Iraq = Bush's Vietnam???
HD
U.S. Risks a Long War if It Invades, Iraqis Warn
By John Daniszewski
Times Staff Writer
March 8, 2003
BAGHDAD -- The conventional wisdom in the West is that a war against
Iraq would be relatively swift: a brief interval of awe-striking U.S.
and British bombing; a juggernaut invasion by armor fitted with the
latest in weaponry; airborne troops swooping down on key
installations; many Iraqis rising up against their government and the
Iraqi army and Republican Guard tripping over one another to surrender
or desert.
But for all of the U.S. military's technological superiority, many
Iraqis -- in government offices and in the streets -- foresee a more
difficult battle awaiting the allies.
They believe that their nation has something going for it that could
prevent such an easy victory: Iraqi troops, civilians and ruling Baath
Party activists would be fighting an invader on their own ground for
their own homes and families and, at senior levels of the regime, for
their very existence.
If resistance can survive the initial shock of the bombardment and
land-and-air assault, these Iraqis reason, they may be able to inflict
high casualties and force allied troops into urban warfare. Over time,
they believe, they could subject U.S. and British soldiers to stubborn
sniping, sabotage and other forms of harassment, bringing about a
Vietnam-style quagmire that Iraq could conceivably win.
According to sources in Baghdad and military analysts abroad, the
Iraqi armed forces likely would try to be fleet and spread out, having
learned to avoid concentrating troops in the open or on military bases
that present easy targets from the air. After the initial
bombardments, they would try to disperse to civilian areas, retreating
from large swaths of territory in the north and south -- possibly
leaving behind scorched earth in the form of blown bridges and flaming
oil fields -- until they reach Baghdad.
Defensive rings have been built around the city, one diplomat here
noted. If the expected force of more than 200,000 British and U.S.
soldiers is drawn into urban warfare, Iraqis believe that they can
contest Baghdad, street by street and block by block, in a war of
small arms, heavy machine guns and mortar shells.
To the world, which would likely see much of the fighting on
television, it would seem a David vs. Goliath struggle. And the Iraqis
surely are aware of how that biblical battle ended.
So far, the assumption of U.S. military planners has been that the
Iraqi people are sufficiently ambivalent about President Saddam
Hussein to be unwilling to sacrifice their lives for his regime, so
that resistance would start to collapse as soon as an allied victory
seems inevitable.
However, Iraq is an old, proud country with a long tradition of
opposing foreign domination, especially by non-Muslims. There's a
chance that many citizens would resist, viewing U.S. and British
troops as occupiers rather than liberators.
In theory, Iraq could field an army of 350,000 troops, along with
2,600 Soviet-era battle tanks, 2,100 artillery pieces and hundreds of
rocket launchers and surface-to-surface missiles, albeit all
technologically inferior to what the U.S. and Britain possess.
Republican Guards
The stiffest troop resistance is expected to come from six Republican
Guard divisions and the four elite brigades of the Special Republican
Guards, which also would guard against civil unrest or coup attempts.
The regular army is the worst equipped and in poor morale, Western
analysts say. Iraq's small air force is not expected to be a factor.
If all else fails, some Western analysts believe that the Iraqi regime
could use any chemical or biological weapons it managed to hide from
arms inspectors or even the few dozen Scud missiles that it is
believed to still possess against Israel or American troops in Kuwait.
U.S.-led forces could be slowed by the mere threat of such attacks,
analysts agree. Few Iraqis, even those privately critical of their
leader, express faith in the Bush administration's assurances that the
U.S. aims are only to remove Hussein's regime from power, eliminate
its alleged weapons of mass destruction and bring democracy and human
rights to this nation.
Rather, still bitter over a dozen years of sanctions, they tend to
share the view widespread among Arabs that this would be an avoidable
war instigated for America's own interests, with the real goals of
curtailing their country's sovereignty, weakening Arab opposition to
Israel and controlling the region's oil wealth.
"There is only one reason they are coming, and it is in the ground," a
government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Such views are one reason why Iraqis feel that they are in the right
and are ready to fight, argues Mohammed Mudheffar Adhami, chairman of
political science at Baghdad University, who believes that Iraq might
prevail in spite of significant disadvantages.
