They had no air force, their artillery were stilling ducks if they fired a single shot (between the AWACS and Counter Battery units attached to the Armored Cavalry) and the goal wasn’t to pacify an entire country’s worth of population it was to 1) fight any organized military resistance and 2) capture Baghdad.
(Unpopular statement incoming) I was with the invasion forces and at that time, most of the forward combat units actually were making an effort to limit civilian casualties and not damage critical infrastructure and places where civilians would be congregating even if there was a decent chance that they were being used by Iraqi military forces.
Most places weren’t all that well defended. Any cities that had dug in troops were bypassed if it looked like it was going to take too long and mess up the time tables to “get to Baghdad”.
It wasn’t until the invasion was “over” and the occupation started that shit quickly hit the fan.
They had no air force, their artillery were stilling ducks if they fired a single shot (between the AWACS and Counter Battery units attached to the Armored Cavalry) and the goal wasn’t to pacify an entire country’s worth of population it was to 1) fight any organized military resistance and 2) capture Baghdad.
(Unpopular statement incoming) I was with the invasion forces and at that time, most of the forward combat units actually were making an effort to limit civilian casualties and not damage critical infrastructure and places where civilians would be congregating even if there was a decent chance that they were being used by Iraqi military forces.
Most places weren’t all that well defended. Any cities that had dug in troops were bypassed if it looked like it was going to take too long and mess up the time tables to “get to Baghdad”.
It wasn’t until the invasion was “over” and the occupation started that shit quickly hit the fan.