Boston Globe November 16, 2002
Summer heat may play role in timing war on Iraq
By Robert Schlesinger
WASHINGTON - Army Sergeant First Class Kerrethel Avery fainted this week under the heat of the bright lamps in the Pentagon's briefing room while decked out in full chemical-biological protective gear to demonstrate the military's equipment for surviving such attacks.
The incident highlighted a central issue facing military planners and the Bush administration: To what extent can US forces wearing full protective garb operate in Iraq when winter gives way to spring and summer and the temperatures rise?
Conventional wisdom has defined a window of opportunity encompassing Iraq's ''winter,'' the November-to-March period when the average daily temperatures in Baghdad range from 47 to 74 degrees. After that the heat inexorably rises, to an average high of 100 to 110 degrees from June through September.
The heavy, insulated, and sealed chemical suits retain body heat, compounding the hardships of operating in extreme temperatures. Even in ideal weather, wearing the gear cuts down on the military's speed of movement and communication.
If the United Nations inspections process moves slowly and the weather window closes, the thinking goes, it would make US operations against Iraq virtually impossible for several months.
The reality is only slightly less daunting, according to military specialists. While the armed forces train to operate under virtually any conditions, the military's overwhelming preference would be to avoid the Middle East summer. The brutal heat would dictate changes in strategy that put greater emphasis on air power over ground power, minimizing exposure to chemical or biological weapons and thus reducing the need to wear the protective gear.
''If things are not done by some time in March, your commanders are basically going to have to take a calculated risk that either some fraction of your soldiers are either going to flop over because it's too hot or some fraction of your soldiers are going to flop over because of poison gas,'' said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank.
But even in the summer, military specialists say, US forces would retain their edge over Iraqi troops with their ability to counter any attempt to use chemical or biological weapons.
''What is convenient is not in any sense an absolute limit on our capabilities,'' said Anthony Cordesman, a military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ''A lot of the statements that you can only fight `x' months a year - frankly they're militarily ridiculous.''
While the exact nature of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons is unknown, the mix has historically included anthrax, the highly toxic nerve agent VX, mustard gas, and aflatoxin, a carcinogen.
The US military's protective garments have improved over the 11 years since the Gulf War: They last longer because of improved linings and weigh far less.
''The problem is not the physical weight of the suit,'' Pike said. ''If they're impervious enough to keep nerve gas out, they're impervious enough to keep your sweat in.''
But according to the military's Joint Doctrine for Operations in Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Environments, the impacts of using the equipment could include ''increased movement times for tactical operations and logistics, degraded communications ... reduced sensory awareness and work rates as well as increased fatigue and water requirements ... [and] incidents of fratricide could increase,'' referring to losses of US troops through friendly fire or communication breakdowns.
Troops face those problems under normal conditions, but the Iraqi summer, with temperatures well into the triple-digits, would not qualify as normal.
''Can US forces operate in that? Yes. Would the bad guys have the same degree of difficulty? Yes,'' said one recently retired military officer.
''But in the worst parts of the summer,'' he continued, ''in those climates in those parts of the world, the problems associated with operating in extreme heat are dramatic. It isn't exclusive, but it does make it extremely difficult.''
Military strategists would probably calibrate their plans to accommodate the conditions, military analysts said.
''The options in the forces involved will change somewhat in the heat,'' said a retired rear admiral, Stephen Baker of the Center for Defense Information. He said US commanders would want to deploy fewer ground troops in the summer because of the risks posed by the heat, and pursue other military tactics.
Regardless of the weather, the US military would rapidly gain air superiority, severely curtailing the Iraqis' ability to deliver chemical and biological weapons, military analysts said. While Iraq is known to have loaded biological and chemical weapons onto Scud missiles, these projectiles are poor and inexact delivery systems. The Iraqis have also developed piloted and pilotless airplanes capable of spraying chemical and biological substances over much larger areas, but they would stand little chance against allied planes, they said.
''The majority of ground forces aren't going to get touched. Most people in most places are not going to have to don a suit,'' said Dan Goure, a military specialist with the Lexington Institute. ''You're not going to be able to spray or dump enough over a sizable enough area to really be anything more than a localized threat.''
The Iraqi military also has loaded these weapons into artillery shells, but artillery would make inviting targets, and their ability to find objectives at long range is severely restricted.
''Iraq is a country which will have no major reconnaissance assets,'' Cordesman said. ''Targeting against a highly maneuverable force like the West, particularly one that has a total monopoly on air power ... makes conducting chemical and biological operations outside urban areas very difficult.''
Use of chemical and biological weapons in an urban setting remains the worst-case scenario, not only because of the mix of civilian and military personnel, but because of the cramped conditions. US doctrine calls for avoiding urban combat if at all possible.
If President Saddam Hussein of Iraq manages to prolong the inspections until the summer, the US military might choose to delay any attack until autumn, military specialists said. In addition to the heat, the summer brings dust storms.
''Under most scenarios,'' there would not be so much urgency that allied forces would fight in a way that would double the risk of casualties, said Michael O'Hanlon, a national security specialist at the Brookings Institution.
Robert Schlesinger can be reached at schlesinger@globe.com
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 11/16/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
