The prospect of a protracted armed struggle heralds the worst scenario for allied troops in Iraq, writes Galal Nassar General William Wallace, director of the allied forces ground operations from the Salila military base in Qatar, announced recently that the stiff resistance Anglo-American forces were encountering in Iraq indicated that the war would most likely be more protracted than expected. He added that his country had also not expected Iraq to use paramilitary forces trained in guerrilla tactics. "The enemy we are fighting is not the enemy we had trained to fight," he remarked. Indeed, the unfolding events combine to create a portrait of growing consternation and confusion in allied ranks. At the time of writing, battles continue to rage on the outskirts of Basra, Nassiriya and Fao, cities over which the Alliance has claimed to have secured control. From the latter, Fao, a ground- ground missile was fired at Kuwait city on Saturday. In addition to mounting incidents of death due to "friendly fire", several missiles have gone astray into Iraq's neighbours: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria. Aggravating Anglo-US anxieties was that incident in which an Iraqi soldier blew himself up, taking with him four American soldiers. Observers have noted that the incident, clearly reminiscent of Palestinian suicide bombers, may inspire Iraqis to a stronger spirit of national resistance. In the midst of this confusion, General Wallace ordered the 101 Airborne Division and the Third Infantry Division, which make up the core of the US's fifth army corps, to halt their advance on Baghdad for an indefinite period. Wallace had been forced to divert some of his forces to safeguard the 500 km- long supply lines needed to sustain the ground forces marching on Baghdad. Clearly, US-British military planners have made some critical miscalculations. They underestimated Iraq's full combat strength and offensive strategy and they grossly misjudged how the Iraqi people would react to an invasion billed as a war of liberation. Events have also demonstrated that Rumsfeld and Tommy Franks were way off course in imagining that their campaign of "shock and awe" -- a sustained aerial and missile bombardment of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities -- would shatter the will of the Iraqi regime and that their psychological tactics would persuade the Iraqi armed forces to put down their guns or even turn their guns against Baghdad. Something has obviously backfired. The Iraqi resolve is firmer than ever, Iraqi soldiers' fingers are more steadfastly on their triggers, the Iraqi people are not raining flowers on the invading forces and that quick victory US officials had imagined is nowhere within reach. Rumsfeld and Franks initially had the siege of Kabul in mind when they thought they could use Iraqi opposition and Kurdish forces to advance on Baghdad, backed by an American force of no more than 60,000. They had obviously wavered on this plan, having mobilised a force of some 250,000, and are now bringing in reinforcements. Of these 250,000, moreover, 90,000 are actively engaged in ground operations in Iraq and of these only two divisions, the US Third Infantry and the British Seventh Regiment, have major fire power. Al-Ahram Weekly sources have indicated that conflicting decisions and poor planning are behind much of the current acrimony between Pentagon officials and politicians in Washington. The sources say that General Franks's original plan had called for four or five heavily equipped armoured and mechanised divisions to proceed directly to Baghdad, with an appropriate air cover. Rumsfeld, however, rejected the plan as too modelled on the allied coalition's plan during the second Gulf War and proposed, instead, a light ground invasion force and a heavier dependence on Special and Airborne Forces and the enormous destructive power of aerial and missile bombardment. Perhaps it will be useful to discuss the "tactical halt" Wallace initiated in more detail before proceeding to the results military operations had over the past week, as this halt was clearly a direct consequence of these operations. The declared objective of US forces until now is to lay siege to Baghdad and to bring down the military and political regime ensconced in the city. A force of 90,000 is not only deemed insufficient to secure the capital, a greater danger lurks in the possibility of these troops being lured into urban warfare and all the prospects that holds of more vicious fighting and enormous casualties. In this interim it is expected that the US fourth armoured division will arrive in Kuwait and from there proceed along the western axis in the tracks of the third division and then cut eastwards towards Baghdad. At the same time the 101st Airborne Division, the only division to be fully airborne, will take off from Florida, land in the airports and runways seized by US and Australian forces in northern Iraq and take up positions to enable a second front of attack from that