Iraq Said To Plan Tangling The U.S. In Street Fighting

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 — President Saddam Hussein of Iraq will try to compensate for his armed forces' glaring weaknesses by raising the specter of urban warfare if the Bush administration moves to attack the Iraqi government, according to Pentagon officials and former United States government experts.

In anticipation of an eventual American attack, Iraq has already started military preparations, they say.

Iraqi forces have been digging defensive positions for military equipment around Baghdad. The Iraqi military has also been moving air defense units around the country and dispersing army units in the field to make them less vulnerable to a surprise air attack.

During the Persian Gulf war of 1991, the Iraqi troops who captured Kuwait dug themselves into positions in the open desert. That made them vulnerable to allied air strikes and the fast-paced attacks by the United States' better trained and more maneuverable ground forces.

But this time Mr. Hussein's goal is not so much to hold ground as to hold power. That means that Iraq can be expected to use the threat of urban warfare to try to deter the United States from attacking in the first place and to raise the political costs if Washington decides to press ahead with an invasion.

"Iraq has no hope of prevailing in a straight military fight, and after Desert Storm the Iraqis probably realize that," said Kenneth M. Pollack, the director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former C.I.A. analyst of the Iraqi military.

"Their best and most likely strategy will be to try to create the political conditions that would lead the Bush administration to think twice about an attack," Mr. Pollack said. "And one way to do that is to make us believe that we are going to face a Mesopotamian Stalingrad."

Current and former American military officers expressed confidence that the United States would ultimately triumph, but differed about how difficult a military campaign would be, particularly if American forces were compelled to fight in Iraq's cities. Their assessments depend not only on the quality of Iraq's forces but on the more fundamental question of how many Iraqi units would remain loyal to Mr. Hussein.

"I think it is a serious mistake to underestimate the current combat capability of Iraq military to include air defense," said Gen. Joseph P. Hoar of the Marines, who before his retirement led the United States Central Command, which has responsibility for planning and executing American military operations in the Middle East. "The major lesson of the gulf war is that Iraq was no match for U.S. forces in the open desert," he said. "That would lead me to believe that they will use built-up areas and barriers where they can to make up for their lack of mobility and technology. We are going to prevail. The question is risk."

Gen. Barry McCaffrey of the Army, who led the 24th Mechanized Division against Iraqi forces in the gulf war before his retirement, was more sanguine about the course of a American military campaign against Iraq.

"My assessment is that if you put enough pressure on them, they will come apart and won't fight," General McCaffrey said in an interview. "The notion that they will retreat into the built-up areas and turn them into a kind of Stalingrad is laughable."

"I don't think they can handle the synergy of American military power, the violence and speed," he said. "A war could entail a few thousand U.S. casualties. But my honest judgment is that if we are serious about this, it would take 90 days to build up our forces and 21 days for the campaign. I think they will unravel."

There is no question that the Iraqi military is a pale reflection of the Iraqi force that rushed into Kuwait in August 1990. Because of the United Nations embargo, the Iraqis have not been able to buy major new weapons.

Meanwhile, the United States has upgraded its military with more technologically advanced reconnaissance systems and precision weapons. The Iraqis have had difficulty obtaining spare parts, substantially reducing the military's readiness and its ability to move forces around the country.

The Iraqi Army, with a strength of 350,000, is about a third of its size at the start of the gulf war. It is made up of 17 regular army divisions and six divisions of the elite Republican Guard.

American intelligence officials say Iraq's regular army forces are kept far from the capital for fear that they might be involved in a coup against Mr. Hussein. That deployment enables them to contain indigenous threats but means that they can directly contribute little to the defense of Iraq's capital.

Eleven of the regular army divisions are involved in defending northern Iraq, close to the Kurdish-controlled areas. The remaining six divisions are focused on suppressing the resistance of Shiite Muslims in the south. Long stretches of Iraq's border with Iran are virtually undefended, a pattern that suggests that the Iraqi government has concluded that the internal opposition is the greater threat.

There is ample evidence that morale in the regular army is not high and that not all units can be relied on to fight. In 1998, when the Clinton administration mounted its series of air strikes against suspected sites of weapons of mass destruction, many Iraqi soldiers deserted, according to American intelligence officials.

The army's logistical network is also in tatters, analysts say, making it hard to quickly move troops around the country, a decided disadvantage if the army confronts fast-paced American forces. In 2000, when Mr. Hussein ordered four of his army divisions to move west toward the Syrian border, and therefore toward Israel, as a gesture of support for the Palestinians, logistical problems arose and the deployment was never carried out.

