Chicago Tribune March 29, 2003
U.S. forces seek to pin foe outside Baghdad
By Stephen J. Hedges and Douglas Holt, Tribune staff reporters.
Approaching a pivotal battle with the Republican Guard outside Baghdad, U.S. military leaders are counting on a combination of superior tanks, artillery, swift maneuvers and a punishing aerial bombardment to keep the elite Iraqi divisions boxed in place, where they must fight or capitulate.
Some active and retired military officers and analysts believe a battle against the Republican Guard will be a crucial moment in the war. If the Guard divisions south of Baghdad can be overwhelmed quickly, they say, it would send a strong signal to Iraq's remaining military establishment that the end is near.
That, they say, could finally trigger the sort of surrenders that the Bush administration has talked about and hoped for but has yet to see.
On the other hand, a difficult, entrenched fight with Republican Guard troops could bolster Saddam Hussein domestically, especially within his own Baath Party government. His irregular Fedayeen Saddam, which delivers harassing fire along coalition supply lines and determined resistance in Iraq's southern cities, could be energized.
Iraqi officials have said their strategy is to draw U.S. forces into urban fighting in Baghdad's streets, where American armor would be less effective.
"This whole thing could be decided in the next 7 to 10 days," said retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who led a tank assault during the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
There are an estimated three Republican Guard divisions of about 10,000 soldiers each along Baghdad's southern approaches and two more to the north. But those divisions have been placed far enough outside the city, analysts say, that any attempt to retreat to Baghdad could expose their tanks and vehicles to a withering aerial bombardment.
"The first choice is for them to be moving," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Senate committee Thursday. "They're easier to get at. At the present time, they've tucked back toward Baghdad somewhat, but now they're in deployed positions . . . in revetments. And what will happen is they'll get degraded from the air and then attacked by coalition forces."
Locations of U.S. forces
The U.S.-led forces are preparing for the battle ahead. The 16,500-soldier 3rd Infantry Division is maneuvering about 50 miles southwest of the Iraqi capital, and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force is moving north from embattled Nasiriyah. The 3rd Infantry has about 230 Abrams M-1 tanks, 348 M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 24 Apache attack helicopters.
Elements of the Army's 16,000-member 101st Airborne Division are deploying to the south and west of those forces. Its specialty is air assaults with helicopters.
Additionally, as many as 12,000 U.S. troops may now be in western Iraq, securing airfields there. Those include members of the 82nd Airborne and Special Operations forces. Military officials say the troops have secured two important western airfields and could be deployed in an attack on Baghdad.
Locations of Iraq divisions
The Republican Guard's Medina armored division has taken up positions north of Karbala, about 40 miles from Baghdad. It has an estimated 200 Soviet-era T-72 tanks, about as many armored personnel carriers and about 8,000 to 10,000 soldiers.
The Nida mechanized division is believed to be 20 miles southeast of central Baghdad, near the Shayka Mazhur airfield. A third division, the Hammurabi, is near Fallujah, 30 miles west of the capital.
Two other Republican Guard divisions also are well outside Baghdad to the north, and another moved just before the fighting began from Mosul to Tikrit, Hussein's hometown.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that some Republican Guard units appeared to be repositioning their defenses.
"We do have some indications that some of the Republican Guard divisions are relocating," he said. "And exactly where, we're just going to wait and see."
Military analyst Anthony Cordesman cautioned against assuming that the Republican Guard divisions fight as cohesive units. The Medina Division, he said, may not be the only force to be reckoned with in the 50 miles that stand between the U.S. forces and Hussein's seat of power. Different brigades are dispatched to defend different areas, he said, and Republican Guard units are frequently commingled with regular army forces.
"No one outside the intelligence community really knows the mix of Iraqi forces in the south," said Cordesman, senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"Nobody has seen one word about bomb damage assessment, or one word of an entire corps of regular army forces in the south that is somewhere, that's been bypassed or identified," he said.
U.S.-led planes have spent the last several days bombing Republican Guard positions south of Baghdad, preparing the way for an assault. Initial reports suggest the Medina Division has concealed its tanks and artillery in wooded areas, revetments and in buildings, making them tougher to spot.
Tanks 'dug in, dispersed'
On Friday, Myers showed what he described as Medina Division tanks and other equipment sprinkled inside a densely populated residential area 30 miles south of Baghdad.
"The Republican Guard has not gone on the offense yet," Myers said. "They are dug in, dispersed."
U.S. forces will try to determine the Iraqi positions from intelligence gathered by commandos, forward artillery and air attack controllers, images beamed from Predator aerial drones, and observations from scouting helicopters and fighter aircrews.
Still, it may take some initial advances from U.S. forces to expose the Republican Guard positions. Once identified, the ground force will slow its advance and allow a combination of precision air strikes, Apache attacks and artillery barrages to strike Iraqi positions.
"They'll start with air and attack them with rockets, then Apaches and then they'll hit them with ground forces," said David Grange, a retired Army major general and chief operating officer and vice president of the McCormick Tribune Foundation. "And while they're on the ground, they'll keep hitting from the air."
The Republican Guard divisions are posted so far outside Baghdad, analysts say, not just to confront an allied advance but also because Hussein doesn't completely trust the forces. A 1995 revolt against him from one guard division prompted Hussein to purge the ranks, but the mistrust lingers.
"The reason they're outside of Baghdad is that Saddam is afraid of a couple of them," said Michael Vickers, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "The key objective is to either break those divisions or get them to surrender, not to let them retreat into the city."
Safe retreat difficult
Being so far from Baghdad makes a safe retreat into the city nearly impossible. In contrast with the open desert of southern Iraq, the terrain near Baghdad is both agricultural and residential, with many irrigation ditches and a limited number of roads.
If there is a retreat, heavy vehicles would be forced into columns and onto roads, making them easy prey for Apache helicopters, A-10 tank-killing aircraft and other coalition planes.
"The notion that somehow or another the Republican Guard would crawl back into Baghdad, I've never subscribed to that," said John Pike, executive director of Globalsecurity.org, a military think tank. "It's not good tank country."
AMERICA AT WAR. STRATEGY.
GRAPHIC: GRAPHICGRAPHIC: How U.S. troops would advance toward Baghdad; Preparing for ground war; Sources: Department of Defense, GlobalSecurity Organization, Center for Defense Information.; Los Angeles Times/Chicago Tribune.; - See microfilm for complete graphic.
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