http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=WHATIF-04-02-03&cat=II
Saddam's tactics could allow him to survive war
By LANCE GAY
Scripps Howard News Service
April 02, 2003
WASHINGTON - With U.S.-led forces tightening the noose around Baghdad, the odds of Saddam Hussein winning any battles look slim. But analysts note that Saddam is a survivor, and he still has some cards to play.
Military strategists say that Saddam seems to be following the advice of Mao Zedong, who wrote the mother of all textbooks in 1928 on how a weaker force can paralyze well-equipped and far superior armies.
Mao's recipe was to avoid conventional battles, relying instead on mobile forces and a protracted form of skirmish warfare that wins by harassment. It worked for Mao, who fought off an invading Japanese army, and later defeated the Chinese Nationalist government.
Michael Vickers, a former CIA and special forces officer who worked on Pentagon war plans, said Iraq is avoiding the sort of fixed defenses it used during the 1991 Persian Gulf War when the Iraqi army lined up along Kuwait's borders and was mauled.
"It's somewhat a rational defense," said Vickers, now a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
Vickers said Saddam is acting this time more like Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, who also chose not to confront United States air power. Since the Iraqi war started March 19, the Pentagon said not a single Iraqi warplane has been launched.
Vickers bets Iraq's strategy is to count on the main fights to come in the wooded areas south of Baghdad, where U.S. forces will be forced into a bottleneck by the narrowing of the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates River. With the arrival of Iraq's summer killer heat, fighting will become more traditional with Iraqis using Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles smuggled in from Syria to knock out American M-1 tanks.
"He's hoping to blood the United States, and stall for time," Vickers said.
Iraq's strategy is not a surprise to U.S. war planners. In speeches and interviews before the war, Iraq's military leaders said their strategy was to drag America into a Vietnam quagmire.
"Let our cities be our swamps and our buildings our jungles," said Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, detailing the strategy to turn Baghdad into a "Saddamograd," a play on the Stalingrad siege of World War II.
Some analysts forecast before the war erupted that the U.S. strategy for the war in Iraq was flawed, and Saddam might win.
Before the war started, Joseph Balkoski, author of the Normandy invasion book "Beyond the Beachhead," posted an article on the History News Network, predicting the swift advance of U.S. forces toward Baghdad, and then trouble.
"There will be chaos in civil strife within the areas overrun by the U.S. Army," Balkoski wrote. "We will not attack Baghdad directly by land (aside from the insertion of special forces), but encircle it and commence a protracted period of surgical air strikes within the city to destroy completely its infrastructure. We will endeavor at this point to submit the encircled population to tremendous psychological warfare: turn against Saddam and his henchmen or face a protracted (and horrible) siege. It won't work."
In the posting, Balkoski predicted eventually that public outrage in Europe and the Arab world at the effect of the war on Baghdad's civilian population would become so intense, it would force the United States to withdraw, and Saddam would emerge from the war alive.
Balkoski said his predictions were simply based on reading military histories that show that armies faced with overwhelming force devise some simple technique to confront it.
"Saddam saw us coming for months and years, and he's not as stupid to allow the same thing that happened in 1991 to happen again," he said.
Balkoski said the problem facing Iraq now is keeping the momentum up and supplying its insurgent forces with food and fresh ammunition. "Keeping them armed, fed and in action is going to be a major problem for them."
He said the U.S. war plan looks like it is changing, and he now expects the Pentagon to order Baghdad taken rather than putting the city and its 5 million residents under siege. He said this sort of warfare is something the Pentagon sought to avoid, and would result in high casualties from house-to-house fighting. While he expects this strategy to be successful, Balkoski said it's still possible for Saddam, a former Baath Party intelligence officer, to slip into a disguise, escape the destruction of Baghdad, and hide out in Iraq's mountains to raise another army, and fight another day.
Middle East experts say the Bush administration has not done enough to try and blunt Iraqi nationalism, and contend the Pentagon has given Saddam a moral victory by arrogantly assuming Iraq's armies would collapse when confronted by forces that have so many technological-advances.
"Iraqi's are very nationalistic, and if they perceive this as being the United States versus Iraq, and not Saddam, then we are in trouble," said Iranian-born Guity Nashat, an associate professor of Middle East history at the University of Illinois in Chicago. "Obviously, we have miscalculated how easy it would be to get rid of Iraqi forces."
Nashat said the key to American success in Iraq is ensuring Saddam's speedy death. Although Iraq has called for a jihad, or holy war against America, she doubts that Saddam will find many supporters in the Middle East, where his 23-year regime has made so many enemies.
University of Michigan professor Juan Cole said he worries the Baath Party will be able to claim a victory by forcing U.S.-led forces heading toward Baghdad to adopt aggressive tactics and brutal bombings that will bring higher levels of civilian casualties and provoke a public relations nightmare. "That is within Saddam's reach," he said.
Qubad Talabany, deputy representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said so much is riding on American success in this war, that democracy throughout the Middle East could be damaged if it doesn't come out well.
A defeat, Talabany warned, would only fuel the rise of anti-American Islamic clerics "If we fail, you can kiss goodbye to secular democracy in the Middle East."
