Russia Informs Iraq on US Military Plan

[Born to be Wild]

Don't know the credibility of this source, but how good of friends are the Russians?

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...1/154653.shtml


Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Russia Informs Iraq on Coalition's Military Plan
NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, April 1, 2003
WASHINGTON – Russian military advisers have told Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his government that the main Allied drive on Baghdad will not take place until mid-April and will then come around the west of the city, Russian journalists and analysts with strong links to Russian military intelligence now say.
Strikingly, the Russian analysts, whose work appears on the iraqwar.ru Web site, believe that U.S. and Allied forces are still overwhelmingly likely to win the war and that they are performing in a highly impressive manner. The reports are described as "based on the Russian military intelligence - the Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU - reports."

A March 31 report on the site revealed that Iraq was receiving analytical advice from Russian officials. "Russian military analysts are advising the Iraqi military command against excessive optimism," it said.

The Russian analysts stated: "There is no question that the U.S. 'blitzkrieg' failed to take control of Iraq and to destroy its army. It is clear that the Americans got bogged down in Iraq and that the military campaign hit a snag."

But they then went on to caution the Iraqis: "The Iraq command is now in danger of underestimating the enemy. For there is no reason to question the resolve of the Americans and their determination to reach the set goal - complete occupation of Iraq."

They continued: "Despite some obvious miscalculations and errors of the coalition's high command, the [Allied] troops that have entered Iraq maintain high combat readiness and are willing to fight. The initiative in the war remains firmly in the hands of the coalition."

Indeed, in a March 30 report the Russian analysts predicted, "The coalition is already planning a new large scale operation that will utilize the new forces currently being deployed in the region."

Russian intelligence believed "this large-scale operation will be launched from the general vicinity of Karabela and will develop into a wide maneuver around Baghdad from the west ending in the area of the Tartar lake east of al-Hadid - or east of the Tartar lake at Samarrah," the Russian analysts' report said.

"From this point a part of the force will continue advancing toward Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit and from there it will turn towards Baghdad from the north through Samarrah and Baahkuba; meanwhile the rest of the force will strike the rears of the Iraqi forces fighting in the north near Kirkuk and Mosul.

"Such an operation would require up to 60,000 troops, no less than 300 tanks and 200 helicopters," the Russian analysts concluded. "It is believed that such forces can be put together by April 15 and by April 18 they should be ready for to attack."

It remains to be seen, of course if the war will indeed follow this highly detailed prediction. Current reports indicate that U.S. forces are slowly closing in on Baghdad and probing for weaknesses in Iraqi defenses already.

What is certainly the case is that Iraqi resistance has been impressive and prolonged and that contrary to universally held U.S. media assumptions, and the confident expectations of Defense Department war planners, the Iraqis have succeeded in holding up and preventing U.S. conquest and occupation of all major cities to this point, almost two weeks into the war. The main, and bloodiest, clashes of the war are clearly still ahead.

With this in mind one other, sobering conclusion of the GRU analysts may prove significant. The March 30 report concluded, "Russian military analysts believe that the critical [point] for the U.S. duration of the war would be over 90 days" - in other words, after mid-June - "provided that during that time the coalition will sustain over 1,000 killed. Under such circumstances a serious political crisis in the U.S. and the world will be unavoidable."

Analysis by Martin Sieff, UPI senior news analyst.

[Reel Crazy]

The russians must have watched a Peter Arnett report.

[Born to be Wild]

Well, my Brother pointed out another article from the same site that might be of interest to some. So instead of posting it on a new thread, I will paste the URL here. It has to do with the wicked Saddam regime and how our own media handled a very tragic event.

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecov...003/4/2/151616

[ 04-02-2003, 06:56 PM: Message edited by: DepoeBayDan ]

I would have a hard time belieiving anything newsmax says. Anytime you have the truth challenged Rush Limbaugh contributing then one has to be somewhat skeptical.

[corrirod]

Has anybody seen any news media staff sitting with Iraqi soldiers on the front lines to witness these successes? I know I wouldn't trade places with any of them.

The thing that gets me is all this talk of how slow we are taking control of Iraq. We are taking over a country the size of Oregon and Washington put together with over 24 million people in it! We have taken control of all but the capital city in less than 2 weeks and only lost 48 soldiers! How much faster can you possibly go? Never in history have we put together a campaign as perfectly as this has been executed. The only possible way we could have gone any faster is if the Iraqi soldiers played by the rules but that's not going to happen, and we knew that going into this thing.

