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And now for a little reality

TRAPPED!

By RALPH PETERS

March 26, 2003 -- PERHAPS the craziest notion bouncing around the media is that Saddam Hussein is a brilliant military strategist. He may be a champion dictator, good at slaughtering, torturing, raping and starving his own people. But his military schemes are masterpieces of incompetence.
Right now, the hand-wringers are warning that Saddam, in a stroke of genius, has deployed his Republican Guards in towns and villages, threatening us with deadly urban combat and inevitable destruction.

What Saddam actually has done is to break his last, best armored divisions into little pieces. He'll never be able to put them back together. And we'll destroy them, piece by piece.

Saddam's remaining "elite" troops are indeed hiding behind civilians and breaking the laws of war by placing tanks, artillery and other military systems next to mosques, hospitals and schools. Yes, they're using their own people as human shields. But the pundits - and Saddam - have utterly misread the consequences.

Certainly, this dispersal of his remaining divisions makes targeting them harder - because we don't intentionally kill innocent civilians. So the destruction of Saddam's last armored forces may go a bit more slowly. But that's only an annoyance. In the greater scheme of things, Saddam has done us a favor.

By breaking up his most-loyal brigades and divisions of his own free will, Saddam has thrown away his last chance to use them as a coherent military force. They're not only out of his control now, they're out of the control of their battalion and brigade commanders.

The purpose of an armored division is to strike swiftly, with massive, converging firepower, against your enemy. Tanks are not effective in ones and twos. A division's real advantage is the synergy it achieves by combining all of its combat systems - tanks, infantry, artillery - into one powerful package.

Just as he has trapped himself in Baghdad, like Hitler in Berlin, Saddam has trapped the best of his military in scattered villages, towns and suburbs. The moment they try to move out of their hiding places to gather and attack us, they will be destroyed.

They're not even that well hidden. When the sandstorms clear and we pick up the pace again, we'll strike them at our leisure. As for the cowards hiding next to hospitals and mosques, we'll spare them for now - but they might as well be chained to those buildings. They can't move, or they'll be destroyed.

That's not going to do Saddam or his grandiose plans much good.

I do agree with the straight-shooter generals we've heard briefing from the Gulf: Tough days still lie ahead. Some of that Iraqi armor will come out to fight in little groups. Our troops on the ground may get into some challenging armored gunfights. But we're better-trained, better-equipped, better-motivated, and we're led by real soldiers, not by dictators cross-dressing as field marshals.

Deadly dangers remain, and I do not ever want to suggest that the last stretch of the road to Baghdad will be an easy ride. Some Iraqi tanks have been dug in and carefully camouflaged. Some may even get off the first shot. But they won't get off a second one. A tank in a stationary position is nothing but a pillbox leaking oil - and a perfect target. No Iraqis who kill or injure Americans are going to survive.

And more indicators have popped up that Saddam has ordered the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield. If his subordinates are foolish enough to obey his orders to employ these inhumane weapons, they may, indeed, harm unknown numbers of our men and women in uniform. But our response will be fierce, and uncompromising, and irresistible.

If chemical weapons are used, the results could be ugly. And the broadcast media will go into a panic. But the readers of this newspaper (and you studs down on Wall Street) need to remain steady, in that great New York "I seen 'em tougher than you, buddy" spirit.

Since 9/11, America's been in the payback business. And there's nobody better at business than Americans. Any chemical attacks will be avenged.

Dictators always mistake freedom for weakness. We will not be deterred by anything Saddam and his dying regime throw at us. We will simply show the world that there is no courage more enduring or powerful than the courage born of liberty.

THIS column has consistently tried to apply common sense, honesty, and military experience to explaining the events of this war. But, just as I believe we can all be confident of the war's outcome, we also need to be willing to look hard at our mistakes. And some mistakes have been made.

The men and women of our armed forces are performing valiantly under difficult, exhausting conditions. They continue to face serious dangers, from chemical weapons to the bloody intensity of tactical combat. But there is one other risk that concerns me - and it was a needless risk to take.

Despite the warnings - even the pleading - of his generals, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to send as many heavy ground forces to the Gulf as our military planners requested. In many ways an admirable and inspiring leader, Rumsfeld let himself be persuaded by a gang of civilian theorists and by mercenary defense contractors that airpower could win this war and that ground forces would just go in to tidy things up.

So the generals did not get the extra armored divisions they wanted to provide maximum punch on the battlefield and as insurance should unexpected difficulties emerge. Now we have no significant ground reserves in the theater of war, we lack adequate combat units to fully protect our supply lines - and the weary troops at the front must continue the fight by themselves.

A campaign like this should be a matter of teamwork, with new players going in to relieve those who need a breather. But we went to war with nobody on the bench.

Make no mistake: Our soldiers and Marines will pull this one off. Count on it. But, in this single respect, the civilian leadership in the Pentagon let our troops down. We had the forces, we had the time, and Secretary Rumsfeld refused to send them. Just as Defense Secretary Les Aspin refused to send our troops in Somalia the tanks for which they begged.

This isn't Somalia, but any defense secretary unwilling to listen to the advice of his uniformed subordinates assumes a terrible responsibility.

Ralph Peters is a retired military officer and the author of "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."
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