Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=10/17/2002

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-01210

TITLE=WILL IRAQ FIGHT?

INTERNET=Yes

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0037

CONTENT=

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Host: Will the Iraqi army fight? Next, On the Line.

[music]

Host: The United States Congress has voted to support President George W. Bush in using military force if necessary to confront Saddam Hussein. And the United Nations continues to work on a resolution to enforce demands that Iraq get rid of its weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's failure to give U-N weapons inspectors unfettered access raises the possibility of a U-S-led coalition strike on Saddam Hussein's regime. Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz warned that his nation was ready to fight back "within an hour." If there's a war, how will coalition forces move on Baghdad and will Saddam's military fight? I'll ask my guests: Edward Atkeson, retired major general in the U-S army and now a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Thomas McInerney, retired lieutenant general and former vice chief of staff in the U-S air force; and Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the non-proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Welcome and thanks for joining us today.

General McInerney, how would a U-S led coalition strike in Iraq?

McInerney: Well, it would be what I'm calling blitz warfare, with a massive air campaign, the most massive precision air campaign we've ever seen in history, Eric, with the simultaneous ground force attacking -- both heavy forces -- medium forces -- which are marine -- light Airborne and covert special ops, all simultaneously against an array of targets and moving very fast to minimize their exposure to any chemical weapons. But also when you have this massive air campaign from five hundred to a thousand airplanes using precision weapons, you achieve what we call rapid dominance. It's the synergy between air power and ground power simultaneously that will just force this whole system down.

Host: General Atkeson, is that the way this is going to look -- different from the first gulf war where there was a long air campaign before there was any ground warfare?

Atkeson: I would say [it will] be that way with a possibility that that side which is about to be preempted according to our new strategy might become the preemptor. In which case it could run quite differently.

Host: Now what do you mean by that?

Atkeson: If they feel that we're attacking, they may decide to attack us first or to attack other parties like other friendly Arab states in the area or perhaps even Israel.

Host: And if they were to attack, what would they attack with?

Atkeson: I would expect it would be long-range missiles. They have some drone aircraft that they can put aloft. But there's no sense for them to wait around to be attacked if it appears clear that we have that intention.

Host: Jon Wolfsthal, if Iraq were to strike first, would it involve the use of weapons of mass destruction?

Wolfsthal: I think it's now beyond the shadow of a doubt that Iraq has that capability. It's a question of whether or not either Saddam himself or his commanders are prepared and able to use them. Both generals make excellent points that the United States is going to move in quickly. It's going to move in with force and try and decapitate the Iraqi regime and their military capabilities. And the question is, what has Saddam Hussein and his group been doing now to try and make that more complicated for us? Have they predeployed chemical and biological weapons? Have they already distributed to their regional commanders? Have they gone outside of Iraq? We've been talking for months that the United States may have to go into Iraq. If I'm Saddam Hussein, I begin to think outside the box and put chemical weapons, biological weapons where they can come at our left and right flank when they know there's no chance of them beating us head-on.

Host: General McInerney, is that how Saddam's going to use his weapons of mass destruction?

McInerney: Well, he's going to try to do it differently and I agree with General Atkeson that he could, I say agree, that is a scenario of trying to attack. And I also agree with Jon's point that maybe he would do these things, but here's why I don't think it will happen. If in fact he did preempt us, which General Atkeson said, and did it with weapons of mass destruction, it puts world opinion on our side and of course allows us to immediately respond. There would be certain casualties. I think they would go primarily after Tel Aviv. They have to move out into what we call H-1 and H-2, the bases in the Western desert out there where they fired from last time. And I think this wouldn't be to his advantage, but he could do that. Now, he fired thirty-nine scuds into Israel last time, what impact did that have on the war? It didn't shorten it or didn't lengthen it one nanosecond. It just shows what type of person [he is]. So, you've got to expect the unexpected. In the case of him moving his C-W, chemical weapons and his bio [biological weapons] out. He could very well do that. Again, it depends how good our information operations campaign, which I didn't mention [is], but that is getting into their mind set. We have the phone number of every division commander in Iraq. We have a very sturdy and I think important opposition force on our side today and we will communicate to them [the Iraqi commanders] that if they in fact use these weapons, they will be tried as war criminals by the Iraqis. The U-S doesn't know how to try them. The Iraqis do. And so, some will, some will be fired at us. And whether they're drones -- we have a very robust AWACS and air defense that I think will take care of anything like it did last time, but you've always got to count on leakers, something will get through.