Sorry DBD, I got off the topic of the Russians, let me comment on that........I think they should be next on the list, especially if we find out they've been supplying the Iraqi military with equipment.

[happybrew]

Corrirod: This has been the fastest advance in military history.

happybrew

[Born to be Wild]

Sorry DBD, I got off the topic of the Russians, let me comment on that........I think they should be next on the list, especially if we find out they've been supplying the Iraqi military with equipment.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Corrirod,
I don't know if you heard well before the conflict started, but the Russians did sell or trade Iraq some weapons. After the conflict started the American jets took them out. It was some kind of counter GPS device that takes some of the accuracy out of our GPS guided weapons. I don't know who ultimately is responsible in Russia other than it was Russian arms dealers that provided Iraq with them. Bush made a protest to the Russians regarding this before the war started.

I just found it on Google. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=30408
Iraq buys GPS scramblers
from Russia
Devices could play havoc with U.S. smart bombs, says Pentagon

Another very interesting article regarding this:

http://www.cdi.org/russia/250-2.cfm

I just did a Google search; Russia Iraq GPS and there is a lot of material on this issue.

I suspect we will find some disturbing info about dealings between Iraq and Russia, France and possibly Germany during these years since the Gulf War I when it was prohibited for Iraq to have these toys. Then again, maybe GPS scramblers weren’t technically prohibited. I would think that any military weapons or components shouldn’t have been sold to Iraq after they invaded Kuwait. Oh, I forgot Saddam apologized to Kuwait a while back. [img]graemlins/stupid.gif[/img]

We undoubtedly will find out the true motives for the lack of support of these countries when the war is over. I don’t think for a minute we could take on Russia armed with nukes or that we should. I have never trusted them however even after their collapse.

I do think we should go after terrorist worldwide as we have in Afghanistan and Iraq with allies and try and weed them out because they are getting more dangerous especially with the technology at there disposal. I always thought when we went over and dropped a few bombs on Libya it seem to settle down Kadafi a bit. He was getting out of control also with terrorism but I think it had an effect on him. Look at Israel and what they have to deal with. Don’t want that here in the states and if you remember 9/11 what they did with organization, money and box cutters, just think what they could do with some Iraqi anthrax.

[1pump]

Corrirod: This has been the fastest advance in military history

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">I'd be careful about calling it an "advance". The 3rd ID bypassed all resistance by charging through empty desert, while the 15th MEU got stuck with the unenviable job of slugging through towns and securing bridges 250 miles behind them. All in all, it was a good move to get far north while we could, but if you put it in perspective, the situation was perfect for it. If the Iraqis had an effective air force, there's no way we could have gotten away with that.
We don't have "control" over anything except Umm Qasr and some airfields in the west and one in the north. We don't have enough manpower to occupy the whole country to the point it's secure. That was never the plan anyway.

[Crashin' Bait]

Atleast we control most of Iraqi airspace.

[Straydog]

Have we forgotten that Uncle Sam has sold weapons to Iraq in the past?

[ 04-03-2003, 07:50 AM: Message edited by: Straydog ]

[snowball]

let alone trained some of the top ranking people in there army-- im not against the war but feel it's worth mentioning. Back in the 80's we were helping osama hold back the russians, ditto that for iraq and iran... now the tables turn...

[snowball]

I should mention though I fully support our troops over there, with out a doubt, they are living the nitemare most of us would like to do with out--

[Stz ll]

I figure the Russians are as good of friends as the Germans and the French.

After we get control of Iraq I am sure we will find out why those countries fought us in the UN over this war.

We probably will find out that all 3 of them have been trading with Iraq in violation of the UN sanctions in force since Desert Storm.

[Born to be Wild]

Straydog and Snowball,

Yes we did help out Saddam in the past to fight a common enemy. One referred to as an "axis of evil". Saddam was considered then to be the lesser of the two evils. I'm not going to argue that the US hasn't made bad foreign policies in the past and that might have been one of them. But that was then and this is now. Those countries backed the UN resolutions banning the sale of weapons to a proven ruthless and dangerous dictator. I just saw on fox news a video of chemical Ali's abandoned house and it pointed out showed one of the few things left behind was an empty box of a german made gas mask.