thedrifter
02-08-03, 09:59 AM
ABCNews.com
February 7, 2003
During the Gulf War, the Iraqi military buckled so quickly that some of its soldiers seemed almost eager to surrender. Televised images of Iraqi soldiers incinerated in their vehicles helped convince President Bush to end the ground war after only four days because of his concerns the world would consider continued pummeling of retreating Iraqi forces as a virtual slaughter.
Since then, years of sanctions and continued allied attacks in the no-fly zones have left the Iraqi military in even worse shape. So should American and British forces, now preparing for another war, expect a cakewalk against a badly degraded Iraqi army? The consensus from American military planners and analysts: absolutely not.
The reason, explains ABCNEWS military analyst Anthony Cordesman, is that Saddam Hussein -- and his ruling elite -- will be fighting not for Kuwait, as was the case during the Gulf War, but for their own very survival.
"They could afford to give up Kuwait," Cordesman says. "Here we are talking about a dictator with 30 years of entrenched power."
President Bush, son of the Gulf War commander in chief, declared Thursday that Saddam has already given his field commanders orders to deploy chemical weapons in the event of war.
Retired U.S. Army Gen. George Joulwan, NATO's former supreme allied commander, says Iraqi forces demonstrated their ability deploying chemical weapons against Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war. "We will make a grave mistake," Joulwan warns, "if we did not anticipate the use of weapons of mass destruction, particularly chemical weapons, in this fight."
Biochemical Warfare, Suicide Attackers?
In his presentation Wednesday before the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell showed videotape of an Iraqi jet equipped with a chemical spray tank and revealed the Iraqis have tested unmanned aerial vehicles with a range of more than 300 miles. If such drones are capable of spraying coalition forces, suggests Cordesman, "it can easily be 100 times more lethal than, say, the warhead on a Scud missile."
U.S. troops have been trained and equipped for chemical warfare, but their protective suits are hot and clumsy, to say the least. Any chemical attack is intended largely to panic -- and stall -- advancing forces. But biological agents are another possible threat. American troops are already being inoculated against anthrax and smallpox.
In their vows to defend their homeland, top Iraqi officials have also threatened to send out suicide brigades and trap allied forces in urban combat. In an interview published Feb. 1 by the German news magazine Der Spiegel , Iraqi Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan threatened, "We will use thousands of suicide attackers, the martyrs. These are our new weapons, and they will be used not only in Iraq."
Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, warned his military would fight American forces city to city: "They have to fight us here on the streets of Baghdad, on the streets of Mosul, and on the streets of each and every Iraqi city and town."
In Kuwait, just a few miles from the Iraqi border, American soldiers and Marines are already training for that very possibility. In the event of protracted urban warfare, it is the U.S. Marines who are expected to carry the heaviest load, and nearly 50,000 are expected in the region over the next few weeks. On a recent visit to Kuwait, Gen. Michael Hagee, the U.S. Marine Corps commandant, told APTV, "We spend a lot of time training in built-up areas. We are, as I told the Marines out there, a quantum leap ahead of where we were 10 years ago."
No Answers on the Intangibles
Pentagon planners are also considering other unconventional threats posed by Iraq, including a threat to blow up oil rigs, as the Iraqis did in Kuwait during the Gulf war. Military analysts suggest Iraq could also contaminate the oil fields with biological agents such as anthrax or render the oil rigs useless by flooding them with saltwater.
Another unconventional concern is posed by Iraqi dams on major waterways and reservoirs. Such dams could be destroyed to flood territory and impede advancing allied troops.
All these concerns, taken together, explain why the American military is planning an overwhelming, sustained, high-tempo air and ground attack.
"It's designed to really give a signal, right off the bat, that this is going to be lethal, it's going to be devastating, and that the intent here is to destroy the will to fight of the Iraqi army," says Joulwan.
But analyst Cordesman worries about the intangibles of war. "Who will be loyal to the regime and how long? How hard will they fight? Will they take casualties? Can they really organize effective urban warfare? Will they use weapons of mass destruction and, if so, against whom and how well? These aren't minor questions and the only way to find out the answers, unfortunately, is to fight the war."
Without clear answers to such questions, of course, the most dangerous course for Pentagon planners would be to underestimate the enemy. The best way to think of war with Iraq, according to a recent strategic study, is to consider it like fighting a "wounded, but dangerous and poisonous snake."
