Iraq Said to Plan Strategy of Delay and Urban Battle

[thedrifter]

Sat Feb 15, 3:00 PM ET <br />
<br />
By MICHAEL R. GORDON The New York Times <br />
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WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 — Iraq's strategy to thwart a United States-led attack calls for slowing American troops' advance toward...

[thedrifter]

American defense officials say that Iraq's defenses consist of fortified fighting positions, including revetments, tanks and other heavy equipment. Iraq is not constructing long defensive lines or trenches as it did during the 1991 war. This appears to be part of Iraq's plan to ride out the American and allied airstrikes.

Having experienced 43 days of bombing during the 1991 gulf war and four days of day and night bombing during the 1998 campaign ordered by the Clinton administration, Iraqi forces have considerable experience with American air power. Because of that, Iraq has dispersed its tanks and other heavy equipment. Some military equipment is also positioned near schools and mosques in an effort to shield them from allied attack.

Iraq's strategy seems to be to absorb the initial round of American airstrikes and then rush its forces to their fighting positions outside Baghdad before allied forces arrive. In terms of air defense, many batteries of antiaircraft artillery have been placed in Baghdad. The Iraqi military is constantly moving its mobile surface-to-air missile systems in an effort to elude American detection and attack.


Fighting in the Streets




A central question, however, is whether Mr. Hussein will pull the Republican Guard divisions inside Baghdad as the Americans and their allies close in. Traditionally, only the Special Republican Guard and Iraq's intelligence and security services are allowed inside the capital, a precaution against coup attempts.

"To fight effectively in the city, he will have to pull important elements of the Republican Guard inside," a defense official said. "But he will be extremely reluctant to do so until the last moment, since they can be as much a threat to him."

Perhaps the main factor is not the number of Iraqi troops nor their specific tactics: it may come down to the Iraqi military's will to fight against a technologically superior and better trained adversary. American intelligence believe that the morale of Iraq's regular army forces is low and on the decline. Even the morale of some Republican Guard units is suffering, officials say.

Much will depend on whether Iraq's generals perceive the American-led force as foreign invaders to be resisted at all cost or as a vastly superior force whose eventual victory will usher in a new day in Iraq.

"We expect some resistance from the Republican Guard," an American defense official said. "From the regular army, we expect very little."




Sempers,

Roger

[yellowwing]

They don't know us very well! When in MCLB Albany we had a work detail moving those giant government metal desks to a warehouse. When we got there I told the 2 privates with me to hang tight a minute. I went to find a forklift operator to lift the gray monsters out of the truck. When I got back those 2 motivated Marines had pulled all the desks out of the truck by hand! They didn't know they were too heavy to lift. Like when the French were running out of Belleau Wood we didn't know the Kaiser had an ustoppable force, so we stopped them! We didn't know it was going to take a million Marines a million years to clear out Tarawa, so we did it with 35,000! We didn't know Saddam had set up uncrossable barricades to Kuwait, so we breached them!