The Dallas Morning News April 06, 2003
When will victory be achieved? Answer isn't easy to come by Some see it in Hussein's ousting, but lingering resistance may blur line
By Richard Whittle and David McLemore
WASHINGTON - President Bush demands "nothing less than complete and final victory." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the only acceptable outcome is the "unconditional surrender" of Saddam Hussein's regime.
But even if Mr. Hussein and his ruling clique are captured or killed, the end of the war in Iraq is likely to be less definitive than that, petering out in spasms of terrorist acts and guerrilla warfare against U.S.-led troops, military analysts and other government officials warn.
"There's a halfway decent chance that the U.S. military may storm into Baghdad and seize some key buildings and declare victory," said Patrick Garrett, an analyst with the military research group GlobalSecurity.org. "But there may not be any noticeable indication that the war has ended."
Mr. Rumsfeld and Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S.-led forces, long ago pinpointed Baghdad as the "center of gravity" in the campaign to oust Mr. Hussein and his Baath Party and destroy their alleged chemical and biological weapons.
But until U.S. and British forces are able to put down resistance from Iraqi soldiers, Fedayeen Saddam paramilitaries and Baath Party loyalists elsewhere in the country - and thus provide security needed to get food and water to the civilian population - the war won't be over, said others in and out of government.
"I don't think it's over until we are effectively in control of everything from Mosul to Umm Qasr," said a senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Even if that happens, the situation in post-Hussein Iraq could resemble Bosnia or Afghanistan, where peacekeeping forces are needed to protect weak governments, intervene in ethnic conflicts and resist or pursue terrorists.
'Scenarios are varied'
NATO peacekeeping forces remain in Bosnia eight years after the Dayton Accords that ended the civil war in the former Yugoslav republic.
In Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai's government has won international aid and recognition but controls little of the countryside. U.S. troops still hunt Taliban or al-Qaeda remnants and absorb occasional casualties, nearly a year and a half after the war in that country began.
"The scenarios are varied," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, commander of the allied air effort in Iraq. "This war-fighting business is an interactive business. Your opponent gets a vote. Every day we're taking more of his options away from him, but he still gets a vote."
Even if a new Iraqi government can be established quickly, U.S. troops will have to deal with thousands of paramilitaries and Baath Party members who may continue to resist, even if Mr. Bush declares victory, the experts said.
"When they demonstrate that they have taken out the executive leadership of the country, they'll say, 'We've won the war,'" predicted James Carafano, a former Army officer and military historian.
Mr. Hussein - if he is alive - or his sons or other die-hard supporters are unlikely to emerge from bunkers to give the Bush administration the unconditional surrender it seeks. But the United States also might "find some guy to do a surrender ceremony," said Mr. Carafano, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
That is how World War II ended in Germany, he noted.
"There's a government there [in Iraq], at least nominally, and there will be someone in it who can sign an article of surrender," agreed Richard Perle, a member of Mr. Rumsfeld's civilian Defense Advisory Board and a leading advocate of the war.
Continuing attacks
Mr. Perle added that he expected Iraqi resistance - already surprisingly light, according to reports from the field - to evaporate quickly.
"The surrender will come, I imagine, as it did in '91, from the military authorities," he said. "Presumably, they will then give an order to the Republican Guard and others to lay down their arms."
Mr. Carafano and others, however, said they expected guerrilla and terrorist attacks to continue after a government surrender - as was the case in Austria and Germany after the Nazi regime was defeated.
"Victory isn't just taking off the head of Saddam Hussein," he said. "It's establishing enough stability in Iraq to where you can distribute food and establish political authority and put cops back on the street."
Beyond eliminating the regime, U.S. goals include "destroying any facilities or groups involved in global terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, securing the oil fields, providing humanitarian relief and helping the Iraqi people move toward self-government," said Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke.
The Bush administration may seek to establish an interim Iraqi government even before the Hussein regime is removed, said Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
U.S. authorities have begun hiring Iraqis to get the southern oil fields in operation, and humanitarian aid is being shipped into the Persian Gulf port of Umm Qasr.
Food shortages could threaten the rest of Iraq within weeks unless the allied zone of control is expanded and resistance is put down, Mr. Carafano said. A humanitarian crisis could incite the Iraqi population to oppose a U.S.-British occupation.
Needy Iraqis also could become refugees, flooding into neighboring nations in search of food and thus provoking Turkey, Syria or Iran. Turkey is a NATO ally, but Syria and Iran are on the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism.
"What isn't clear is how this will all play with the fears that Iran and Syria have about U.S. operations in Iraq," said Mr. Garrett of GlobalSecurity.org. "Syria won't be at ease with U.S. troops in the region. And Iran is worried about having U.S. forces along its border."
Four phases of war
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Mr. Bush was focused on changing the Hussein regime and finding and destroying the chemical and biological weapons that he said necessitated the war.
"Certainly, any clear resolution about Saddam Hussein's fate helps provide some clarity to that," Mr. Fleischer said. "But the definition of victory is those two factors."
Retired Col. Jim Lasswell of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory at Quantico, Va., however, noted that war games define four phases of war: deployment, combat, consolidation and withdrawal.
"Generally speaking, combat is over when we move into consolidation, the period when combat scales down to helping rebuild civil government," as in Afghanistan, he said.
"In Iraq, the transition from combat to the consolidation phase will be triggered by regime change. It doesn't mean, however, that the fighting ends."
Copyright © 2003, The Dallas Morning News
