Block By Block

Posted on February 4, 2003

John Robb (COO of Userland Software, and a former Air Force pilot) is having some interesting musings about the upcoming conflict with Iraq (assuming there won’t be one seems somewhat naive at this point). He’s theorizing about what Saddam Hussein might have learned from his last clash with the U.S. back in 1991. Back then, he took us on the same way he took on Iran and the Kurds — with massed field forces in open terrain. This kind of strategy only works if your enemy doesn’t have air superiority, though, and we certainly did; so Saddam’s strategy failed famously, with the Air Force practically wiping the Iraqi Army off the map (massed forces in open terrain are pretty easy to hit from the air, as you can probably imagine!).

So, is a 2003 replay of that war going to inevitably end the same way? Possibly not, if Saddam learned any lessons. Read Robb’s blog for more details — it’s definitely thought-provoking.