Canadian Broadcasting Corporation THE NATIONAL ( 10:00 PM ET ) December 11, 2002
Discussion about war on Iraq
PETER MANSBRIDGE: Well we want to take a closer look now at a couple of the issues that Alison raised. Joining us from Toronto, Janice Stein with the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto and in New York, John Pike. He's a military analyst and director of GlobalSecurity.org. It's a Washington based research group that provided many of the facts and figures in the report you just saw. John Pike, I'd like to start with you and it's on this theory that if it comes to war, if the Americans move fast, they could create a situation where a coup d'etat could happen. How likely is that?
JOHN PIKE (GlobalSecurity.org): Well I think that that's certainly what the American strategy is going to be to try to basically provoke the Iraqi regime into collapsing the way the regime of Manuel Noriega collapsed in Panama under American attack in 1989. the way the government in Grenada attacked when the Reagan, collapsed when the Reagan administration attacked it in the early 80's and the way Nicolai Ceaucescu's regime collapsed in Romania when it was evident that the Cold War was over. Whether that's what is actually going to happen, whether that strategy will actually succeed is obviously what the concern is about. I think the general belief is that it will probably collapse under sufficiently intense military attack but there's that residual five or ten percent risk that they don't collapse when the U.S. army gets to Baghdad and you wind up having to get across Baghdad one apartment block at a time and that could be very unpleasant.
MANSBRIDGE: Janice, what's your thinking on this? I mean this seems to have been a 12 year thought by various governments in the United States that at some point, the Saddam Hussein regime would collapse. What about now?
JANICE STEIN (University of Toronto): You know, Peter, we had one fast glimpse when Saddam Hussein gave some prisoners amnesty on his birthday and the usual minders weren't there and you saw large crowds turn in a moment and give vent to anti-Saddam expression. And it's that kind of sign that is leading people in Washington to say this regime will implode but there are crack republican elite guard units commanded actually by Saddam Hussein's son. I think this scenario will be easy, this defection is a bit of wishful thinking here by the military because it avoids this tough, tough issue of hand to hand fighting in Baghdad. I think it's going to take longer than they suspect and there's going to be more resistance. It'll take some leadership by some colonels who say this game is over. We're better to defect.
MANSBRIDGE: John Pike, your thoughts on the question of hand to hand combat and how ready American forces may be for that. Obviously if there is not a regime collapse and the American troops are in Baghdad, one would assume that's what it's going to come to.
PIKE: Well the battle of Baghdad, of course, is one of the nightmare scenarios confronting American political and military leaders. Everybody has seen the movie Black Hawk Down, everybody movies about Stalingrad, Baghdad is a really big city. I mean it's 5,000,000 people. It's ten times bigger than Grozny and Chechnya. It's five times bigger than Stalingrad or Leningrad and you really have not seen Iraqi troops redeploying. It really looks like the Iraqi strategy is to draw the American troops and to street fighting in Baghdad. And that's basically the great equalizer. So many of the American technological advantages give the U.S. decisive advantage when you're at an open combat but when you get block to block, that's basically rifle squad against rifle squad. You put even 10,000 or 20,000 special republican guards, Saddam security group in Baghdad, that can be a very unpleasant, very protracted scenario.
MANSBRIDGE: Well unpleasant for sure because if it is hand to hand street fighting, we're not just talking about soldiers getting killed here, there obviously will be civilian casualties as well.
PIKE: And that's the whole idea. I mean if Saddam has a theory of victory on how he can get out of this, it is somehow or another to provoke massive civilian casualties among his own population. And whether that's massive civilian casualties with American artillery fire on Baghdad or whether it's launching a germ attack on Israel that provokes the Israelis into a nuclear retaliation on Baghdad. His only way out of this is to inflict such damage on his own people that the Arab people rise up that Europe, that world opinion demands an end to the war while he's still in power. And that could be very, very unpleasant for all concerned.
MANSBRIDGE: Janice, do you see that as a real possibility?
STEIN: It certainly a possibility, Peter. I think there's no question that there is a nightmare scenario of any kind of house to house fighting in Baghdad. We now know Peter that at the last Gulf war, long before the ceasefire, the U.S. military made a decision that they would not under any circumstances go into Baghdad, precisely because of these kinds of fears. Also have some evidence that the revolutionary command committee which is Saddam's military command is making plans to deploy republic guard forces throughout the city, essentially using the population as a shield and as a cover and if that's the case, there could be huge civilian casualties as well as significant military casualties. This is a large, large area, as John just said. This could be a real nightmare.
MANSBRIDGE: I've just got about 30 seconds left. It's mid-December now. John Pike, how do you see the time table unfolding on this now?
PIKE: Well I think we're probably looking and waiting for the UN inspection report at the end of January, rampant military buildup in late January, early February, American troops in Baghdad before the end of February. How long it's going to take beyond that is obviously what the concern is about.
MANSBRIDGE: Do you think we're past the point of any return on this now?
PIKE: I think this administration came into office having already decided to launch military action against Iraq and inclined to do that against other countries like North Korea or Iran as well. They're just looking for the opportunity to launch those attacks.
MANSBRIDGE: All right. We're going to leave it at that. John Pike in New York tonight and Janice Stein here in Toronto, we thank you both very much.
PIKE: Thank you.
MANSBRIDGE: Please stay with us. When we come back, we'll have this.
REX MURPHY: As sure as there is the patter of reindeer hooves on the rooftop, there will be some dry and forced controversy on whether Merry Christmas is offensive.
MANSBRIDGE: Rex Murphy's not so merry point of view.
© Copyright 2002 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
