Iraq strategy

Washing Times - 8/29/03

Iraq strategy
Commenting on the current insurgency in Iraq is Robert Andrews, a former Green Beret and Vietnam War veteran who until recently served as a special-operations policy-maker in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
He tells us it was Napoleon's older brother, Joseph, who, while installed as king of Spain, faced local insurgents in a struggle that produced the term "guerrilla warfare."
"Joseph wrote his brother to say that 'One can do everything with bayonets except sit on them,' " Mr. Andrews said.
"The more I see ?- from a distance ?- about Iraq, I'm convinced that more bayonets [and] conventional troops isn't the answer," Mr. Andrews said.
"Indeed, adding conventional troops could result in more targets for an increasingly restive Iraqi population."
Mr. Andrews says one solution would be to use special-operations commandos and intelligence assets to work within the Iraqi population to conduct counterterror operations.
At the same time, the United States could reduce conventional force levels.
"The conventional forces we do keep in the country would be stationed away from the population and organized into highly mobile, instant-response strike units," he said.