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thedrifter
04-07-03, 05:05 PM
Target: Saddam


After reaching Baghdad, American forces face a very different kind of challenge: finishing the job

By Johanna McGeary

Posted Sunday, April 6, 2003; 1:32 p.m. EST
The world saw two realities in Baghdad last week. Saddam Hussein televised his on Friday, as Iraqi TV showed him rising from the underground to take a walkabout in two Baghdad neighborhoods. He seemed awkward but animated, surrounded by adoring citizens, even kissing a baby. As with every Saddam sighting, this one—plus a videotaped speech broadcast earlier that day in which he urged citizens to rise up against the Americans—triggered endless speculation about body doubles and other cinematic tricks. But intelligence analysts in the U.S. and elsewhere mostly concurred that this was truly Saddam. For supporters at home and abroad, his steely words and smiling visage seemed an attempt, however desperate, to convey this message: All is well. We will prevail.

A day later, the Americans decided to communicate a message of their own. Shortly after sunrise, more than 50 U.S. Army vehicles, led by M-1 tanks and Bradleys, suddenly powered into the center of Baghdad. Cruising at 25 m.p.h., the patrol shredded the enemy—killing perhaps more than 1,000 Iraqis—who dared take it on. Timid Iraqis waved cautiously from side streets, only to watch the invading forces rumble back out of the city. This was a mission not to take territory or wipe out an army but to make a point: Our tanks can penetrate your defenses at will, in broad daylight. "We drove through downtown Baghdad today," says a senior U.S. military official, "to show that we could."

Winning control of Baghdad may well turn out to be the bloodiest part of Gulf War II. But as the end game starts playing out, the fiercest fighting is being waged over some of the subtler aspects of war: symbols, perceptions, world opinion.

For the U.S., last week's race toward Baghdad silenced criticism that the military effort was bogging down. The 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force moved the big guns north, knocking off with relative ease what resistance they encountered. The body counts along the way were dramatically lopsided. In a battle for a bridge across the Euphrates, Lieut. Colonel Rock Marcone of the 3rd Battalion 69th Armor Regiment said his men had killed 800 of the Republican Guard Medina Division; not a single American died. The U.S. notched tangible victories—roads secured, armies routed. But no less important were the symbolic gains. U.S. warplanes attacked the home of Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam's cousin and a member of his inner circle, widely known as Chemical Ali because of allegations that he ordered the gassing that killed some 5,000 Kurds in 1988. No battle was complete, it seemed, until American forces had torn down a Saddam poster or toppled a statue of his likeness. When Saddam International Airport, an emblem of the regime's ambitions 10 miles from the capital, fell to the 3rd Infantry's front line, the Americans promptly renamed it Baghdad International Airport. As the Americans rushed toward Baghdad, the Iraqi dictator was already being squeezed, his circle of supporters shrinking.

Iraqi officials continued to present an alternative reality. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf denied that the Americans had taken the airport, calling images to the contrary a "Hollywood trick." Earlier he asserted that the Americans "are nowhere" or "not near Baghdad"—claims that surely rang hollow even to loyalists. Just witness the flood of Iraqis crammed into buses, cars, taxis and trucks fleeing the capital.

It seems safe to say that Iraq's armed forces are overmatched, at least in conventional terms. But Saddam's last stand, if that's what we're seeing, could be messy. As U.S. forces began to encircle the capital, President Bush declared that Washington would accept "nothing less than complete and total victory." The U.S. would be thrilled if its resolve, coupled with the buildup outside Baghdad, triggers the hoped-for tipping point, at which Iraqis realize that Saddam is finished and abandon the fight, sparing the city a bloody denouement. But his continued shows of defiance—indeed, his very survival after repeated attempts to bomb him, his homes and his headquarters—suggest fierce battles may lie ahead. As Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary, told TIME late last week, "We're making progress, but there's still a lot of dangerous stuff ahead of us." Countering the palpable surge in optimism welling up in the Pentagon, he added, "Mood swings are dangerous." Here's a look at how the end game might play out:

