Posted on 09/26/2002 8:59:12 PM PDT by Pokey78
BASRA, Iraq — To understand why an invasion of Iraq may not be the cakewalk that the White House expects, pay $20 (round trip) and board an Iraqi Airways flight that soars from Baghdad straight through the American-enforced "no-flight zone" to Basra on the southern tip of Iraq.
American war planes are authorized to shoot down any aircraft that venture into it, but the Iraqis around me were cool as ice. They knew that U.S. fighters would never attack a civilian aircraft, insha'allah, and that the U.S. military could only bluster.
"Sometimes the American Awacs planes warn us on the radio," explained an Iraqi pilot who was amused at my anxiety. "They say, `You are entering a no-fly zone and must turn around.' We reply, `This is Iraqi air space and we're going to fly through it.' "
That American restraint is Iraq's ace going into war. Iraq knows that the United States cannot bomb schools, mosques and residential neighborhoods, and so it has plenty of places to hide its army. In the last gulf war, we were able to destroy an enemy that was out in the open desert, but this time Iraq seems intent on a different approach.
From Basra I drove to the Kuwait border on the "highway of death," to see how Iraq will guard what may be a principal invasion route for American troops. The only military presence was a few guards on the edge of Basra, amounting to what you'd expect at the entrance to an urban U.S. high school.
So does this mean that Iraq is poorly prepared for an invasion? I don't think so.
Instead of protecting its borders, Iraq will hide its army within its cities, where air strikes are effective only at an unacceptable (for America) cost in civilian deaths. Saddam has a hiding place for himself that is better than Osama bin Laden's caves at Tora Bora: the teeming city of Baghdad, with five million inhabitants, where he already never spends two consecutive nights in the same place.
"The Americans are good at bombing," one Iraqi official mused. "But some day, they will have to come to the ground. And then we'll be waiting. Every Iraqi has a gun in his house, often a Kalashnikov. And every Iraqi has experience in fighting. So let's see how the Americans do when they're fighting in our streets."
That could be a nightmare. As the last gulf war showed, a bombing campaign can knock out bridges and barracks, but unless we're incredibly lucky, we won't kill Saddam, trigger a coup or wipe out his Republican Guard forces. We'll have to hunt out Saddam on the ground — which may be just as hard as finding Osama in Afghanistan, and much bloodier.
Our last experience with street-to-street fighting was confronting untrained thugs in Mogadishu, Somalia. This time we're taking on an army with possible bio- and chemical weapons, 400,000 regular army troops and supposedly seven million more in Al Quds militia.
Karar Hassan, a 22-year-old member of the militia in the city of Najaf, said he had just completed a training session in street fighting, including fighting house to house and even from trees. "I'll fight them till my last drop of blood," he added, in the kind of boast that is heard everywhere in Iraq.
"If someone tries to threaten us, we know how to respond," said a farmer named Hakim al-Khal in the bazaar of Karbala, and then he reached under his shirt and brandished a handgun.
Most Iraqis seem to have no love for Saddam, and the great majority will probably spend the war hiding under their beds. But if even a tiny proportion of the braggarts are serious, then look out. Moreover, some tribes are armed with mortars and large-caliber machine guns, so that even if they could not stop tanks rolling through to Baghdad, they could seriously hurt an American army of occupation.
Perhaps the American invasion will be a breeze after all. The Iraqi army is less than half the strength it was when it crumpled in a 100-hour ground war a decade ago, and U.S. forces are much stronger now. But if we're going to invade, we need to prepare for a worst-case scenario involving street-to-street fighting, with farmers like Mr. Khal taking potshots at our troops.
Is America really prepared for hundreds of casualties, even thousands, in an invasion and subsequent occupation that could last many years?
First it would not be "friendly fire" and second, you are assuming stiff resistance on the part of the Iraqi military and third you are also assuming that CNN will even be there.
Let them hide in their churches, hospitals and schools. Let them wait for us to come into their wretched cities. While they're waiting for us to commit suicide, you know what we'll be doing?
We'll be drilling for oil in Kurd territories in the north, building pipelines to get the oil out (maybe into former Soviet republics to the north). We'll be setting up airbases to guard our new oil fields, with powerful radars, Patriot missle batteries, and maybe some surprising new theater defenses that Saddam hasn't even dreamed of.
And we'll be waiting for Saddamn's stupid hordes of lemmings to come kick us out. CNN will have lots of time to set up their cameras.
(steely)
You're so out of touch, Nicky, the cakewalk was a dance that was introduced around 1890. Think you should adjust your clock to real time and try to envision a victory dance.
See #15 for the appropriate music.
BUMP
Once we've occupied the oil fields, and start pumping oil and pocketing the profits, the cities become irrelevant.
We just provide that any women and children who want to leave may do so, and will be well cared for. Set up camps outside the city cooking large quantities of spicy food, and let the aroma empty the cities
Liberalatti. The perfect term for NYC eliists who believe the entire USA hangs breathlessly on every word they think and say. I like it, can I use the term or do you have a copyright on it?
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