Thanks to AmericaBlog for highlighting Back to Iraq which linked to Time magazine's online update, How Operation Swarmer Fizzled. BTI's Christopher Allbritton notes that
"Operation Swarmer" is really a media show. It was designed to show off the new Iraqi Army -- although there was no enemy for them to fight. Every American official I've heard has emphasized the role of the Iraqi forces just days before the third anniversary of the start of the war. That said, one Iraqi role the military will start highlighting in the next few days, I imagine, is that of Iraqi intelligence. It was intel from the Iraqi military intelligence and interior ministry that the U.S. says prompted this Potemkin operation. And it will be the Iraqi intel that provides the cover for American military commanders to throw up their hands and say, "well, we thought bad guys were there."
It's hard to blame the military, however. Stations like Fox and CNN have really taken this and run with it, with fancy graphics and theme music, thanks to a relatively slow news day. The generals here also are under tremendous pressure to show off some functioning Iraqi troops before the third anniversary, and I won't fault them for going into a region loaded for bear. After all, the Iraqi intelligence might have been right.
Time's Brian Bennett and Al Jallam report the official, but still somewhat disheartening version.
But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. ("Air Assault" is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What's more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders.
The operation, which doubled the population of the flat farmland in one single airlift, was initiated by intelligence from Iraq security forces, says Lt Col Skip Johnson commander of the 187 Battallion, 3rd Combat Brigade of the 101st Airborne. "They have the lead," he said to reporters at the second stop of the tour. But by Friday afternoon, the major targets seemed to have slipped through their fingers. Iraqi Army General Abdul Jabar says that Samarra-based insurgent leader Hamad el Taki of Mohammad's Army was thought to be in the area, and Iraqi intelligence officers were still working to compare known voice recordings and photographs with the prisoners in custody.
For their efforts, the US and Iraqi soldiers racked up about "300 individual pieces of weaponry like mortars, rockets and plastic explosives," "high-powered cordless telephones used as detonators in homemade bombs, medical supplies and insurgent training manuals," and some "freshly baked bread.... For most of them, it was the only thing worthwhile they'd found all day."