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EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the last installment
in a five-part analysis that scrutinizes Saddam Hussein's regime,
its opponents, the international context, and the covert and overt
methods that could be used to bring about its downfall. (Part
I. Part
II. Part
III. Part
IV.)
 t this point in
the campaign against Iraq, you have to feel sorry for the Iraqi
small-unit commanders. Stuck on the frontlines, facing a growing
allied conventional buildup, their restive, mainly Shiite troops
showing no signs of preparing for a hard fight, upper echelons sending
occasional encouragement and continual threats — even if they
want to do their duty they are faced with a hopeless task. It is
hard even to conceive of an allied infantryman deserting in this
conflict — but for the Iraqis, desertion and surrender will
be the rule rather than the exception. His troops ready to capitulate
or run, informers everywhere, family held hostage — will this
officer die to protect Saddam Hussein?
If the campaign
has gone as expected the opposition groups will have made significant
organizational gains inside Iraq. Guerrilla activity will be at
a high tempo. The regime will be on a furious hunt for traitors,
sweeping up the loyal as often as the disloyal. Morale in the Iraqi
army will be dragging as they await the inevitable blow. When it
finally comes it will take many forms, a series of strikes from
within and without, similar in some respects to the Afghan campaign
but closer to Desert Storm in others. The "Afghan model"
had more to do with a process, an approach to warfighting, than
with any particular means of attack. It can be applied to Iraq not
by mimicking everything done in Afghanistan but by adapting allied
capabilities to Iraq's unique circumstances. One major difference
between the two cases is the need for a conventional force buildup
on the Iraqi border. The public debate over how to approach the
Iraq campaign has had a tendency to lapse into a false dichotomy;
some advocate pursuing covert ops alá Afghanistan, others
a major invasion as in Desert Storm. (Of course, we used conventional
forces in Afghanistan and covert operations played a tremendous
role in Iraq, but that aside.…) In fact, both are necessary.
The covert operations lay the groundwork for conventional forces,
which in turn augment and support the results of the unconventional
methods.
One important
reason to have a conventional buildup is to compel Saddam to respond
to it. If the allies force the Iraqi regime to counter every military
contingency, it will wind up being unable to defend against any
of them. A large troop presence (say, 200,000) poses an unsolvable
quandary for Saddam: If the allies mass on his borders, he must
oppose them. If he puts army troops on the frontier, they can be
penetrated by the opposition and subverted, convinced to rebel or
surrender, or be surrounded and destroyed. He cannot put the more
trustworthy Republican Guards on the front lines because that does
not fit his security model — he needs them to mount counter-attacks
and to protect the regime from revolts. Plus, he doesn't have enough
of them. Therefore, he will have to rely on his army, which means
he is in trouble.
The air component
of the campaign will largely follow the pattern made familiar by
Operations Desert Storm, Allied Force, and Enduring Freedom. The
target lists compiled during the first phase will be executed on
a priority basis — Iraqi air and anti-air assets, command,
control and communications centers, WMD facilities and storage sites,
internal-security forces and Republican Guard units, arms depots
and fuel dumps, and troop concentrations. Allied flyers will soon
establish their accustomed air supremacy and be able to execute
the target plan without interference. Strategic targeting will be
mixed with ground support missions in aid of opposition forces.
It is possible that leading members of the regime could also be
casualties in this phase of the operation, which would speed things
up considerably, but one can't plan for that kind of luck. Saddam's
planners have studied the recent allied air campaigns as well, and
some defensive measures have already been taken, such as burying
supplies, dispersing high value targets (to schools, mosques and
hospitals, as detailed in part four of this series), and reorganizing
Republican Guard forces into smaller, dispersed, semi-autonomous
units. This may buy Saddam some time, but will also complicate his
ability to mount a defense — too many moving parts, difficult
to coordinate even under normal conditions, much less in the face
of electronic jamming, allied bombs, and attacks by opposition urban
guerrillas.
