Iraq: problems and promises for USA

Contributing Editor Vice Admiral (Retd) Iqbal F Quadir looks at the Iraq crisis.

Eleven days down the lane since United States launched its attack on Iraq, the difficulties encountered by US-UK forces have raised questions in America about Washington’s strategy and assumptions that led to the assault plan. Prior to the onset of hostilities, US leaders had proclaimed a “shock and awe” strategy that would devastate the enemy and leave Saddam Hussein helpless in the face of US aerial blitzkrieg.
My age group and elders must remember the 1940s when German Luftwaffe first commenced aerial bombing of British towns and cities followed by V-type rocket (missile) attacks. American and British Air Forces then responded, razing to ground several German cities and towns in succession, with millions of refugees streaming out of them. However, in Iraq, USA and UK were supposed to be liberating Iraqi people from the clutches of the tyrant Saddam. Yet, a commentary had suggested that war would begin with an assault of unprecedented ferocity by unseen and unknown weapons of war and destruction that would break the will of the enemy. But, which enemy? Saddam or the Iraqi people who were the ones that have suffered so far? Now, even the most ardent of American friends in Iraq and many abroad have turned into enemies. This Rumsfeld strategy was in keeping with the manner Marshal Malinovsky, the highly successful World War II Soviet commander of land forces (I do not remember his exact name) had described the Anglo-Saxon race in his book on that war. He stated that Anglo-Saxons would not hesitate to kill to get whatever they wanted. However, the present war on Iraq has not gone the way many, led by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair with their inner Cabinets, had anticipated. And, after the first two days of ‘shock and awe‘ witnessed in Baghdad on television, and a slow down thereafter, the Saddam regime appeared to be anything but shocked or awed. The much heralded and expected joyous civilian welcome to US / UK liberating forces and switch over of loyalties by Iraqi troops has failed to materialize. Instead, Washington was facing a barrage of direct and indirect criticism for the way that most Americans felt the war against Iraq was going and giving the impression of just aimlessly meandering. In fact, had Iraq helicopters with night attack capabilities, hundreds if not thousands of British and US tanks and other vehicles would have littered the 200-kilometre stretch of Iraqi desert under US-UK occupation. In time, history was bound to pass its own judgment on this extraordinary military manoeuvre that its authors claim was grand.
A CBS News poll in the last week of March showed 55 per cent of Americans believed that US underestimated Iraqi resistance while two-thirds felt that the war would last months. In the same poll about 62 per cent believed removing the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power would be worth the costs of this war, including loss of lives. Seeing live on television their fathers, brothers, sons, relatives or friends engaged in battle and as could be expected, the live TV coverage of war has generated support for US troops in action and indirectly for President Bush. However, nearly 30 per cent maintained they felt nervous about the conflict. In another survey by CNN/Time, just over half stated the war has been successful so far; 8 per cent said it was not; and 37 per cent maintained that it was somewhere in between. Meantime, the Bush administration appeared to be bending backwards to impress the skeptical that in a mere week, US and UK forces had achieved several successes. However, these successes have left behind their own vulnerabilities. The American and British forces were now overstretched.
Advancing troops raced unopposed and unhindered over an empty desert toward Baghdad, only to be slowed down by the “logistical tail” needed to support their further advance. How General (Retd) Beg must be remembering the exercise Zarb-e-Momin, when for a similar manoeuvre by the attacking force with similar results he had to cancel the remainder of the exercise. Rearguard attacks by Iraqi irregulars have claimed allied casualties and demonstrated weaknesses in US strategy. Unexpected and often ferocious resistance, instead of the anticipated welcome by local populace and surrendering troops had also grounded US-UK advance at the edges of towns dotting western boundary of the populated Euphrates Valley. Lack of hard-core US infantry units was still preventing US – UK forces from investing towns extending from the port town of Umm Qasr through Basra, Nasirya and Najf to Karbala. The only occupied town so far of Umm Qasr was still not fully free of fedayeens and only one ship the British GALAHEAD had docked there with about two hundred tons of humanitarian aid stores plus untold amount of war supplies. Other ships appear to have been diverted to Kuwait. This failure of planning has led to much recrimination between the high ups in USA with politicians and military leaders dropping hints at each other, and the immediate rushing of 150,000 additional infantrymen from mainland US to Iraq. From the middle of April, the heat and humidity of Iraqi desert would be coming to the fore and start telling on troops there. This coming hot and humid environment was bound to increase their medical casualty rates and equipment failures. But setbacks thus far have not been allowed to challenge the rationale for the war itself. If the Iraqi regime needed to be overthrown (real reason mentioned later), then so be it. Bush and Blair have demonstrated their resolve that delays and expected higher casualties must not deter them from acting.
