Samarra is not a small town. I would expect that there are plenty of left-over bad guys of various sorts there, along with weapons (which seem to be everywhere in Iraq). After all, everyone is *allowed* to keep an AK, and RPG's seem to be plentiful.

Thus this may have been less of a fully planned ambush and more of a running battle with enemy arriving as they heard (or heard of) the battle. If the enemy were highly organized and traditional, this would not be the likely scenario, but if we consider a population that has hundreds of bad guys of various stripes, with only loose organization and poor training, and that the fight lasted 4 hours, an ad hoc battle makes a lot more sense. In that scenario, it would be somewhat like Mogadishu, with perhaps a small coordinated ambush (or even an attack by forces continually in place along probable routes of travel), followed by every glory seeker and armed irregular charging to the scene to get in on the action.

This fits with the varied descriptions of the attackers dress, the reported long duration of the event (an organized smart attacker would have concentrated forces at one or two critical places, but a well armed rabble would be everywhere), and the general confusion.

None of this is to deny the difficulty and perverse incentives involved in the after action reporting process, but just to suggest that maybe a whole lot of locals joined the battle, not just 10-30.

I'm afraid that sticking with the 54 dead figure is a political decision and we're returning to the days of the "5 O'clock Follies" in Saigon. Failure is not possible! (To admit.) There can be no bad news. We never make mistakes (that we admit).

It's the way the fish stinks at the top, and the pressure has moved downstairs. It's worked that way for intelligence, and after canning generals for WrongTestimony to Congress as to how many troops would be needed after the war, it's infected the military chain of command. I hate to suggest this, but that's sure what it looks like. It is, of course, the civilians at the top who are to blame; the only alternative of those in the c-of-c is to resign, if they have that option, or to carry on. I'm very doubtful morale is very high in Iraq, to put it mildly. I'd love to be wrong. I'll hate it if I'm right.

John, that's a plausible thought, but I still have trouble with the 54 dead figure. Assuming a 3:1 ratio of wounded to dead and assuming we were able to inflict a whopping 50% casualty rate on the enemy (and both of these are at the edge of believability), that would mean we were facing some 400 fighters. If that is the case, we have a very big problem in Samaria. I've seen no evidence the problem there is that big.

Gary, that is possible, but I think we need more evidence before we go to that conclusion.

Certainly sticking hard to the 54 number is a bit suspicious. Why not a range (40-60) or something? It sounds like someone backed into a corner.

And the argument about the wounded to killed ratio is significant also, although it is possible that the type of firepower used resulted in a higher kill ratio.

Still, if there was a four hour battle in Samara, given the amount of friendly firepower used, a lot of somebodies had to be killed, and there weren't that many "civilian" casualties on display, even by those who had it in their interest to maximize that number.

Samarra has a large population (207,000). If only one percent were insurgents, that would be a force of 2,000! So there could certainly be a major ambush with a large force without it representing a serious problem with the population of the town. Also, this first hand report indicates a lot of enemy weaponry in use, which implies quite a few fighters. There were barricades, and both direct and indirect fires.

It is possible that this attack was carried out in a large city so that coalition forces, with the announced policies of Iron Hammer, would cause a lot of civilian casualties. It is also likely that a lot of civilians got out of the way when the ambush forces moved in... people who live in a neighborhood are going to know if a bunch of baddies with RPG's and mortars appear, and they are not going to want to stick around. Furthermore, initial reports indicated that the attackers were dressed as Fedayeen, or at least adopted the face masking used by the Fedayeen, which would both provide a way for the convoy troops to estimate enemy numbers and a way for civilians to know where not to be.

In any case, if we find ourselves in the Saigon Follies situation, that would be very bad. The US press and the anti-war forces would drag us into a disastrous retreat as fast as they could. So far, the military has done a pretty good job of reporting. I keep a close eye on soldier blogs in the area and they are quite consistent with the general news that I get from Fox News, which is on average pretty good morale, except for unhappiness by reserve elements who are being over-extended (but then they were overused by Clinton when the deployments had only the faintest relationship to the national interest).

I suspect that a lot of enemy were in fact killed in Samarra. I also am sure that the 54 figure is arbitrary... it was probably a first count (maybe a careful one) that was then stuck to to avoid an appearance of uncertainty.

Finally, I would say that having Hackworth's skepticism is not very valuable. Hackworth is the complaint box for the infantry of the US. He has a huge chip on his shoulder from Vietnam, and he makes the most of his fame. His thinking, on the other hand, makes me think that he was probably a good battalion commander but was incapable of higher levels of analysis - he sees too many trees and missess too many forests.

Agree on Hackworth.

As to why there would be resistance in Samarra, consider recent reports that Saddam is hiding among tribes just west of there.