Yonatan Zunger’s Blog

After reading a bit more of the rumor mill about the purported joint American/British strikes on Iraq in the past few days, two thoughts come to mind.

First, these rumors are fairly believable. The scale of the strikes is something which reads like an escalation of the usual defense of the no-fly zones, which has always included hitting anti-aircraft targets, only this time the targetting was chosen as prep for an invasion. Estimate probability that there has been some escalation as about 98%; multiple reliable sources (inc. CNN) say that. Probability that the attacks were as extensive as rumor had it (100 planes and so on) is maybe 70%.

Second, if these rumors are true, it seems to be militarily well-thought-out. (Surprisingly…) The target list seems to have been not just AA but missile bases and air bases which have planes capable of deploying bio and chemical weapons, all in western Iraq. Because of the fairly short range of their Scuds, this could seriously hamper their ability to fire on Jordanian, Israeli and Turkish targets — the things which Hussein could use as threats most effectively to hold off Americans — as well as being pretty much just the right cover both for special forces troops and for air support. Furthermore, the timing — relative to forcing Hussein to put his resources into war preparation and not giving him time to actually do so — is right as well. Since the timing is also so right with respect to the upcoming elections, I’m really suspicious that this was planned very carefully for this exact effect, but that’s another issue entirely.

Very interesting…

OK, enough random political analysis for now.

For those of you who missed it, yesterday I posted that there was an unconfirmed report of an American attack on Iraq, then changed it to a “nevermind, spurious info.” Here are the details of what happened/is going on:

There is a persistent rumor going around the middle east that on September 6, a large joint US/British strike force of about 100 warplanes struck large numbers of radar installations and antiaircraft defense stations in the western portion of Iraq, in the area of the Jordanian border, as a prelude to a ground invasion.

More details, links and some depressing news analysis.

Update to news story: Apparently the rumors of a large-scale attack were false, or at least exaggerated. Certain so-called respectable papers in the Israeli media tend to react in far too large a type to a routine assault; apparently it involved only 12 aircraft and 25 bombs, and was within the range of the ordinary low-level fighting in the area which has been going on for the past decade.

Continue about your business, nothing to see here.