When ISIS took the Iraqi city of Mosul last year, they seized an army’s worth of US-made weaponry and vehicles. The US air war against ISIS over the last nine months has centered in great measure on destroying that gear, while ferrying new gear to the Iraqi military.
Then Ramadi fell over the weekend, and it’s Mosul all over again. Despite the US downplaying the significance of the loss, the Pentagon is confirming that half a dozen tanks and significant artillery and armored vehicles, along with other gear, were abandoned by Iraqi troops fleeing the Anbar capital.
With the news, the Pentagon is also stepping back from its predictions of retaking Ramadi in a matter of days, saying it “will be difficult,” and insisting that they’re sticking to their existing strategy.
It also puts a different spin on Iraq rushing more tanks to the Ramadi line to try to take the city back, with the risk that these tanks too will eventually be abandoned to ISIS.
This is certainly no coinicicent in the double game the US-GOV is playling on ISIS.
I can´t for the life of me understand why someone would leave a working vehicle to run away, unless it was out of gas? The article didn´t state that the Iraqis ran out of gas and abandoned their tanks and armored vehicles to flee the city, so why didn´t they turn them around and drive home?
Tanks are slow. Mini-truck-mounted guns/anti-tank weapons move fast. Get it?
Capturing a tank is rather useless: without the infrastructure to maintain, fuel, and, yes, transport them you are just expensive heaps of sunk capital extracted from taxpayers. In WWII, the tank manual was at least reasonably small and repair could be done with skills and tools in a flatbed truck. Not so today, I reckon.
They will work for a while without mantaince. Even ISIL could fix many problems, such as say, clogged feul lines. While they will probably not be fighting a year later, they can certainly make a difference before they conk out.
The criminal USG regime is responsible for the endless cycle of violence,
death,and destruction in Iraq. Besides the enormous loss of human life,
billions are being squandered each month on this continued fiasco.
The arrogance of the USG corporate media would like (us) to believe
that Bush did the people of Iraq a (favor) when he (liberated) Them.
The hypocrites who still believe that nonsense should also take into
account the 3 million humans currently incarcerated in the USG today.
Wow, is this the perfect racket or what? Milo from Catch 22 would certainly be proud…
The Iraqis wanted to be liberated; they have got what they asked for.
Perfect plan. We have a reasons to continue to fight and bomb things and we get to reorder more weapons of mass destruction over and over again. Sustained conflict at it's best. This is utterly disgusting. How does the everyday person not see this or even care to want to stop this.
Does anyone else notice that any troops that are trained by the US military turn tail and run from a fight. That does not bode well for any future conflicts with Russian or Chinese forces. With or without their " high tech toys" they are gonna run or get stomped.
That's because the US military trains people for regimes that have no legitimacy. Nobody is ashamed that they didn't defend the current Iraqi government even though they took money to do so. That's because nobody believes that it deserves protecting. The people who ARE making a difference against ISIL are those who believe in what they're fighting for, which is generally protecting people like them.
Don't worry, Jeb Bush will fix it