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GETTING SADDAM
PART 3: Iraq
readies
By David Isenberg
PART 1: A plan is hatched
PART 2: Military preparations
Map
Though it is
not certain that the United States will invade Iraq,
Saddam Hussein is taking no chances. In recent months he
and other elements of his inner circle have been taking
political, diplomatic and military steps to forestall an
invasion, and to defend Iraq should an invasion take
place.
Rhetorically, Iraq remains defiant. On
July 17, marking the 34th anniversary of the revolution
which brought his ruling Baath party to power, Saddam
said that Iraqis were well prepared and equipped to
defend their country against any military assault.
"Temmuz [July revolution] returns to say to all evil
tyrants and oppressors of the world: you will never
defeat me this time. Never! Even if you come together
from all over the world, and invite all the devils as
well to stand by you," Saddam said.
At the
same time he also appeared to extend an olive branch to
neighboring states. In a separate interview published at
the same time in newspapers across the Arab world, he
was much more conciliatory to his Arab neighbors. He
said, "The foreigner will not let the [Arab] nation heal
its wounds and rise above its differences." His aim is
to undermine the will of other Arab countries to support
any American-led action against Iraq. One official said
that Saddam's efforts began in earnest shortly after
President George W Bush "showed we are serious" by
publicly calling for a "regime change" in Baghdad.
Saddam declared that he wanted to "turn a new
leaf in the history of inter-Arab relations". He even
mentioned Kuwait, saying that "the closer we came to
settling our relations with Kuwait, the more the forces
of evil hampered this rapprochement". He warned his Arab
colleagues that "the whole Arab nation is a target".
Officials say that many of the countries that
Saddam is courting would be potential launching pads for
a US military strike. It is not by chance that Oman and
Qatar, two Gulf states where the US military presence
has been expanding, were enlisted by Iraq to assist with
its recent overtures to Kuwait.
The campaign
began at the Arab summit in Beirut in March when Iraq
agreed to recognize Kuwait's border, discussed locating
missing Kuwaiti prisoners and arranged talks on the
return of Kuwait's national archives, which were stolen
during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War.
The
initiative has picked up speed in the time since, as
Saddam's government has signed economic agreements with
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and bolstered relations
with almost all Gulf states. The Iraqi leader also has
stepped up his public rhetoric in support of
Palestinians.
Central to Iraq's campaign is its
foreign minister, Naji Sabri, who took office last fall
when Saddam held a major housecleaning of his foreign
affairs team, according to press reports. Sabri in
January took the unusual step of visiting Iran and
meeting with its leaders. In February, he was in Turkey,
hinting at some movement in the Iraqi position on
allowing resumed United Nations weapons inspections.
Since March, after the Arab summit, Sabri and
other Iraqi officials have been involved in almost
nonstop diplomacy in the Middle East and Europe. Sabri
visited Moscow prior to talks with UN officials on arms
inspections, and recently met in Baghdad with Iranian
Deputy Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Sabri announced the
exchange of prisoners captured in the 1980-1988
Iran-Iraq war and said, "Iraq wants to establish good
neighborly relations with Iran through a comprehensive
settlement of unresolved issues."
In March,
Baghdad secured a declaration at the Arab summit that
called for "respecting Iraq's independence, sovereignty,
security, territorial integrity and regional safety".
This has been echoed in public statements from regional
leaders since, as the Bush administration pressed its
case for ousting Saddam.
King Abdullah of Jordan
and Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan, the crown prince
of Abu Dhabi, recently reaffirmed their opposition to
any attack on Iraq.
There is evidence that Iraq
is having some success with Syria, which joined in the
Gulf War against Saddam in 1991 but which now is the
subject of US criticism in the war on terror. The
London-based newspaper Al-Arab al-Alamiyah said on July
16 that "informed political observers have pointed to
the Syrian government's increasing wish to boost its
distinguished relations with Iraq".
This is a
significant development, given that there is no great
love lost between Baghdad and Damascus. The former
supported the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood during their
violent insurgency in the late 1970s, and the latter
backed Iran in its 1980-1988 war with Iraq. And the
rivalry between the opposing factions of the Baath Party
that govern the two countries is a matter of record.
Nevertheless, nothing troubles the Syrians more
than the prospect of Iraq being partitioned or broken
up. They have always perceived Iraq as their country's
"strategic depth" irrespective of any disputes between
them.
Moreover, the rapprochement between
Damascus and Baghdad in the past five years has made the
Syrian economy heavily dependent on the Iraqi market,
from which it earns some US$2 billion annually. Also,
Syrian fears of a regime change in Iraq have been
compounded by other factors. They include the death of
the Arab-Israeli peace process, Washington's neglect of
the Syrian track of that process, the anti-Syrian
campaign being waged by members of the US Congress, and
Bush's criticisms of Damascus's support for Palestinian
organizations that Washington has branded as
"terrorist". In addition, Damascus has serious worries
about prospective anarchy in Iraq spilling over the
800-kilometer border into its territory.