In Adhami's view, the allies might enter Iraq only to find themselves
in quicksand: burdened by unreliable allies in the region; undercut by
anti-American demonstrations across the Middle East and Europe; their
troops forced to inflict suffering and casualties on Iraqi civilians,
which in turn would put the U.S. government on the defensive.
All the while, he said, allied troops -- faced with an armed
population -- would absorb higher casualties than in other recent
conflicts. Adhami predicted that American politicians would turn back
from war as those casualties mount.
"Really, it would be difficult" to take over Iraq, Adhami insisted.
"The nation of Iraqis, they do like foreigners but they do not like to
be governed by foreigners." The prospective allied force is not large
enough to win out in a country slightly larger than California with a
geography that includes desert, mountains and marshes, he asserted.
In northern Iraq, he argued, U.S. troops would be burdened by the
unreliability of their Kurdish allies, who may have separate agendas,
either to fight any Turkish forces that might enter the north under
U.S. command, or to seize the oil center of Kirkuk.
In addition, the Turkish parliament's vote last week -- if it
standsnot to allow the country's bases to be used by the U.S. military
for an attack on Iraq could mean a smaller allied presence in the
north, leaving those troops more vulnerable to a counteroffensive.
In southern Iraq, the U.S. should not count on uprisings among Shiite
Muslims, Adhami argued, citing the last heavy U.S. bombing of Iraq in
1998, which did not ignite any significant unrest.
Iraq's military preparations for this fight have taken place mainly
outside the view of foreign journalists, but there are many signs that
both the military and civilians are girding for a battle.
Governors who met last month with Hussein informed him that they were
forming "holy war" squads and commando units to hunt allied
helicopters. Iraqi army tanks and heavy artillery are occasionally
spotted moving on roads outside Baghdad. Antiaircraft batteries are
visible atop government buildings. U.S. sources reported last week
that elements of the Republican Guard were moving south from the city
of Mosul to the area around Tikrit, the home city of Hussein and much
of the governing elite. Iraqis, most of whom are interviewed in the
presence of the government "minders" who accompany foreign
journalists, almost universally put on a brave face when discussing
the prospect of war, expressing faith in their nation's chances.
A puzzled look crossed the face of Maan Bunni, a 35-year-old engineer,
when asked at Baghdad's booksellers market last week whether he could
imagine U.S. soldiers patrolling the teeming bazaar a month from now.
"If that were to happen, it would mean that we were all already dead,"
he finally answered.
At recent military parades in Tikrit and Mosul, reporters were shown
tens of thousands of troops and volunteers armed with Kalashnikov
rifles, mortar shells, rocket launchers and heavy machine guns, all
chanting and swearing fidelity to the Iraqi government at all costs.
Unlike in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Iraqi ground forces were
routed in 100 hours -- allied warplanes destroyed hundreds of tanks
and vehicles and killed at least 200 Iraqi soldiers in one battle
along the "road of death" outside Kuwait City -- "this time we are
ready," claimed Fouad Adel, a student at the Tikrit College of
Education. "We are strong now ... I think we will kill anyone who
comes here."
Defensive Trenches
An insight into how the Iraqis plan to fight the war could be gleaned
from a visit Friday to the village of Abu Srewel, 20 miles north of
Baghdad, where residents have been issued machine guns and ordered to
dig defensive trenches by the local Arab Baath Socialist Party.
U.S. troops "will come here from the north, and my task is to stop
them here," declared Nahzan Khalifa Jamil, 35, a father of seven boys
and two girls. "I have a Kalashnikov in my home and God on my side.
And the party promised to give me more guns and ammunition once the
fighting begins.
"I and my sons will all die, but we will not let the Americans into or
past my house," added the burly truck driver, who said he has
instructed his sons, ages 10 to 18, in handling the weapons.
