The Invisible War - the *best* news article all week

[Timber Loftis]

It's long, but I promise that if you like *facts* about the military side of the war, this will be the best article you've read all week. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

From Today's NY Times:

A Campaign Invisible Except for the Results
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, April 5 — In the largest covert military campaign in recent history, more than 9,000 Special Operations forces are conducting some of the riskiest missions of the war in Iraq, working in nearly every corner of the country and penetrating even the streets of Baghdad.

Some of their missions predate the official start of the war on March 19, and others have yet to be disclosed. The Pentagon has released brief, carefully edited film clips of some: attacks on one of Saddam Hussein's private palaces and the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, for example. Others are discussed only in terse and guarded words.

Whether these missions have involved organizing Kurdish militia in rugged northern Iraq or scouting for suspected Scud missile launchers in the vacant west, senior Pentagon and military officials say, the largely invisible campaign is remarkable for its breadth and complexity.

All the American military services have been harnessed together with a select but diverse group of allies, and information from the spies, analysts, surveillance planes and satellites of the intelligence agencies have been linked more directly than ever before to commandos on the ground.

The daring rescue of Private Lynch is the most prominent example of this complexity. As it unfolded, Marine Corps artillery created a diversion, while Army Rangers seized the perimeter of the hospital where she was held and Navy Seals pulled her out on a stretcher. Air Force AC-130 gunships were on call to bring their withering cannon fire into play if the rescuers ran into trouble.

American intelligence helped choreograph the intricate mission. When an Iraqi informant disclosed the wounded prisoner's location, American intelligence officers quickly found the foreign contractor who built the hospital, and within hours acquired blueprints that helped the small team of Navy commandos enter and escape without casualties.

Maj. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, vice director of operations for the Joint Staff, called it "unprecedented" for such a heavy share of a major, conventional war to be carried out by Special Operations forces. General McChrystal, who wears Ranger and Special Forces insignia on the shoulder of his Army uniform, told reporters that "it's probably the most effective and the widest use of Special Operations forces in recent history."

Special Operations forces from the United States, Britain and Australia have fought running firefights in the empty deserts of western Iraq to seize an important airstrip, knock out suspected missile sites, smash command headquarters that could launch chemical weapons and interdict weapons smuggled across the border from Syria.

Tiny numbers of Army Special Forces, the Green Berets, showed up in northern Iraq even before the war began elsewhere in the country. Their numbers were so small — only six A Teams of a dozen men each, operating in split units of six soldiers to cover more territory — that commanders laughed at early news reports of their northern "front."

"We are able to use a fairly small force to leverage an incredible amount of technology, to bring that technology to bear on the battlefield," was the typically evasive description of their early work offered by one senior military officer in the region.

Special Forces soldiers assigned to a unit called Task Force Viking rallied Kurdish fighters and spotted targets for Air Force and Navy attack jets to hit Iraqi positions, as well as camps of terrorists suspected of links to Al Qaeda.

With the arrival of unconventional warriors by the score once the war began in earnest, Special Forces soldiers cleared the way for the largest military parachute landing since World War II when the 173rd Airborne Brigade dropped in to protect northern oil fields and hold the line against numerically superior Iraqi forces.

In the south, Polish Special Operations teams have joined allied efforts to prevent the demolition of oil wells and petroleum plants — including a possible attempt to blast a terminal to flood the northern Persian Gulf with flammable crude oil.

Commando teams also scored a major victory when they seized the Haditha Dam, which intelligence officers warned might be blown by retreating Iraqi forces to flood a large swath of the Euphrates River, slowing one avenue for allies to advance.

Some of the most secret missions have been within Baghdad, where Special Operations forces and Central Intelligence Agency teams have hunted leaders of the governing Baath Party.

These furtive teams are now creeping in larger numbers toward central Baghdad, where they plan to set up forward operating stations from which they can locate targets inside the capital, gather information on Iraqi troop movements and coordinate Iraqi opposition groups' actions.

Northern Iraq

The importance of Special Forces in northern Iraq grew significantly after the Turkish Parliament rebuffed Washington's plea to allow 21,000 soldiers of the Army's Fourth Infantry Division to flow into the north from Turkey.

Without the heavy forces, the immediate responsibility for securing the northern oil fields, keeping Turkish and Kurdish troops from clashing, and planning a joint attack with Kurdish forces against a militant Islamist group, fell to fewer than 75 Special Forces soldiers.

Since then, Special Forces units have conducted reconnaissance for more than 1,000 Army airborne soldiers who swooped into an airfield in Kurdish-controlled territory last week, cleared mines and even treated and evacuated a British journalist who was badly hurt in a land mine explosion this week.

With the additional forces inserted as the pace of combat in the south accelerated, their main mission has been working closely with the Kurdish fighters known as pesh merga. Several hundred Special Forces soldiers are visible along the northern front, usually accompanied by pesh merga, but sometimes by local police units.

Kurdish leaders met this week with a senior Special Forces officer in Dokan in to try to create a unified Kurdish command that would work with the Americans in the north. The new partnership would build on the successful military assault that Kurdish fighters and about 100 American Special Forces began last week in a remote mountain valley in northeastern Iraq. The attack routed a Taliban-like group, Ansar al-Islam, and restored a swath of border territory to Kurdish control.

