The Boston Globe April 10, 2003
Specialists praise 'armored rush' as brilliant war strategy
By Bryan Bender
WASHINGTON -- Speed, initiative, and selectivity were among the words used yesterday to describe the US-led invasion to topple the Baghdad regime and win over a growing number of Iraqi citizens.
In the 22 days it took coalition forces to overwhelm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's forces and capture Baghdad, field commanders moved quickly to capitalize on battlefield opportunities and took significant risks to maintain tactical surprise, while carefully calibrating their awesome firepower to minimize civilian casualties, military officials and defense specialists said yesterday.
But the Iraq war has had its share of surprises and setbacks for allied troops, including stiff resistance in southern Iraq in the opening days and unexpectedly persistent attacks on vulnerable supply lines.
The military campaign also raises new questions about whether advances in American technology have sufficiently lifted the fog of war to reduce the likelihood of friendly-fire deaths, which grew as the conflict progressed.
And officials warn that dangerous days lie ahead as US and British troops work to consolidate control and press on toward remaining Iraqi forces in the north of the country. But early criticism of the war plan for relying on too few troops and not enough preliminary bombing from the air were put to rest yesterday.
Vice President Dick Cheney described the conflict as ''one of the most extraordinary military campaigns ever conducted,'' noting in a speech to newspaper editors that it took half the number of ground troops and two-thirds the number of attack planes than in the Gulf War to accomplish a much more difficult task. The Persian Gulf war was over in 42 days.
At the Pentagon yesterday, officials stopped short of declaring victory, but could not hide their excitement about a campaign without parallels in the annals of modern warfare.
Coalition forces ''drove through the south up, braving dust storms and death squads, to reach Baghdad in record time,'' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters. ''They secured Iraq's southern oil fields for the Iraqi people, took out terrorist camps in the north and the south, secured large sections of western Iraq, preventing the regime from attacking its neighbors with Scud missiles.''
The most obvious lesson of the ongoing military campaign is the benefit of speed, both on the ground and in the air, officials and specialists said.
''Lesson number one is speed kills,'' a senior military official said yesterday. ''No one expected them to smash the Republican Guard to bits so quickly.''
Former defense secretary William S. Cohen pointed to US Central Command's willingness to press ahead with the fight despite early indications that a relatively smooth march to Baghdad might not be in the cards. ''People said early on it's not going to work, it's doomed to failure. We just stayed the course,'' Cohen said in an interview.
Officials credited the military's ability to maintain at least some level of surprise in a war that had been publicy telegraphed for months for bringing a quick end to the regime.
Indeed, the ground war began before a sustained air campaign, a stark difference from the Gulf War, when a month of air attacks preceded an invasion of ground forces to evict Iraqi troops from occupied Kuwait.
''The armored rush to Baghdad turned out to be a brilliant operational move,'' said retired general John Reppert of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. ''It threw off the operations of the enemy. It put Baghdad at risk from the third day of the war.''
Added John Pike, a military specialist at Global Security.org in Alexandria, Va.: ''I think that with the `thunder-run' tactic -- basically taking the city all at once rather than trying to take it one room at a time -- they appear to have correctly conceptualized that the assault on Baghdad was essentially a coup d'etat. When you have a coup, you basically grab the airport, grab the main government buildings downtown, grab the TV station, claim that you're in charge, and dare anyone to dispute you.''
At the same time, the highly precise airstrikes of the war, including the attempted ''decapitation'' of the Iraqi leadership on the first night, quickly destroyed the regime's ability to coordinate an effective defense, according to specialists.
''The decapitation strategy of taking out leadership objects as well as command and control and communications was critical to the disorganized defense of not only Baghdad but all of Iraq,'' said Pike.
All of this was risky, but ultimately paid high dividends. ''This shows that high risks bring greater rewards,'' said the senior military official. ''It could have gone the other way,'' he said, but the strategy ''may have prevented the use of weapons of mass destruction because of the disarray.''
While casualty figures will take months to tally and those affected by errant strikes or crossfire will take no solace in the ''precision'' of the campaign, the conflict's several thousand estimated civilian casualties is a low figure by historical standards.
Even Iran, labeled a member of President Bush's ''axis of evil,'' had positive things to say yesterday. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said he read a dispatch from Tehran ''quoting Iranians saying that the coalition forces have been very scrupulous about the holy places . . . which is very much calming to the local population and a very conciliatory gesture from Iran.''
Robert Schlesinger of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2003, Globe Newspaper Company