Host: General Atkeson, let's talk a little bit about this issue of whether the generals and the officers who are operationally in control of these weapons of mass destruction would actually pull the trigger on them. What kind of command and control does Saddam Hussein have over these weapons?

Atkeson: Well, he has as I understand pre-delegated some of the authority to apply them where it might be useful for him. Now, whether indeed they would do that or whether they would decide that the possibility of our reaction to include holding them personally responsible after the war in a war crimes trial, I don't know and I can't really guess on that. But I think that Saddam has other options he can go to. We have identified him with international terrorism. There's no reason that he shouldn't take advantage of that and in league with terrorists get them to commit horrible crimes around in the places that he might target. And there's nothing that says that he has to use weapons of mass destruction in order to create great uncertainty and nervousness in these target areas and for people in Amman, for example, some of our closest friends who wish they hadn't taken -- didn't live so close by and hadn't shown such friendship for us.

Host: Jon Wolfsthal, is that sort of strategy -- one of using terrorism to destabilize the region -- likely to be able to slow a U-S led coalition against Saddam?

Wolfsthal: Well, I've never been in warfare, but as a student of history in warfare you learn that there's always something you can't control, the unexpected will always take place. And I think in this case, terrorism beyond the Iraqi theater is one of those unknowns, something that Saddam Hussein, or his regional commanders or Al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden if he's even still alive may seek to capitalize on, thinking that Iraq provides them with the cover and he'll get blamed anyway so he might as well take advantage of it. The question in my mind is within trying to achieve the war aims in Iraq, meaning, to eliminate Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and, barring that, eliminate Saddam Hussein, it's a very different type of war than what we dealt with in 1991. We're not dealing in this case with lines on a map that we're trying to push enemy combatants out of. We're trying to occupy and conquer an entire country.

McInerney: See, I would challenge you on that. We don't want to occupy Iraq. We want to liberate Iraq. And Jon, I think that's what our strategy must be is liberation and not an occupier. We'll have an interim military government after there to stabilize it, but the fact is I think we must tell the world that we are a liberation force and we must have opposition forces with us accompanying us in doing this.

Wolfsthal: And that is a very important point in terms of gaining international acceptance for what the U-S may need to do in order to protect itself and its allies. But the point remains that you're going to have to have U-S troops or allied troops in an uncontrolled area for a period of time. Just as we now are seeing ourselves still under attack in small ways in Afghanistan, you will have either loyal forces to Saddam Hussein or let's just say opposition .

McInerney: I don't think we're going to have loyal forces to Saddam Hussein.

Wolfsthal: Well do you think U-S troops will be under fire in Iraq for a period of time after Saddam Hussein is dead?

McInerney: I don't think they will. Once Saddam is dead -- and I think the Iraqi army probably will kill him, he's responsible for two million deaths in that country. On the fourteenth of February he executed ten general officers led by a three-star general of the Republican Guards. On the first of June he arrested eighty-five officers. He's not arresting lieutenants and captains. So my point is, the army is not loyal to him.

Atkeson: But the army is the only instrument of national control that exists in the country that we know of. The I-N-C, the Iraqi National Congress does not have the experience in the territory, it does not have the ability to pull the country together. And then you have the Shiites and two different Kurdish groups and the Turkman and they all have very specific local regional interests. And they're backed by different people on the outside. For example, the Turks would like to have the Turkman seize Kirkuk in the north because that's where the oil is and they can deal with them. They certainly don't want the Kurds to come to the fore. So, once you remove this overall controlling skein over the country, you're left with the equivalent of sort of warlords, or could be. I have to put this all in, because we can't see. These are possibilities that we have to look out for and plan for and frankly I don't see a way of getting away from the responsibility of running the country afterwards with a military occupation.