In contrast to the regular army, the Republican Guard divisions are more reliable, though even here the loyalty of Republican Guard officers is not assured. Two Republican Guard divisions, the Adnan and the Nebuchadnezzar, are deployed in the north to buttress the regular army deployments there.

But the key Republican Guard deployment is near Baghdad. Three armored Republican Guard divisions — the Hammurabi, Al Nida and Medina — are stationed in a ring around the capital. The capital itself is defended by the Special Republican Guard, the most reliable unit, which numbers around 15,000 and also guards other presidential installations, including Mr. Hussein's compound in his home village, Tikrit.

Even the much-touted Republican Guard has suffered as a result of the sanctions. During the gulf war the Republican Guard was well equipped with T-72 tanks, and even some regular army units had T-72's. Now, however, not all the Republican Guard tank regiments are at full strength and some are outfitted with older T-55's.

The Iraqi Air Force numbers about 300 combat aircraft, about half as many as it had during the gulf war, officials say. Iraqi pilots flew some of their best planes to Iran during the gulf war to protect them from American and allied air strikes, and they have never been returned.

Iraq's best aircraft are the French-made Mirage F-1's and Soviet-made MIG-25's. According to American intelligence, the Iraqi Air Force is flying more often these days thanks to spare parts smuggled from Syria. But Iraq has relatively few pilots, who get relatively little flying time. They could be quickly overwhelmed by American air power.

Iraqi air defenses are capable, American analysts say. That is because Iraq has managed to recreate its network of air defense command centers using fiber-optic cables from China.

During the NATO confrontation with Yugoslavia in 1999, Iraq's air defense commanders were in contact with the Serbs, who are presumed to have shared intelligence on American air tactics.

Furthermore, Iraqi air defense forces get plenty of practice firing at American and British planes patrolling the northern and southern no-flight zones established by the allies after the gulf war. While the Iraqis have shot down some reconnaissance drones, the United States has yet to lose a manned aircraft as a result of any of those patrols.

Iraq has virtually no navy, and it would find it difficult to stop the United States Navy from operating in the Persian Gulf, American intelligence officials say. Iraq does not have any ships capable of laying mines, though the Iraqis can still set mines adrift in the gulf. It does have a handful of ground-based missile-launchers for firing missiles at enemy ships.

Administration officials do not know how many Al Hussein Scud missiles Iraq has. Estimates range from just a few to as many as 40, officials say. In addition to 390-mile-range Husseins, Iraq has made Al Samoud missiles, which have a range of 90 miles.

During the Persian Gulf war, Iraq's basic strategy was to produce a stalemate on the battlefield in the hope that the United States would negotiate over the future of Kuwait.

Iraq's current strategy is somewhat different, analysts say. Overmatched militarily, Iraq now regards its best option to be raising the political and military costs of an attack for the United States and any allies it may be able to attract, in the hope that Iraq's foes will lose their stomach for an invasion, analysts say.

Iraq has also sought to inflame the Arab-Israeli conflict by providing money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Its calculation is that Washington will find it too difficult to assemble a coalition for action against Iraq if the Middle East is in crisis.

If war breaks out, Iraq may also try to draw Israel into the fighting and therefore create problems for any American-Arab coalition, a strategy Iraq tried in the gulf war. Iraq could try to fire Scud missiles at Israel and Persian Gulf states.

Iraq's presumed stocks of chemical and biological weapons are a wild card. Iraq may try to use Scud missiles to deliver weapons of mass destruction. The warheads Iraq had at the time of the 1991 conflict detonated on impact and were not well designed for disseminating biological or chemical agents.

American officials say they do not know if Iraq has developed new warhead designs. Iraq could also try to use its warplanes or helicopters to spray germ agents.

American forces would try to neutralize those threats, officials say, by occupying potential Scud launching areas, seizing command of the skies and probably warning Iraqi troops that any forces that carried out orders to use weapons of mass destruction would held accountable.

Another option is urban warfare. Iraq's basic strategy, an American official said, is to disperse its forces, endure the American airstrikes and then move into urban centers.

"There are some indications that they are going to dig themselves in in population centers," said Walter P. Lang, who was the chief Defense Intelligence Agency analyst on the Middle East during the gulf war.

"It is the only real method that makes any sense for them," he said. "They have to do something to maximize the situation so that their local defenses can wear us down. But the effect will depend on the quality of the units. The military has to fight well for this to be effective."

