Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Are Two of Three US Anti-Iraq Warfronts Buckling? [DEBKA]
DebkaFILES ^ | 01/18/2003 | DEBKA

Posted on 01/18/2003 4:24:45 PM PST by Publius Maximus

Are Two of Three US anti-Iraq Warfronts Buckling?

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 93 updated by DEBKAfile

January 18, 2003, 10:13 PM (GMT+02:00)

Jordan`s King Abdullah II lines up with Arab-Muslim leaders

Sunday, January 19, Israel’s defense minister Shaul Mofaz will present to the full cabinet session in Jerusalem his completed plan for meeting the hazards of a US-Iraqi war in the civilian, security and home front sectors. He will tell the ministers that the country is ready for the war.

That is true – as far as the minister’s responsibility goes. However, by the time Israel with American help, wound up its war preparations, two vital bricks showed signs of dropping out of the American war set-up. The damage may turn out to be reparable but, meanwhile, Israel’s war defenses have sprung an unexpected hole.

Jordanian’s monarch Abdullah II has developed cold feet on his armed forces’ role in the US campaign against Iraq, a mere two weeks after Turkey held back permission for US forces to use its bases as staging posts for its invasion of Iraq from the north (as first revealed in DEBKA-Net-Weekly on Jan. 10) – halting the transfer to Turkish bases of American armored divisions, warplanes and naval units. Abdullah followed suit by backtracking on his previous consent for additional US forces to ship out to Jordan to build up the invasion force on the Western sector. (To subscribe to DNW click HERE) .

This changes Israel’s strategic situation in the East.

The two defections may not be final, but in the meantime they leave US war commander General Tommy Franks with only one active survivor of his three designation warfronts: the south. US ground assault against Iraq can only come now from Kuwait and Qatar bases plus a Marine landing from vessels of the US naval armada piling up in the Persian Gulf.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources and experts calculate that the United States may partly offset the loss of Turkish bases and units by a general mobilization of Kurdish militias in northern Iraq – some 50,000 paramilitary fighters. They are no substitute for the estimated 70,000 Turkish troops supposed to have fought alongside US soldiers, but they are up to the task of commandeering northern Iraqi oilfields - with the help of US special forces present in Kurdish command centers and air cover from US aircraft carriers deployed in the eastern and central Mediterranean.

But the Kurdish militias cannot be counted on to capture the key northern Iraqi oil cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. For this task, at least one elite 101st Airborne Division contingent especially trained for months for parachuting missions into the Baghdad metropolitan area will have to be detached. In sum, the US command will have to make do with only two-thirds of the force originally dedicated to the battle for Baghdad and Saddam Hussein’s second seat of government, Tikrit.

If the Jordanian king persists in opting out, the damage to the American military disposition, as weighed up by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources, will be several times greater than Turkey’s threatened desertion, for the following reasons:

A. The strategic Iraqi air bases - especially the H2 and H3 complexes, which defend the central Iraqi region around Baghdad and Tikrit – will be left in Iraqi hands. The original US plan to drop American airborne forces on those bases or nearby and wrest control of their facilities with the help of Jordanian special and rapid deployment troops, will have to be abandoned. The Iraqi troops assigned to defending this sector against the raiding force will be free to head south and, from the west, harass American tank columns as they advance, or else race to the aid of the Iraqi defenders of Baghdad.

B. Nothing much will stand in the way of Saddam Hussein launching his 60 to 80 al-Hussein surface-to-surface missiles, most of which are hidden in western Iraq, against the advancing American columns or against Israel. The Al Hussein, an improved version of the Scud missile (32 of which wrought heavy damage in the Tel Aviv area in 1991), has a range of about 800 km (500 miles).

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military experts warn that leaving western Iraq in Saddam’s hands may well tilt the military balance in Iraq’s favor and trigger the kinds of radical military developments that US President George W. Bush has been at pains to avert for nearly two years.

These developments are linked to another of Jordan’s actions, revealed here for the first time by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources. Abdullah has secretly informed Israel via Washington that he is barring Israeli special forces from mounting operations against Iraq from Jordanian territory or transiting the kingdom on their way to western Iraq.

This ban undoes the work of almost a year of combined covert US, Jordanian and Israeli special forces action in western Iraq. As our military intelligence sources have frequently reported, their mission was to ferret out Iraqi surface missiles and launchers and mobile weapons of mass destruction, as well as hunt down Iraqi commando units manning these systems and terrorists ordered to cross through Jordan and Saudi Arabia for attacks against American targets and Israel.

Select US special forces remain in-theater, operating out of US bases built strung along the Jordanian-Iraq border over the past year. But these relatively small American contingents relied heavily for backup on Jordanian and Israeli special forces. Provided only with sporadic aid from US Marine attack and reconnaissance aircraft, they also counted on the Israeli and Jordanian air forces for air cover.

Jordan’s ban on American and Israeli over-flights has put paid to this arrangement, with immediate effect.

