heard White House spokespeople refer to this as the greatest

military victory ever....They said it will be listed that way in the history books....Personally, I surmised from the beginning that it was like an elephant fighting a mouse...

[donsu]

3. we are not at war -- we invaded a country -- this is not a war

nt

[zbdent]

4. Gee, and the Repukes remind people that the "rush to war" took

several months before the war actually started.

You'd think that they'd have all the supplies set.

[On the Road]

5. So the Russian Site is Vindicated!

I checked www.irakwar.ru several times a day during combat. In addition to links from the world press, they ran a daily account of the military situation that they claimed relied on Russian intelligence, and differed markedly from any other media source. They reported widespread delays, mechanical breakdowns, supply problems, and organized resistance. It had the ring of authenticity, but this is the first independent confirmation I have seen.

[oscarmitre]

6. I remember reading that in the 1991 Gulf War

the maps that the troops were given were so hopelessly out of date that they were contacting relatives back home and asking them to send out GPS instruments to them and that it enabled the GPS industry to take off. Not sure if it's accurate but if it is then well, the more things change.....

[htuttle]

7. In Afghanistan...

...US troops often had to rely on old SOVIET Russian maps from the 1980's. So much for satellites and GIS systems. I bet the X-Plane simulator has better terrain maps of Afghanistan...

We have the most expensive military in the world, there's no doubt about that. What we actually get for all those billions is something I wonder about all the time...