Posted by Allen on 12/5/2003, 7:09 pm It is 15 chapters in 220 pages; a quick read, well footnoted, with a good bibliography. What comes through is the development of special operations hand-in-hand with doctrine of joint operations. The failed hostage rescue attempt of 4/80 was a real wake-up call. Here's a quote - "The mission of the helicopters was so closely held, and the importance and vitality of the effort so well concealed, that when the navy mine warfare squadron commanders were ordered to provide some of their helicopters for an undefined joint operation, they naturally offered up their aircraft with the worst maintenance records." Though the "hostilities" in the Gulf War came to an end at midnight on 2/27/91 EST, there occured an incident on March 2nd(the same day the Safwan cease-fire of 2/28 was approved by the UN Security Council Resolution 686) when the Republican Guard Hammurabi Division tried to break through the lines of Barry McCaffrey's 24th Mechanized Division to reposition in the north of the country to suppress the Kurds. " ... the American forces stopped the Iraqi breakout, and destroyed thirty tanks and more than 500 vehicles, inflicting enormous casualties on personnel." This passage is footnoted with reference to Seymour Hersh's 5/22/2000 piece in the New Yorker alledging the destruction of Iraqi units "generally fulfilling" the requirements of the cease-fire. So, I went down to the library and read the article. Apparently, what happened was that on the night of March 1st/2nd, McCaffrey moved his division 25 miles west to take up positions across the road leading onto the causeway over Lake Hammar. Third Army G-3, BG Steven Arnold, told Hersh that the causeway was included in the area the Iraqis were directed to retreat through. "We didn't know there were two American brigades there. We would not have sent the Iraqis there. ... We took it as an honest mistake and attempted to sort it out." The surprised Iraqis had fired at least one Sagger missle and at least one T-72 round at the American positions. No U.S. forces were killed or wounded. There was a time when an American general would have considered such a lavish expense of ammunition to be a waste of the taxpayer's money, if nothing else. Anyway, I got off topic. Huchthausen's book is worth a read.
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I've just finished America's Splendid Little Wars, A Short History of U.S. Military Engagements: 1975 - 2000 by Peter Huchthausen.
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