direction. Allied forces will also take advantage of the current halt to fortify communications lines along the two major axes: a western arch passing through Samawa, Najaf and Karbala, and an eastern approach from Nassiriya through Kut to Baghdad. The forces will avoid a third axis, from Basra to Amara, further to the south and east, due to problems posed by the heavy population density in that part of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, relying only on aerial bombardment to keep that portion of the country isolated and under control. Given the vast distance covered by the two attack axes and the realisation that much larger troops and, therefore, greater quantities of supplies would be needed than were originally envisioned, allied forces seized and reinforced a number of airfields to serve as munitions bases and supply centres for ground forces. Basra airport and Nassiriya airbase have already been secured and attempts are currently in progress to the airfield at Najaf, the H2 and H3 airports western Iraq and the Arbil and Kirkuk airports in the north. The "tactical halt" came as a response to several surprise developments and manoeuvres by both sides over the past few days. Until last Thursday, Iraqi command appeared to have been following a purely defensive strategy based largely on luring the enemy into the cities where defence militias and small detachments trained in urban guerrilla warfare could wreak maximum damage on invading forces. Apparently, however, Iraqi command realised that a purely defensive approach, regardless of its strengths, would inevitably fail. This, in conjunction with the high moral displayed by Iraqi forces in Basra, Umm Qasr, Nassiriya and Najaf, inspired the Iraqi leadership to mount a limited counteroffensive. Thus, taking advantage of the cover provided by sandstorms, small contingents of the Republican Guard armoured divisions emerged from their hideouts to deliver calculated strikes against the invading forces. The payback from these strikes in terms of Iraqi moral would feed into their strategy of prolonging the war as much as possible. Although the Iraqi manoeuvre, until now, has had some impact, it will be impossible to develop such a counteroffensive into a full scale strategy. Above all, given the Alliance's complete control over Iraqi airspace, Iraq cannot risk deploying its forces in the open desert, where, moreover, any confrontation against US-British tanks is doomed from the outset. Not only are the Alliance's tanks more modern and faster, with a range of 5 kilometers they can take out their Iraqi counterparts long before they come into the sights of Iraqi tanks, which have a maximum range of 2 km. By midweek, therefore, Iraqi command changed tack again, withdrew its armoured divisions from the open field and set into motion fedayeen (freedom fighter)-style operations. Thus, small well- trained bands of fedayeen began to mount guerrilla assaults, use their superior knowledge of the lay of the land to ambush foreign soldiers, set mines and snipe at armoured vehicles with relatively light, transportable weaponry. When confronted with this sudden change of tactics, the US brought in support. The first to arrive was the 4th mechanised division, originally destined to move into Iraq from the Turkish border. As US-British forces in Umm Qasr cleared the port of mines in preparation for the arrival of this division, the 101st airborne division soared through Iraqi air space and landed in an airport in southern Iraq. The two divisions, which will bring Alliance forces in Iraq up to 350,000, are expected to be crucial in the battle of Baghdad. Once the heightened forces are amassed in Baghdad, informed sources told the Weekly, the Alliance will most likely declare that it has secured control over 80 per cent of the country, announce the formation of a new, pro-American government in Iraq, and set into motion a fresh psychological campaign to induce Iraqi forces to turn against their regime. It is perhaps against this background that we should perceive the recent Security Council decision to revoke Saddam Hussein's authority over the food-for- oil programme and turn it over UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan. The unprecedented move signals that the central government in Baghdad can no longer control the administrative affairs of the country and indirectly confers a form of Security Council sanction to the US-British aggression. Not surprisingly, Baghdad rejected the resolution, even if it had explicitly stated the reasons for rejecting it. The implications of the food-for-oil decision also help put into perspective some of the direct military engagements Iraq has mounted. An analysis of these confrontations suggest that the regime has targeted areas where it can attempt to force the enemy to retreat and thus establish that it is still in control of the country and a force to be reckoned with. In Basra, an Iraqi tank battalion launched a counteroffensive from the southwest against the British