February
14, 2003, 9:40 a.m. Get
It Done
No time for
waiting.
By Jed Babbin
n
two attacks this week, American warplanes struck an Iraqi missile site
near the southern city of Basra. But this was not the commonplace engagement
with another antiaircraft missile battery or targeting radar. This time
our fly-guys took out a surface-to-surface missile battery being positioned
to strike coalition troops gathering in northern Kuwait. Had the missiles
not been destroyed, Saddam might have been able to inflict dozens or even
hundreds of casualties with the chemical or biological weapons the missiles
can carry. While we prepare for war, so does Saddam. And while the French-German-Belgian
Axis of Weasels delays our action, the cost in blood and treasure we will
pay to remove Saddam may be rising. The buildup of coalition forces has
proceeded at a diplomatic pace. It's time to accelerate it, and begin
the campaign the instant our forces are ready.
There is nothing
that the Iraqis can do that will change the ultimate outcome of the conflict.
They will lose, and Saddam will fall, unless one of two things happens.
We could listen to faux-allies such as France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia
— as we did in 1991 — and choose again to not finish the job.
Second, Saddam believes — falsely — that if he can kill enough
Americans, we'll lose heart and quit. At this point, only a Frenchman could
fail to understand that we are going downtown this time. But between now
and when the campaign begins, our forces are probably more vulnerable than
they will be once the action starts. What Saddam tried with the Basra missiles
is only one of 1,000 such attempts he will make. And in the meantime, he
will not lose a day trying to make the task of removing him harder and more
costly in the lives of our soldiers.
The 1991 war taught
Saddam a lot about how America fights. In the first hours of the air war,
most of his ability to command and communicate with his forces was the
first thing he lost. Because his command and control systems were conventional
and aboveground, we were able to listen in on much of the Iraqi communications
before the battle, and our air forces were able to knock them out almost
immediately. Over the past three years, the Chinese have worked hard to
convert Iraq's old systems to new fiberoptic communication systems which
are much harder to locate, listen to, or destroy. He saw how our ground
forces move at considerable speed, so he is planning obstructions to impede
their advance. Because coalition air forces destroyed anything they could
find on the surface, Saddam has dispersed and concealed much, and buried
whatever he could..
The most important
lesson Saddam and our other adversaries learned in1991 is something that
should have been obvious before it: very few nations can even hope to
hold their ground in a symmetrical war with America, and Iraq just ain't
one of them. The Iraqis tried (well, those not surrendering to CNN camera
crews tried) to fight us man-to-man, tank-to-tank, and aircraft-to-aircraft
in 1991, and they lost decisively and quickly. It is only by asymmetric
war — by anonymous terrorism or by using weapons of mass destruction
— do enemies such as Iraq have any hope of preventing America from
achieving its goal.
Air Force General
Chuck Horner, who headed up air operations in Gulf War 1, and other experts
have made this point repeatedly. Saddam will use his chemical and biological
weapons against our forces if he gets the chance. The troops are more
vulnerable now while they are relatively stationary than when they begin
to move rapidly across the Euphrates River toward Baghdad. The longer
we wait to begin our campaign, the longer vulnerability to those weapons
continues. And the more time Saddam has to reposition other such weapons
to use them once the battle begins. He has already mined some or all of
the bridges across the river for destruction as soon as our advance begins.
Our special forces will have the dangerous job of capturing and holding
the bridges for the tanks to cross. If they fail, and the bridges are
blown, Gen. Franks and his tanks may sit on the West Bank of the Euphrates
all summer long.
While we wait for
the U.N. and NATO to demonstrate their irrelevance conclusively, Saddam
will use the time to turn Iraqi civilians into human shields for his weapons
and troops. He is moving military equipment — everything from artillery
and missiles to tanks — to positions next to mosques, schools, and
hospitals. Against their will, Iraqi civilians will be herded close into
these sites. When the shooting begins, and Coalition forces return fire
at the forces hiding behind the civilians, there may be many civilian
casualties. And Saddam — and his sympathizers — will blame America
for the carnage. The longer we wait to begin the action, the more of these
people will be put at risk.
Saddam's Special
Republican Guard — the unit responsible for both using and concealing
weapons of mass destruction — has been ordered to set explosives
in place to set Iraq's oil fields afire. Our ability to stop them from
doing so is much in doubt. If those fires are set, they could burn for
months. In 1991, when Iraqis withdrew from Kuwait, the fires they set
were put out in a few weeks, because there were relatively few, and the
wells were farther apart. In Iraq, long-burning fires could cause environmental
damage far beyond the nation's borders. If the oil fields burn, the post-Saddam
regime will have little or no economic power to jumpstart democracy. Once
again, speeding up preparations and commencement of the campaign is the
best way to prevent this.
The longer we wait
to remove Saddam, the higher the cost will be in blood and treasure. Our
troops will perform with skill and courage, and will prevail. Their creed
has always been, "spend my life if you have to, but don't waste it."
We have to keep faith with them and their creed. To do so, we cannot delay
a moment longer than is necessary for military — not political —
purposes. The president should tell General Franks to speed up his preparations,
and be ready to go not later than March 1. And the moment the general
is ready, the president should order the action begun. Saddam delendus
est.
—
Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush
administration. He is the author of the novel,Legacy
of Valor, and often appears as a war commentator on the Fox News
Channel and MSNBC.
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
n
two attacks this week, American warplanes struck an Iraqi missile site
near the southern city of Basra. But this was not the commonplace engagement
with another antiaircraft missile battery or targeting radar. This time
our fly-guys took out a surface-to-surface missile battery being positioned
to strike coalition troops gathering in northern Kuwait. Had the missiles
not been destroyed, Saddam might have been able to inflict dozens or even
hundreds of casualties with the chemical or biological weapons the missiles
can carry. While we prepare for war, so does Saddam. And while the French-German-Belgian
Axis of Weasels delays our action, the cost in blood and treasure we will
pay to remove Saddam may be rising. The buildup of coalition forces has
proceeded at a diplomatic pace. It's time to accelerate it, and begin
the campaign the instant our forces are ready.
