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Russian Intelligence Assesses the War

(UPI) - Martin Sieff Daily assessments of the war from Russian journalists and military analysts are posted on the Internet at the iraqwar.ru web site. The reports are described as based on "Russian military intelligence reports" and contain alleged Russian intelligence intercepts of radio communications between U.S. and other coalition forces in Iraq. The reports give high marks to the tactical performance of the U.S. forces and their remarkable ability to adapt to radically different tactical problems from those they had expected. Despite the unanticipated levels of resistance, "Combat spirit remained high. The majority of troops remained confident in their abilities, while maintaining belief in the superiority of their weapons and maintaining reasonable confidence in the way the war was being fought." "Despite the sand storms, the terrain favors the coalition actions by allowing it to employ their entire arsenal of weapons at the greatest possible range, which makes it difficult for the Iraqis to conduct combat operations outside of populated areas." "The main strength of the coalition forces was the wide availability of modern reconnaissance and communications systems that allowed detection of the enemy at long ranges and to quickly suppress the enemy with well-coordinated actions of different types with different forces." "Among the strengths of the Iraqi troops are their excellent knowledge of the terrain, high quality of defensive engineering work, their ability to conceal their main attack forces, and their resilience and determination in defense." "Among the drawbacks of the Iraqi forces is the bureaucratic inflexibility of their command, when all decisions are made only at the highest levels. Their top commanders also tend to stick to standard 'template' maneuvers and there is insufficient coordination among the different types of forces."
2003-04-02 00:00:00
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