On Wednesday, January 15, Israel and the United States began a large-scale air defense exercise encompassing the central and eastern Mediterranean, Egypt’s Sinai desert and the Red Sea. Air defense teams are testing advanced interception systems designed to shoot down incoming missiles or planes capable of carrying nuclear, biological or chemical payloads. Numerous US military units, including specialists operating batteries of upgraded Patriot missiles, arrived in Israel over the past two weeks and will remain for the duration of the coming conflict, helping to man air defense stations.

At the last minute, the Turkish and Jordanian air forces announced their non-participation in the exercise. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources report that, hours into the drills, US and Israeli commanders were still uninformed about whether or not they had permission to fly over Jordan. Abdullah did not respond to their inquiries.

A continuing Jordanian flyover ban could give Saddam dangerous ideas. When the war begins, he might use the vacuum to launch missiles from western Iraq or send planes armed with non-conventional weapons streaking toward the Jewish state. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources estimate that Israel and the United States will respect Jordan’s prohibition during the current exercise but, once real hostilities flare, they will they will need to access Jordan’s air space – even over Abdullah’s objections. Should Israel be hit by any Iraqi weapon of mass destruction, royal anger will be no bar to heavy Israeli ground force units rolling through the Hashemite kingdom to reach western Iraq and scotch any further threats.

What led America’s two staunchest allies in the Middle East to turn their backs?

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources offer three primary explanations:

1. US generals and policy-makers began talking about a 100-hour military campaign to conquer Baghdad, meaning a lightening blitz to overthrow the Saddam regime, which began to look to his neighbors like a dangerous precedent.

2. For Arab Muslim rulers, this prospect is historically intolerable too. Since 1914, when British and French armies overran the Arab world and seized it from the Ottoman Turks, no non-Muslim conqueror has ever captured an Arab capital. When Israeli troops entered Beirut in 1982, the Reagan administration made them about-turn without delay so as not to inflame the entire Arab Muslim world. Now that the war on Iraq is around the corner, Arab and Muslim rulers are again up in arms, fearful of going down in history as having lent a hand in 2003 to the unthinkable conquest of a Muslim capital by a non-Muslim army.

President George W. Bush and his team understand what they are taking on and are not afraid to go forward.

3. Reports, messages, hints and electronic chatter attributed to al Qaeda are rife in the last few days, threatening nuclear retribution for an American attack on Iraq. There is no information on the type, scale or sophistication of the threat in question, or whether the nuclear weapon will be wielded by Iraq or come in the form of a terrorist strike, either in the hands of Iraqi agents or al Qaeda terrorists.

The threat, however, is being taken seriously enough for would-be US war allies in the region to stand aside and let the American war wagon roll on without them - for the time being. Most do not admit to desertion, only waiting to see what happens next. Some may climb back on at some point.

The coming week will see a hectic round of continuing Arab-Muslim capital-hopping and conference activity. Ankara is staging a summit, Damascus a foreign ministers meeting, this week with the participation of Turkish, Syrian, Saudi, Egyptian, Iranian and Jordanian leaders, for the avowed purpose of averting the US war on Iraq. The Saudis are trying to get another summit together in March.

They have two immediate goals. According to DEBKAfile’s sources, all these rulers are bent on demonstrating clean hands in the event of Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, while at the same time preserving their interests in Iraq and the region after the American victory.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: debka; iraq; israel; jordan; turkey; war; warlist
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-29 next last
Interesting....It does seem every day like the pendulum swings, first in a favorable light, then in an unfavorable light. Note today the anti-war demonstrations and the bad poll numbers, and now the buckling of Turkey and Jordan (if this is true).

Again, thank God adults are in the White House - for now. You never know where this wacky world is headed.

1 posted on 01/18/2003 4:24:46 PM PST by Publius Maximus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: All
There's A Better Way To Beat The Media Clymers (And You Don't Have To Skate)!

Donate Here By Secure Server

Or mail checks to
FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794

or you can use

PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com

STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD

2 posted on 01/18/2003 4:26:25 PM PST by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Publius Maximus
You forgot the standard "DEBKA Ignorant Bloviations" alert...
3 posted on 01/18/2003 4:27:21 PM PST by Poohbah (Beware the fury of a patient man -- John Dryden)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Publius Maximus
I'm hoping the Jordan and Turkey hedging is just disinformation.
4 posted on 01/18/2003 4:27:26 PM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Attack on Iraq Betting Pool
5 posted on 01/18/2003 4:28:02 PM PST by Momaw Nadon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Publius Maximus

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources and experts at work.

