Newhouse News Service March 29, 2003
So Far, a Mixed Bag of Setbacks and Successes
By John Hassell;
John Hassell is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
The Iraqi military has not been shocked into submission or awed into irrelevance.
Blinded by sandstorms and bloodied by lethal ambushes, coalition forces have sustained heavier-than-expected casualties.
But setbacks aside, the 3rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army now threatens the gates of Baghdad, with the 1st Expeditionary Force of the U.S. Marines not far behind. The 173rd Airborne, meanwhile, has opened a belated northern front in the conflict.
The rapid developments of the first 11 days of war in Iraq, retired military commanders say, has confirmed the superior firepower of coalition forces, even as it has called into question the ambitious forecasts of a quick triumph.
"Victory may take longer than expected," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, who commanded an armored brigade in the first Gulf War in 1991. "But what our troops have accomplished already is impressive by any standard."
With the apparent failure of the coalition's straight-for-Saddam gambit, what has emerged on the battlefield is a hybrid, hour-by-hour strategy that focuses on maintaining the offensive even as troops fight rear-guard actions against Iraqi paramilitaries.
This has caused obvious consternation among some U.S. leaders, including the Army's senior ground commander, Lt. Gen. William Wallace. Late last week, Wallace said overextended lines and Iraqi guerrilla tactics had slowed his plan of attack.
"The enemy we're fighting is not the one we'd war-gamed against," he said.
Even with these problems, coalition troops have plunged deep into the country in short order, putting themselves within striking distance of Saddam Hussein's command base.
"War is an act-counteract kind of endeavor, and sometimes the bad guys have a good day," said Nash. "But this is not the time to get wobbly, or to take our eye off the ball and that is Baghdad."
Military experts say there are two reasons why the coalition advance has not gone as smoothly as forecast.
First, the Pentagon decided to wage this campaign with a ground force approximately half as large as the one deployed in Kuwait during Desert Storm. With Iraq's military at one-third of its strength in 1991 and U.S. forces more powerful than ever, the reasoning went, a smaller, more mobile ground contingent could handle the job.
Second, allied commanders failed to account for the damage that Saddam's paramilitary forces, known as fedayeen, could inflict with guerrilla attacks on forward convoys and rear supply lines.
The fedayeen have also succeeded, U.S. officials say, in preventing widespread public revolts against Saddam's rule in the south of Iraq. As a result, southern cities and towns such as Basra, Nasiriya and Najaf have provided safe harbor for irregular Iraqi forces.
The initial strategy employed by coalition leaders reflected the philosophy of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has spoken repeatedly of achieving a "revolution in military affairs" during his tenure.
Rather than relying on heavy armor and "feet on the ground," Rumsfeld sought to exploit the United States' technological edge by combining precision-guided munitions and psychological warfare with traditional fighting.
As Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, said at the start of the conflict: "This will be a campaign unlike any other in history a campaign characterized by shock, by surprise, by flexibility, by the employment of precise munitions on a scale never before seen, and by the application of overwhelming force."
As the war has unfolded, however, it has become clear that the "shock and awe" campaign has not delivered on its promise.
A number of former top military commanders have come forward to make this point, and to stress that technology is, in the end, no substitute for a heavy presence of tanks and troops on the ground.
"Was Rumsfeld mistaken?" asked retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who commanded the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division during Desert Storm. "Sure, everybody told him that. He thought these were army generals with their feet planted in the Second World War, who didn't understand the new ways of warfare."
The problem, McCaffrey said, is that at some point war boils down "to getting in there and blowing down the house, and making sure you dominate the area. And we have inadequate force."
Already, military experts said, the conflict in Iraq has become a more traditional battle than many envisioned.
"All of our people are not out there in space suits descending from levitating platforms," said retired Army Brig. Gen. John Reppert, who now serves as executive director for research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
"There are a lot of soldiers out there spitting out dirt, wiping sand out of their eyes and cleaning their own weapons," Reppert said. "If you look at the 3rd Infantry Division, they are fighting a fairly traditional battle with a fairly traditional enemy."
And unlike their performance in the first Gulf War, the Iraqis have shown an ability to adapt on the battlefield. Already, small guerrilla forces have inflicted serious damage on two of the U.S. military's most fearsome weapons: the Apache Longbow helicopter and the Abrams tank.
During one battle last Tuesday, the Iraqis succeeded in disabling two of the 70-ton Abrams tanks by hitting them in their one "soft spot" a rear engine grille. The day before, a group of Iraqis armed with small arms, anti-aircraft guns and rocket-propelled grenades managed to damage 30 of 40 attacking Apaches, shooting one of them down.
And even as they have harassed the coalition's forward units, Saddam's irregular troops have repeatedly ambushed rear supply lines leaving the advancing U.S. elements short on food, water and ammunition.
So far, the effects have not been debilitating. The Marines' 1st Expeditionary Force has been pressed into guerrilla-hunting missions that have prevented it from moving as quickly as planned against Saddam's eastern flank, and some advance troops have been forced to subsist on reduced rations. But military analysts say the shortages and stop-and-go movements have not altered the fact that coalition troops continue to move on Baghdad.
"It's inevitable that supply lines will be hit," said Patrick Garrett, a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, a defense policy think tank in Alexandria, Va. "They are soft targets and a natural mark for guerrillas." But, he added, "supply routes are redundant systems, and there are multiple ways to get things to the front."
Coalition forces proved that late last week when they opened the mothballed airport at Tallil, just five miles from Nasiriya. By seizing control of the facility and ridding it of booby traps, U.S. soldiers created a platform for C-130 transport planes to deliver tons of supplies far up the supply line.
In the end, Garrett said, the damage inflicted by Iraqi paramilitaries and regular troops may buy Saddam some time. But as the seizure of Tallil's air base made clear, "the coalition troops will get to Baghdad, one way or the other."
At that point, military experts said, the real war will begin an urban conflict in the Iraqi capital that will define victory or defeat. When that day comes, Nash predicted, no one will remember the Iraqi army's early successes in the south.
"Six months from now," he said, "you won't remember this."
Copyright © 2003, Newhouse News Service
