Fallujah: Haystack demolished, 4000 needles found
The U.S. Marine Corps has posted a slideshow report to the web about the now-mostly-complete operation in Fallujah. I was pointed to this report by Juan Cole, who characterizes the thinking behind it as a mindset of "classic conservatism" which ignores the realities of insurgencies and their popular support. I can't speak to mindsets, but the facts in the report worry the hell out of me. The triumphal table in one of the later slides lists about 4000 individual munitions -- tank shells, mortar shells, rockets -- as being captured. If we assume very generously an average weight of 200 lbs. for each individual munition (many are 60mm mortar shells that might weigh 20 lbs), that means that the Marines fought a pitched battle lasting weeks, lost 50 dead, and captured a grand total of 400 tons of explosive badness. Now remember that Fallujah was supposed to be the epicenter of the Sunni revolt.
That is, pardon my bluntness, a pimple on the ass of an elephant.
The ability of the insurgents in Iraq to create chaos is almost directly proportional to the access to explosives. Guns (AK-47s, etc.) are a secondary chaos factor, but explosives are the real thing that distinguishes today's mess in Iraq from the relative peace that reigned in India under British occupation a hundred years ago. A minority of upset people without high explosives are a rabble; a minority with high explosives are a headache of the first magnitude and a complete block to peace and progress. If you doubt that, look at the dystopian examples of Palestine/Israel and Northern Ireland before 1999. For a city which was supposedly the belly button of badness in the whole Sunni uprising, we found diddly squat in terms of the real core dangerous stuff that makes effective insurgency possible.
How do we know this? The Defense Department told us themselves.
Remember that tempest in a teapot about the ultra-high-explosive RDX and HDX that went missing from Al-Qaqaa, a story which broke right before the election? The total amount of just the most dangerous explosives missing there was 380 tons, which seemed like an enormous amount -- just as the 400 tons captured from Fallujah now seems like a lot. However, as part of its Al-Qaqaa damage control efforts, the Defense Department released numbers stating just how much high-explosive badness was floating about Iraq -- and the numbers simply boggle the mind. Estimates of 250,000 tons missing are moderate out of a total of perhaps a million tons present before the war -- and these bombs, shells, and rockets were stored in hundreds of munitions depots which stood unguarded for months after the invasion, prey to all sorts of extremist bomb-snatchers who are now staggering under the weight of their accumulated badness and have their sights on complete chaos in Iraq.
In fact, in response to Al-Qaqaa, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita stated that the 380 tons represented just “one 1,000th of the material that we are aware of”. 1/1000th is .1%. Congratulations to the U.S. Marine Corps. They've cleared Fallujah, taken 50 KIA, and eliminated .1% of the problem facing Iraq. That is very depressing math.
Two facts are critical to recall here if we are to have accountability:
1) All those explosive were stolen because Donald Rumsfeld convinced George W. Bush that we'd win this war fast and on the cheap with few troops. So when we invaded, we didn't have enough men to police the most important weapons sites.
2) Whatever munitions might have been in Fallujah were probably moved out weeks in advance, along with most of the insurgent fighters in the town, after George W. Bush pre-announced the impending military action by several weeks, apparently for personal political gain.
If we are ever to extract ourselves from Iraq with something resembling a victory, or at least a stalemate, these incompetent yahoos are going to need to learn from their past major mistakes and stop making so many in the future. Let's hope, but don't hold your breath. Though turning Blue might be a good thing for some people in this country to consider.
That is, pardon my bluntness, a pimple on the ass of an elephant.
The ability of the insurgents in Iraq to create chaos is almost directly proportional to the access to explosives. Guns (AK-47s, etc.) are a secondary chaos factor, but explosives are the real thing that distinguishes today's mess in Iraq from the relative peace that reigned in India under British occupation a hundred years ago. A minority of upset people without high explosives are a rabble; a minority with high explosives are a headache of the first magnitude and a complete block to peace and progress. If you doubt that, look at the dystopian examples of Palestine/Israel and Northern Ireland before 1999. For a city which was supposedly the belly button of badness in the whole Sunni uprising, we found diddly squat in terms of the real core dangerous stuff that makes effective insurgency possible.
How do we know this? The Defense Department told us themselves.
Remember that tempest in a teapot about the ultra-high-explosive RDX and HDX that went missing from Al-Qaqaa, a story which broke right before the election? The total amount of just the most dangerous explosives missing there was 380 tons, which seemed like an enormous amount -- just as the 400 tons captured from Fallujah now seems like a lot. However, as part of its Al-Qaqaa damage control efforts, the Defense Department released numbers stating just how much high-explosive badness was floating about Iraq -- and the numbers simply boggle the mind. Estimates of 250,000 tons missing are moderate out of a total of perhaps a million tons present before the war -- and these bombs, shells, and rockets were stored in hundreds of munitions depots which stood unguarded for months after the invasion, prey to all sorts of extremist bomb-snatchers who are now staggering under the weight of their accumulated badness and have their sights on complete chaos in Iraq.
In fact, in response to Al-Qaqaa, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita stated that the 380 tons represented just “one 1,000th of the material that we are aware of”. 1/1000th is .1%. Congratulations to the U.S. Marine Corps. They've cleared Fallujah, taken 50 KIA, and eliminated .1% of the problem facing Iraq. That is very depressing math.
Two facts are critical to recall here if we are to have accountability:
1) All those explosive were stolen because Donald Rumsfeld convinced George W. Bush that we'd win this war fast and on the cheap with few troops. So when we invaded, we didn't have enough men to police the most important weapons sites.
2) Whatever munitions might have been in Fallujah were probably moved out weeks in advance, along with most of the insurgent fighters in the town, after George W. Bush pre-announced the impending military action by several weeks, apparently for personal political gain.
If we are ever to extract ourselves from Iraq with something resembling a victory, or at least a stalemate, these incompetent yahoos are going to need to learn from their past major mistakes and stop making so many in the future. Let's hope, but don't hold your breath. Though turning Blue might be a good thing for some people in this country to consider.
posted by Ethan at 11:06 AM
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