The Initial Objectives

Initial reports show that the first objectives were the two bridges to the west of the city, and the main hospital in the city. The bridges: 1. The southern bridge feeds right into the heart of downtown. 2. The western bridge is outside the city and serves a major highway which skirts the northern edge of the city. The southern highway will be used for our logistics into the city, the western one will be blocked to allow both armored and mounted forces to bypass the city altogether if necessary, and to keep insurgents from fleeing west. Insurgents now have no way to escape the city except to flee east. The hospital: Don't get wrapped around the axle into thinking want to prevent its use, or monopolize its use as a hospital . . . if it is a large area, it might make an ideal logistics distribution node within the city, and this will be key to sustaining our forces in the fight. The Fox article quotes an Iraqi doctor as saying, '"The American troops' attempt to take over the hospital was not right because they thought that they would halt medical assistance to the resistance," he said by telephone to a reporter inside the city. "But they did not realize that the hospital does not belong to anybody, especially the resistance."' I doubt that stopping medical care for insurgents was the only reason for taking the hospital, if it was a concern at all. More likely, we are taking it for its location and size. [Sorry I'm three hours behind in covering phase two . . . I've been driving from Dallas to San Antonio since 4pm central. But I'm on it now . . .]