Our high tech war in Sadr City

CBS:

One of the reasons violence in Iraq has subsided so dramatically was a significant battle that U.S. forces won in Sadr City just five months ago. Sadr City - part of Baghdad - is home to two million Shia, and the turf of fiercely anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

For years, insurgents in Iraq have been stymieing U.S. troops with homemade, low-tech weapons, like car bombs and improvised roadside explosives.

But in this battle of Sadr City, as 60 Minutes learned in a high-level debriefing with the U.S. commander in Iraq, the Americans overpowered the Shiite militias with hi-tech, including the most advanced, sophisticated, whiz bang hardware and software on Earth, like electronics, lasers, and high-resolution cameras that can literally cut through the fog of war.

When 60 Minutes was in Iraq to interview the new commanding general, Ray Odierno, we went with him as he surveyed the former battlefield, through neighborhoods now pacified and into a market returning to life. At his side was the brigade commander who led the battle there, Col. John Hort.

"This was some of the heaviest fighting that we had experienced during our two months in Sadr City," Hort told Stahl. "Right where we're standing."

Standing there, or any place in Sadr City, could not have been done just five months ago - the area was off-limits to Americans. For years, the fiery cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Shiite militia controlled the streets.

Last March, they began using the neighborhood as a launching pad to lob rockets into the nearby "Green Zone," the seat of the Iraqi government and site of the U.S. Embassy.

"Not just one or two, but we're talking 20 to 30 rocket attacks coming out of Sadr City," Hort explained.

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Once Maliki gave the go-ahead, a U.S. Stryker battalion went in, but they confronted a steady stream of militia reinforcements. "I mean every day, it was 20, 30, 40 new guys that were coming down to fight," Hort recalled.

So Hort and his men had to do something to keep them out. They decided to build a barrier straight across Sadr City. It would also create a buffer zone wide enough to prevent militia rockets from reaching the Green Zone.

To build the wall, Col. Hort's Charlie Company began putting up massive T-shaped concrete slabs. Fighting erupted almost immediately, as sniper fire came in from every direction; Charlie Company retaliated with massive tank fire.

"We fired 800 tank rounds in this fight. We haven't fired that many tank rounds since the start of the war," Hort told Stahl.

Col. Hort said "the building of the [so-called] T-wall became a magnet for every bad guy in Sadr City." This was one of the most intense engagements in the entire war. Yet even as the battle raged, the wall went up.

"It was literally concrete barrier by concrete barrier. We just wasn't goin' out there puttin' up some barriers. I mean, it was a fight every inch of the way," he said.

"Guys would climb the ladders to unhook the crane chains from the wall unarmed, while people are firin' at 'em. So it was high adventure," Lt. Col. Brian Eifler remembered, whose team laid down cover fire while some soldiers, wide open and exposed, unhooked the chains from the crane.

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The military called in sniper teams from the elite Navy SEALs and air support; F-18 fighter jets and Apache helicopters protected the flanks. But here's what really made the difference: an arsenal of advanced, high-flying technology.

The military used UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) with highly-improved camera systems, so sensitive they can see the enemy even at night, through clouds and gun smoke from high up. They can spot someone smoking, or a weapon on someone's side. And they have sensors so advanced they can hear enemy radio transmissions and pinpoint their location.

"In 2003 we didn't have all the systems that are now available. We had some, but we didn't have all the UAVs," Odierno explained.

In the battle for Sadr City, they used two different UAVs. One was the "Shadow" drone. Twenty or thirty seconds after a militia team fired a rocket, the Shadow locked on them, shadowed them, watched them move, and set up for their next shot.

Then an armed UAV, the "Predator," was activated. Actual pictures of a battle on the streets of Sadr City were captured: on the video, one can see a group of militia fighters rushing to a car that had just been hit by a U.S. Hellfire missile. They remove a mortar tube from the trunk and load it into a second car which they drive through the streets to an open field. At that point the Predator locks its sights onto the vehicle and fires off another missile. According to the Army, this killed two fighters inside the car, and destroyed the mortar tube.

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There is much more.

A lot of this has already been made public on this blog and others, but it is good to see that CBS is also getting the story out to their audience. It is too bad that many in their audience do not comprehend how important this victory was not just in Iraq but to the war on the Islamic bigots in general including the Iranian brand of Islamic bigots.

Certainly Barack Obama has little understanding of the importance of winning in Iraq. He still seems indifferent to the very idea with his plan to put a withdrawal plan in effect regardless of the circumstances. Obama and the Democrats would have lost the war in Iraq and that would have made the war against the terrorist longer and more costly. They can complain about the cost of the war in Iraq, but their policy would have been much more costly in lives and treasure.