WHAT'S THE BAGHDAD PLAN?
Few outside the top military command had expected U.S. forces to breach Baghdad's perimeter quite as fast as they did. But war chief General Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, reportedly told planners that "speed kills the enemy," and he used speed last week to dramatic effect. Conquering Baghdad, however, presents an immensely complex challenge wholly different from the war's tests so far. Haste is not necessarily an asset for U.S. forces in subduing a city. Instead, "patience," said Air Force General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "is one element of the current plan." Nor is a grand assault in the cards for now. Said Army Major General Stanley McChrystal, a top Pentagon operations officer: "We are not expecting to drive into Baghdad suddenly and seize it in a coup de main." Although the Pentagon's battle plan is constantly evolving, the latest idea is for troops to take their time, seizing opportunities but not risking much to create them.

The change in strategy reflects not just a new type but a new scale of challenge. Already allied forces have destroyed most of Iraq's 2,500 tanks, according to U.S. officials. The Pentagon says two of Iraq's Republican Guard divisions have been "destroyed" and the remaining four "significantly degraded." The 3rd Infantry Division alone took as many as 2,500 Republican Guard prisoners. But officials note that it is possible that many of the surviving troops have fallen back into Baghdad's sheltering streets. "They're hightailing it into Baghdad," says a senior U.S. military official. Those inclined to keep struggling could join up with the two units that Saddam has counted on to defend the city, the 15,000-strong Special Republican Guard, the best equipped of Iraq's military forces, and the 5,000-member Special Security Organization, considered the most loyal of Saddam's fighters.

Some Pentagon officials argue that the retreat of the regular Republican Guard could be a plus. As demoralized troops find themselves fighting for their lives in the capital, conditions could ripen for a coup. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld all but called for one, saying Iraqi forces "must now decide whether they want to share the fate of Saddam Hussein or whether they will turn on that condemned dictator and help the forces of Iraq's liberation." But Pentagon officials concede that the surprising resistance shown by the most loyal of Iraq's forces means that Washington cannot count on an uprising. Nor does the easy run to Baghdad predict how hard Saddam's men may fight inside the capital. Administration officials still hope Saddam's government will implode under the tightening pressure. But as U.S. forces encircled the city, Rumsfeld cautioned that the regime "may prove to be more lethal in the final moments."
Saddam has aimed all along to draw coalition forces deep into Baghdad's back streets and cinder-block neighborhoods, where his forces could neutralize American technological superiority with guerrilla tactics that put civilians in the middle. He saw how faithful defenders hidden in Iraq's southern cities scored surprising success holding out. The U.S. desperately wants to sidestep that kind of bloody door-to-door fighting, which could drag out the war and rack up unacceptable body counts among American troops and innocent Iraqis.

Rather than fight on Saddam's terms, Pentagon officials say, they intend to squeeze the city gradually until his power is choked off. If the regime should appear to be crumbling, U.S. forces would probably move into the capital in force. Otherwise, the plan calls for them to continue encircling Baghdad. At week's end, only 25,000 or so U.S. troops were in the vicinity of the capital, but that number will steadily rise. The U.S. plans to communicate to Baghdad residents through leaflets and radio and TV broadcasts that Saddam's rule is all but finished. Civilians would be allowed to leave the city, but officials say they would not encourage an exodus, for fear of the chaos and displacement that would create. "We want them to stay at home; we want them to help us," a Pentagon official says.

continued............

thedrifter
04-07-03, 05:06 PM
The U.S. plans to send quick-reaction forces from both land and air into the city to deliver rapid-fire punches at new targets as they are identified by fresh intelligence. Already A-10s and other...

Sparrowhawk
04-07-03, 06:45 PM
I thought we did that American Stylehttp://www.leatherneck.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=28951

firstsgtmike
04-07-03, 07:23 PM
A scene I'd like to see is Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf giving one of his televised "there are no Americans in Bagdad" press briefings being interrupted by a squad of Marines entering the studio.

"Don't worry folks, we won't hurt him. We're here to take him on a guided tour of Bagdad. We'll have him back in a hour so he can continue his briefing."