Replies to post #12122 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[ergo sum]

`Shock and Awe' Author Discusses Tactic

By LESLIE MILLER
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The strategy of a "shock and awe" air war will have worked if the Iraqis surrender Baghdad without a fight, the author who helped coin the expression to describe the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq said Saturday.

Harlan Ullman, the military strategist who wrote a 1996 publication that outlined the doctrine of arraying massive airpower against an enemy, said the widely used phrased is not well understood.

The Air Force and Navy demonstrated the concept Friday night with a stunning display of firepower against what U.S. officials said were military targets in Baghdad. Plans were to send 1,500 planes on bombing runs, augmented by 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

"People think that shock and awe is to destroy cities," Ullman told Associated Press Television News. "That's not just the rationale. The rationale is to bring intense pressure on the enemy and do minimum damage to the civilian infrastructure."

Ullman predicted U.S. and British troops will arrive in Baghdad by Tuesday.


"The question is, `Will Baghdad give up without a fight, or will we have to go in and take it or impose a siege and starve it?'" he said.

Combat would result in many casualties because the Iraqis will mix civilians with soldiers, he said, and a siege would allow civilians' privations to be broadcast around the world.

"We hope they'll quit without a fight," Ullman said. "If that's the case, then shock and awe will have worked."

If it doesn't work, he said, "Then we have to go back to the old fashioned way of war, which could be very brutal and very, very bloody."

[brainlessone]

tell me about him:
Do you remember John Manley? Our government hated him and sent the CIA in to foment revolution. They were laughed out of the country on the first attempt