A method of war that deliberately begins in the way that most wars end, with a street-fighting defense of the capital city, is certainly original. It is also undoubtedly appropriate for Saddam, whose everyday security system in Baghdad already includes an urban-defense force in the Special Republican Guard, which has 13,000 men. It is not clear how many additional street fighters Saddam could draw from his five separate and competing security forces, whose 25,000 to 30,000 men are distributed throughout Iraq. But if he wants numbers, the Fedayeen Saddam organized by his sons has more than 15,000 men recruited from trusted tribes, and the Jaysh al-Shaabi Popular Army, a Baath party militia, has at least 150,000 men and women in Baghdad alone.
Numbers are not enough, however. Street fighting requires more training, cohesion and leadership than open-field combat–even in heroic Stalingrad, the workers’ militia collapsed at the beginning of the battle. Saddam’s party militia mostly consists of civilians with small arms they scarcely know how to fire. The five brands of secret police contain many clerks, executioners and torturers but few trained soldiers. The Fedayeen Saddam are village ruffians, unfamiliar with the streets of Baghdad. While a spontaneous revolt is unlikely, it is also improbable that thousands of rifles distributed by the Baath Party would be used to defend Saddam.
The Special Republican Guard are supposed to be especially loyal because they are largely recruited from Saddam’s own al-Bu Nasir tribe and home region around Tikrit. But they are a true praetorian guard, just like their Roman predecessors, with better uniforms and pay than ordinary soldiers –and officers much too close to the brutality of palace politics to remain unthinkingly devoted to Saddam. Quite a few have been executed for plotting coups, and not all were innocent. The regular Republican Guard, with at least 100,000 men, is tougher than the regular Army and likely to put up a fight. But in 1991 its tank and gun crews were just too unskilled to inflict casualties. Besides, their armored vehicles are ill-suited to street fighting, and too easily targeted with precision weapons to survive for long.
Saddam may have been encouraged by Western military commentators who warn of heavy U.S. casualties, just as in Mogadishu in October 1993. Citing the ignominious retreat that followed the deaths of 18 Americans in Mogadishu, Iraqi officials now say American and British troops would retreat again after losing thousands of soldiers, without ever reaching Saddam’s Baghdad bunkers. But a more apt comparison is Gaza, where Israeli troops face armed Palestinians, many with more combat experience than Iraqi soldiers. Because of their superior training, the Israelis suffer few casualties, despite operating in narrow alleys without a free hand to use their firepower. In Iraq, the initial bombing will be unprecedented in scale, far more intense and much shorter than the three-week air campaign that opened the 1991 gulf war.
None of this guarantees an easy advance. The main forces coming up from Kuwait must travel more than 500 kilometers on a very thin road network to reach Baghdad. U.S. and British Marines are to take Iraq’s second city of Basra: the implicit mission is to discourage Iran from intervening across the Shatt River border. Opening a second front, four U.S. Army brigades are to advance from the north, taking the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul. The ground forces are bound to be outnumbered in most fights, but even the smallest units will be able to call in fighter-bombers and attack helicopters to break up any forces blocking their advance, or trying to counterattack.
It will take that and more to reach Baghdad as soon as possible. The American and British style of armored warfare–even in 1991–has been grindingly slow, not fast and furious in the manner of Rommel or Moshe Dayan. It would be a disaster if the main offensive bogs down in elaborately prepared attacks against enemy forces that should simply be overrun. Likewise, attack helicopters will need to be placed at risk to reduce the risks to the ground forces even more. Cautious officers should recall Tora Bora: Osama bin Laden escaped because someone objected to the risk of sending U.S. troops to find him. Saddam is too widely hated to slip away in the streets of Baghdad, but speed is of the essence all the same. The sooner Baghdadis are seen celebrating their liberation, the sooner the political damage of unilateral war will be undone.