Villagers said they have been told to show up for twice-a-week
training, attended by all males 10 years and older. Residents are
exhorted at their village mosque to fight "the Americans and the
Jews," and their spirits seem high. Bolstering the spirit is the
belief common among Iraqis that, whatever the sins of their government
in the past, this time it has done nothing wrong and that it is the
U.S. and Britain pushing for war against the wishes of most of the
world. Peace demonstrations in the West dominate Iraqi news
broadcasts, as does the presence in Baghdad of Western activists
willing to serve as human shields, adding to a perception that the
world is on Iraq's side.
A few Western scholars also think that the war could at least be
prolonged by Iraqi tactics -- even if many citizens turn against the
Hussein regime.
If the coalition forces reach Baghdad, predicts Toby Dodge, a leading
British expert on Iraq at Warwick University, Hussein loyalists will
try to draw the soldiers into street fighting reminiscent of the
traumatic U.S. experience in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, in 1993.
"Caught between a potentially hostile population bent on revenge and
an invading army bent on regime change, those fighting alongside [the
Iraqi leadership] will have little choice but to remain loyal to the
end," Dodge wrote in a recent article for the International Institute
for Strategic Studies.
"The result could be the worst-case scenario for U.S. military
planners: an organized, committed and disciplined force with nowhere
to go, defending a highly populated urban area. In front of the
world's media, U.S. troops would have the unenviable task of
distinguishing these forces from the wider innocent civilian
population."
Of course, in any hard-nosed tally of military hardware, Iraq comes up
far short. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has cited the "vastly
more powerful" U.S. forces in arguing that a war in Iraq most probably
would be over in a matter of weeks. Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East
security expert with the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, a Washington-based research organization, doesn't rule out a
surprising level of resistance but maintains that a swift allied
victory is still the most likely outcome.
"It is not a highly skilled Iraqi resistance," he said in a telephone
interview. "It is not a brilliant force. It has not been resupplied in
a decade. It has virtually no air cover. It has no modern
intelligence."
Cordesman believes, however, that there are many imponderables.
"The question is how much of the public rises up for Saddam, how many
of the troops will remain loyal, how many can escape into Baghdad. We
can't answer a single one of these questions," he said. "We might find
out all the people who feel this will be a quick and decisive war are
correct. But no one can afford to plan on it."
Adhami, for one, doesn't think in terms of surrender. At the end of an
interview, the political scientist motioned a reporter into a small
room off his office. There he had stockpiled rice, dates, kerosene
lanterns and stoves, bottled water and other supplies for himself and
his small staff.
A point to remember, he said, is that Iraqis have had plenty of
warning.
Reminded that most analysts abroad hold that Iraq could not withstand
what might be coming, he shrugged, and said lightly, "Let them come.
We will see."
`````````
Times staff writers Michael Slackman in Cairo, Sebastian Rotella in
Paris and Janet Stobart in London contributed to this report.
ArKLyte
> Iraqis feel that they are in the right
>and are ready to fight, argues Mohammed Mudheffar Adhami, chairman of
>political science at Baghdad University, who believes that Iraq might
>prevail in spite of significant disadvantages.
ROFLMAO!!!!
==============================================================
"Ah yes, we must mollify angry fanatics who seek our destruction
because otherwise .. they might get mad and seek our destruction."
- Ann Coulter 9/26/2002
assurancetourix
> www.latimes.com
>
> U.S. Risks a Long War if It Invades, Iraqis Warn
> By John Daniszewski
> Times Staff Writer
>
> March 8, 2003
>
Testimonies from journalists and human shields in Iraq, American
satellite pictures are just saying the same thing; the bulk of the
Iraqi forces haven't yet redeploy in Iraqi cities except a few. They
probably assume they`ll have the time to access cities after the
begining of the bombing, which might be a false assumption. I wish I'm
wrong because the Americans have no ethical case to back their
invasion.
