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after the air strikes, to hold the ground. This wasn't done, & the enemy soon learned the U.S. pattern: we never hold what we've won.

Forty years later, by early 2003, we've been bombing Iraq twice as long as we bombed N. Vietnam: many of us remember vividly those televised surgical strikes during Desert Storm. But our strategy remained the same: send no troops to hold that ground.

When U.S. forces finally swept toward Baghdad in March 2003, the mission was clear: surprise invasion, take out Saddam, & hold democratic elections ASAP. Whether all that was emphatically stated to ground commanders, it was the intent. After V Corps took hits from disparate fedayeen in pickup trucks, the march into Baghdad ground a halt while commanders called in senseless & uncoordinated airstrikes. LtGen. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne, pronounced the war in bad shape; conversely, Marine division commander MajGen. James Mattis later said, "Nothing was holding us up."

By the time the Baghdad parade resumed, the element of surprise was lost & Saddam & sons were long gone. & When Paul Bremer assumed control of the CPA, disbanded the Iraqi army, & postponed elections for at least a year, the disassembly of strategy (& the mission) was complete. "Lessons learned" is a popular expression in the armed forces; but lessons are almost always tactical & never repeated without an adequate strategy.

Learn more about this author, Liam Kloef.
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