Demonstrating their skill as trainers, the Special Forces soldiers assigned to Task Force Viking improved the effectiveness of the Kurdish artillery. Guns were dug in. Ammunition trucks were kept at a distance, and the battery fired with better coordination and discipline. Rounds hit fairly difficult targets, like the tops of narrow ridges and switchback trails.

"We put our mortar specialists with their crews to tighten down their shot groups," said one Special Forces commander on the scene.

The Americans have shown their own combat agility, moving up and down the battle area in pick-up trucks, launching mortar attacks against members of Ansar al-Islam where necessary.

As more American forces have arrived and supplies now flow down from Turkey, the fighting against Iraqi Regular Army forces has intensified. In some places, like Mosul, the Iraqi defenses have buckled. But in other towns, Kurdish fighters and Special Forces have waged pitched battles with Iraqi soldiers.

But the Special Forces hold a huge trump card: American air power. Increasingly throughout the north, Special Forces soldiers are calling in withering airstrikes against Iraqi positions.

Backed by allied warplanes, the American forces have also taken control of the main roads leading into Baghdad from the north and the east, cutting off escape routes for Iraqi government officials.

Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, the military spokesman for the Central Command in Qatar, said that units "have moved into a number of positions to deny regime movement along the road that joins Tikrit and Baghdad."

South-Central Iraq

In southern Iraq and around Baghdad, Special Operations forces have conducted some their riskiest missions, like the Lynch rescue, and demonstrated their ability to pivot quickly and attack unexpected threats on the battlefield.

When paramilitary forces in cities like Nasiriya and Najaf attacked Army supply convoys and slowed the advance toward Baghdad, Special Operations units were called in for classic, covert counterterrorism work.

Using intelligence gathered from sympathetic Shiite residents, the commandos have carried out precise strikes in urban settings that could foreshadow future missions in the battle for Baghdad.

"They're facilitating attacks against regime targets and death squads within urban areas," General Brooks said. "These attacks are enabled by information provided by the local populations."

American commandos have also set their sights on leadership targets. On Wednesday, a helicopter operation raided the Tharthar Palace, one of many residences used by Mr. Hussein and his sons, about 55 miles outside Baghdad.

Commanders acknowledged that the assault yielded no government leaders, but did recover a trove of documents that could yield tips to future raids. While analysts will comb through the documents for intelligence, the assaults sent the message to the Iraqi leaders that the United States can strike almost anywhere, anytime it chooses.

In Nasiriya this week, an Air Force AC-130, bristling with highly accurate, rapid-fire cannons, destroyed, among other targets, five government buildings, including the headquarters of the director of general security.

In the far south, Navy Seals and Polish special operations teams not only secured offshore oil terminals but also gained control of the northern Persian Gulf and other vital waterways. That access was crucial to allowing large cargo ships carrying food, medicine and other supplies to unload.

But the final crucial test for American commandos may come in the next several days, as United States ground forces steadily expand their foothold in Baghdad. As conventional forces press to collapse the government from the outside, small Special Operations units and Central Intelligence Agency teams will hunt for Baath Party officials and other key leadership figures.

Western Iraq

The victory thus far in the vast western desert is that Saddam Hussein's forces have not fired any missiles.

To prevent the launch of Scuds or other missiles, perhaps armed with chemical weapons, at American forces or at Jordan or Israel, American commanders spun an intricate web of boots on the ground and eyes in the air and heavy firepower on call 24 hours a day.

Special Operations reconnaissance teams and quick-strike squads have been moving throughout western Iraq. Persistent surveillance has been provided by Predator pilotless vehicles and advanced Air Force aircraft, known as "spy-in-the-sky" planes. Navy and Air Force fighters are on call, along with AC-130 gunships.

One senior officer said that Special Operations forces, often called "the black side" of military campaigns, "are now very well integrated with our `white' world operations."

"You find they've got `white' world Predators helping them out," the officer said. "They've got other intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets helping them out — even conventional fighters standing by to help them if they need it."

That integration has improved "extremely" since the war over Kosovo, the officer said.

The central mission in the western desert, especially along traditional the trade routes to and from Iraq, is what the military calls "area denial."

Special Operations forces are "eliminating freedom of action and freedom of movement from anyone that would pass through there," General Brooks said.

Special Operations units have searched for and attacked Iraqi forces, hunted ballistic missiles and air defense systems, and smashed command centers — usually in the dark of night and often taking prisoners.

Special Operations forces called in AC-130 gunships to destroy Iraqi aircraft at the airfield designated H2 in the western desert. They have attacked a number of Iraqi convoys, capturing some Iraqi soldiers in civilian clothes who were traveling with mortars and bombs.

"There has been a variety of running firefights in the West since this started," said one senior military officer who has read summaries of the intense skirmishes.

American intelligence had indicated that Iraqi forces hid chemical or biological weapons in Iraq. American and Australian Special Operations units flew deep into the country and seized or blew up command posts identified by American intelligence as those controlling such weapons far from Baghdad.

Great read. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[Timber Loftis]

BUMP!!! Just once, because it really is a good article.

[Attalus]

That is a great article, Timber. To think it came fro,m The New York Times! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]