Daily News (New York) April 03, 2003
Grim Baghdad forecast: G.I.s won't take city without deadly street fight - experts
By Thomas M. DeFrank
WASHINGTON - With U.S. troops poised on Baghdad's doorstep, some defense analysts and war planners predicted yesterday that a major - and likely bloody - assault on the city is unavoidable.
"People can hope as much as they want that the war will end without U.S. forces fighting in the city, but a lot of that is wishful thinking," said Patrick Garrett, an associate analyst at GlobalSecurity.org. "One has to expect that Saddam Hussein and his most loyal defenders are going to fight this out to the death."
Lexington Institute expert Dan Goure said: "I find it hard to believe we won't have to fight our way in. The question is, how much of a fight is it going to be?"
At yesterday's Pentagon briefing, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, "We are expecting, or at least planning for, a very difficult fight ahead. We are not expecting to drive into Baghdad suddenly and seize it in a coup de main or anything like that."
At the very least, defense officials suspect U.S. troops will have to fight their way into a section of the city to demonstrate their resolve and - in the best case - cause the Iraqi regime to collapse and flee.
"If we see an opportunity, we'll seize it," one official told the Daily News. "We don't want to dig into trench warfare here."
Any combat inside the city of 5 million will be extremely messy. Next to a massive chemical weapons attack, the Battle of Baghdad always has been the Pentagon's greatest tactical fear.
Dangerous turf
Urban warfare would force invading U.S.-British forces into street-by-street, door-to-door fighting, with snipers and other defenders hiding in basements, sewers and apartment buildings and on rooftops.
Opportunities for ambush would be virtually unlimited, and some buildings, especially obvious targets such as military complexes and government ministries, could be booby-trapped. Moreover, the U.S. military's overwhelming technological advantage would be dramatically diminished.
"If you're trying to provide close air support to some infantrymen stuck in an alleyway, it's going to be extremely difficult to park a JDAM [smart bomb] without causing a lot of civilian and even some American casualties," Garrett said.
Street fighting also would inevitably destroy chunks of the city, increasing resentment toward the attackers and complicating the already daunting task of reconstruction.
An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 troops remain inside Baghdad, including 12,000 to 15,000 of Saddam's Special Republican Guard. In addition, thousands of Fedayeen Saddam irregulars are thought to be in the city organizing small-unit guerrilla operations.
Pentagon war planners hope the swift success in pacifying Najaf and Karbala is more indicative of the future than the more difficult fighting in southern cities last week. They also believe the annihilation of two of Saddam's better divisions south of Baghdad could have a powerful psychological effect on the Iraqi regime's will to survive.
But one senior Bush administration official predicted yesterday neither Saddam nor his most fanatical defenders will go quietly - if for no other reason than they understand they will die regardless, at the hands of the Americans or their own people.
Copyright © 2003, Daily News, L.P.
