National Post (f/k/a The Financial Post) April 10, 2003
U.S. General's gamble wins him Baghdad
Shocked Iraqi spokesmen refused to believe the Third Division could be where coalition reports said it was, while Pentagon officials hailed it as the longest and fastest armour attack in military history
SOURCE: National Post, with files from news services
By Chris Wattie
Even his own officers thought Major-General Buford Blount III's plan for the battle of Baghdad was overly optimistic -- many in fact could not believe it.
"We thought they were kidding when the battalion commander said we're going to drive tanks into the middle of Baghdad," marvelled Captain Jason Conroy, one of the members of Maj.-Gen. Blount's Third Infantry Division.
When Saddam Hussein's capital fell to coalition forces yesterday, it was largely the result of Maj.-Gen. Blount pulling off an almost unprecedented military gamble and turning conventional military thinking on it head: taking a major urban centre with tanks and without a lengthy, costly siege.
Maj.-Gen. Blount, known as "Buff" to his contemporaries, is a 32-year army veteran.
John Pike, a military specialist at Global Security.org in Alexandria, Va., called the general's attack "the 'thunder-run' tactic -- basically taking the city all at once rather than trying to take it one room at a time.
"They appear to have correctly conceptualized that the assault on Baghdad was essentially a coup d'etat. When you have a coup, you basically grab the airport, grab the main government buildings downtown, grab the TV station, claim that you're in charge, and dare anyone to dispute you."
But from the first day of the war, the 49-year-old career army officer has been a constant source of surprises.
In just three days, he drove his 19,000-strong mechanized infantry division from the Kuwaiti border to within 100 kilometres of Baghdad.
Shocked Iraqi spokesmen refused to believe the Third Division could be where coalition reports said it was, while Pentagon officials hailed it as the longest and fastest armour attack in military history.
"The armored rush to Baghdad turned out to be a brilliant operational move," said retired general John Reppert, of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. "It threw off the operations of the enemy. It put Baghdad at risk from the third day of the war."
Only the lightning attacks of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Corps during the Second World War compared to the Third Division's charge to the doorstep of Saddam's capital.
"The U.S. advance on Baghdad is something that military historians and academics will pore over in great detail for many years to come," said Air Marshal Brian Burridge, the British commander.
"They will examine the dexterity, the audacity and the sheer brilliance of how the U.S. put their plan into effect."
After a brief pause to refuel and rearm, Maj.-Gen. Blount proceeded to take on Saddam's best troops -- the Medina Division of the Republican Guard, astride the southern approaches to Baghdad.
In a 24-hour battle, the Third Division steamrollered through the elite Iraqi troops, blasting them with air strikes, artillery and tank fire and shooting through the Karbala Gap to within sight of Baghdad. The Republican Guard's Medina Division effectively ceased to exist.
Maj.-Gen. Blount's troops followed that up with an audacious capture of Saddam International Airport -- since renamed Baghdad International Airport -- well ahead of the coalition's schedule for taking the Iraqi capital and undermining Saddam's myth of the invincibility of his Special Republican Guard.
"Lesson number one is speed kills," said one senior coalition official. "No one expected them to smash the Republican Guard to bits so quickly."
With the airport in his hands, Maj.-Gen. Blount was keen to keep the pressure on and reports from special forces teams inside Baghdad suggested Saddam's defences were vulnerable.
When it became clear the way into Baghdad was almost undefended, he tore up plans to encircle and lay siege to the city and starting planning operations "on the hoof."
Maj.-Gen. Blount ordered an armoured thrust into the heart of the city: a "reconnaissance in force" instead of a cautious street-by-street advance.
Conventional military doctrine holds that the tank is vulnerable in cities, that urban fighting requires thousands of soldiers and favours the defenders, and that it takes time and results in hundreds of casualties.
The Abrams tanks and Bradley infantry carriers rolled deep into Baghdad for three days in a row, brushing past fierce but badly co-ordinated pockets of resistance.
Maj.-Gen. Blount finally parked his tanks literally on Saddam's front lawn, the grounds of his most opulent palace, and dared the Special Republican Guard to attack.
They mounted only desperate, nearly suicidal attacks that did no damage, and by Monday much of the capital had slipped out of the dictator's control.
With the First U.S. Marine Division under Major-General James Mattis pressing into Baghdad from the east, the city's defenders found themselves in a stranglehold.
GRAPHIC: Black & White Photo: Takanori Sekine, The Associated Press; Soldiers of the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division display a portrait of Saddam Hussein as they make their way through Baghdad yesterday.; Black & White Photo: General Blount
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