ABSTRACT
The United States attacked Iraq in March 2003 boasting the world’s best-trained and equipped military. Using a host of technologies and new weapons that had been integrated into the force structure over the preceding decade, it made quick work of its adversary in a march on Baghdad that took only three weeks.1 The “shock” and “awe”2 of a strategy packaged under the ostensibly new paradigm of “effects based operations”3 framed the impressive application of combined arms conventional military power that routed Saddam Hussein’s armies and delivered American forces into downtown Baghdad in short order. The invasion force applied a new generation of sensors, standoff munitions, and digitized command and control systems to great effect during the invasion against a marginally competent enemy.4
