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• U.S. Marines Elated to Reach Central Baghdad • Persecuted Iraqis Consider Their Future • Why Can't the IRS Collect Unpaid Taxes?

This time, military historians are studying what went right: the Patton-like audacity of the three-week charge into Baghdad, fewer U.S. lives lost than had been feared, success in undermining Saddam Hussein without dreaded street-to-street city fighting.

"The planners took great risks and they guessed absolutely right," said historian and retired Army Lt. Col. James Carafano.

"Even the most optimistic probably expected more of a fight," he said, "and more than 100 or so American casualties thus far."

In military history books, experts predict, the war will be noted for impressive use of special forces to gather intelligence, both on the ground and through new spy technology, and the precise targeting of bombs that killed and demoralized Iraqi forces, while limiting civilian deaths.

It also tested a strategy for avoiding urban warfare loosely cordon off the city and use selective strikes to defeat an opposing army's willpower while encouraging the citizens to rebel.

"What this campaign was really designed to do was get a force to Baghdad and demonstrate to the people that the regime was no longer in charge," said Carafano, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a private research group. "Obviously, that worked."

Just a week ago, the Bush administration was pestered by a chorus of retired military brass-turned-TV commentators and others who worried that the 300,000 coalition troops sent to the desert weren't enough to do the job. As soldiers and Marines rolled through Baghdad on Wednesday met by cheering crowds and only scattered resistance U.S. leaders all but said "I told you so."

While cautioning that the war wasn't over, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld called its progress "nothing short of spectacular." Vice President Dick Cheney bragged about "one of the most extraordinary military campaigns ever conducted" noting comparisons to Army Gen. George S. Patton's famous push through France in 1944.

The 300-mile surge to Baghdad commanded by Gen. Tommy Franks echoed Patton's bold strategy of bypassing the Germans whenever possible, instead of fighting, to maintain the momentum of his drive forward in World War II.

Still, military historian and author Norman Polmar said there's little value in comparisons to Patton's dash, or to the Russians' even faster blitzes against the Germans and the Japanese.

"The Germans had the best army in the world in World War II," Polmar said.

In contrast, U.S. forces held a tremendous advantage over Iraq's military in training, leadership and equipment.

"We had everything going for us," said Polmar. "The only two questions were how long it would take and how many casualties."

Or as Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put it last week: Iraq's execution on the battlefield "has really been sad."

A better comparison is to the first Gulf War, although it had a different objective liberating Kuwait from Iraqi invaders.

"In the Gulf War, we bombed for a month, fought for four days and just got the southern part of the country, about one-third," said Polmar. "If this is the end of it, we fought for just over three weeks and have taken the country and destroyed the regime."

Cheney noted that, unlike the 1991 war, coalition forces this time were able to quickly safeguard oil fields in southern Iraq and cut off Saddam's ability to launch missiles at neighboring countries. Precision-guided munitions, a new technology then, are now standard equipment.

And intelligence from special operations forces who sharpened their techniques in Afghanistan made the precision weapons even more effective, said retired Col. Raymond Bluhm, a historian at the Association of the U.S. Army.

"When you have such precise targeting as we apparently had in two cases against Saddam himself, that's unheard of," Bluhm said.

Geography plays a part too.

Despite the heat and sandstorms, the desert terrain proved more hospitable to U.S. air power than the jungles of Vietnam, where dense foliage hid the enemy.

Unlike Vietnam and Korea at war, Iraq didn't benefit from substantial supplies or support from its neighbors.

But past conflicts may still carry warnings.

If fighting breaks out among the factions of postwar Iraq, the U.S. experience in Somalia will offer lessons about the difficulty of pacifying a civil war.

"If civil society breaks down, then there won't be enough troops," said Carafano. "If we're in the middle of a civil war, forget it."

Cheney acknowledged a U.S. obligation to help the Iraqi people until peace and democracy are established.

"In the final analysis," he said Wednesday, "history will judge us, and hopefully the people of the region will judge us, based upon what happens next in Iraq."

photo credit and caption:

Decades of fear and frustration were set aside Wednesday, April 9, 2003, in Dearborn, Mich., as hundreds of Michigan Iraqis took to the streets in celebration at the apparent end to Saddam Hussein's regime. About 1,200 people, according to police estimates, gathered at Hemlock Park in Dearborn, in celebration of the news. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

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