US Mission Alert: Food, Convoy Problems- umm blocking conveys

[rodeodance]

now.

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/topic/39


> US Mission Alert: Food, Convoy Problems-MAY 23, 2007
> Workers Warned Some Food Types to be "Severely Limited or
> Unavailable"; MREs?
>>
> All those working with "US Mission Iraq" -- embassy, consulate, and
> provincial reconstruction team employees and military personnel and
> contractors at State Dept.-funded facilities in Iraq -- are being
> warned of food supply disruptions, with some food types soon to be "severely limited or unavailable."
>
> The memo gave no explanation as to why the food convoys have been
> delayed, but warned that their dining facilities (DFACS) would not be
> stocked as usual and that MREs might have to serve as a replacement
> for their regular food if the disruption was not soon corrected.
>
> Though this memo only seems to apply those eating at cafeterias at US
> State Department facilities across Iraq, including US military
> personnel who eat at those cafeterias, news that food deliveries in
> Iraq are experiencing supply-side disruption theater-wide raises
> questions about whether US troops may be dealing with the similar
> supply challenges.

[kenny blankenship]

1. Lemme guess: Bin Laden offered Cheney more $$$ to burn the supplies in the Kuwaiti desert

than Halliburton-KBR would make by delivering them on time to units in Iraq?

[rodeodance]

2. this is serious. what happens when ammo is cut off?

[kenny blankenship]

4. Oh I expect Cheney will charge out the ass for that, if Bin Laden asks. Seriously, Out. The. Ass.

The Cheneyman can be faulted for a lot of things, but leaving money on the table and declining to charge the most that the market will bear is not one of them.

But seriously, ammunition --as opposed to fresh blueberries and young asparagus--is one of those things Forward Operating Bases would tend to keep well stocked. I doubt seriously that they go into a foreign occupation with a "just-in-time" approach to ammo resupply. Ammunition also doesn't require refrigeration and can be easily dropped from helicopters and C-130s.

IF there happens to be a worry over ammunition, the sensible thing for commanders to do is pull in troops and stop running offensive operations (at the present rate) until the overland supply lines are clear again.
We don't know yet why there is a hiccup in supplies (I haven't heard the reason at any rate) and we may never be told: so at this point we can't speculate intelligently about how long it could last. Unless we have a good reason to think the disruption is anything more than a blip, we don't really have cause to start worrying about GIs with only half full clips, etc.

[stillcool]

3. I read something like this a while back...

...seems like by now this would all be taken into account?

US Could Face Catastrophic
Military Defeat In Iraq
What Baker And Hamilton Forgot
By Webster G. Tarpley
12-17-6
US forces attempting to defend a zone of occupation deep within landlocked Iraq now face an extraordinarily critical situation. These forces are wholly dependent on a supply line based on two roads on either side of the Euphrates which stretch some 400 miles (about 650 km) from Kuwait north towards Baghdad. It is along these roads that gasoline, food, ammunition, and all other sinews of war must be transported by truck convoy. Two roads of 400 miles each add up to 800 miles of highway to defend ­ an impossible proposition in the face of a sustained people's war by the Shiites of the lower Euphrates. The Iraqi resistance understood early on that these truck convoys represented a grave vulnerability for the occupation forces, and this has been the key to their most effective weapon so far, the improvised roadside bomb or IED. This vital aorta of supplies could now be cut in several places at once by the Shiite guerrillas of the Mahdi army or related groups.
----------------------------------------------------
Are there any alternatives to this 400 mile double gauntlet from Kuwait to Baghdad? If there were alternatives, the US forces might shift their base, like McClellan moving his base from White House on the Pamunkey to the James River during the 1862 Seven Days battles before Richmond. But there are no alternatives to the Kuwait-Baghdad roads. The road from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad passes through Anbar province, where the position of the US Marines is desperate and the power of the Baathist-Sunni national resistance is growing. Turkey, angered by the US sponsorship of PKK terrorists which are supposed to attack Iran but also attack Turkey, shows no sign of offering alternative supply lines. In any case, the roads coming into Baghdad from the west, north, and northeast through places like Tikrit and Baquba are subject to constant attack by the Baathist-Sunni resistance. No alternative supply lines could come through these regions.