Ground forces strategy perplexes U.S. planners
http://hamptonroads.com/2014/09/ground-forces-strategy-perplexes-us-planners
Ground forces strategy perplexes U.S. planners
By Michael R. Gordon, Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper
The New York Times
© September 19, 2014
WASHINGTON
The U.S. air campaign to thwart the advance of fighters from the Islamic State has been the easy part of President Barack Obamas strategy in Iraq and Syria. Soon begins the next and much harder phase: rolling back their gains in Mosul, Fallujah and other populated areas, which will require U.S. advisers to train and coordinate airstrikes with Iraqi forces.
Pentagon officials are more willing than their counterparts at the White House to acknowledge that this will almost certainly require U.S. special operations forces on the ground to call in airstrikes and provide tactical advice to Iraqi troops. There is no one in this building who does not know that clearing out the cities will be much harder, a senior Defense Department official said in an interview. Thats when the rubber is going to meet the road.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this week described this phase as extraordinarily complex.
Urban warfare in Iraq has been challenging for the United States, which had 70 troops killed in the second battle of Fallujah in 2004 and fought hard to regain control of cities like Mosul, Baqouba and Baghdad. So it will be even harder for the Iraqis, who have so far proved ineffective in combating the Islamic State.