Iraqi opposition groups say Mr. Hussein has set up a special emergency committee to control security in and around the capital. The committee reportedly is made up of Mr. Hussein's son Qusay; Abed Hamid Mahmud, a top aide to the Iraqi leader; and Kamal Mustafa, the head of the Special Republican Guard.

Soon after Sept. 11, Iraq began dispersing some of its troops, apparently fearing that Washington would blame it for the terrorist attacks in New York and Virginia. But in recent weeks there has been an increase of military activity around Baghdad, United States officials say.

At the same time, the Iraqis have not canceled military leaves or taken other emergency preparations. That indicates that Mr. Hussein has judged correctly that an attack is not yet at hand. The Iraqi government is also concerned with ferreting out possible American intelligence agents and preventing efforts to establish contacts with dissident factions.

The effectiveness of Iraq's military strategy will depend heavily on the extent to which its troops remain loyal and the Iraqi people back their government instead of welcoming their "liberators."

Maintaining the morale of Iraqi forces and the support of the population is expected to be difficult if it becomes clear that most of Iraq's territory outside the capital is under the control of the United States.

"The military machine we face now in Iraq is the same one we faced in 1991, only now it is much smaller and weaker," a Pentagon official said. "They have never been able to make good their losses in the Persian Gulf war, and sanctions have taken a toll.

"The extent to which they will defend in the outer cities, particularly in the Shiite-dominated south, will be less than as you go north. But they do believe that urban warfare is a vulnerability of U.S. and coalition forces, and they are likely to shift the battle to urban terrain."

Basic rules in warfare: stick to military and industrial targets while by-passing political ones.
Baghdad is important only as a political target, it should be isolated and siege laid to it.
We let food in when they send the head of Hussein out on a platter.
Or, if they hit Israel with WMD's, just wait untill the nuclear cloud settles...

Bagdad as Stalingrad will not wash. If the defenders of Staligrad had not had continual resupply and reinforcement over the Volga river they would have been driven out by the Germans. The big problem the Germans faced was effective concentration of firepower to eliminate the dug in positions of the Russians today's smart weapons make that problem irrelevant.

of course the above presumes everyone in such a stronghold is a defender and a fair target.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

I didn't look at the source of the article until I read this paragraph. The Clinton "series of air strikes" were completely offset by his limp-wristed approach to weapons inspections and their susbsequent cancellation.

There are some indications that they are going to dig themselves in in population centers," said Walter P. Lang, who was the chief Defense Intelligence Agency analyst on the Middle East during the gulf war.

Hey suckers... what you gonna do when we surround your town spray herbacide over the city so you can't grow nothin and cut off your water supply fool! How bad you think you gonna be then.

Stupid Times idiots.

Get shot at from building. Destroy building. Move to next building. Repeat as needed.

If it gets too complicate, substitute "block" for "building."

Jeez....this aint THAT hard.

Yes, a siege. Could get messy, with the Times' decrying starvation and plague every edition. While this wouldn't need to happen in order for the press to exploit it, it's still probable it would. The innocent would die first, since they are the weakest.

On the other hand the Israelis have some valuable insights on urban warfare learned in Jenin. Maybe they would share?

The Nazi intention for Stalingrad was to take the city and hold it over the winter before moving again. Had they levelled it (assuming they could), they couldn't have used it as they wished.

No such consideration with Baghdad. Level it, blockade it, maybe even "island hop" around it. I'm no general, but I know enough to know that Baghdad isn't any Stalingrad, nor is Saddam a Stalin except in his soul.

Bagdad as Stalingrad will not wash. If the defenders of Staligrad had not had continual resupply and reinforcement over the Volga river they would have been driven out by the Germans.

Saddam has a city, we have the rest of the country, with short supply lines and rapid response times for us. When the VC had the countryside and we had the cities in Vietnam, that was proclaimed as a loss for us. Now we will control the countryside.

Of course, even the Vietnam situation is not an exact parallel in this case. First, expect more technological innovations from us, as was the case in Afghanistan. Second, damn few Iraqis chose to die for Saddam out in the desert. How many more will do that in the cities, even hiding behind their own people as shields?

The problem with defending a city in house to house fighting is that if the attackers have weapons such as JDAM's and laser guided munitions enough heavy weaponry will make direct hits on the defeners in the rubble to eliminate resistance. A battle for Bagdad would cost a whole lot of Iraqi lives but need not cost a large number of American casualties. Saddam does have a strategy that might work for him but this one is not it.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

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