The allied
conventional forces would seek to establish a liberated zone, probably
centered on Basra, and to seize the oil production and export facilities
in the south, hopefully intact. They would move when sufficient
damage has been done to the Iraqi defenses from the air, when the
unconventional methods reach a crescendo and when the Iraqi internal
security structure starts to buckle. Ground forces would move rapidly
from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, amphibious forces from the Gulf. Allied
means of deception and diversion are well developed, so phantom
assaults could be launched using false communications telemetry
— or would they be real? The enemy would never know until it
was too late to respond. Iraqi command, control and communications
would be completely disrupted, troops paralyzed — even those
that want to defend the regime will not know how or where to go,
where the enemy is, which Iraqi troops are loyal and which in rebellion.
Using advanced surveillance means such as JSTARS
the allies would know more about Iraqi troop dispositions than Saddam's
Security Council. Iraqi units that dispersed for enhanced survivability
would lose contact with each other making coordinated action impossible.
Those formations that do not surrender quickly will become disorganized
and lose whatever combat effectiveness they might have had. This
does not mean there will be no allied casualties or that there would
be no isolated pockets of hardened resistance. But the job will
be easier even than it was in 1991, when a stronger Iraqi army faced
an allied force armed with 1980s technology and less practical experience.
The liberated
area would be declared a safe zone for those tribal leaders, members
of the army, the security apparatus, even the regime, who wish to
join the struggle against Saddam. Anti-Saddam Iraqis would then
mass and move on Baghdad with allied air support. Kurdish troops
could possibly move south at this point, but given their lack of
enthusiasm they will probably wait until much of the heavy lifting
is done first. Mobile allied forces (air assault and fast moving
ground units) would block, harass, and interdict the Republican
Guard and Special Republican Guard as they try to rally. Airmobile
troops would establish strong points at important road and rail
junctions to cut off the capital and prevent reinforcement and resupply.
The scenario usually raised at this juncture is "block by block
streetfighting in Baghdad."
Urban warfare
is grim business — those who have seen Blackhawk Down
have some idea of the dangers, the confusion, and the deadliness
of war in the cities. Urban terrain is one of the few areas (another
being the mountains) in which the Iraqis have something of a tactical
advantage, and the allies might encounter street fights sooner than
Baghdad. Saddam is not betting on his army holding off the allies
in the desert any more effectively than they did in 1991. He has
formed a special urban warfare unit, al Nida (the Call),
50,000 men strong, probably modeled on, if not trained by, Chechen
tank hunter teams. Saddam has devised a plan for a Baghdad Bastion,
perhaps expecting a second Stalingrad. The Iraqi capital has been
divided into defensive sub-sectors, with stockpiles of food, ammunition,
self-contained communications facilities and linked by a system
of tunnels. Outside the city, the Iraqis have dug pits that are
to be filled with napalm and ignited to channel attackers into predetermined
kill zones. But the allies are unlikely to drive recklessly into
Baghdad the way the ill-fated Russian columns did in Grozny in 1995.
More likely the city will be cordoned off and placed under siege.
A combination of bombardment, psyops, and infiltration operations
(especially by opposition groups) will bring about the eventual
collapse of Baghdad from within.
That is, if
this is even necessary. The government may implode as the liberating
force approaches, its leaders captured or killed by any of a variety
of people — opposition infiltrators, allied special forces,
regime turncoats, even mobs in the streets. Saddam and members of
his family may flee, perhaps to his tribal homeland near Tikrit,
but the route north would certainly be blocked by then. He could
try to become an international fugitive, but that isn't really his
style. Saddam is more a Götterdammerung kind of guy
who would fight to the last, which is actually very convenient if
it helps avoid a complex and messy post-war trial.
Then the rebuilding
phase begins. The U.N. should be brought in as soon as possible,
even before the fall of Baghdad, with a large peacekeeping force
and the necessary technicians to begin the reconstruction of Iraq's
infrastructure and its economy. International government agencies
and NGOs could render humanitarian assistance. The U.N. could also
oversee the creation of a new government. Like Afghanistan, the
ethnic divisions in the country might call for some form of federal
system. Also like Afghanistan, those opposition leaders who have
displayed particular heroism and commitment to the cause should
be rewarded with political, diplomatic and financial support. Meanwhile
the allied intelligence agencies would begin to digest the information
bonanza from POW's, captured documents and electronic records —
track down and destroy the remaining WMD sites, piece together the
global web of support for terror organizations, and unlock the secret
financial networks that kept Saddam's regime afloat. The allied
troops could return home to receive the appreciation of a grateful
public for a job well done.
Then the question
is — who's next?
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