Wolfsthal: Well the point I was trying to make originally, which is -- whether or not it is a relatively peaceful liberation or whether it's a very forceful occupation, you still have the question of the chemical and biological weapons that Saddam Hussein has produced that are stored in different locations, secret and otherwise throughout the country, may fall into control other than ours. Whether it be the Kurds or the Shia or the Ba'athists. They now have other reasons for holding on to this capability. And they can come back to haunt us, either in theater or elsewhere.

McInerney: I think one of our clear objectives is to remove Saddam Hussein, to remove those weapons of mass destruction throughout the country. It is extremely important we do that. General Atkeson has brought up some very important points, about what you do after the interim military government. But as I say, I don't think it's an army occupation, but it is an army stabilizing force -- very important point, because it is a complex [issue] but that country is going to be a lot easier to manage in my opinion than Afghanistan has been. And it has enormous wealth. People are worried about the cost. Look, they produced three and half million barrels of oil a day in nineteen-ninety. They're down to about one-point-two million now. Saudi Arabia produces five million today. Look, Iraq can produce five million if you put investment into that infrastructure and do that. So that can create a lot of wealth, a lot of jobs for that part of the world and that's what this stabilizing force will do. Again you come back to the issue on how they will fight. I think some will fight. But on balance, I think the Iraqi people and the Iraqi army, when we send in this very powerful enabling force, are going to want to be free.

Host: Before we talk too much about the aftermath of the war, let's talk a little bit more about how this war might play out if it is necessitated. An article in the New York Times recently, an author Barry Posen wrote: "Urban combat is Iraq's best option. Combat within cities minimizes American military advantages and offers the greatest possibility for the United States to make mistakes -- to harm civilians and create the kind of collateral damage that can cause consternation in the Arab world and here at home."

General Atkeson, what about this scenario that people have been talking about that Iraq would, instead of relying on weapons of mass destruction might fall back on Baghdad, move the troops there, the Republican Guards there and try to use urban warfare as a way of holding out. Is that a realistic scenario?

Atkeson: Yes, I think it's quite realistic and it may even be the one which we have sort of pushed them into accepting because they don't want to be responsible. The various commanders don't want to be held responsible for anything untoward that they may do as commanders. He's got the Republican Guard. The whole army is just a shadow of its 1991 self, but you've got about a hundred thousand Iraqi Republican Guards, quite competent, well-educated, well-trained, highly-spirited and not quite the equivalent of the [Nazi] S-S, but they could play that kind of role -- that any regular force that doesn't hold up, you'll find them hanging from the street lamps the following morning.

Host: General McInerney, are they going to use the Republican Guards as a way of enforcing discipline within units?

McInerney: They could but here's why I don't think they're going to do the urban warfare. Number one, they have not trained for it. Number two, they have not built the fortifications that you require in that very large city of a hundred and fifty square miles, five million people. Number three, he will not let the Republican Guards in Baghdad today because he fears a coup d'etat. Number four, why would we attack his strength? If he pulls back in there, we'll just pull up and we'll wait and we'll start negotiating just like we did in Kunduz, Kandahar and Kabul. So, I don't see any powerful -- although I think it's propaganda on his part -- I don't see any evidence that he is doing all the things that he must do to fight an urban warfare campaign.

Wolfsthal: I think that may be a bit of mirror imaging. I mean, it may not be the way the U-S would prepare for urban warfare but one thing's for sure is that Saddam Hussein is not going to fight another open desert war. I mean you don't have to teach him that lesson more than once. And whether it's a question of being afraid of a coup, if you know that your head's on the chopping block, you're going to take more risks than you otherwise would. I agree that these things may not be the most likely scenario, but I'm not convinced that we're prepared. I think militarily we may be prepared, but I don't think politically and internationally we're prepared to fight some of the wars we may find ourselves in. If, for example, the United States does start targeting downtown Baghdad, even with precision munitions, you're going to have civilian and collateral casualty. That's going to be broadcast on Al Jazeera and C-N-N and you're going to have destabilization effects in other parts of the region. And so, one of the reasons that you need a U-S-led coalition as opposed to a unilateral coalition is you need to anticipate how you're going to deal with these types of problems. So, it may be in Saddam's interest to avoid these scenarios or he may not be prepared for it but when push comes to shove, he may take those risks.

