An entire squad of American soldiers was attacked south of Baghdad, leaving five dead and three missing. Although there is a massive search for the missing soldiers, they are almost certainly dead as well. This is something I have expected ever since I learned that the tactic of the Surge was to embed squad teams (9 or 10 soldiers) with larger Iraqi forces and using squads as "street corner cops" in deadly regions of Iraq. These units are too small to defend themselves if they are attacked or if their Iraqi allies decide to turn upon them.
The small size of the attacked unit (seven soldiers plus an Iraqi interpreter) is interesting. Either this unit had already suffered casualities and had been sent out undersized, or the Army is spread so thin they are breaking up squads into even smaller units for these assignments. Either way, this type of attack was inevitable. More such attacks are certain as long as this Surge tactic continues.
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Interesting/tragic/stupid. Hard to explain how I feel about this info. One would like to assume (and be correct) that all the various people along the chain of command (from the very top, down) know what they are doing. So frequently, that proves not to be the case.
Soldiers follow orders, no matter how stupid. So, four American soldiers and an Iraqi died for their countries following stupid orders; and, three more are missing.
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