Coalition forces to isolate Baghdad?

Now here is an interesting strategy:

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated the coming days might bring neither an all-out fight for the city, as many have predicted, nor a conventional siege of the capital.

“When you get to the point where Baghdad is basically isolated, then what is the situation you have in the country?” he said at a Pentagon news conference. “You have a country that Baghdad no longer controls, that whatever’s happening inside Baghdad is almost irrelevant compared to what’s going on in the rest of the country.”

Over time, Saddam Hussein and his inner circle would lose completely their ability to communicate with Iraq’s military forces, which already are in a state of disarray, and to control water and electricity, Myers said.

So by encircling Baghdad and effectively displacing the Ba’athist regime, the new Iraqi government can effectively take over and rebuild Iraq while Saddam rots away in the capital. I wouldn’t be surprised if the strategy for taking Baghdad wouldn’t be remarkably similar to the British strategy in Basrah of small incursions designed to destablize Ba’athist defenders over a period of time, all the while tightening the noose.

Of course, what happens to the civilians in Baghdad? The strategy certainly pre-empts any attempt by Saddam to dress his soldiers in US-UK uniforms to kill civilians by deliniating a clear line between where Coalition and Iraqi forces. Any real casualties could only be blamed on the Ba’athists, either actively by killing resistance forces or passively by prolonging the siege. Either way, it sure does put some pressure on those close to Saddam to show their cards. If Saddam is alive, then Baghdad could hold out. If not or if Saddam is incapacitated to some degree, then why continue the resistance?