But you know even if there is urban warfare, they (US) can withdraw
their troops from cities and let US bombers blow up every Iraqi
cities, even with nukes. CNN and Fox News would just say that these
are smart nukes to defend freedom and you would still have a majority
of the Americans backing the operation. As for the Saudia or Jordanian
street, especially the Saudi one (US troops will launch their attack
from there also), I have big doubts now that the royal family will be
overthrown. King Faycal and prince Abdullah might be unpopulars but
they have survive so far and I wonder if the Saudis will have the
balls to make an Iranian like revolution one day but I doubt.
assurancetourix
>
> U.S. Risks a Long War if It Invades, Iraqis Warn
> By John Daniszewski
> Times Staff Writer
>
> March 8, 2003
>
The sole thing that could have make a big difference is if Russia had
supply Baghdad with EMP weapons. They won`t, so the USA will occupy
most of the country at a heavy cost. They will not retreat easily
because their medias will just sanitize images in order to show US
troops "liberating" areas with a few Iraqi figurants shaking a small
us flags. A nation of 280 million people can absorb a death toll of
500,000 you know.
Now the US will not win this war because it will not give them any
advantage; they might occupy Iraq, or launch a new war against Iran
right after, even if they would pump all this oil for free (assuming
wrongly that oil wellls will be easy to exploit) that wouldn't pay for
the campain. Actually the US is collapsing under debts; consumer's
debts, governmental debts, are far much higher than prior to the 1929
krash if one look at the respectives GDP then and now.
The combined debt consumers+government is nearly 40 trillion $, twice
more than only 5 years ago. A raise of 2 or 3% of interest rates could
lead to a collapse of the banking system. And such a raise would be
necessary if inflation is coming back (i.e. if the US dollar plumet
because Chinese-Japenese-Europeans sell their treasuries and assets in
the states, as it seems to be the case right now)
Add to that the instability of oil prices so long that people shoot at
US gi's in Iraq, an extra instability when Bush will start to speak
about the necessity to take Iran also, oil prices are likely to go
beyond 40$ per barrel and stay there for 1,2 years or more, especially
because Iraq will not be the last target.
And if it is not enough, you have the cost of the military operations
plus the represails on the US soil, plus the growing lack of
collaboration from Europeans who will not be eager to pay for the US
stupidity.
But as for Nero Bush knows that if he can't distribute bread to
Americans he can at least provide circus games. So the war is likely
to be back by Americans for a couple of years, the necessary time to
wipe out any country that oppose Israeli's policies in the middle
east. In 3,4,5 years, when the unemployment rate will be at 35-40% or
when people will have lose the 3/4 of their purchasing power those who
cheer the war in front of their TV will get growingly tired and ask
themself "by the way, I'm backing this war for years but what was the
reason again ?". It is not just the death toll that will change the
mind of the Americans; it is mainly that their frosted brains will
light on only when the will have suffer the pain of an economic
collapse, when they will discover that the sole countries who still
have money refuse to give them last chance loans or take arrengments
for their debts so long they maintain troops abroad. The USA will
suffer the same fate as Russia. An economic dislocation. And there
will be no more money to maintain troops abroad.
STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER 4 PEACE
The UK Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, claims that his Christian
beliefs will not be compromised by the invasion of Iraq.
"Tony Blair has told critics that his Christian conscience
is clear about the terrible death toll which could follow a
military strike against Iraq."
SOURCES:
The Independent (UK), "Blair: My Christian conscience is clear over
war", front-page, 2 March 2003.
[ http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=383014 ]
>-------STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>------STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>-----STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>----STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>>---STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>>>--STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>>>>-STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>>>>>STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>>>>>PLEASE STOP HOLOCAUST OF IRAQI BABIES, CHILDREN, WOMEN AND MEN BY NAZIS.
The Dirty War against Iraq Depleted Uranium Facts for All the World to See.
http://www.benjaminforiraq.org/contaminazioneitaly.htm
>-------STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>------STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>-----STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>----STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>>---STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>>>--STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>>>>-STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
>>>>>>>>STOP NAZI CHRISTIAN CRUSADER FOR WORLD PEACE-----STOP RELIGIOUS WAR----
Transcript of Meeting Between Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein and U.S.
Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie. - July 25, 1990 (Eight days before
the August 2, 1990 Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait)
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/april.html
David
Man, you 60's types really didn't learn to read, or move past Vietnam.
Study both politics and warfare and you quickly understand that Iraq
couldn't be another Vietnam style "quagmire."