Knowing Marshal Malinovsky’s description of the Anglo Saxon race and further remembering how during 1990 War the civilian population of Baghdad was terrorized collaterally and when Iraqi Army personnel were mercilessly napalmed, cluster and carpet bombed without remorse in southern Iraq; in my March issue article on Iraq, for the sake of Iraqi people I had recommended that Saddam should hand over power to a friendly UN Security Council rather than to USA after Iraq was defeated, destroyed and humiliated. In that article I had also pointed out the absence of wisdom amongst US politicians and intellectuals who could only think of war and total destruction of Iraq as the only means for removal of Saddam from power. I had also suggested that US President should reconsider his plans for Iraq and come out with another proposition that would equally achieve the desired UN and US objectives in that country by peaceful means. The appeal was made despite the road map to war that US President’s initial speeches on Iraq had clearly spelt out while UNSC Resolution 1441 was being debated.
During January 2003, I had emailed to an American acquaintance; remember there are Americans, Asian Americans, Latin Americans, Afro Americans, Mexicans and Red Indians apart of illegal immigrants in USA – there were also Jews and now Muslims; that one particular speech by President was highly worrying because firstly, the most powerful man on earth today had invoked the name of God for whatever he had planned to do with Iraq, and secondly, because the plan announced by him did not carry a provision for applying the brakes were opportunity to arise to stop the war at any stage. The US plan led only to launching an attack on Iraq and continuation of that aggression whatever the circumstances till US objectives were achieved. Thus the fated took place and the result was in front of the world in the form of collateral casualties, deaths and destruction of civilian life, property and infrastructure in all Iraqi towns and cities. Any human mind would boggle at the thought of four thousand plus military targets that have been precision missiled or air bombed in Baghdad city alone in a matter of ten days, a city one third the size of New York. Reportedly, in one 24-hour period alone, more precision-guided munitions were used than during the entire first Persian Gulf War. What was going on in Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf, Nasirya and Basra has reminded me of my time onboard the British aircraft carrier THESEUS during the Korean War, when nothing of much military value was found left to be attacked in North Korea, the pilots of four aircraft being flown off every two hours were tasked to attack Targets of Opportunity. The declaration of Basra city as a military target and thereafter destruction of that city’s water and electric supply systems as well as of thousands of tons of food stored there together with private residential property, and deliberate targeting of 200 civilian Baath Party cadre and precision weapon attacks on government residential areas in Baghdad so clearly visible on television, and similar acts of destruction in other Iraqi towns and cities have given rise to suspicion whether they were not pure acts of vengeance for the locals not living up to US–UK leaders’ expectations of welcome garlands and mass surrenders. Sadly, these happenings must be taken as the harbinger of dreadful times to follow in Iraq when the recently dispatched US Infantry reached there and began taking care of the opposition to US–UK invasion and to free the indigenous population from tyranny by Saddam’s regime. The resumed massive destruction of infrastructure and of government as well as private buildings in Iraq that was witnessed on the first two days of war would no doubt provide multi-billion dollar economic and business targets of opportunity to thousands in USA, UK and to their Iraqi, Indian and Arab sympathizers as well as the “partners in coalition”. All without doubt know who would pay for reconstruction of Iraq.
Since the beginning of the US-led war in Iraq, TV viewers across the globe have been presented with astonishing scenes in Baghdad: sky-high columns of smoke rising from buildings hit by US bombs and missiles. Some military analysts believed that the United States was now using newly developed hi-tech weapons including some that have never been tested in a real battle before, a move that has turned Iraq into a testing ground for hi-tech weaponry. New weapons in the American arsenal include (following extracts from People’s Daily, Beijing): E-bomb, capable of wiping out electronic equipment with a huge burst of electrical energy into the atmosphere. Delivered by cruise missiles, E-bombs can fire millions of watts of energy in microwaves, destroying computers, radios, telephones, cell phones and almost anything that uses transistors, circuits, and wiring. US media believe that Iraqi army’s underground command-and-control stations would be high on the list of targets of the E-bombs.
Sensor Fused Weapons, allowing high altitude bombing of tanks and other vehicles, when dropped above groups of tanks or other vehicles, the bomb distributes several smaller bomblets that float toward earth on parachutes. Each then fires four, hockey puck-sized “skeet” that home-in on vehicles using laser seekers. One aircraft toting 30 Sensor Fused Weapons could puncture and blow up vehicles across 30 acres. These bombs were available during the 1999 Kosovo war in the former Yugoslavia, but US forces never found an appropriate concentration of Serbian armour on which to test them.
Agent Defeat Bombs were a kind of penetrating bombs developed to attack storage facilities, usually deep underground tunnels, of chemical and biological agents, without letting the fatal material leaking into the atmosphere. These bombs puncture the warheads with titanium rods, and then incinerate the agents inside without allowing vapour to escape. Advanced Laser Weapons designed to blind opponents or disable weapons’ optics systems. According to a report the US Army equipped its Bradley Fighting Vehicles with laser weapons in the 1991 Gulf War, but they were never used.
Digitalized Armoured Vehicles bearing resemblance to those used 12 years ago carry digitalized equipment that permits computerized-mapping for the crew to know their precise position and see the whole terrain, coordinate their targets and control fire distribution. It provided remarkable improvement in targeting accuracy, rate of fire and communications capability. The US Army’s 4th Infantry Division, now flying to the Gulf region to reinforce US troops already there, was the first digitalized division of the US Army.
Even the ordinary soldier of the US Army today may be more effective than his Desert Storm counterpart. The soldier who might have worn night-vision goggles in 1991 now might be equipped with goggles with house sensors, which could detect the heat of a human body or the hot part of a vehicle at night.
The United States of America was the strongest economic and military power on earth today and its strength exceeded the combined military power of the rest of the world. Britain was the second strongest military power. It was this US power, which has provided the leaders of that country the basis of their new world ambitions and the motivation to attack Iraq in opposition to the will of the United Nations Security Council, the expressed opinion of the vast number of members of the United Nations General Assembly and the peoples of the world including those of countries whose governments had joined the coalition against Iraq. The events of 9/11; when for the first time since her independence, mainland USA was “attacked”; had certainly stirred horror and realization amongst the people of America and their government that the country was no longer safe from external aggression. The Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that USA itself had paradoxically unleashed on the world, directly or indirectly, and which weapons had provided her with unbridled power; now in the hands of any other country or of individuals or groups of individuals could as effectively be used against USA or her interests; endangering like of others, her security and lives of her people.
In American minds, these threats or other likely threats had to be taken care of seriously and quickly. Simultaneously, the hurt caused to American prestige and pride had to be addressed properly. Mullah Omar with his stubbornness and lack of skill had provided an immediate and easy target in Afghanistan that only added to the US appetite of making the world safer for the future of Americans. Iraq with overconfident Saddam Hussein at the top, unbending for over a decade to the UN demand for him to disarm and unnecessarily procrastinating on that score while intrusive with US interests in Israel, was standing out like a sore thumb ready to be operated upon. He underestimated or failed to appreciate correctly US resolve to ensure that Iraq not only destroyed all WMDs and fully accounted for them but also that Iraq became clean of their means of production, most of which were dual purpose technologies and always available in the market; and most importantly, which even Mr Blix failed to recognize fully, that all knowledge of research, development and production too was to be completely eradicated. This last requirement meant identification, interrogation and movement outside of Iraq of all personnel that at any time had been concerned with WMD programmes. US leaders dreaded transfer of this knowledge to terrorists or likely terrorist states (all Muslims?) knowing fully that not long ago an important part of this knowledge had already been transferred from Iraq to USA’s new found friend and strategic ally India, a country that carried the blood on her hands of over sixty thousand innocent Kashmiris and of many thousand members of minority communities in addition, in that country. Surprisingly, USA was completely quiet about it. But, in Iraq, war must continue till such time US leaders felt assured that all her aims and objectives in that country had been achieved. In this process of removal of residual WMD materials/manpower, and the development as well as democratization of Iraq; all ensuing collateral fall-outs that by reason of the resulting new political and military situation (in and around Iraq) that make additional US aims and objectives feasible, would be prosecuted vigorously in due course. One thing nonetheless appeared certain, though God knows best – USA was fully cognizant of problems and promises that lie ahead for her in Iraq and further that she was determined not to let go of arising opportunities in and around the region.