Shadow,
>>
I have heard of IED tactics of them using dead animals on the side of the road to hide IEDS in. Really any debris on the side of the road could be
used to hide IED rubble, junk cars,wood etc...
There is really endless ways you can hide them
>>
Just to give people an idea of some of the many variables we are working with-
www.globalsecurity.org...
What bugs me is that even high leverage LOCs like the Baghdad terminal access road ('IED Alley') are apparently unsecurable.
I would think we could do better than that with whatever unattended system has followed on to REMBASS and a simple cluster of 105-155mm 'fire on
footfall in denied area' tubes.
And again, I don't care if the enemy plants a FAB-250 by the side of the road or leaves it in a soda can outside a chow hall or police ready room.
Because I want to get him as he walks in the door back at his workshop.
Where this is not possible due to the use of cutout couriers and other cellular isolation strategies, you basically MUST make the delivery boy's
demise so spectacularly ugly (strangulation, fire, etc. etc.) that there is nothing, not even loss of family, which can convince someone to replace
them.
'Back In The Day' a U.S. Cavalry Indian Scout was the equivalent to modern day CSI. Except that they didn't care who died or who killed them.
They only wanted a time index on 'number of days since event' basis of declaring a freefire zone. You would then go out and smoke every native camp
that was within that number of day's ride and 'by secondary coincidence' solve the Native American vs. Settler problem by removing the
home-and-hearth logistics /en masse/ (from the plains especially).
Obviously, we cannot do that in a MOUT/COIN scenario where the population densities are so high and we have no intention of making the land our own
once it has been depopulated by the residents.
But we MUST be able to do _technically better_ than we are now. Especially in a no-triple-canopy-here wasteland like Iraq.
Treachet,
>>
It is unfortunate that the relative few IED's we can find, are generally a bugger to disarm, as either they are guarded, the device is deteriorating
so disarming-reliability is iffy, and the explosions can range from 'small' house-hold explosives, to the recent double-stacked mines, to Saddam-era
bombs.
>>
If you follow my rules above, the only 'logical' conclusion you can reach is something like the cartoon where Bugs Bunny so screws up his WWII
induction and boot processing that the "Only job we can find suitable for your particular skills..." is that of testing artillery shells for duds as
they roll out of the factory.
With a hammer on the nose fuse.
Again, we CAN isolate about 90% of the problem. Just by locking down the country's illicit after-hours internal and border traffic. With GSR and
UGS and Drone-Air as a function of going in and snatching high leverage threats as much as blowing their house down with wolf GBU.
The question that then remains is whether or not we have the testicular fortitude to make the bombers pay, publically, in court. As bloodily and
often as possible. As the 'conquering force' Hague laws in fact _require_ of us as regents ensuring the safety of the majority Iraqi populace.
As soon as you put a dirty foreign face to the name of a Robin Hood ideal that is shadow jihadist mystique. As soon as you -force- the 'popular
mythos' to include pictures of /other innocents/ ripped to shreds by that known-person's cowardly actions.
You start the process of distasteful-dissociation by which the 'hearts and minds' segment of 4GW can be won.
Because you are robbing not only the perp of a clean death for Allah. But also the vicarious populace of an equivalent cheerleader spectator belief
in his dedication. Forcing BOTH parties to sit through the humiliation and ultimate _rejection by law_ that is 'high leverage' worthwhile in terms
of risking SOF for capture missions.
My fear is that as soon as we make a French Vietnam scenario of things (curled up behind locked doors in a few 'non apparent' remote installations,
only owning the country during the daylight, and then only thru indig forces supported with remote fires), this basic level of
terror-dies-by-juris-prudence will be among the first things to vanish in a wave of corruption that leads to an 'official' Tet.
Once that happens, the opportunity for a lasting victory will vanish, probably forever.
If you head on over to MSNBC and read this LINK-
www.msnbc.msn.com...
>
Some 30 miles south of Baghdad, meanwhile, police found the bodies of 18 men who had been handcuffed and shot to death in Iskandariya, a town where
dozens of killings have been reported in escalating vengeance killings by Shiite Muslim and Sunni Aram "death squads."
"Two days ago gunmen in police uniforms broke into their houses in a Shiite neighborhood of Iskandariya," police Capt. Adel Kitab said of the latest
victims.
>
I think you will see the seeds of both victory and defeat. Victory because if we can slow or stop the flow of rats from without, we can start to make
real headway on reducing the fleas-within. Failure because, as I have long feared, '18 done in by police uniforms' means that the enemy is so
deeply imbedded in the too-fast-too-soon (no De-Nazification process) Iraqi police and paramilitary force structures that there is little or no reason
to believe in them, solely by the nature of their officiousness.
Private killings by private parties controlling official forces adds up to total breakdown of authority, real quick.
THIS is also where real terror gets to you because if your 'mission' is to stabilize a nation, once you no longer trust your 'new fwiends' to have
the same ideals, you have to start watching them as much as those in front of your sights and you rapidly lose belief in the process as much as the
purpose of getting towards a stable, independent, governing entity.
It's like dealing with a bunch of rebellious kindergartners. They know if they keep things up long enough, you'll call a time out and they'll
likely get what they want. But whereas a kid has to eat and is thus dependent on you for that support, Iraq is likely -our- 20 billion barrel oil
insurance policy. And so, roles-reversed, we have damn little to hold over them by comparison.
Certainly not TIME which the U.S. Congress and People will not provide beyond 2008. The next POTUS having to be a fool of incredible proportions to
inherent the broken wind on Bush Jr's flatulence.
KPl.