Iraq
may also be stirring up trouble in Kurdistan to further
fragment the Kurds and lessen their effectiveness as a
possible US ally. A recent report in the Daily Telegraph
noted that an obscure militant Islamic group has
declared a jihad against the two main Kurdish factions
running northern Iraq because of their alliance with
America and Britain. The group, known as Ansar al Islam,
or Supporters of Islam, has since last year staged a
series of bloody attacks that have claimed scores of
lives.
Fighting between Ansar and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK) forces, which controls eastern
Kurdistan, erupted recently near the town of Halabja.
PUK officials say that they have fresh evidence of links
between Ansar and al-Qaeda. The PUK also claims to have
proof that the group is receiving money and military
training from Iraq.
In terms of heightened
personal security, Saddam reportedly no longer carries
out his normal duties in the well-known presidential
palaces. The Iraqi commanders and officials with whom he
meets have been moved to areas far from potential
targets. They move in glass-tinted vehicles in which
only drivers can be seen.
If war comes, Iraq
cannot be expected to fight as stupidly as it did in
1990, when it deployed its forces into the open desert.
In Pentagon jargon, Iraq can be expected to fight
"asymmetrically".
According to the Washington
DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies,
Iraq could deploy and shelter its forces in towns and
cities that would make it much harder for the US to use
air and missile power effectively. Past military
campaigns, such as Desert Fox against Iraq in 1998,
Kosovo, and Afghanistan all show that air targeting and
weaponry have not reached the point where it is possible
to destroy massive amounts of major ground weapons
without high collateral damage and civilian casualties.
Similarly, forcing the US and its allies to
fight urban warfare on a city-by-city basis means close
combat of a kind where many of the technical advantages
enjoyed by US troops are far less effective. It also
would mean giving the war a far more negative public
profile in the eyes of the rest of the world.
According to the private consulting group
Strategic Forecasting, Iraq can:
Use its extensive air defenses to
impose at least some level of attrition on attacking air
forces. In that regard Iraq has been on an arms buying
spree. It has been reported that Iraq is trying hard to
buy new radars, mainly the Ukraine-made Kolchuga radar.
It is probably the best of its kind, compact enough to
be hidden in a jeep and able to locate virtually any
target in air and at sea at a range of 60 miles, even if
it has stealth technology protection. It can also be
located only by satellite intelligence.
Conduct a campaign of dispersal and
deception designed to deny the air campaign the
real-time intelligence needed to conduct a decapitation
attack.
Use its counterintelligence capability
to monitor US covert operations in Iraq and in
particular to identify potential collaborators. It will
allow these to remain in place until shortly before the
attack, then strike and liquidate them, leaving the US
military without the indigenous support it would
expect.
Disperse heavy forces in such a way as
to pose a threat to light-infantry forces if and when
inserted. The Iraqis understand that the air campaign
will cause heavy attrition to Iraqi armored and
mechanized forces. However, they also understand that an
effective air campaign against these forces, if it can
be extended by Iraqi deception, could create an
unacceptable situation for US air power, already
stretched thin by other simultaneous operational
requirements and denied support.
Israel claims
that Syria is violating the UN arms embargo on Iraq by
sending weapons and military equipment delivered to
Syrian ports on to Iraq via trucks and rail. Most, but
not all, of the supplies come from East European
countries. Among other things, Russian-made jet engines,
refurbished Russian tank engines and Czech anti-aircraft
cannon are being delivered to Iraq via this route.
The purchases reportedly include refurbished
T-55 tank engines and other replacement parts for T-72s,
from Bulgaria and Belarus; military trucks from Russia;
anti-aircraft cannon from the Czech Republic; Ukraine
and other countries have sold 80 engines for MiG 29s, as
well as radar systems for those planes. In addition,
spare parts have been bought by Syria and sent on to
Iraq for MiG 21s, 23s and 25s. Syria has also passed on
equipment from Hungary and Serbia to Iraq.
In an
interview with the influential Saudi-owned London daily
Al-Sharq al-Awsat, General Wafiq al-Samarra'i, former
chief of the Iraqi military intelligence, listed some of
the advantages Iraq would have in countering an
invasion. Among the most obvious is the use of weapons
of mass destruction, which the general says Iraq still
has.
"Yes, Iraq has long-range missiles loaded
with lethal 'VX' substance, specifically biological
weapons and anthrax. Iraq has also succeeded in fitting
these elements to long-range missile heads. Iraq is
capable of fitting these elements to medium-range - 150
kilometer - missiles. Iraq has a large number of these
missiles and is capable of handling such targets with
its biological weapons."
Assessing a ground
attack, he said, "If US and British forces launch the
offensive on Baghdad from the Al-Anbar area, that is,
from Jordan's border, a distance of approximately 400
kilometers, there is a possibility of the attacking
force coming under a major threat, particularly from
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. These weapons can
contaminate the approach force with chemical and
biological weapons."
Looking at an attack coming
from the north, from Turkey or the Kurdish region, he
said, "There are a number of derelict airfields in the
Kurdistan region that can be used straight away for
landing large transport aircraft and helicopters. But
there is a problem that while landing in these airfields
the US troops will be within reach of Iraq’s tactical
150 kilometer-range missiles, and the possibility of
Iraq's use of biological weapons. If these forces were
forced to move along the approaches to the main Kurdish
cities, they and these cities would be vulnerable to
great perils."
PART 4: Voices of opposition
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