Operation Iraqi Freedom Case Study

Operation Iraqi Freedom: Its Military Failures

Human conflicts within modern historical record have been widely argued as inevitable, therefore in the International relations study and principles, numerous nter governmental structures have been put in place after world war II, with the United Nations being the largest and most widely accepted political organization, in order to facilitate peace or rather mitigate the effects of these conflicts to prevent the human tragedy that was WWII. The post WWII world has largely not indicated as such, with the American led Operation Iraqi Freedom being more than likely the principle example of the toothless and non viability of inter-governmental organizations like the United
For an example Dennison states that too many high value targets were taken off the list in order to avoid civilian casualties during the on set of hostilities, whereby the Iraqi television, radio stations and electrical grid remained in tact for most of the Iraqi invasion and thus enabled the regime to spew a steady stream of propaganda that at times slowed operations in order to counter the said propaganda with lethal force. Also of note is that Baghdad was largely well lit at night, which negated the authors of the plan’s, importance of the psychological effect on the Iraqi population. So glaring was its failure to shock and awe the Iraqi population and Army, resistance to the American invasion became more pronounced at the outskirts of Bahgdad, more over the surprise of the operation was that the regular Iraqi forces did not capitulate en masse as was widely believed but the Medina division of the Iraqi Republican Guard put up a valiant albeit foolish defense of Baghdad, believing the a large sandstorm would negate American technological superiority both on the ground and
Operation Iraqi Freedom hardly is a success within that paradigm given that a large decisive force was not mobilized nor present during Goerge W. Bush’s declaration of a cease to hostilities on the deck of the U.S.S Abraham Lincoln on 1, May, 2003. The intelligence failures were also glaring given that military planners of the operation never had a clear view of the gravity of weight of Saddam Hussein power politics which lied primarily within the sunni tribes of Anbar province. It wasn’t until years later than a clear intelligence picture of Batthist power politics really entailed, which gravely impaired the judgement, of military commanders on the ground, primarily during the first year of the occupation of Iraq. Military commanders although undermanned did not have a clear intelligence picture of the urbanized guerilla war in which their soldiers were fighting and were moreless reactants to mild skirmishes that resulted in the use of overwhelming force that drove a large wedge between American forces and the Iraqi civilian population. The relatively light force of a total of 200,000 troops with only 120,000 ground troops was hard pressed to secure the Iraqi population