US military power no guarantee of victory in Iraq

By ANDREW BUNCOMBE

KUWAIT CITY - The battle plans were drawn up months, if not years, ago. Since then they have been sent back to the planners numerous times, fine-tuned to take account of new developments and some parts have even been torn-up completely.

Now, with a military strike against Iraq all but inevitable – and perhaps just days away – there is an overwhelming sense that Washington believes those plans will ensure the defeat of Saddam Hussein and his under-equipped army will be an entirely one-sided fight. Forget about having even the slightest doubts as to the outcome of the venture on which they are about to embark - here in Kuwait, some officers talk of storming to Baghdad in a matter of hours.

"We have sufficient military capacity to do the job that America's military would be asked to do," US General Tommy Franks said this week, speaking at America's regional battle headquarters in nearby Qatar. "If called on to do this mission, there is no doubt about who is the victor. There is no doubt."

The US and their British allies are relying upon three factors to overcome the Iraqi forces - fear, intimidation and an overwhelmingly superior strike force.

The opening volley from that strike force will most likely come in the night with a simultaneous attack using missiles fired from battle-ships in the Gulf and American and British bombers pounding Baghdad and other major cities with up to 3,000 precision guided-bombs designed to take out military installations and anti-aircraft weapons.

General Richard Myers, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a recent Pentagon briefing that the blitzkrieg planned for the opening strike of the war would be "such a shock to the system that the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on that the end was inevitable".

Unlike the Gulf War of 1991 in which coalition forces carried out a 40-day bombing strike against Iraqi defences before the insertion of grounds forces, this time the assaults are likely to be more or less simultaneous.

It could be that bulldozers mounted on the front of tanks play a key part in the initial ground assault from the south, breaking through sand defences and overrunning any Iraqi forces close to the Kuwaiti border. The US 3rd Infantry Division this week revealed its plans for using the machines to gouge breaches through banks, ditches and electrified fences, clearing the way to allow more than 500 tanks and armoured vehicles to pour through.

At the same time, American and British Special Forces, some already operating in Iraq's western desert, would be deployed to secure the oilfields and to locate and destroy President Saddam's Scud missiles before he could launch them against either Israel or the invading forces.

With Turkey having refused to allow US troops to open a northern front from its border, America will almost certainly fly in airborne troops to northern Iraq to create a force that could link up with anti-Saddam Kurdish militia forces which it has been training in recent months.

While the airlift to create this "advanced" northern front will be a major undertaking, Mr Franks has made clear his intention to do so. The US 101st airborne – the so-called Screaming Eagles – which are equipped with Apache helicopters, would be asked to do this job. They may also have to intervene to prevent fighting between the Kurds and the Turks.

If the British contingent of 26,000 troops based in Kuwait is called upon, its main task will be to take control of the southeastern Iraqi city of Basra and the oilfields nearby.

And then there is the matter of Baghdad. Military officials believe the push to the edges of the Iraqi capital will be relatively straightforward: In the south most military installations have been long destroyed by 12 years of US and British bombing and while President Saddam's regular army numbers some 300,000 conscripted men, they are believed to be demoralised and poorly trained. After more than a decade of sanctions, their equipment is likely to be less effective than it was in 1991.

Officials are so confident of overcoming this army that they have been trying to communicate with Iraqi soldiers in the south to let them know how to surrender once the fighting starts.

But in Baghdad things could be more difficult, especially if President Saddam fears he has nothing to lose.

Iraqi workers have been digging trenches around the capital, apparently to be filled with oil and set alight in order to create a thick cloud of smoke that could interfere with the laser guidance system used on US bombs. If he chooses, President Saddam could bomb dams along the Euphrates and the Tigris, flooding the Mesopotamian plain to further slow the US advance.

President Saddam is likely to defend Baghdad by establishing concentric rings – the first protected by the 60,000-strong Republican Guard, which are expected to stand and fight.

The best soldiers, the 15,000-strong Special Republican Guard, will likely protect the inner city itself, supported by the president's Special Security Organisation, a force of some 5,000. These forces will probably also be deployed to protect President Saddam's home city of Tikrit.

"Americans should not look to the relatively antiseptic wars for Kuwait and Kosovo as a guide. If it were to come down to fighting block by block in Baghdad, the images could be brutal. We have to be mentally prepared for that," General Myers admitted last week.

Many analysts believe that given America's experience in Vietnam, and more presciently during the Black Hawk down incident in Somalia where 18 Marines were killed in a botched raid, the US and British forces will be wise to avoid getting engaged in street fighting. In these circumstances, civilian casualties would be much higher and the high-tech weaponry that gives American forces such an advantage would of less use.

In such circumstances, coalition forces may decide not to march on Baghdad.

"Why do we have to go in?" one senior British officer in Kuwait said this week. "Why can't we just sit there and wait for his own people to finish him off?"

But all of this leaves many questions – some of them potentially crucial – unanswered:

* What happens if a Scud missile lands on Tel Aviv resulting in an immediate military response from Israel?

* What happens if President Saddam decides to use any weapons of mass destruction that he may have? (After all, why should the US expect him to play clean when he is fighting for his life?)

* And what happens if one of the American's 3,000lb smart bombs actually turns out to be rather dumb and takes out a hospital, the misery of which is captured on film by al-Jazeera and instantly relayed around the Arab world and beyond?

It is these scenarios that could disrupt the definite swagger with which America's military machine currently walks.

- INDEPENDENT