Where the Elite Meet Defeat - Saddam's hugely overrated Republican Guard

Slate.com ^ | 4-2-03 | By Fred Kaplan

[Oldeconomybuyer]

It came as a surprise—presumably no less to Iraqi commanders than to American commentators—when the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division launched their final push toward Baghdad Tuesday night, aiming to punch through the Republican Guard's most built-up defenses. The surprise was that the move came before U.S. reinforcements, especially from the 4th Infantry Division, had arrived in the field. The concern is whether a mere two divisions, plus elements from the 101st Airborne and the 2nd Armored, can do the job. The good news, though, is that the Republican Guards aren't very good and never really have been.

News stories have long referred to these Iraqi units as the "elite Republican Guards." The honorific stems from the months leading up to the first Gulf War, in 1990-91, when long-ignored specialists on the Iraqi army—mainly from the CIA and the U.S. Army War College—brought out their charts and forecasts of how ferociously these top-of-the-line divisions would fight. The phrase "war-hardened" was also frequently invoked, referring to the Iraqi force's eight years of experience in the war against Iran.

However, once the ground war phase of Operation Desert Storm got underway, the Republican Guard folded in a mere three days (though, granted, after nearly 40 days of aerial bombardment). The U.S. force that pushed the Iraqi army out of Kuwait in '91 was larger than the force that is now preparing to take Baghdad, but it also turned out to be larger than necessary. The plan in Desert Storm was for the Marines to mount a direct assault on Iraq's defensive positions and essentially hold the Republican Guards in place, while the Army swung around from the west and surrounded the guards, crushing them and blocking a retreat. As it turned out, the Republican Guards were so weakened (and the Marines so tactically deft) that the Iraqis fled before the Army completed the envelopment. (This led to the massive U.S. airstrikes against the retreating Iraqi troops on the "highway of death," reports of which prompted the first President Bush, on the advice of then-Gen. Colin Powell, to cease fire as a humanitarian gesture—most unfortunate, as the surviving Republican Guards proceeded to slaughter the leaders of an incipient anti-Saddam uprising in southern Iraq. And so here we are once more.)

The point is that the Republican Guards are elite troops compared with the rest of the Iraqi army, but they wouldn't score well in a worldwide competition.

Saddam Hussein created the Republican Guard in 1980, as a Praetorian guard to provide security for his regime. Initially, its ranks were filled entirely with natives of Tikrit, Saddam's hometown. However, the corps expanded into a spearhead force during the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam gave them extra training, higher salaries, new cars, subsidized housing, and the best weapons available—Soviet T-72 tanks and BMP armored personnel carriers, French and Austrian self-propelled howitzers. Even so, their most successful battles in the late 1980s, toward the end of that war, were largely set-pieces. They never penetrated more than 40 miles into Iranian territory and even then it was against no opposition. The Republican Guards fought well on the defensive and even learned how to coordinate the maneuver of tanks with artillery and infantry. But they never fought well against a competent force and never, until Desert Storm, had to deal with an adversary whose army was escorted by combat aircraft.

The '91 Gulf War reduced the Republican Guards to about half of their prior strength, and they haven't rebuilt much in the 12 years since. They are still equipped with the same weapons and are probably short on stocks and spare parts. Meanwhile, the U.S. arsenal is far more lethal than it was back then, due mainly to the greater precision of its bombs and missiles, and U.S. troops are trained to fight with more aggressive and flexible tactics.

As long as the Republican Guards are compelled to fight in a fairly conventional style, they are doomed—even when faced with lighter-than-desired U.S. forces. There is no reason to doubt this morning's report from U.S. Central Command that the 1st Marine Division has "destroyed" the Republican Guard's Baghdad division on the southeastern outskirts of the capital. We will probably soon hear similar reports about the 3rd Infantry's assault on the Medina division to the west. Basically, if the Republican Guards remain dug in, they will be outmaneuvered; if they venture out to fight, they will be outgunned; whatever they do, they will be bombed and strafed from the air.

None of this means the road to Baghdad is now the proverbial cakewalk. The Army and Marine supply lines are still stretched thin and may stretch thinner as the troops and tanks roll on, tempting further guerrilla strikes and ambushes from the flanks and the rear. The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that elements from several Republican Guard divisions, which had been deployed north of Baghdad, have moved to the south—in some cases abandoning their armored vehicles and, like the Fedayeen guerrillas, firing machine guns and grenades from the back of pickup trucks. It is hard to see how such tactics can succeed in the long run, but they can slow the American advance and divert U.S. troops into the grim attrition of "search-and-destroy" missions, which have never been our strong point.

