NYT: Foreseeing a Bloody Siege in Baghdad

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Oct 13 00:53:29 PDT 2002


October 13, 2002

The New York Times

Foreseeing a Bloody Siege in Baghdad

By BARRY R. POSEN

B RUSSELS Advocates of regime change in Iraq have presented an

optimistic view of the coming war. Most assert that the Iraqi military

will not fight. A dazzling attack by smart weapons and computer

viruses will shut down Iraq's military nervous system. Western forces

will dash for key military and political centers, cutting the Iraqi

military up into isolated fragments. Most troops will surrender; a few

diehards will huddle with Saddam Hussein and patiently await their

destruction by a second wave of smart bombs.

The war could indeed go this way, but it may not.

While the Iraqi military is less than half as capable as it was in

1991, when it suffered a devastating defeat, this will be a different

kind of war with different military objectives. These objectives will

give Iraq the opportunity to impose significant costs on the United

States.

In 1991 American forces fought Iraq's army in open desert, using the

tactics and technology they had developed to defeat Soviet tank armies

on the plains of Europe. Today, the United States plans to conquer a

country full of towns and cities and civilians.

Urban combat is Iraq's best option, as many have observed. Combat

within cities minimizes American military advantages and offers the

greatest possibility for the United States to make mistakes to harm

civilians and create the kind of collateral damage that can cause

consternation in the Arab world and here at home.

Iraq's military strategy would not be to defeat American forces but to

inflict pain and buy time for frustration to mount, enabling Mr.

Hussein to make one last bid to save his regime through compromise.

This is the strategy of the weak.

To understand the difficulties of urban combat, one should imagine the

brutal trench fighting of World War I conducted in an endless

multistoried maze. The urban landscape provides the defenders with

layer upon layer of defensive positions, places where they can

retreat, regroup and prepare to fight again. The urban environment

neutralizes the key technical advantage of United States soldiers in

ground warfare the ability to locate and kill the enemy at ranges much

greater than those from which the enemy can locate and kill them.

Past experience suggests that small forces can impose high costs on

even a qualitatively and quantitatively superior attacker in street

fighting.

The last time American forces tried to take a heavily defended city

was in the Vietnam War. Two North Vietnamese divisions took the city

of Hue; a combined South Vietnamese and United States Marine and Army

force of similar size with superior firepower took four weeks and

suffered more than 600 dead and 3,800 wounded to get it back. They

destroyed much of the city in the process.

Recent war games and simulations suggest that large-scale urban

warfare hasn't gotten much easier particularly since America's main

military advantage, technology, isn't as much of an advantage in

cities. The Iraqi military has had considerable experience fighting in

cities, both during the Iran war and in putting down the domestic

uprisings that took place after the Persian Gulf war. Similarly,

Iraq's military engineers know how to reinforce buildings where troops

will lie in wait and to construct other defenses in urban

environments.

Most discussions of urban fighting in Iraq imagine a single

concentrated battle, but given that greater Baghdad stretches for

almost 150 square miles and has a population of more than five

million, American forces will probably face a series of hard fights.

Baghdad would likely be defended with a network of interlocking urban

fortresses, most within greater Baghdad, but some as many as 25 miles

from the center along key avenues of approach. Each Iraqi defensive

bastion would likely possess dozens of artillery pieces.

American forces will not be able to bypass the outer ring of positions

without risking their own lines of supply. Elimination of the outer

ring of defenses may be costly and time consuming, because they would

receive artillery and rocket support from more heavily armed forces

arrayed near Baghdad's center. What's more, these batteries, hidden in

the city, would not be easy for the United States military to knock

out.

Iraqi forces could be in it for the long haul. According to

intelligence reports, Iraq is stockpiling ammunition, fuel and food in

key spots. The Iraqis can mix their six Republican Guard divisions and

four special Republican Guard brigades with their 17 poorly equipped

regular army divisions, thereby coercing troops of doubtful loyalty to

remain in the fight, as the Soviets and the Nazis did in World War II.

Allied air power may not be able to provide as much assistance as we

have come to expect. Iraq's air defense organization has large numbers

of antiaircraft guns and shoulder-fired missiles that, if concentrated

in Baghdad, would make it dangerous for allied aircraft or helicopters

to fly at low altitudes to support ground troops. Reconnaissance

drones, used to great effect in Afghanistan, would have a hard time

surviving.

Iraq is believed to retain some chemical weapons and the means to

deliver them. The Iraqi Air Force can be discounted, but Iraqi

artillery is plentiful and has considerable experience firing chemical

warheads some of which have a range of 18 miles. Iraq would likely

save most of its chemical shells for key moments in the battle. But

small-scale chemical attacks are to be expected in order to force

American troops to take complex and uncomfortable steps to protect

themselves. The very existence of these systems will likely encourage

United States forces to stay beyond artillery range as they try to

surround and isolate Baghdad, making it difficult to maintain a tight

cordon.

Finally, the Iraqi regime will spare no effort to ensure full coverage

of any American mistakes that harm Iraqi civilians. Al Jazeera, the

satellite television network that has given a worldwide voice to so

much Arab resentment of the United States, will be ready to broadcast

from Baghdad. We can expect that the images it shows will not win

America much support.

Iraq cannot prevent an American military victory. But it might be able

to extend the war over weeks or months, imposing significant costs and

putting on a bloody show for the rest of the world. American political

and military leaders ought not to embark on this war of choice, unless

they are ready to pay the price.

Barry R. Posen, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, is a German Marshall Fund fellow.

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