McInerney: Yes but here's the thing again why I think this is not going to happen. Number one, he is going to see the most powerful precision air campaign in history. In 1991, we used seven percent [of our air forces]. In Kosovo, we used forty percent. In Afghanistan, we used fifty [percent]. He's going to see between ninety and a hundred percent of precision weapons with a simultaneous ground force that is fully robust.

Wolfsthal: With the aim of finding him or of targeting

McInerney: Anti-regime targets. Number one: his command and control; number two: him -- to decapitate. There are about three hundred key leaders in that country that have to go. Number three: the weapons of mass destruction. Number four: those units that try to resist us -- that come out of garrison and then try to fight. And we'll know through the opposition communications and our I-O campaign which units they are. So, I think that with this overwhelming force and the simultaneity of the ground and air coming massive is going to force him into making decisions. He's going to be cut off. He's going to be decapitated. And I think what you're going to find is there are going to be forces that will take him out to try to regain their position.

Host: Now, did Saddam learn anything from watching the war in Afghanistan? General Atkeson, perhaps you will be able to answer this that whatever strategy the Taleban had, it seemed that at times, the most effective strategy they had for dealing with precision munitions that General McInerney mentions is hiding behind civilians. Is that what the urban warfare strategy would amount to, would be basically trying to hide behind civilians?

McInerney: It's very difficult to make any intelligent guess as to what's in Saddam Hussein's mind. He's fooled is so much before. For example, who would have guessed that he would have stayed sitting there for six months while we built up an enormous force in front of him in 1991? I mean, the man must have a number-ten concrete head. He's got some sophisticated people around him, some Sandhurst graduates on that staff and so forth. They must be, you know, trying to, "why don't we tell the boss this," and so forth. But it's such a top-down structure that there's not much coming back up. There's not much really professional advice coming back up through the system.

McInerney: Anything he says to him, if he doesn't like, he puts a pistol up to their head and drills them. So what he has done, he has taken out all creativity in that staff. And you're absolutely right, why would anybody sit there and watch us build up a half a million men? But the fact is, this is Saddam. He's one of his greatest weaknesses.

Host: Now, you've mentioned before this issue of just recently having killed a number of staff members.

McInerney: Senior officers.

Host: Senior officers. Does that strengthen his hand with the military?

McInerney: It weakens it. Because as soon as they can -- and that's why we're talking about an enabling force, that's why I say that force can be smaller but very, very fast -- but that enabling force will give those within Iraq that want to get rid of them, that will give them the opportunity. And then they can show that they bought in to this liberation concept. And I think that is extremely important. Because the Iraq of the future that we want, we want a democratic Iraq. We want a creative Iraq. They are very talented over there. And so when we fight this war, we ought to have those kinds of things in mind. We don't want to destroy this army. We could, nobody doubts that. We want that army to help bring stability in the future.

Atkeson: I can't touch on Tom's lack of logic at all, but we're dealing with an illogical world here. If you look back at what happened to the Soviets before World War II, Stalin simply knocked off everybody above the rank of three stars -- had them all shot. And what it did was it made everybody very hesitant, within the structure very hesitant to suggest anything, but they fought like tigers. And not because they loved Stalin or anything like that, it's just they realized what would happen to them and to their families if they didn't.

McInerney: But Ed, they were not going to be liberated. [crosstalk]

Wolfsthal: The question of liberation, I think is an interesting one, but during the Gulf War, we saw that the basic troops, the conscripts that were out in the desert. And they were the ones that died in the initial assault under the heavy bombardment, but they fought where they could because they had guns in front of them and they had bayonets behind them.

Host: I'm afraid that's going to have to be the last word. We're out of time, but I'd like to thank my guests for today: General Edward Atkeson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, General Thomas McInerney, former assistant vice chief of staff for the U-S Air Force, and Jon Wolfsthal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. For On the Line, I'm Eric Felten.