Then there is the war's next chapter, the battle for Baghdad itself. If Saddam's regime has not already crumbled by the time U.S. troops are ready to enter the capital (and that time may come very soon—CNN has just reported that some troops are a mere 15 miles from the city's southern edge), this battle may include block-by-block, door-to-door fighting. Urban warfare in Basra and Nasiriyah has provided a small taste of what may lie ahead. Baghdad of course is much larger, and its rooftops and alleyways are likely to be riddled with hundreds or thousands of armed resisters from the Fedayeen and redeployed soldiers.

The current head-on tank battles against the Republican Guard, the subject of much dread anticipation before the war, may turn out to be the easiest phase of all.

[TheLooseThread]

Let me summarize:

We "pro-war" types don't understand how really hard this is all going to be.

We "pro-war" types don't understand that it was always going to be really easy.

[Illbay]

...The good news, though, is that the Republican Guards aren't very good and never really have been.

This was always true (as the article attests), even back in the Desert Storm days.

I always wondered why the media kept using the term "elite" to describe a force we'd already beat the **** out of once before.

[EternalHope]

I think you got it. Here's more:

We pro-war types should be horrified by all the Americans coming home in body bags.

We pro-war types should be ashamed to kill so many clearly defenseless enemy soldiers. That they were defenseless is proven by how few of our soldiers have been killed.

[Poohbah]

We gotta work up a satire piece for the Medina Division, based on Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina."

"Funky Dead Medina?"

[EternalHope]

If understand this article right, we were expected to lose. And we would have, too, if the other side hadn't been so weak.

[DannyTN]

And don't forget...

General Franks had to order reinforcements because he didn't have enough troops to do the job and

General Franks is doing the job with the existing troops before the reinforcements arrive

Ergo since the writer can't figure out what General Franks is doing, General Franks must not know himself.

[Blake#1]

Why does the liberal media always refer to the Republican Guard? Because the word republican is in the title. This is to equate Republicans with the "enemy".

[Steel Wolf]

It's too bad that we don't have as many troops as the media wanted us to have, because it looks like having 'too few' turns out to be just right.

The left is desperate to spin this whole war as a 'miscalculation' where 'the plan had to change' because of 'unexpectedly stiff resistance'. Now that we're past that, they're trying to switch to 'overkill' and 'slaughter' of 'defenseless troops' with a straight face.

My take on this article is that while they were wrong, they won't admit to being wrong, and will simply keep changing their positions until they are right.

[jerrymdss]

It just goes to show ya' -- when your whole regime is all
about bulls?it -- what can ya' expect.

[DannyTN]

That's a good point.

I wonder if they are really called something that means republican in Arabic? Or if this is the press's way of sticking it to the Republicans.

[JimVT]

the Republican Guard, the subject of much dread anticipation before the war,

I have never for the life of me understood why this military unit deserved to be called "elite".

The media was using that term before and after Gulf1 when this "vaunted" unit never showed up to fight.

They started again with the "elite" title months before Gulf2 and we still hear the term used.

The media goons just love a catchy phrase.

The current buzz phrase appears to be "gone missing" using an old British term for a lost aircraft or whatever else.

Hereafter let's refer to Saddam's minions as the 'nondescript Republican Guard'......before they're 'gone missing.'

[ErnBatavia]

I always wondered why the media kept using the term "elite" to describe a force we'd already beat the **** out of once before.

That one's easy - they "read it someplace"

[tracer]

They should have been and henceforth should be referred to as the "Democrat Guard." Phony bastards.........

[Leo Carpathian]

They are called elite, because their shoes are shined.

[Lockbox]

I always wondered why the media kept using the term "elite" to describe a force we'd already beat the **** out of once before.

Well compared to the French.........

[garybob]

Baghdad of course is much larger, and its rooftops and alleyways are likely to be riddled with hundreds or thousands of armed resisters from the Fedayeen and redeployed soldiers.

Rooftops...where the Apaches and the Spectre gunships will have a turkey shoot.

[IronJack]

I am proposing that "Republican Guard" be listed in the dictionary as a synonym for "boogeyman:" A frightening, imaginary being, sometimes cited to scare children [and left-wing media].

[Illbay]

I could jump from here to the moon, if my legs weren't so weak.

[SBprone]

"Baghdad of course is much larger, and its rooftops and alleyways are likely to be riddled with hundreds or thousands of armed resisters from the Fedayeen and redeployed soldiers."

I honestly don't think they're going to tough it out.

If they do they're going to learn first hand about Marine scout-snipers.

There are some very hard men on our team.