Iraqis watch Black Hawk Down for tips

Canada.com ^ | Monday, March 31, 2003 | Heather Sokoloff

[BigWaveBetty]

Saddam Hussein has distributed copies of the Hollywood movie Black Hawk Down to his troops as a primer on how to defeat the Americans, according to a report.

Time magazine, which quotes unidentified U.S. military intelligence sources, said the Iraqi president is using the Oscar-winning movie as an inspiring example of how U.S. military might can be beaten.

In today's issue, the magazine says: "The Iraqis may hope that similar scenes of Americans being bloodied in the streets of Baghdad would bring the same result."

Black Hawk Down grossed over $110-million at the box office after it was adapted from the best-selling 1999 book by journalist Mark Bowden. It tells the story of how 18 elite U.S. soldiers were killed and two sophisticated Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by paramilitaries in densely populated Mogadishu, Somalia, during a UN-sponsored humanitarian mission in 1993.

Bill Clinton, then U.S. president, pulled U.S. troops out of Somalia shortly after the incident depicted in the film.

"He wants to boost Iraqi morale by showing dead American soldiers," John Thompson, Director of the Mackenzie Institute, said of Saddam. "It tells them, 'Yes, you too can do this if you are willing to ignore your own losses.' "

Mr. Thompson says that would be a foolish lesson to draw from the incident, considering more than 1,000 Somalis --including countless civilians, women and children -- died in the firefight.

Osama bin Laden, who was in Africa at the time of the helicopter crash, has said in interviews that Mogadishu convinced him the U.S. military is a "paper tiger" which hides behind sophisticated technology and folds during gritty urban combat.

Bin Laden has evoked the Black Hawk fiasco as evidence that guerrilla fighters can triumph over U.S. forces, particularly when thousands of peasants are prepared to give their lives in exchange for a few U.S. causalities.

It was bin Laden's men who taught the troops of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid how to down helicopters using rocket propelled grenades.

David Rudd, the executive director of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, says this interpretation misses the point. Mr. Clinton had no strategic reason to be in Somalia, he said, while Mr. Bush's commitment to quashing the Iraqi regime is an integral part of his war on terrorism.

"What Saddam and bin Laden failed to realize is that the American presence in Somalia was not considered to be vital to U.S. national security," said Mr. Rudd.

"They did not learn the correct lessons from Somalia. The Americans will pull out all the stops this time. They will stay the course."

Mr. Thompson says bin Laden and Saddam have also underestimated American tenacity. The U.S. military has learned lessons from Black Hawk Down -- U.S. troops have received training in urban warfare from their Israeli and British counterparts in preparation for battles in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the novel has become required reading for Pentagon officials.

"There are a lot of people who think the Americans are sort of soft, and they just don't have much resolve. But I'm sorry, if they are thinking that they are not reading much military history," Mr. Thompson said.

"The Americans can take horrendous casualties, and they've proved it many times."

But the optics of the U.S. capitulation in Somalia was not lost on Mr. Bowden. In his forward, written before the September 11 terrorist attacks, he wrote that the pullback was a terrible mistake.

"The lesson our retreat taught the world's terrorists and despots is that killing a few American soldiers, even at a cost of more than 500 of your own fighters, is enough to spook Uncle Sam. Routing [Somali warlord] Aidid would have, in the long run, saved lives."

hsokoloff@nationalpost.com

[goldstategop]

I'm glad they're watching Black Hawk Down. They think President Bush is a Bill Clinton clone. They'll find out soon enough why Iraq isn't Somalia.

[discipler]

Watching Black Hawk Down might have helped if their was a jackass in the White House, but now that we have a real man in there, it's just a sad story and no help to them.

[KeyWest]

Amen. We are learning as we go along and changing out tactics to reflect reality.

Saddam is stuck with a VCR on continuous loop.

[Tijeras_Slim]

The only lesson they'll learn is that when you go up against the US, even under "favorable" circumstances the casualty ratio is a bitc#!

[nevergore]

Beside the obvious military reasons why a "Black Hawk Down" scenario wouldn't apply...

We lost 18 men in that battle and the body count for the Somolians was estimated at 1500.....

Would this be a battle plan you would like to emulate?....

Geeez....Saddam must have gone to the stupid dictator school of military planning.....

NeverGore

[Poohbah]

OK, Iraq's war plan:

1. Get a feckless coward elected as President of the United States.

Oh, darn! Forgot to do step one!

[Ga Rob]

Clinton would not give the Rangers/Delta Operators the support they needed. Like everything else he did, hal assed. Sadaamm needs to figure out one thing...when a squad is pinned down against his thugs, there will be a Spectre or an F15 to call in on the target, and on and on and on.

[BSunday]

the Iraqi president is using the Oscar-winning movie

Impossible. He's dead.

[smith288]

Mogadishu was pre 9-11. In this post 9-11 world, Blackhawk Down is a million years ago in relation to our country now.

They are watching the wrong movie, they should watch Patton and be very scared.

[Kozak]

I'm glad they're watching Black Hawk Down. They think President Bush is a Bill Clinton clone. They'll find out soon enough why Iraq isn't Somalia.

Lets see:
1 No armor.
2 No attack copters or fixed wing air cover.
3 No artillery.
4 No plan.
5 No balls ( on the Commander in Chief )

Yup should go exactly like Mogadishu...

[Future Snake Eater]

Actually, the Somalis shot down 5 Black Hawks in that battle, only 2 crashed in the city itself. As far as the 18 dead, considering there were 99 soldiers on the ground, they were being hunted by most of a city's population, and they were only able to kill about 20% of the enemy while our guys killed anywhere from 1,000-5,000 Somalis (no one really knows how many we killed--and yes, we killed lots of women and children b/c for some reason the gunfight attracted onlookers instead of dispersing them), I wouldn't be too quick to use that battle as a model of how to run things.

[Poohbah]

the Iraqi president is using the Oscar-winning movie

Impossible. He's dead.

Well, the Iraqis are using Weekend at Bernie's and the Monty Python "Dead Parrot Sketch" to get past THAT obstacle.

[Poohbah]

You know, I can't figure out why anyone would be ATTRACTED to a gunfight for the purpose of spectating.

Is Mogadishu REALLY that boring a place?

[BigWaveBetty]

Is Aidid is still around? If so maybe we should go take care of his butt when we're done in Iraq.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Send them some Rambo movies so that they will see that resistance is hopeless.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Somalia was a UN play. This one is defintely not.

[Tom Bombadil]

There are a lot of people who think the Americans are sort of soft, and they just don't have much resolve.

Sigh,......Bill Clinton's legacy.

He is still costing U.S. military lives.........He didn't send the right support stuff into Somalia, a lot of people died, he pulled the troops out prematurely, and now the rest of the terrorist world thinks they can roll the U.S. by taking gargantuan casualties.

We've been raped by our ex-president and he's probably telling us to "put ice on it".

[xp38]

Never been there but I'd take a gamble and say yes.

[b4its2late]

He's dead, Jim!