Thom Shanker and Stephen Farrell take a look at MSR Tampa in this morning’s NY Times. An “MSR” is a Main Supply Route; a principal roadway utilized by an army to move logistical supplies from a rear supply base forward to or through a combat area. Supply routes have a unique importance and vulnerability.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — As British troops pull out of their last base in Basra, some military commanders and civilian government officials in the area are concerned that the transition could leave them and a major supply route to Baghdad at greater risk of attack.

The route, a lifeline that carries fuel, food, ammunition and equipment for the war, crosses desert territory that is home to rival militias and criminal gangs. In interviews, Americans stationed in the southern provinces and Pentagon planners say they are closely watching the situation there as the British pass security responsibility to local Iraqi units.

After the British Army withdrew from Basra Palace and consolidated all their forces at the Basra Airbase commanders and planning officers at both CENTCOM and MNF-I were forced to once again evaluate the fact that they are at the downstream end of a rather perilous supply line stretching from Kuwait to Baghdad and beyond. This road – named “MSR Tampa” stretches from Kuwait through Southern Iraq at least as far as Baghdad and then continues north for – I’m not sure exactly, because the military is reluctant to tell US civilians too much about touchy subjects like logistic corridors. If we knew about that and wrote about it in a newspaper or blog, you see, then the resistance in Iraq would know. It is well-known that during the two hours per day that they receive electricity all the resistance, including the Shiite Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, the Ba’athst dead enders, the cashiered officers of the old Iraqi Army (and probably quite a few of their sergeants and soldiers who are pissed off about what has happened to their country,) the 1,000 or so Saudi Arabians comprising the real al Qaeda in Iraq, and all the Sunnis who haven’t been hired back into the militias by the US occupation forces all turn on their laptops and eagerly scan papers and blogs, searching to find out where the supply roads are.

These roads supply allied troops with the essentials of modern warfare: not just the classic “bullets, beans and bandages” of WWII. Today’s armies require much more to remain effective. We still need bullets, of course: it’s been estimated we fire off about 250,000 rounds to kill one intended target. Beans have been replaced by MRE’s and their newest replacements, the FSR’s and UGR’s. But we’re also shipping supplies for all the mess halls, KFC’s, Baskin-Robbins, Burger Kings, and Wendy’s, as well as supplies for the BXs where you can still buy overpriced stereos, or order a new car to be waiting for you when you rotate home.

Fuel is a major concern for the American occupation force: we use about 3.3 million gallons per day – enough to fill the tanks of about 150,000 passenger cars. So we can see that’s a large line of tankers. Without the fuel the Occupation would become the Observation. Fuel tankers are easy to attack, and it’s a very impressive sight when one of them catches fire. We’re still shipping bandages of course. We have to. We’re still losing somewhere just under 100 dead Americans per month, and easily 150 wounded troops in that same month.

At the American military headquarters in Baghdad, Lt. Col. James Hutton, spokesman for the Multinational Corps-Iraq, said military statistics showed “a recent drop in both the number and effectiveness of attacks on these convoys.” The most significant threat in the south continues to be roadside explosives, he said.

Colonel Hutton said commanders attributed this decline in attacks to “aggressive patrolling,” and he added that the recent call for a cease-fire by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia is the biggest in Iraq, might “lead to further reductions of violence in the southern provinces.”

The British have handed over security responsibility in three southern provinces: Maysan, Dhi Qar, and Muthanna. They have stated they will actively and aggressively patrol the supply roads in Basra until they officially turn over security in Basra province to the Iraqis, at which time they will still maintain an “overwatch” on the Iraqi security forces.

Some knowledgeable observers are puzzled by the position taken by the American occupation authorities, since GEN Petraeus, in his testimony to Congress last week assured the legislators that things are improving in Iraq.