Saddam's tactics could allow him to survive war
By LANCE GAY
Scripps Howard News Service
April 02, 2003
WASHINGTON - With U.S.-led forces tightening the noose around Baghdad, the odds of Saddam Hussein winning any battles look slim. But analysts note that Saddam is a survivor, and he still has some cards to play.
Military strategists say that Saddam seems to be following the advice of Mao Zedong, who wrote the mother of all textbooks in 1928 on how a weaker force can paralyze well-equipped and far superior armies.
Mao's recipe was to avoid conventional battles, relying instead on mobile forces and a protracted form of skirmish warfare that wins by harassment. It worked for Mao, who fought off an invading Japanese army, and later defeated the Chinese Nationalist government.
Michael Vickers, a former CIA and special forces officer who worked on Pentagon war plans, said Iraq is avoiding the sort of fixed defenses it used during the 1991 Persian Gulf War when the Iraqi army lined up along Kuwait's borders and was mauled.
"It's somewhat a rational defense," said Vickers, now a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
Vickers said Saddam is acting this time more like Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, who also chose not to confront United States air power. Since the Iraqi war started March 19, the Pentagon said not a single Iraqi warplane has been launched.
Vickers bets Iraq's strategy is to count on the main fights to come in the wooded areas south of Baghdad, where U.S. forces will be forced into a bottleneck by the narrowing of the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates River. With the arrival of Iraq's summer killer heat, fighting will become more traditional with Iraqis using Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles smuggled in from Syria to knock out American M-1 tanks.
"He's hoping to blood the United States, and stall for time," Vickers said.
Iraq's strategy is not a surprise to U.S. war planners. In speeches and interviews before the war, Iraq's military leaders said their strategy was to drag America into a Vietnam quagmire.
"Let our cities be our swamps and our buildings our jungles," said Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, detailing the strategy to turn Baghdad into a "Saddamograd," a play on the Stalingrad siege of World War II.
Some analysts forecast before the war erupted that the U.S. strategy for the war in Iraq was flawed, and Saddam might win.
Before the war started, Joseph Balkoski, author of the Normandy invasion book "Beyond the Beachhead," posted an article on the History News Network, predicting the swift advance of U.S. forces toward Baghdad, and then trouble.
"There will be chaos in civil strife within the areas overrun by the U.S. Army," Balkoski wrote. "We will not attack Baghdad directly by land (aside from the insertion of special forces), but encircle it and commence a protracted period of surgical air strikes within the city to destroy completely its infrastructure. We will endeavor at this point to submit the encircled population to tremendous psychological warfare: turn against Saddam and his henchmen or face a protracted (and horrible) siege. It won't work."
In the posting, Balkoski predicted eventually that public outrage in Europe and the Arab world at the effect of the war on Baghdad's civilian population would become so intense, it would force the United States to withdraw, and Saddam would emerge from the war alive.
Balkoski said his predictions were simply based on reading military histories that show that armies faced with overwhelming force devise some simple technique to confront it.
"Saddam saw us coming for months and years, and he's not as stupid to allow the same thing that happened in 1991 to happen again," he said.
Balkoski said the problem facing Iraq now is keeping the momentum up and supplying its insurgent forces with food and fresh ammunition. "Keeping them armed, fed and in action is going to be a major problem for them."
He said the U.S. war plan looks like it is changing, and he now expects the Pentagon to order Baghdad taken rather than putting the city and its 5 million residents under siege. He said this sort of warfare is something the Pentagon sought to avoid, and would result in high casualties from house-to-house fighting. While he expects this strategy to be successful, Balkoski said it's still possible for Saddam, a former Baath Party intelligence officer, to slip into a disguise, escape the destruction of Baghdad, and hide out in Iraq's mountains to raise another army, and fight another day.
Middle East experts say the Bush administration has not done enough to try and blunt Iraqi nationalism, and contend the Pentagon has given Saddam a moral victory by arrogantly assuming Iraq's armies would collapse when confronted by forces that have so many technological-advances.
"Iraqi's are very nationalistic, and if they perceive this as being the United States versus Iraq, and not Saddam, then we are in trouble," said Iranian-born Guity Nashat, an associate professor of Middle East history at the University of Illinois in Chicago. "Obviously, we have miscalculated how easy it would be to get rid of Iraqi forces."
Nashat said the key to American success in Iraq is ensuring Saddam's speedy death. Although Iraq has called for a jihad, or holy war against America, she doubts that Saddam will find many supporters in the Middle East, where his 23-year regime has made so many enemies.
University of Michigan professor Juan Cole said he worries the Baath Party will be able to claim a victory by forcing U.S.-led forces heading toward Baghdad to adopt aggressive tactics and brutal bombings that will bring higher levels of civilian casualties and provoke a public relations nightmare. "That is within Saddam's reach," he said.
Qubad Talabany, deputy representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said so much is riding on American success in this war, that democracy throughout the Middle East could be damaged if it doesn't come out well.
A defeat, Talabany warned, would only fuel the rise of anti-American Islamic clerics "If we fail, you can kiss goodbye to secular democracy in the Middle East."
