Can the U.S. Avoid Urban Combat in Baghdad? (Paperback)

Some military thinkers believe that it is possible to avoid urban combat when attacking and seizing a city. They claim that U.S. forces can do this by taking an Indirect Approach. The proposal is basically a siege of the city. This course of action is appealing to the media, the public, and politicians who wish to avoid U.S. casualties. The proposal makes sense when described using a hypothetical situation. Will the proposal's logic hold when applied to a realistic scenario? One way to evaluate the proposal is to choose a scenario and then do a course of action assessment . By using the situation in Iraq in mid-March, 2003, it was possible to develop a military estimate that described the conditions in Baghdad. Using MG(R) Robert H. Scales'; description of the Indirect Approach, the campaign that places U.S. or allied forces near Baghdad was designed. MG Scales'; proposal was then used to develop a course of action that attacks the city indirectly. The feasibility of the course of action was then evaluated by comparing its results to the end state that the U.S. desired in Iraq.