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New battlelines drawn in the Iraqi
sand
By Marc Erikson
Emulating his boss's Thanksgiving Day venture, US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sneaked into Iraq last
weekend and promised on Coalition Provisional
Authority's al-Iraqiya TV that the American military
would fight on in Iraq until Saddam Hussein's reign of
"terror" is history.
Of course, he had said back
in May that it was history. But let that be.
What's of concern now is how things will play out in the
immediate period ahead and in the runup to the end of
June next year when the US has said it will turn over
sovereignty to Iraqi authorities. On present and the
past several months' performance, the handover may have
to take place under conditions in which Ba'ath Party and
foreign jihadi resistance remain far from being
uprooted. A continued large-scale US military presence -
well beyond Rumsfeld's likely expectations as to size
and duration - may be required to keep any new
government in power.
I don't know the latest
body count, though it now exceeds 190 Americans killed
by hostile fire since US President George W Bush
declared an end to major combat operations on May 1. I
have no reason to doubt US military commanders'
assertions that daily attacks on US forces personnel
have diminished somewhat since mid-November, when a new
strategy of pro-active "search and destroy" missions and
fortification of American positions and convoys was
adopted. What's worrying from a strategic perspective is
that - also since mid-November - 19 Italian, seven
Spanish, two Japanese, two South Korean and a Colombian
member of the US-led coalition have lost their lives in
precisely targeted guerrilla attacks. The pattern
indicates degrees of centralized planning and
intelligence, control and communications capabilities by
anti-coalition militants hitherto assumed not to exist:
As Americans become hardened targets and more
aggressively take the fight to the enemy, the guerrillas
switch to militarily softer targets, but of potentially
higher political impact and payback.
That by
itself is not all that surprising. The Italian compound
in the southern city of Nassiriya may have been a soft
target of opportunity for a suicide car bombing attack,
much like the United Nations headquarters building in
Baghdad. But scoping out the movements of Spanish
intelligence agents or Japanese diplomats, traveling in
unmarked vehicles at times and to places not exactly
pre-announced with public fanfare, and ambushing them at
pre-arranged locations are other matters entirely. They
point to longer-term intelligence penetration of the
affected coalition allies' plans and communications,
significant logistics capabilities, well-qualified
manpower, and political savvy. None of the perpetrators
have been caught.
So, who are these guys? Who
pays, equips and runs them? Who develops the plans and
initiates their well-timed execution to maximum
political effect? Not a man or group of men constantly
on the run, hiding in one village one night, another the
next, always just a few steps ahead of his/their
would-be captors. Not Saddam, then. Alternatively, not a
Saddam in the dire straits reported. I don't put much
store in claims by tribal leaders introduced by
go-betweens telling journalists that Saddam is in good
health, living in the west of Iraq, and commanding
military operations against American forces. Maybe;
maybe not. It matters politically. Operationally, it is
of secondary significance. What appears certain is that
there exist primary and several secondary control
centers planning attacks and deploying at least a
hundred independently operating guerrilla units of two
dozen or so members each. The controllers also arrange
for logistics (weapons, communications gear, etc) and
have developed a well-functioning intelligence network.
The mastermind could be Saddam; but more likely he is
the figurehead, carefully kept out of harm's way and
protected for his political-symbolic value.
It
is estimated by Middle East intelligence services
sources that the guerrilla core units' head count is
about 2,000. In addition, there exist hundreds of more
loosely organized "freelance" units with several
thousand members, for a grand total of 4,000-5,000
fighters. In their new pro-active stance, US forces have
over the past several weeks killed or captured over 600
guerrillas, but the intelligence gleaned from prisoners
has been sparse. The core units carrying out the most
high-profile attacks have largely evaded capture and
hide well in and behind the "noise" created by the
freelancers and sympathizers.
I have described
the core outfits' strategy of going after softer
coalition targets when the going got tougher against the
Americans, who are now moving in larger convoys, new,
harder combat vehicles ("Stryker"), and with protective
air cover - and have gone on the offensive employing
such Israeli counterinsurgency tactics as enclosing
whole villages in razor wire. A more ominous strategic
shift of future portent by the insurgents observed
recently is their geographical expansion of operations
well beyond the Sunni triangle (from Tikrit down to
Baghdad and points west) into mixed Sunni-Kurdish areas
around Kirkuk and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas south of
Baghdad. Not fighting the Americans head-on where they
are strongest is the military logic. The political
concern is one of being boxed in and ultimately having
to face not just the Americans, but the two-thirds of
the Iraqi population growing increasingly hostile to the
guerrillas' methods and political aims.
The next
three months will likely prove crucial in this regard.
Should the insurgents be capable of extending their
reach well beyond their Sunni home ground and be able to
score military successes and political points in the
south and northeast, their influence and longer-term
threat potential would grow. Should they fail in that
endeavor, one would have to place one's bets on
Coalition Provisional Authority boss L Paul Bremer and
Rumsfeld. Both sides' strategic plans have come into
clearer focus. The outcome remains in doubt.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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