Irak: Es klappte nicht so ganz mit dem Hightech-Krieg

--- Die amerikanische Ausgabe von Technology Review widerlegt den Mythos vom erfolgreichen Hightech-Krieg einmal mehr im Zusammenhang mit dem Irak. Demnach klappt es noch nicht so ganz mit den Konzepten der Network-centric Warfare, die den Soldaten im Feld alle ben�tigten Informationen just in time zur Verf�gung stellen soll: The largest counterattack of the Iraq War unfolded in the early-morning hours of April 3, 2003, near a key Euphrates River bridge about 30 kilometers southwest of Baghdad, code-named Objective Peach. The battle was a fairly conventional fight between tanks and other armored vehicles�almost a throwback to an earlier era of war fighting, especially when viewed against the bloody chaos of the subsequent insurgency. Its scale made it the single biggest test to date of the Pentagon�s initial attempts to transform the military into a smaller, smarter, sensor-dependent, networked force. ... �The largest counterattack of the Iraq War unfolded in the early-morning hours of April 3, 2003, near a key Euphrates River bridge about 30 kilometers southwest of Baghdad, code-named Objective Peach. The battle was a fairly conventional fight between tanks and other armored vehicles�almost a throwback to an earlier era of war fighting, especially when viewed against the bloody chaos of the subsequent insurgency. Its scale made it the single biggest test to date of the Pentagon�s initial attempts to transform the military into a smaller, smarter, sensor-dependent, networked force. In theory, the size of the Iraqi attack should have been clear well in advance. U.S. troops were supported by unprecedented technology deployment. During the war, hundreds of aircraft- and satellite-mounted motion sensors, heat detectors, and image and communications eavesdroppers hovered above Iraq. The four armed services coordinated their actions as never before. U.S. commanders in Qatar and Kuwait enjoyed 42 times the bandwidth available to their counterparts in the first Gulf War. High-bandwidth links were set up for intelligence units in the field. A new vehicle-tracking system marked the location of key U.S. fighting units and even allowed text e-mails to reach front-line tanks. This digital firepower convinced many in the Pentagon that the war could be fought with a far smaller force than the one it expected to encounter. Yet at Objective Peach, Lt. Col. Ernest �Rock� Marcone, a battalion commander with the 69th Armor of the Third Infantry Division, was almost devoid of information about Iraqi strength or position. �I would argue that I was the intelligence-gathering device for my higher headquarters,� Marcone says. His unit was at the very tip of the U.S. Army�s final lunge north toward Baghdad; the marines advanced on a parallel front. Objective Peach offered a direct approach to the Saddam International Airport (since rechristened Baghdad International Airport). �Next to the fall of Baghdad,� says Marcone, �that bridge was the most important piece of terrain in the theater, and no one can tell me what�s defending it. Not how many troops, what units, what tanks, anything. There is zero information getting to me. Someone may have known above me, but the information didn�t get to me on the ground.�

Update: Eine Zusammenfassung gibt es inzwischen auch in der deutschen TR-Ausgabe.