http://www.detnews.com/2004/nation/0412/22/A01-40138.htm Analysis
Deadliest attack could signal longer U.S. stay
Increased violence in Iraq may force Bush to boost troop levels or find a quick way out. ( Well, which is it ? - CB)
By Thomas E. Ricks / Washington Post
WASHINGTON - In April 2003, as the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was ending, the Pentagon projected in a formal planning effort that the U.S. military occupation of the country would end this month.
Instead, December 2004 brought the deadliest incident of the war for U.S. forces, with 22 people killed and 66 wounded Tuesday when a 122 mm rocket slammed into a dining tent during lunchtime at a U.S. base near the northern city of Mosul. The dead included 20 Americans - 15 of them service members and five civilian contractors. Forty-two of the wounded were U.S. troops, Capt. Brian Lucas, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said today.
More U.S. troops were lost in the attack than in any other incident, even in the spring 2003 invasion. Before Tuesday, the worst incidents were the deaths of 17 soldiers in the November 2003 collision of two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, also in Mosul, and, two weeks before that, the loss of 15 soldiers when a CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter crashed near Baghdad. All three occurred after President Bush's May 2003 declaration that major combat operations had ended.
The major difference between the latest attack and those earlier is that it was an attack on a U.S. base, rather than on troops in transit in vulnerable aircraft.
That difference appears to reflect the persistence of the insurgency and its growing sophistication, as experts noted that it seemed to be based on precise intelligence. Some officers who have served in Iraq worried that the Mosul attack could mark the beginning of a period of even more intense violence preceding the Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30.
"On the strategic level, we were expecting a horrendous month leading up to the Iraqi elections, and that has begun," retired Army Col. Michael Hess said.
Jeffrey White, a former DIA analyst of Middle Eastern military affairs, said he is especially worried that the insurgents' next move will be a penetration by fighters into a base. "The real danger here is that they will mount a sophisticated effort to penetrate or assault one of our camps or bases with a ground element," he said.
If anti-American violence does hit a new level, pressures will likely increase on the Bush administration to either boost the U.S. military presence in Iraq or find a fast way to get out.
The adequacy of troop numbers is one of the questions provoked by Tuesday's action, said Charles McComas, a veteran Special Forces soldier who served in Afghanistan before retiring.
"Do we have the right forces and enough of them to do the offensive patrolling to reduce the chances of this happening again?" he asked.
President Bush tried to reassure the families of the injured and dead troops Tuesday, saying he hoped their relatives would find solace in the service their loved ones provided to their country.
"We just want them to know that the mission is a vital mission for peace," Bush said after a visit to Walter Reed Army Hospital.
The attack also indicates that the insurgency is growing more sophisticated. One of the basic principles of waging a counterinsurgency is that it requires patience.
"Twenty-one months" - the length of the occupation so far - "is not a long time to tame the tribal warfare expected there," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Rick Raftery, an intelligence specialist who operated in northern Iraq in 1991. "My guess is that this will take 10 years."
The Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility. It said the attack was a "martyrdom operation" targeting a dining hall.
Ansar al-Sunnah is believed to be a fundamentalist group that wants to turn Iraq into an Islamic state like Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. The Sunni group claimed responsibility for beheading 12 Nepalese hostages and other recent attacks in Mosul.
Another principle, less noted but painfully clear Tuesday, is that insurgents also tend to sharpen their tactics as time goes by. Over the past 20 months, enemy fighters have learned a lot about how the U.S. military operates and where its vulnerabilities lie.
"The longer you are anywhere, the more difficult it becomes," said Hess, who served in northern Iraq in 1991 and in Bosnia in 1996. "They have changed their tactics a lot in the year-plus."
Several experts noted that insurgents appear to have acted on accurate intelligence. Kalev Sepp, a former Special Forces counterinsurgency expert who recently returned from Iraq, noted that the attack "was carried out in daylight against the largest facility on the base, at exactly the time when the largest number of soldiers would be present. This combination of evidence indicates a good probability that the attack was well-planned and professionally executed."
A byproduct of such a strike is that it tends to drive a wedge between U.S. personnel and the Iraqis on the base.
"I think that this tells us first, that our base facilities are totally infiltrated by insiders who are passing the word on when and where we are most vulnerable to attack," said retired Marine Col. Edward Badolato.
Not all experts were pessimistic. Retired Army Col. John Antal said he expects more spectacular attacks but mainly because "the enemy is on the ropes and desperate to stop the elections."
But others were throwing up their hands.
"This sure isn't playing out like I thought it would," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Jay Stout, author of a book about the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq, in which he fought. He said he is no longer confident about what the U.S. strategy should be.
"We have few choices: We can maintain the status quo while trying to build an Iraqi government that will survive, we can get the hell out now and leave them to kill themselves, or we can adopt a more brutal and repressive stance."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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