It's Coldest Before the Dawn

I just handed in a research paper on the sandstorm that hit Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom last year. You'll all get to read this paper when I post it on the web after the professor grades it. The dust storm was most intense on March 25, 2003, so I looked up some old news accounts of what was going on then. Basically, the U.S. Army and Marines were approaching Baghdad, and the Iraqi Republican Guard were getting into position to defend the city. What was most interesting to find were the opinions expressed by correspondents and bloggers on both sides of the conflict.

There was a lot of pessimism on the coalition side. Many observers thought the siege of Baghdad would be long and brutal. The media worried that a lot of Iraqi civilians would get killed, that every block of the city would be defended.

There was also a lot of bravado from the Iraqi government, and not just from Information Minister Mohammad Saeed al-Sahaf. Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed had this to say (posted on March 28):

Asked what kind of battle he expected, Defense Minister Ahmed said: "Baghdad is the cradle of civilization. Iraqis inherited this history from their forefathers. They will defend this inheritance in a way that will satisfy God."

"God willing, Baghdad will be impregnable. We will fight to the end and everywhere. History will record how well Iraqis performed in defense of their capital," Ahmed said.

Ahmed said that the U.S. supply lines were overstretched and reached as far as 300 miles and called a sandstorm that slowed the U.S. push northwards toward Baghdad in recent days "a gift from God."

You can read the rest of the story at rense.com:
http://www.rense.com/general36/bbe.htm

Remember that? It was only last year. I was kind of discouraged myself at that point, wondering how we would go about capturing Baghdad. I even discussed some options with a former tank commander friend of mine.

As it turned out, Ahmed was exactly right. History did record how well the Republican Guard performed in defense of their capital. I saw pictures of Republican Guard soldiers stripping off their uniforms and running away in their underwear.

If the sandstorm was "a gift from God," then Ahmed's expression of theistic meteorology did not work out the way he expected. General Tommy Franks and his staff made a military move during the sandstorm that drastically altered the war in our favor. That's a teaser - you'll have to read about it in my paper. The historical facts show that U.S. forces soon captured Baghdad after a series of armed incursions. The statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square was toppled on April 9.

The point is this: On March 25, 2003, things looked pretty bleak in Iraq. But a major military turning point came during those few days, and Saddam Hussein in bronze fell to the ground just two weeks later. Sometimes when things look the worst, there comes a turning point that nobody realizes until later.

The news from Iraq was depressing until about a week ago. It seemed that our side was losing cities to the insurgents, as more and more "no-go zones" developed. I think we were actually losing progress, as defined by the measures discussed here several months ago.

Take courage, my friends! Najaf is peaceful once again, even though too many of the al-Sadr militants got away. The shrine's okay. Samarra has been re-liberated from anti-Iraq forces. By now many Iraqis have had it up to ^here with militants turning their neighborhoods into battlegrounds. I expect Iraqis have also realized that people who sabotage pipelines aren't doing squat to defend Islam or fight for Iraq or improve anyone's lives. Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi is holding tough. And most people who make the decisions have recognized that Kevin was right back in April when he said that the right thing to do in Fallujah is to take back the city from the terrorists, not withdraw.

If John Kerry is elected president he will follow basically the same plan in Iraq as Bush is following now. Kerry says he will execute the plan better, and any voter can decide if they believe him or not. The Democrats made the choice of Kerry over Howard Dean in the primaries, and with that choice they rejected the option to withdraw from Iraq. Tony Karon at TIME Magazine can complain that Kerry doesn't offer a choice on Iraq, but that choice is off the table now because it was already rejected. No matter what happens in November, America plans to finish the job that we started in Iraq. And finish it right.

Thank you, Tony Blair and the United Kingdom and Australia for being there with us all the way! Thank you also to the other coalition countries.

By my count progress in Iraq is at about 85%. Progress is at 50% automatically because Allawi is in charge and Iraq is sovereign. When I look at the map of Iraq I see about 30% of the population and land as "no-go zones", meaning 70% is relatively stable and functional. So 50% + 70%*50% = 85%. You do the math.

Meteorologically Speaking:
The old saying that "it's darkest before the dawn" is incorrect. Night is relatively constant in darkness, except for the hour after sundown and before sunrise when blue photons are scattering over the horizon and lighting up things a bit. Surface temperature pretty much follows a sinusoidal curve during the day, with the peak temperature at about 2pm. Surface temperatures are coldest before the dawn because the earth's surface undergoes radiative cooling all night, at pretty much a constant rate.

So it really is coldest just before the dawn.