Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Dark night cover pushed advance forward Dark night cover pushed advance forward

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Thursday April 3, 2003
The Guardian

US commanders claimed yesterday that they had always planned to renew their advance towards Baghdad this week, to take advantage of the near total darkness of the new moon.
They insist that the darkness gives their soldiers a tactical advantage because of their superior night-vision goggles.

A series of missions was carried out on Tuesday night to exploit the darkness, ranging from rescuing an American PoW at midnight to various sorties which took the US forces closer to Baghdad.

But at least one analyst was sceptical that the US attack had been planned to take advantage of the new moon, and insisted that the technological gap between the US and Iraqi forces in night-vision equipment was overstated.

Toby Dodge, an Iraq specialist at Coventry University, said: "I think the new moon stuff is overplayed. Both sides can fight with night goggles."
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A US commander in the previous Gulf war, General Thomas Rhame, said the night-vision goggles available to US forces were vastly superior to anything available to the Iraqi forces.

He added that, despite the fear of heavy casualties if US troops were drawn into street-fighting in Baghdad, night vision would be helpful in urban fighting, especially going into darkened rooms.