AFGHANISTAN: US forces won the war in Afghanistan but to what extent were their forcesreally tested? Chris Stephen reports on their one open combat encounter, which was proclaimed a victory, but which really ended because al-Qaeda just got fed up fighting
As Washington gears up for war in Iraq, few have questioned the ability of the US military to conquer Baghdad.
But in the 12 months since September 11th, the American army has fought al- Qaeda in open combat only once, in Operation Anaconda in the snowy Afghan mountains last March. Officially, the battle was heralded a success, but an investigation by The Irish Times paints a very different story.
In early March, American commanders in Afghanistan thought they had finally cornered al-Qaeda, which had massed its forces into a single valley, Shah-e-Kot, deep in the southern mountains.
The plan of the US commander, Maj Gen Franklin Hagenbeck, was simple: Shah-e-Kot lay between two towering ridges. So he would send local Afghan tribal allies to attack the western ridge, driving al-Qaeda forces towards the eastern ridge, where American forces would be waiting in ambush.
Straight away things went wrong. The local Afghan forces leaked news of the offensive to al-Qaeda.
On March 2nd, a massive airlift saw 2,000 troops helicoptered to seven positions on the eastern ridgeline. But al-Qaeda was waiting.
Astonishingly, there was little special forces preliminary reconnaissance of these sites and the troops were landed into a hornets' nest.
What made it worse was the choice of landing zones. The troops were helicoptered into landing zones below, rather than above, al-Qaeda positions - a crucial drawback in mountain warfare. In one of the landing zones, 28 men were wounded as they stumbled from their helicopters into al-Qaeda fire.
"They were ambushed comprehensively," says Dan Plesch, a senior researcher at London's Royal United Services Institute.
Plesch has made a careful study of the battle, even combing the Internet for accounts given by US troops to their home-town newspapers - accounts much more honest and grim than the upbeat reports the generals gave to the mainstream media.
Then came the next problem: unlike their British allies, the Americans had no artillery in Afghanistan, believing they could rely on air power.
But the planes got lost, some ran into sleet and snow and fog. Whereas artillery would have allowed a constant stream of shells to be fired, the planes kept running out of bombs and fuel and having to turn for home.
In desperation, Hegenbeck called up Apache helicopter gunships to come in close and blast the al-Qaeda positions. But return fire took a heavy toll - five of the seven machines were hit so badly they had to be withdrawn from combat.
The next problem was with the troops themselves. The main unit was the 10th Mountain division, but "Mountain" is only a nickname, earned in the second World War. In fact, the units had neither the skill nor fitness for mountain warfare.
One US officer from a different division told me how he had gone with a patrol through a narrow mountain gorge, anxiously scanning cave entrances for the enemy. When he asked why the patrol was moving along the valley floor, rather than using tactical practice to move along the top of the ridge, he was told it was to make things easier. "That was the scariest day of my life," he told me.
Another alarming discovery was that the much-touted thermobaric "bunker busting" bombs were ineffective. In theory, they could blast deep into cave complexes. In practice, the rock of the Afghan mountains shielded al-Qaeda from all but a direct hit.
Then on March 4th, two Chinook heavy- lift helicopters landed amid al-Qaeda positions by mistake. An anti-tank rocket smashed into the front of one machine, which raced away, with one soldier, a Navy Seal, falling out of the back.
With co-ordination now minimal, the Chinook mission had been sent out without either planes or Apaches to give fire support. There was nothing the Americans could do but watch TV images beamed back from an unmanned drone as their soldier was surrounded, overpowered and dragged off to his death by al-Qaeda troops.
When a rescue mission was launched, it ran straight into more al-Qaeda positions, with another seven men being killed.
On March 7th the battle ended - not with US victory, but because al-Qaeda decided to call it a day. Their units bribed their way through the lines of the Afghan troops and escaped in good order into Pakistan.
The Americans admitted to eight dead and 48 wounded, though military sources say the true wounded figure was 70.
Then came the lies. The US generals, horrified by their drubbing, inflated the enemy death toll, with one commander claiming a "body count" of 800 al-Qaeda dead. In fact, allied units moving through the area a month later said they found 60 dead al-Qaeda.
This disaster would have been much worse except for the flack jackets issued to the troops which saved American lives.
Anaconda was not the only blunder. The Afghan campaign has been studded by US Air Force bombing mistakes.
One bomb dropped in error wounded the current Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and also killed 17 of his men and three US Special Forces soldiers.
Other air strikes have destroyed a convoy of Karzai supporters, killed four Canadian peacekeepers, wiped out a village near Tora Bora and blitzed a wedding party.
These blunders go beyond the "fog of war" with military sources saying they spring from a careless and "disconnect" that is rampant in the US armed forces which may cost it dear in Iraq.
This may not matter, however. If the US does go to war, troops are expected to conquer most of Iraq quickly, using long-range air power to destroy the Iraqi army.
But Baghdad could be different. If the Iraqi army chooses to stand and fight, the US will face an agonising choice between bombing the city flat, or using its ill-trained troops in the harshest of all combat terrains - city streets.
Washington, for all its boldness in proclaiming a War On Terror, is terrified of losing its own men - a hangover from the dreadful experience of Vietnam.
"There's an enormous amount of complacency, because they are number one, because they have got it all," says Plesch. "But the lesson learned is that even after the blowing up of the World Trade Centre, the Americans are not willing to put their troops in harm's way."
Chris Stephen was one of several journalists who reported for The Irish Times from Afghanistan after the US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime