Gannett News Service February 15, 2003
War would offer new military challenges
Goals are more complex than in 1991 conflict
By Derrick DePledge
WASHINGTON -- The United States is preparing for a war with Iraq that could be much more difficult than the quick and decisive victory of Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
The U.S. military and its allies want to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power and help establish a provisional government -- a far different mission than turning back Iraq's invasion of Kuwait more than a decade ago.
"Clearly, the risks are greater when you're going in to remove someone from power," said Clark Murdock, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former strategic planner for the Air Force. "(The Iraqis) have less to lose, so the risks of using chemical or biological weapons are much higher."
Unlike the Persian Gulf War, where the United States led a multination coalition against Iraq, only Britain and a handful of other countries have committed to participate militarily in a new conflict. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that several other nations would back a U.S. invasion.
The United States has been deploying forces in the Persian Gulf for several months and should reach optimum strength within the next few weeks, although a U.S.-led attack could come at any moment.
Already, the United States probably has more than 106,000 soldiers and about 450 aircraft in the Persian Gulf, according to GlobalSecurity.org. The organization works to discourage the use of military force, especially the threat of nuclear weapons, but also tracks military deployment around the world.
Three battle carriers, the USS Harry S. Truman, the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Constellation, are in the region, along with an amphibious task force and two amphibious groups. A fourth carrier, the USS Kitty Hawk, is on the way. U.S. ground forces include a Patriot missile task force and most of the 3rd Infantry Division, according to GlobalSecurity.org. The Army's 101st Airborne Division also has been deployed, although its exact destination has not been announced. The Defense Department has moved more than 150,000 reserve and National Guard personnel to active duty.
Anthony Cordesman, a senior analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, estimates Iraq's armed forces at 389,000 full-time soldiers -- down from 1 million before the Persian Gulf War. Iraq has as many as 2,600 main battle tanks, 3,700 armored vehicles, 2,400 major artillery weapons, 300 combat aircraft, 850 surface-to-air missile launchers and 3,000 anti-aircraft guns. Iraq's navy has an estimated nine small combat ships and assorted mines and land-based anti-ship missiles.
Cordesman describes Iraq's military as weakened from the Persian Gulf War but still the most effective in the region with at least some chemical and biological weapons. He believes Iraq is building a two-ring defense of Baghdad, its capital, and is possibly training some of its forces to blend with civilians to confuse the United States and Britain in urban warfare.
In Operation Desert Storm, the U.S.-led coalition bombarded Iraqi targets with airstrikes for 38 days, softening Iraq for a ground offensive that lasted only 100 hours before Iraq retreated from Kuwait and negotiated an end to the war. The United States suffered 766 casualties, including 148 battle deaths, some from "friendly fire" and accidents. Iraq had more than 85,000 casualties.
Air attack likely
A new conflict with Iraq, defense analysts predict, likely would involve an intense early air attack against key command and communications facilities to immediately disrupt Iraq's ability to direct its forces. Prime targets also would include surface-to-air missile sites. Hitting those sites would limit Iraq's ability to strike at Israel and provoke an Israeli counterattack that could inflame Arab nations.
Wayne Lee, an assistant professor of history at the University of Louisville who served as an Army combat engineer in the Persian Gulf War, said the air campaign would "shock and awe" the Iraqi command with an overwhelming assault somewhere between the selectivity of precision strikes and the devastation of carpet-bombing.
The United States has improved its ability to conduct precision air strikes since the gulf war, defense analysts said. Cordesman estimates that 7 percent of U.S. airstrikes in the Persian Gulf War used precision munitions, compared with more than 70 percent in the brief war last year in Afghanistan.
The Defense Department has said special operations forces already are on the ground in northern Iraq, and defense analysts believe a substantial ground force would be launched as soon as the air campaign opens.
Allied ground forces likely will attempt to seize Iraqi air bases, isolate Iraqi forces and pressure them to defect, search for potential chemical and biological weapons, and secure valuable oil fields from destruction.
"I think you're going to see the commitment of land forces early in the campaign," Murdock said.
'Mouse hunts'
The main objectives -- contain any weapons of mass destruction and topple Saddam -- are much more complicated and involve much greater risks for allied forces than the narrow mission of liberating Kuwait in 1991. Both Murdock and Lee believe the Iraqi dictator would use chemical and biological weapons this time if he has the opportunity and feels his regime is genuinely threatened.
"It's a fundamentally different operation," Lee said. "It involves two different mouse hunts in a combat zone."
Although defense analysts believe the United States and its allies would win any war with Iraq, the variables, especially the possible use of weapons of mass destruction, mean a war could last anywhere from four weeks to several months. A postwar occupation of Iraq while the country rebuilds and forms a new government could take at least two years.
For Lee, a nightmare scenario would be for Iraq to attack the United States or Israel with chemical or biological weapons, provoking an immense counterstrike that could involve nuclear weapons. Rumsfeld repeatedly has warned Iraqi military commanders of extreme consequences if weapons of mass destruction are released, but faced with an invasion of their country, Iraq may have few incentives not to use every weapon in its arsenal.
"It's not outside the realm of possibility," Lee said. "There is no reason for them not to use them."
Copyright © 2003, Gannett News Service
