Dad suggests the exit from Iraq could resemble the Battle of Dunkirk

[babylonsister]

If we eventually get Iran involved in this mess, it could happen. I wonder if anyone is reviewing that little historical nugget.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dunkirk

The Battle of Dunkirk (French: Bataille de Dunkerque) was a major battle during World War II which lasted from May 26 to June 4, 1940. A large force of British and French soldiers were cut off in northern France by a German armoured advance to the Channel coast at Calais. Over 330,000 Allied troops caught in the pocket were subsequently evacuated by sea to England in Operation Dynamo.

snip//

The battle of Dunkirk poses one of the great "what-ifs" of World War II, which has attracted speculation from many military historians.<1> If Hitler had not ordered the German panzer divisions to halt from 24 May to 26 May, but instead ordered an all-out attack on Dunkirk, the retreating Allies could have possibly been cut off from the sea and destroyed. If the whole of the British Expeditionary Force had been captured or killed at Dunkirk, not only would have Britain been vulnerable to invasion but morale in Britain could have possibly sunk so low as to have toppled the government and replaced it with one more disposed to making an accommodation with Nazi Germany, similar to the Vichy regime in France. Without the need to oppose the British in the Atlantic and North Africa – or even with the assistance of a Quisling government in Britain – perhaps the troops and resources thus freed would have been enough to wholly defeat the Soviet Union in 1941 and led to German conquest of the whole of Europe and Asia.
snip//

[MADem]

1. IMPOSSIBLE. How could you conduct Operation Dynamo without

sufficient waterways and ports to make it happen???

Iraq has no decent outlets to the sea, save BASRA, which is clunky and crowded as hell. In order to get to Iraq from the Gulf, you have to carefully navigate the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, which is STILL littered with shit from the ten year war.

Evacuation of Iraq can happen in great numbers in two ways: by air, or overland via secured convoys to one of our allies on the borders of that country.

[babylonsister]

2. I think he meant that a mass movement to get the hell out before

we can't might become a reality, not necessary via water. I don't know if he meant that literally, but he's pretty anxious about what might happen to US soldiers if this type of scenario should play out.

[MADem]

4. Oh, ok....if it happens, it will go down either by air or land.

The northern units would probably make a run for Turkey, with air cover all the way; the southern and western units would head down the roads for Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, air cover there, as well, and this is if they are planning on taking equipment with them. Otherwise, blow the shit up, and fly out of there with fighter/attack escorts circling round like a racetrack as you get the hell outta there.

We'll see. It's not going too well, lately, but everyone is focused on Lebanon, so no one is paying attention to that fetid plop, plop, plop of shit hitting the fan in the fertile crescent...

[whistle]

3. Squeezing our troops down to the narrow port at Umm Dasr just

...south of Al Basarh on the coast of the Persian Gulf. Shit, Dunkirk was a mess for the British who left virtually all their weapons on the beaches.

[MADem]

5. Within shooting distance/sitting duckery of Iran, too. NT

[Gman]

6. I have felt from the beginning it will be like the fall of Saigon

With people scrambling and gettin' the hell out while the gittin's still good.

[ladjf]

7. At this point, the insurgents don't appear to have the types of

offensive weaponry that could seriously threaten the U.S. forces in the Green Zone. That could change. But, in order to do so, some significant shipments of heavy weapons would have to be shipped in. That would be difficult, I think.

[chieftain]

8. I've said all along we were going to have to fight our way out.

It does not please me at all to predict that the end game in Iraq is likely to be a military debacle of enormous proportions.

[Vickers]

9. A concern, but covering fire has improved dramatically since 1940.

:thumbsup: