Can American and British military planners ensure that their nightmare scenario - armies locked in a street-by-street fight to the finish in the cities of Iraq - will not come to pass, asks Tom Clonan
"No plan survives contact with the enemy."
- Von Moltke
Warfare by its nature is fraught and unpredictable. Military commanders must retain a high degree of flexibility to allow for sudden reversals and unanticipated outcomes of battle. Even before engaging the Iraqi military in combat, US military planners at Central Command in the Persian Gulf under Gen Tommy Franks have had to adjust their concept of operations to suit a political climate in constant flux.
Despite the uncertainty and disunity at the political level, for military planners one factor has remained a constant consideration. This is the fear that the Iraqi military might retreat into the cities and towns of Iraq to make a last stand against an invasion of "infidels". Indeed, in recent days Saddam Hussein has invoked the rhetoric of Islamic fundamentalism in calling for a jihad to expel any invasion force. The nightmare scenario of street-by-street urban warfare against a highly motivated enemy has haunted US military planners since the objective of regime change in Iraq was first mooted by their political masters.
In a battle of attrition designed to erode the Iraqis' will to fight, a range of "Psychological Operations" (PsyOps) is being conducted by the US. These include the intensive leafleting of Iraq, targeted particularly at sites close to Iraqi military units. The leaflets contain a simple message for Iraqi troops: military resistance to the invasion will result in needless suffering and death.
In addition to the leafleting campaign, a propaganda campaign has been employed to generate unease among Saddam's supporters and to undermine the motivation of key players in the civil and military administration to resist invasion.
The Americans and British have engaged in the selective leaking of their battle plans, including the much-quoted "shock and awe" effect they intend their opening air campaign to have. Other leaks have suggested to the Iraqis that some of their army units are earmarked for complete annihilation in the opening days of the invasion.
The British and Americans have also begun to broadcast daily propaganda programmes into Iraq, so as to reinforce confusion, foster mistrust and bring into focus the possibility of a viable existence post-Saddam.
In parallel with the PsyOps front, there has been an intensive covert Special Forces campaign in Iraq for some months now. Special Forces have been operational inside Iraq, gathering intelligence and compiling detailed target schedules for the opening air campaign. They have also been busy identifying and securing drop zones, landing zones and airfields for the ground assault phase on Iraq. The Special Forces have been assisted by CIA operatives who have been liaising with tribal leaders, wavering administrators and defecting military personnel throughout Iraq in an effort to mobilise dissident support for an allied invasion.
If hostilities are formally announced, the war on Iraq will start with an intensive air bombardment. Intelligence obtained by satellite imagery and the operation of the no-fly zones will be augmented by data gained by Special Forces teams. Using this pool of knowledge, extensive target lists will have been drawn up by US and British commanders. These will be attacked in an intense and co-ordinated air assault designed to strip Iraq of its air defence, command and control, communications and military capabilities. The air campaign will be swift and brutal. It will also be characterised by the use of "smart" or guided munitions in unprecedented numbers and combinations.
Unlike the air campaign that preceded the Gulf War in 1991, which lasted 42 days, this air campaign is likely to be somewhat shorter. This shorter timeframe should be facilitated by the increased capacity of the US and British to strike at targets within Iraq. With their current air capability, the allies should be able to take out approximately 700 targets per day, as opposed to 160 per day in 1991. The air war will also be assisted by a marked increase in the number of "smart" weapons available for deployment. For example, in the 1991 war, less than 20 per cent of the 250,000 bombs and missiles fired at Iraq were guided. This percentage rose to 35 per cent during the Serbia air campaign, and to 60 per cent in the air war on Afghanistan. It is planned that the percentage may be as high as 80 per cent in the opening phase of the air war over Iraq.
US military commanders hope that this will increase the accuracy and shock effect of bombing on military targets, while lowering the number of civilian casualties.
In the opening days of the air campaign, therefore, there will be a reliance on advanced cruise missiles (ACMs), such as the Tomahawk missile, and weapons such as the guided bomb unit GBU 28 ("Bunker Buster") or BLU 113 ("Penetrator") to destroy heavily fortified or underground Iraqi military installations. Such guided weapons, some with a penetrating warhead of 2,200 kilos and up to 330 kilos of high explosive, are capable of penetrating more than 20 feet of concrete or 100 feet of earth.
Other weapons such as the fuel air bomb or thermobaric bomb (BLU 118S) are capable of exploiting such penetration with follow-up explosions involving the detonation of flammable aerosols and shockwaves designed to navigate underground passages and communication networks. The use of such weapons in a carefully orchestrated series of bomb and missile attacks is calculated to shatter any remaining Iraqi resistance and will to fight.
Once the air campaign has reached critical mass, the ground campaign will begin. The original US and British plan was to begin a rolling offensive; that is to say, units currently deployed to the Gulf would roll across their start-lines to be reinforced incrementally by other units arriving in the region in a carefully planned sequence. This was the scenario envisaged for the 60,000 or so members of the US 1st Armoured Division and US 1st Cavalry Division recently earmarked for deployment to the Gulf. Such a deployment would have brought the total number of troops in the Gulf to more than 250,000, the figure deemed necessary for invasion and regime change.
With Turkey's decision to deny the use of its territory to US troops, plans for the ground campaign have altered dramatically. The initial plan was to deploy the US 4th Infantry Division (Mechanised), by road and railhead through Turkey to secure northern and western Iraq. These heavily armed and equipped troops were to have been reinforced by elements of the Turkish army and as many as eight Kurdish KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party) and PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) brigades. In addition to seizing territory in northern Iraq, it was envisaged that these troops, to be reinforced by elements of the 1st Armoured and 1st Cavalry divisions, would also inhibit any spontaneous or premature attempt on the part of the Kurds to form an autonomous and independent Kurdistan.
This initial plan saw a parallel thrust into Iraq from the south by members of the US 1st Marine Division and the British 7th Armoured Brigade. Moving north from assembly areas, form-up points and start-lines in Kuwait and Qatar, these mechanised and armoured units were to seize the southern regions of Al Muthanna and Basra. The city of Basra itself was to be taken in a co-ordinated assault by US troops of the 101st Airmobile Division and 82nd Airborne along with British troops of the Royal Marines 3rd Commando Brigade. The invasion would then continue with an armoured advance from Basra to Baghdad along the Euphrates River with a concurrent armoured advance from the north.
The alternative plan now being considered by Central Command will have serious implications for the Americans and British in terms of timing, strategy and tactics. With entry into northern Iraq through Turkey currently not permitted, the US has been forced to consider sending lightly armed troops into northern Iraq to do a job originally intended for armoured units.
This would entail deploying paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne into northern Iraq by air. The 101st Airmobile Division would be deployed in support of the 82nd Airborne, to monitor its flanks along the western desert and approach routes from Baghdad. The new plan would see the redeployment of the heavier 4th Infantry Division through the Suez Canal and into Kuwait for an armoured thrust towards Baghdad from the south.
In essence, the new plan calls for a role-reversal in the current battle plans. The lightly armed air-mobile and paratroop elements would go north, isolated from heavily armed and equipped armour and infantry, to encircle Baghdad from the north and north-west. Meanwhile, the armoured elements originally intended for northern Iraq would move from the south to take Baghdad and relieve the blocking force inserted by air. This is precisely the position in which the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions found themselves in 1944 in the Cherbourg peninsula during Operation Market Garden after the D-Day landings. Isolated from the main body of troops, the fate of these heroic soldiers is recorded in such films as A Bridge Too Far. Gen Tommy Franks and Central Command will be anxious that history does not repeat itself in Iraq.
In terms of timing, the revised battle plan could delay the invasion of Iraq by several weeks, perhaps into April. This would be due in no small part to the logistics nightmare of having to transfer the 4th Infantry Division from Turkey to Kuwait. This would have to be done through the Suez Canal, already clogged with allied supply vessels and cargo ships. Such a delay, and the risky deployment of relatively lightly armed US troops to northern Iraq, would play into the hands of Saddam Hussein. Iraqi units, empowered by additional time to prepare and emboldened by a perceived weakness in the American deployment, might well launch an assault on the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions in northern Iraq.
If Turkey continues to prohibit access to its territory to US ground troops, there will be serious consequences for the invasion plans. Such a position would delay the onset of invasion and radically redefine the roles assigned to airborne forces and heavy armoured units. The changes in timing and strategy would certainly prolong the war and ensure its conduct during the hottest months of the year. These factors alone would ensure greater numbers of casualties, civilian and military, and would also increase the risk of a humanitarian catastrophe in the form of famine or disease. Such an outcome would represent a political failure for the West and a humanitarian disaster for the Middle East.
The US military under Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell minimised US casualties during the 1991 Gulf War through a careful consideration of tactics and the maximum exploitation of technology and firepower. A total of 148 US servicemen and women were killed and 467 wounded; for their British counterparts, the figures were 24 fatalities and 10 wounded. This compares with an estimated death toll of 100,000 Iraqi soldiers and a further 300,000 wounded. While Iraqi civilian casualties were estimated at 35,000.
With such low US and British casualty rates and an overall cost to the coalition partners of approximately $61 billion, the George H. Bush administration could congratulate itself on a job well done. With a cost to the exchequer of as much as $200 billion and the prospect of a military occupation in Iraq, George W. Bush faces a more uncertain campaign.
Gen Tommy Franks's command and leadership will be severely tested in producing a plan of action that would see a rapid Iraqi collapse and swift regime change. While the international political drama continues to unfold, the military have the awesome and unenviable responsibility of putting in place a plan that minimises casualties and prevents a humanitarian disaster.