forces surrounding the city. The battalion lost 14 tanks and retreated. A similar counter assault was mounted by an Iraqi armoured brigade in Najaf. It, too, was forced to retreat following a number of undisclosed losses. In mounting these counteroffensives, Iraqi command had clearly failed to comprehend an important aspect of US-British field operations, known as "joint forces combat". Unlike in a conventional confrontation of forces, Iraqi tanks faced, not enemy tanks, but a front line consisting of armoured helicopters specialised in intercepting and destroying advancing tanks. The American Apaches and Cobras were thus able to inflict heavy losses in Iraqi ranks while losses of US and British tanks were minimal. Against this miscalculation on the part of the Iraqis, US-British errors in the conduct of operations appear manifold. Having severely underestimated the number of forces needed for a combat arena the size of Iraq and having failed to predict the many tasks that would be required of these forces, the Alliance suddenly had to send for reinforcements, to divert forces to secure supply lines and detail yet other forces to take control of airports and landing fields necessary for planes bearing incoming supplies and troops. Although difficult to predict, fluctuations in the weather, even after the sandstorms passed, compelled them to rely more heavily than they had planned on fighter planes and bombers to support ground forces. Allied command further discovered that Iraq possessed five transmitting stations, reported to be Russian made, capable of interfering with the satellite signals that direct certain types of smart bombs. Even as US air forces rushed to locate and destroy these transmitting stations, burning oil rigs in the vicinity of Baghdad have conspired to cover Baghdad with a heavy blanket of black smoke, obscuring visibility from the air and further impeding the accuracy of guided missiles. More significantly, the most crucial objective of the allied forces still eludes them. In spite of all the intelligence work, satellite technology, spy planes and Iraqi agents, the US command has still been unable to pinpoint the whereabouts of Iraq's top leaders. Nevertheless, the most crucial factor in the war remains the spirit of Iraqi resistance. The longer this persists the longer the Iraqi regime will be able to prolong the war and the greater its chances of producing a significant reversal that will put paid to the Alliance's plans and usher in a new phase of diplomatic efforts that had been cut off at the first air raid siren. Developments over the past hours have revealed to the Alliance just how serious their situation is. The vulnerability of a supply line that long, alone, is a nightmare, one compounded by the realisation that the control they have established over some Iraqi cities may be shaky. Therefore, over the past week, allied forces began to concentrate their efforts on Baghdad, intensifying aerial and missile bombardment of strategic targets in and around the capital. Simultaneously, they have moved to block Iraqi forces in the north from advancing south to support the forces defending Baghdad. These, consisting primarily of Republican Guards and regular army forces, will bear the brunt of the US-British siege on the Iraqi capital. In light of the foregoing, when fighting resumes in full force following the current lull, the invaders will most likely unleash a ferocious assault on Baghdad, concentrating the full power of their air forces. Aircraft not previously used on this front will be brought into play, notably the Apache and Cobra helicopter gunships, F-16, F-15, F-18 and F- 14 fighter planes, the A-10 used for proximity support and armed with fragmentation bombs, and the F-117 "stealth bomber." Allied forces will also attempt to sever the Iraqi command's communications lines, using microwave bombs for the first time in combat, in the hope of isolating Iraqi forces from one another enabling the allies to attack and destroy them in stages. One can also anticipate that the Alliance will continue its efforts to locate and eliminate the Iraqi leadership, thereby bringing the war to a swifter close. Towards this end, it will deploy what has become known as the Massive Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB) or "Mother of Bombs", neutron bombs and electromagnetic pulse bombs. Needless to say, such weapons of mass destruction make no distinction between military and civilian targets. But, US and British officials have already declared that Iraqi soldiers are disguising themselves as civilians, thereby preparing public opinion for what is certain to be an enormous casualty rate and virtually giving their forces the green light for opening random fire against soldiers and civilians alike. Over the past week of intensive aerial bombardment, during which several counteroffensives failed, Iraqi command has begun to feel that it has lost the initiative. Until then, they had relied on two strategic lines of defence. The first, extending