To a political solution, a political agreement to end the war. In this battle, the largest that has ever been fought by the United States army in its history, better than 600,000 better than 600,000 americans were engaged. And you can see, our lines famously bulged but they did not break. However, you have the story of the siege that is going to be depicted here. Most famously, George Patton is going to come up and save the town from the south after they had been surrendered. This was an incident that Many Americans will recognize from where thepatton, Commanding Officer was asked by the germans to surrender and he famously said to them one word, nuts. In this case here, you get a sense of how logistics are so important in war, particularly with things like gasoline up here. We have a german gas tank where you can actually see the sf markings on the side. Germans were running out of gasoline. We, however, are going to also not only have to deal with moving mechanical vehicles, tanks, a
Fighters on the ground suggest that there has been a significant uptick on isis positions in and around that isis controlled city. We were at a distance of some ten miles from the southern gates of mosul. We heard, saw multiple detonations. The sound of fastmoving aircraft was pretty constant. This as kurdish fighters are digging in and holding defensive lines a small distance away from the city. Thats what they call phase 1 of this operation, to contain isis within that city. Phase 2 will be hard. It will be dislodging isis from that city. The kurdish fighters say theyll be ready to take part. The time frame is not yet clear. Some u. S. Officials suggest it could be as soon as april. Ultimately it comes down to when the iraqi army controlled by the government in baghdad is ready to go. Thats no small task. Rebuilding retraining remote vating the army. It is the same force that ultimately abandoned mosul when isis first invaded this region, dana. No small task. That is an understatemen