Sempers,
Roger
February 7, 2003
During the Gulf War, the Iraqi military buckled so quickly that some of its soldiers seemed almost eager to surrender. Televised images of Iraqi soldiers incinerated in their vehicles helped convince President Bush to end the ground war after only four days because of his concerns the world would consider continued pummeling of retreating Iraqi forces as a virtual slaughter.
Since then, years of sanctions and continued allied attacks in the no-fly zones have left the Iraqi military in even worse shape. So should American and British forces, now preparing for another war, expect a cakewalk against a badly degraded Iraqi army? The consensus from American military planners and analysts: absolutely not.
The reason, explains ABCNEWS military analyst Anthony Cordesman, is that Saddam Hussein -- and his ruling elite -- will be fighting not for Kuwait, as was the case during the Gulf War, but for their own very survival.
"They could afford to give up Kuwait," Cordesman says. "Here we are talking about a dictator with 30 years of entrenched power."
President Bush, son of the Gulf War commander in chief, declared Thursday that Saddam has already given his field commanders orders to deploy chemical weapons in the event of war.
Retired U.S. Army Gen. George Joulwan, NATO's former supreme allied commander, says Iraqi forces demonstrated their ability deploying chemical weapons against Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war. "We will make a grave mistake," Joulwan warns, "if we did not anticipate the use of weapons of mass destruction, particularly chemical weapons, in this fight."
Biochemical Warfare, Suicide Attackers?
In his presentation Wednesday before the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell showed videotape of an Iraqi jet equipped with a chemical spray tank and revealed the Iraqis have tested unmanned aerial vehicles with a range of more than 300 miles. If such drones are capable of spraying coalition forces, suggests Cordesman, "it can easily be 100 times more lethal than, say, the warhead on a Scud missile."
U.S. troops have been trained and equipped for chemical warfare, but their protective suits are hot and clumsy, to say the least. Any chemical attack is intended largely to panic -- and stall -- advancing forces. But biological agents are another possible threat. American troops are already being inoculated against anthrax and smallpox.
In their vows to defend their homeland, top Iraqi officials have also threatened to send out suicide brigades and trap allied forces in urban combat. In an interview published Feb. 1 by the German news magazine Der Spiegel , Iraqi Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan threatened, "We will use thousands of suicide attackers, the martyrs. These are our new weapons, and they will be used not only in Iraq."
Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, warned his military would fight American forces city to city: "They have to fight us here on the streets of Baghdad, on the streets of Mosul, and on the streets of each and every Iraqi city and town."
In Kuwait, just a few miles from the Iraqi border, American soldiers and Marines are already training for that very possibility. In the event of protracted urban warfare, it is the U.S. Marines who are expected to carry the heaviest load, and nearly 50,000 are expected in the region over the next few weeks. On a recent visit to Kuwait, Gen. Michael Hagee, the U.S. Marine Corps commandant, told APTV, "We spend a lot of time training in built-up areas. We are, as I told the Marines out there, a quantum leap ahead of where we were 10 years ago."
No Answers on the Intangibles
Pentagon planners are also considering other unconventional threats posed by Iraq, including a threat to blow up oil rigs, as the Iraqis did in Kuwait during the Gulf war. Military analysts suggest Iraq could also contaminate the oil fields with biological agents such as anthrax or render the oil rigs useless by flooding them with saltwater.
Another unconventional concern is posed by Iraqi dams on major waterways and reservoirs. Such dams could be destroyed to flood territory and impede advancing allied troops.
All these concerns, taken together, explain why the American military is planning an overwhelming, sustained, high-tempo air and ground attack.
"It's designed to really give a signal, right off the bat, that this is going to be lethal, it's going to be devastating, and that the intent here is to destroy the will to fight of the Iraqi army," says Joulwan.
But analyst Cordesman worries about the intangibles of war. "Who will be loyal to the regime and how long? How hard will they fight? Will they take casualties? Can they really organize effective urban warfare? Will they use weapons of mass destruction and, if so, against whom and how well? These aren't minor questions and the only way to find out the answers, unfortunately, is to fight the war."
Without clear answers to such questions, of course, the most dangerous course for Pentagon planners would be to underestimate the enemy. The best way to think of war with Iraq, according to a recent strategic study, is to consider it like fighting a "wounded, but dangerous and poisonous snake."
Sempers,
Roger