Huggin' The Enemy

The "hugging" metaphor is, of course, a savage irony. Not even bears hug with assault rifles -- only human beings are that violent.

Placing soldiers within 50 meters of the enemy and keeping them there is a risky ploy. However, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) evolved "hugging" tactics to a high military art. Massive U.S. firepower, delivered by artillery and aircraft, threatened maneuvering NVA units. Thus, the gutty NVA tactic of getting close to U.S. infantry and staying close. U.S. fire support then ran an increased risk of hitting U.S. troops. With U.S. firepower constrained, the ground battle then became infantry against infantry. Motivated and well-led NVA troops now had better odds and an opportunity to send American soldiers home in body bags -- a key political objective on the part of Hanoi's high command.

Thick jungles and sprawling cities ("urban jungles") give troops lots of places to hide and "hug." And here lies -- in part-- Saddam Hussein's hope, that Iraqi streets and alleys will be concrete Vietnams or Mogadishus. That's certainly the tout and one rhetorically convenient to the West's nouveau Neville Chamberlains.

However, the Iraqi military and the NVA have little in common, particularly when it comes to the commitment and discipline required to stick to a fight at close quarters.

The Iraqi Army of 2002, including the Republican Guard and special units, is deployed not to defend Iraq but to oppress it. Yes, that means it is deployed to defend Saddam's ruling cohort. Still, loyalty from even elite units is bought with better bread and Mercedes-Benzes. When someone else -- like Washington -- offers steaks and Porsches, as well as a chance to remain alive, who's true to the Butcher of Baghdad? Recall Iraqi troops' surrender to French photographers in Desert Storm.

Saddam's regime is brittle. The apt analogy is Nicolae Ceausescu's vile Romanian dictatorship, a multitiered police state akin to Saddam's. In late 1989, with the political context of the Cold War suddenly shifting, Ceausescu's own secret police quickly put him in a grave. U.S. strategy remains directed at provoking a Baghdad coup. Aggressive "war talk" and troop movements promote that optimal result.

Still, if it came to shove and Washington were to invade, what is Saddam's best bet to stop the U.S. military's speed, precision and synergistic violence?

Last December, a group of civilian military analysts produced a hypothetical Iraqi war plan. Similar "Iraqi op-plans" have been published this summer. The group clearly leveraged U.S. Army strategic war games conducted in the late 1990s that explored "web defenses." The analysts proposed Iraqi webs composed of interlocking defensive positions sited in urban zones. These featured air defense weapons beside mosques, tanks parked beside apartment buildings, troops placed among schoolchildren, and command bunkers built beneath museums and hospitals.

This cold gambit -- human and cultural shields -- was designed to thwart U.S. advantages in long-range fire and create "targeting dilemmas" -- e.g., are these people Iraqi civilians or soldiers? The strategic objective was to buy Saddam more time to affect "world opinion" and portray Washington as a heartless murderer.

Yet the key to making Saddam's spider web work remained loyalty, and that, several analysts argued, he doesn't have.

The analytic group decided Saddam's best option to slow a U.S. attack was chemical weapons delivered by SCUD missiles. War gaming indicated if the United States had only Kuwait as a base, Saddam had a fair chance of dousing air and logistics bases with persistent nerve agent. Iraq had the capacity to strike one big target. U.S. basing out of Jordan and Turkey radically reduced this Iraqi threat.

Firing missiles at Israel or other Middle Eastern countries is also an option, but it's one Saddam already has, and it becomes more lethal if the world waits until he acquires nukes.

The U.S. counter to the web and hidden SCUDs? Precision weapons and high-speed helicopter-borne assaults on key nodes in the web, with rapid armor follow-on. Critical immediate goals include destruction of command centers, isolation of Iraqi leaders, and capture of chemical and biological weapons dumps.

If the United States achieves those goals, the Iraqi Army will collapse. Then, watch the Iraqi people welcome their liberators.

Makes sense to me. I don't think Saddam commands half the loyalty of his troops that he had in 1991...and look at how hard they fought for him then!

Airdrop Iraqi money in small-denomination, used bills.

They'll get the message, and act accordingly. Maybe dropping some magazine-loaded pistols, as the OSS did with the .45 Liberator...will give them all the instruction they need. Some will get into the right hands.

All this handring and doom talk reminds me of 91 when somepeople thought that we were going to suffer 30,000 kia. That was when Saddammnn had an army. The Iraqis won`t fight for him this time. Saddammnnn is toast the day GWB sends the troops.

It would be great to locate him, and take him out first, wouldn't it. All will be well. They are nothing, and that's why he needs gas and dirty behavior just to hang on a little bit longer, hiding behind all those happy women, children, and struggling fathers. We should take pains to make it clear that we are there to help them, and others like them in all countries, including our own.

BTW...which direction is the country's prevailing wind? Toward Saudi? Wouldn't be suprised. They are selfish, gutless liars, and if you compare what they say in English to what they say in Arabian....liars...real low dogs. The world will get to see it all, writ LARGE!

Saddam's regime is brittle.

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That empty claim was made in the early 90s. When are we going up and quit making it.

It would be great to locate him, and take him out first, wouldn't it.

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That's what needs to be done. Drop a bom on his every suspected or expected position. It would bring protest from the Mohammedan world over intrusion by the foreign infidels, but it needs to be done.

I think Israel should drop a few hundred of their nutron weapons on Bagdad and all major Iraqi cities. Yes there will be civilian casualities, but that is better than having our soldiers walk into urban warfare.

Israel has said it will not sit back and absorb a first strike, and they shouldn't. But if they are going to hit, they should hit hard. It's terrible that civilians are being hid behind, but that cannot be allowed to stop us from winning.

If civilian casualties are a given, then let it be the enemies civilians. That is far better than innocent Americans or Israeli civilians.

Good work. Hugging the enemy didn't work that well. Some of us walked the fire in behind them - fixed them with direct fire - MGs, grenades, M79s, M16s, then marched fire in on them from the rear - field artillery, gunships, fast movers, whatever. Also, don't be so certain the current generation of combat leaders will hesitate to kill the enemy regardless of of their willingness to sacrifice their own people. Rule number 1 - use all available means to destroy the enemy! Wherever, whenever. No slack! Keep up the fire! Rule number 2 - pay attention to rule number 1. Rule 3 - Use bulldozers to bury their dead.

I agree with your assumption regarding our current military leaders willingness to accept collateral damage as a normal consequence of war. In fact, I believe the best tactic is to not only win a decisive war with Iraq, but to do so with maximum destructive power. All of the other nations in the area must be shown that we are quite capable of being the final arbitrator of any dispute, if we so choose.

I agree completely. Anything associated with enemy combat capability must be destroyed. Stop the touchy, feelie PC stuff. The only thing our enemies respect is the ruthless application of combat power.

In addition, any threatened or actual use of so called weapons of mass destruction by our enemies and their collaborators is justification for their complete destruction.

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