In the recent past the US Navy SEALs has been in the news for its operations in Iraq. It all began in the year 2003 when President George Bush ordered the Navy SEALs to invade Iraq. This Navy SEALs operation was called ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’.

Why it started

It was generally believed at the time in 2003 that Iraq possessed and was also developing on an active basis, weapons of mass destruction or WMD. This was strictly in violation of the 1991 agreement between the US and Iraq that stated these WMDs needed to be given up unconditionally. Bush’s aim was to get rid of Saddam Hussein’s support of terrorism and eventually free the citizens of Iraq. This is how the Navy SEALs mission began. While this mission was led by the US it also had the backing of Britain, Poland as well as Australia.

The fated day

On March 20th in the year 2003 at around 2:30 UTC, a series of explosions were heard from Baghdad. It has only recently been found that these explosions were a result of the group of special forces such as British SAS, US Delta Force, US Navy SEALs, Australian 4RAR as well as SASR etc. It has recently been proven that these troops headed straight for Baghdad even before the air war had started.

The Shock and Awe technique

In military parlance this term is commonly used to refer to the use of overwhelming force, dominant maneuvers and power displays to cripple the enemy’s power to fight. In order to accomplish victory as soon as possible the US strategy in Iraq involved the simultaneous usage of ground and air attacks to immobilize the Iraqi forces. Thus while the US army was attacking, the US Navy SEALs were also assaulting the forces in Iraq. Many Iraqi military units were bypassed successfully as part of the Navy SEALs operation.

Crippling the center

The idea behind the strategy of attack in Iraq was to immobilize the center of the Iraqi command as soon as possible while also ensuring that civilian deaths and loss of infrastructure were kept to a bare minimum. It was also estimated that once the leadership of Saddam Hussein was weakened it would automatically entail crippling of the Iraqi forces. The US Navy SEALs also hoped that in this context the Iraqi native people would be open to the US instead of Saddam’s terrorist rule.

The closing

During the closing hours of March 20th there were several amphibious attacks, as well as assaults carried out simultaneously by the British 3 Commando Brigade, the Royal Marines as well as US Navy SEALs to secure oil fields in Iraq. However in the course of this Navy SEALs mission close to 44 oil wells were destroyed and exploded by accident or by explosives launched by the Iraqi forces.

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This Article is written by James Kara Murat from USNavySEALstore.com, the contributor of US Navy SEALs Information Portal. A longer version of this article is located at US Navy SEAL operations in Iraq, and related resources can be found at US Navy SEALs Store.