← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Okiereddust

Thread 5969

Thread ID: 5969 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-04-04

Wayback Archive

Okiereddust [OP]

2003-04-04 16:59 | User Profile

[url=http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic/NewsViews.htm]Chronicles[/url]

and

[url=http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_news&Number=546558#Post546558]Liberty Forum[/url]

by Srdja Trifkovic

As the U.S. forces reach the outskirts of the Iraqi capital and secure their control over Baghdad’s international airport, the choices facing President Bush’s team are fairly clear and potentially unpleasant. Trying to storm Baghdad, with three divisions of the Republican Guard and unknown thousands of irregulars embedded into the sprawling city’s residential quarters, would be a military and political nightmare. The claim that those troops would quickly collapse is highly speculative. It can only be tested with an episode of urban warfare that could produce significant Coalition casualties and many more deaths among the civilians. Baghdad would not be a Stalingrad or a Berlin, perhaps, but a mix of Grozny and Mogadishu, which is awful enough. The human toll could make an eventual U.S. victory politically prohibitively costly for the Administration, at home no less than abroad.

Keeping the city encircled—possibly for weeks—and waiting for the regime’s implosion may seem a more rational option from the military point of view. In his press conference at the Pentagon on Thursday General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared to support this latter option. He said that if Baghdad were isolated it would become “irrelevant” to the rest of the country. The leadership would no longer be able to maintain contact with the remaining military forces outside the capital, and it would no longer control water and electricity. “Whatever remnants are left would not be in charge of anything except their own defense,” Myers declared. He also suggested that an interim government could begin taking shape while Baghdad is isolated by U.S. troops, perhaps for a lengthy period of time.

The two main problems with this scenario are its time scale and its potential political cost. The city of Basra—one-fifth of Baghdad’s size—should serve as a warning to Myers. It has been encircled by the British for over a fortnight. It is mostly inhabited by the Sunnis who are considered less loyal to Saddam than the people of the capital. The city is controlled by regional Baath Party political officials and its defenses are run by local military commanders, rather than the highest echelons of the regime and its military and security apparatus. The troops defending it are conscripts, reservists and militiamen, rather than tens of thousands of well-trained and heavily armed Republican Guardsmen. And yet there is no sign of Basra surrendering, or of the British successfully undermining its resistance by political ploys and psy-ops, such as the almost forgotten story of an uprising in the city.

The challenge posed by Baghdad is a similar kind, but of a different order of magnitude. The siege of Baghdad—under whatever euphemistic nametag—would soon result in a politically disastrous humanitarian catastrophe. Over five million people would be deprived of food, water and medicines, with temperatures already climbing beyond the upper nineties. The heart-rendering daily footage of breadlines and famished infants will be Allahsend for Saddam’s atrocity-managers. Far from contemplating capitulation—an unattractive option for Saddam and his inner circle, in view of the U.S. position that nothing short of unconditional surrender and regime change would do—the Iraqi leadership would be highly motivated to prolong the ordeal and to make it the biggest issue in the world.

In order to convince the Iraqis that resistance is futile the U.S. would have to keep the noose around the city tight and increasingly painful for its citizens; Gen. Myers hinted that much with his reference to “water and electricity.” At the same time with each passing day the pressure on Washington to consider a compromise solution would grow. The kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the presidents of Egypt and Turkey, the Pope and Dalai Lama, the U.N. Secretary-General and the E.U. foreign affairs commissioner, Jimmy Carter and Jesse Jackson, will try to mediate. There will be calls for humanitarian convoys to be allowed into the city, and for the sick, infirm and wounded to be evacuated out of it. Parallels with Sarajevo will be drawn abroad, especially in the Muslim world. (In fact that Sarajevo was partially blockaded rather besieged: the Serbs’ objective was to force the Muslim government to a deal, not to conquer the city.) Unpleasant General Assembly resolutions demanding U.N. observers, Red Cross relief convoys and more will be vetoed by the U.S. and Britain if they reach Security Council, but that will not stop the global media pack from going into a feeding frenzy of righteous indignation.

Last but by no means least, the effect of the siege on the morale of U.S. forces should be taken into account. The siege would turn the U.S. forces from proactive initiators of battle into reactive agents of its attempted substitute. An army sitting in tents in sweltering heat, with no clear timetable for the endgame and vilified by a hostile world, is the exact opposite of what Clausewitz defined as the primary mission of an army: to engage and destroy the enemy’s main force in a decisive battle. According to On War, a powerful emotion must stimulate the military leader, “whether it be ambition as in Caesar; hatred of the enemy, as in Hannibal; or the pride of glorious defeat, as in Frederick the Great.” All three would apply to the defenders in greater measure than to the besiegers.

The problem of Baghdad provides a multi-dimensional political and military challenge to U.S. planners. In attempting to address it they should be completely free from ideological restraints and a priori political assessments that had plagued this war’s planning for months. In practical terms this means that whatever advice comes from the Cakewalk Brigade this time, General Franks would be well advised to do the exact opposite.

> The two main problems with this scenario are its time scale and its potential political cost. The city of Basra—one-fifth of Baghdad’s size—should serve as a warning to Myers. It has been encircled by the British for over a fortnight. It is mostly inhabited by the Sunnis who are considered less loyal to Saddam than the people of the capital. The city is controlled by regional Baath Party political officials and its defenses are run by local military commanders, rather than the highest echelons of the regime and its military and security apparatus. The troops defending it are conscripts, reservists and militiamen, rather than tens of thousands of well-trained and heavily armed Republican Guardsmen. And yet there is no sign of Basra surrendering, or of the British successfully undermining its resistance by political ploys and psy-ops, such as the almost forgotten story of an uprising in the city.*

This certainly is the 50 dollar question isn't it? Administration propaganda notwithstanding, the war from Baghdad is far from over, in fact has not even begun. And even then, the real battle is just beginning. Its far easier to inspire fear as conquerors than respect as friendly occupiers without ulterior motives. Especially when that respect is not really deserved*

DRSLICEIT

2003-04-05 00:24 | User Profile

America's war policy is to bomb them with the biggest damn bombs we have and then if they don't surrender, starve them to death untill they beg for mercy. Isn't it great to be a benevolent christian nation that believes all men are created equal....ÖƒÖ