from Basra, through, Amara, Nassiriya, Samawa, Najaf, Karbala, Mosul and Kirkuk, has been held by three armoured, three mechanised and 12 infantry divisions. A second, inner defence centres around Baghdad and is held by six Republican Guard divisions. At the same time, sensitive positions are being supported by Republican Guard and Special Forces elements. Many of these have been dispatched to the vicinities of Basra, Najaf and Karbala, to forestall possible rebellion in these predominantly Shi'a areas. Therefore, when earlier this week US-British forces penetrated Iraq's outer defence line at three points -- Basra, Nassiriya and Samawa -- and then advanced towards Najaf and Karbala, the Iraqi defence system, relying exclusively on ground forces with some air support, partially collapsed. Simultaneously, the situation in the north appeared equally bleak as US Special Forces seized control of strategic locations around Karkuk and Suleimaniya and also succeeded in securing most of the oil wells in the north. The Weekly has learned from informed sources that allied forces have moved to isolate Iraqi forces from the outside. Borders with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have been closed off and it has been suggested that a Syrian bus accident has been used as a pretext to seal off that border. In addition, US Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has cautioned both Iran and Syria against offering any logistic or military support to Iraq, although he was unable to corroborate his allegation that these countries had attempted to do so with any substantial evidence. Certainly, his charge that Syria furnished Iraq with night-vision devices does not hold water in light of the Syrian army's shortage of such equipment. More significantly, Washington and Tehran had reached an implicit agreement before operations began that Iran would neither receive Iraqi refugees nor offer any assistance to Iraq. In all events, US forces in the area are keeping a sharp eye on Iran while those in the north have cut off any possible routes for supplies from that direction. Experts believe that when military operations resume full force, allied forces will have adjusted their strategic objectives in light of new premises now that it has become apparent that the "shock and awe" blitz of Baghdad had fallen short of expectations and that the commitment of the Iraqi armed forces and the Iraqi people remains strong. Thus, instead of continuing the thrust towards Baghdad, experts foresee that the US army and marines will focus their energies on eliminating the Republican Guard divisions stationed south of Baghdad, and then turn their attention to the heavily armed Madina and Baghdad divisions, both part of the Republican Guards. However, before undertaking this formidable task US forces will require an additional armoured division in order to protect their back while entering the capital. Intelligence reports indicate that last week elements of the Madina division, taking advantage of the cover offered by the sandstorm, attempt to make their way to the Karbala Gorge, located between the Razaza Reservoir and the Euphrates. White House and Pentagon officials were delighted at the report, for now picking off Iraqi armoured vehicles would be "as easy as fishing in a barrel", as one US official put it. Other US officials were not as optimistic. This armoured column had managed to relocate from one combat position to another and from one cover to another, which was indicative of the Iraqis' superior familiarity with their own territory and of the likelihood that they had trained continuously at manoeuvres in various types of topography. The confrontations and skirmishes between the US Third Infantry and Iraq's Madina division over the next few days will be a further test of the Iraqi resolve. Should this prove strong, the US Third Infantry will have to fortify its positions and wait for the arrival of the Fourth Infantry division to back it up. Inside Baghdad, the Iraqi leadership believes it can lure Anglo-US forces into the city where urban guerrilla warfare would neutralise much of the alliance's technological superiority. The leadership takes particular heart in the lesson of military history. The battle of Stalingrad in 1942 lasted 30 days and claimed a million and a half lives. At the end of World War II the Soviets succeeded in occupying Berlin, but at the cost of 10,000 of their own forces, in spite of the fact that most Germans by this time were opposed to Hitler whose defeat was imminent. In the Korean war in the 1950s US forces sustained 3,000 dead in the urban battle in Seoul, and over the following decade, tens of thousands of US soldiers lost their lives as the result of sustained Northern Vietnamese resistance until ultimately Washington had to throw in the towel. US and British forces on the outskirts of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities are equally aware of this history and are anxious not to get sucked into a repeat of the nightmares.