6 posted on 01/18/2003 4:33:30 PM PST by isthisnickcool (Blinky Edwards. Not rich. Really! He swears! Just one of the guys!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Publius Maximus
Debka is a Mossad propaganda front, but marked anyhow for later perusal...
7 posted on 01/18/2003 4:34:06 PM PST by AntiGuv (™)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: *war_list
bump
8 posted on 01/18/2003 4:38:51 PM PST by The Obstinate Insomniac (Oppose Constitutional Verbicide)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Publius Maximus
It's true. Turkey has already stabbed us in the back and Jordan is in the process. Bush will have to operate entirely through Kuwait. He is also going to need to stick it to the treacherous bastards who double cross us.
9 posted on 01/18/2003 4:45:47 PM PST by LarryM
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Publius Maximus
What led America’s two staunchest allies in the Middle East to turn their backs?

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources offer three primary explanations:

Which amount to:

1) Guilt (that their regimes might be fully worthy of such overthrow)

2) Bigotry (the moral superiority of kahfirs -- even conditional, and wrt to a psychopathic, war-mongering, genocidal dicator, hated and feared by other arab leaders -- cannot be in any wise conceeded)

3) Cowardice

10 posted on 01/18/2003 4:48:37 PM PST by Stultis
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LarryM
Good, it's cheaper this way. We don't have to pay Turkey and Jordan for their efforts. When the war is over and Turkey and Jordan realize that they are being left out of the spoils of war....well....
11 posted on 01/18/2003 4:55:20 PM PST by NeonKnight
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: The Obstinate Insomniac
Also, it relieves us of having to make any promises to Turkey in regards to the Kurds.....The Turks will never be allowed in the EU now....they were counting on our support.
12 posted on 01/18/2003 5:00:09 PM PST by NeonKnight
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Publius Maximus
These people need to know that they have a choice, it's entirely theirs. They are either with us, or they are with the terrorists. If they are NOT with us, then we know exactly where they stand and sooner or later we'll get around to them. There will be no forgiveness after the fact.

Americans are very, very slow to anger. Usually we're pretty forgiving, but this is different. This time it's our survival and we will long remember those who stood with us and those who did not. I would NOT like to be in the shoes of those who did not.

13 posted on 01/18/2003 5:01:51 PM PST by McGavin999
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: McGavin999
Usually we're pretty forgiving, but this is different.

AMEN. I will never forget 9/11, and they have a choice: WITH us, or AGAINST us. Hopefully DEBKA is off base here...

14 posted on 01/18/2003 6:02:40 PM PST by EaglesUpForever
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Publius Maximus
I would not want to be in the shoes of any "ally" who let us go to war without them.

After the fighting is over, if we have done it without the Turks, then we owe them nothing. Restraining the formation of a Kurdish homeland wasn't going to be easy anyway. If the Turks do not support us, we have no reason to try and restrain it at all.

Jordan is the historical Palestinian homeland. The king sits on a potential powderkeg, as he and his non-Jordanian family rule a people that is not his. In the aftermath of the war there would be no reason not to push for democracy in Palestine, which is to say, Jordan. Democracy means the end of Jordan's foreign royals.

The Saudis have done more than any other regime to create the situation we face, being as they are the original sponsors of Al Qaeda, and have yet to completely disavow them. We are giving them one chance to get on the right side of things. We gave the Taliban a similar chance, out of respect for our previous relations. They failed to take advantage of their one chance, and we were forced to squash them like a bug.

The Saudis have just been given their one chance. They must not blow it, unless they are prepared to spend the remainder of their days in Ibiza. They will not long remain in Riyadh if we are forced to take Baghdad without their help.

We are capable of doing what we have to do from our bases in the Gulf, and Kuwait, if need be. Our friends must understand that we are not kidding, and one-way friendships are out of fashion.
15 posted on 01/18/2003 6:04:17 PM PST by marron
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Publius Maximus
DEBKA

First of all, Bush's poll numbers are doing great. The "bad" polls done by the socialist left are even within "good" range. Polls are not a problem.
Second, Debka has a tendancy to ad lib - go to the extreme in it's reporting. They love to create fear and chaos in their readers.
It would be wiser to wait for a more sane source on this issue.

16 posted on 01/18/2003 6:18:22 PM PST by concerned about politics (Achievement is politically incorrect.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NeonKnight
I wonder if the Turks will end up entering northern Iraq anyway, but after Baghdad falls, in order to prevent the formation of a Kurdish state on their southern border.
17 posted on 01/18/2003 6:45:17 PM PST by Mackey
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: marron
We are capable of doing what we have to do from our bases in the Gulf, and Kuwait, if need be

I really think that W does not need any permissions to use whatever land area he needs to use or fly anywhere.

18 posted on 01/18/2003 7:14:50 PM PST by arthurus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: marron
Well, the Turks will say that they did support us, by letting 20,000 or so troops stage there. Sure, it falls short of the 80,000 we had in mind, but we won't be able to say that they did nothing for us.
19 posted on 01/18/2003 7:20:09 PM PST by Kryptonite
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Publius Maximus
I generally don't like Michael Savage's pessimism, but he's right on one point: Our enemies don't fear us like they should.
20 posted on 01/18/2003 8:21:09 PM PST by Thane_Banquo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-29 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson