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Shock and Woe

Propagated across the electronic and print media of the world, Donald Rumsfeld’s blatant psy-war term “Shock and Awe” projected an overwhelming and cataclysmic high-tech strike, its precise and surgical nature meant (1) to take out the regime’s leaders (2) drive raw fear into the psyche of the masses and (3) thus destroy the Iraqi will to fight. Psy-ops is a legitimate weapon of war, if successful the Coalition could have won the war without firing a shot. While the whereabouts of Saddam and his sons Qusay and Uday are still unknown after the one-off surgical hit marking the start of Gulf War-2, the Iraqi regime did not disintegrate like a house of cards as programmed by the Pentagon’s computers. The rapid (and spectacular) Coalition ground offensive reached Najaf and Karbala 80 kms on the approaches to Baghdad before being slowed down by determined Iraqi conventional resistance in key urban areas all along the route of advance as well as harassing “hit and run” tactics on the lines of communication (L of Cs). With food, water, fuel and ammunition getting through in far less quantities than the required optimum, US Central Command seemed to opt for reinforcements (130000 more US troops) and for shoring up the L of C protection before investing Baghdad. But the Coalition did not pause, there was no “operational pause” as suggested by all and sundry. After capturing Karbala and Najaf, elements of the 3rd Infantry captured the “Saddam International Airport”, 18 kms from the city center of Baghdad and renamed it “Baghdad International Airport”. All of Baghdad is now within artillery range. The “real surprise” will probably come from the west i.e. along the Amman-Baghdad road, probably a major armoured thrust. After all, those who seized H-2 and H-3 airfields are not out on a picnic.

The Iraqis will to fight was the real surprise, the effectiveness of their “low-tech” war against an overwhelming superior “high-tech” force is another. There are many lessons to be learnt here for our own Armed Forces i.e. of course if they want to learn them. Muslims all over the world were badly demoralized by the apparent lack of courage personified by the Iraqi rout of 1991 and the Taliban collapse in 2001. Even those who did not care one bit for the Saddam regime, the born-again Iraqi fighting spirit is a matter of some satisfaction, at least they are going down fighting. Saddam is certainly a monster whose excesses require his vestiges terminated with extreme prejudice, he is winning the “reverse” propaganda war. The US will have successfully converted a certified villain into a hero. If they find the smoking gun of “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD), it may sway western audiences, it will cut no ice with the mood of the streets of the third world.

The protestations of the US hierarchy notwithstanding the war plan had to be suitably adjusted in keeping with ground realities. Pentagon planners had originally asked for overwhelming force (400000 troops) as espoused by the “Powell Doctrine” developed in pursuance of Gulf War-I. The Iraqi rout in Kuwait in 1991 (a virtual “Turkey shoot”) and the Taliban opting for the mind-boggling military strategy (for guerillas) of fighting conventional warfare, occupying fixed lines in defending cities such as Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar and Herat providing “photogenic” targets for precision-guided munitions (PGMs), delivered by high flying B-52s, B-1s and B-2s, had given a wrong perception to Coalition war planners. Their sudden collapse (though in differing circumstances) in the face of superior high-tech firepower made battle analysis projections of the Iraqi morale and ability go haywire.

US Vice President Cheney was Defence Secretary during Gulf War-I, neither he or the other “hawks” in the Bush Cabinet, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Ms Condeliza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, has any combat experience. A naval aviator between 1954 and 1957, Rumsfeld had “reserve liability” till 1975 but didn’t get to go to Vietnam. Neither did US President George W. Bush, Jr, who after graduating, remained an F-102 flier with the Texas Air National Guard. The only one in with experience of shots being fired in anger, US Secretary of State Colin Powell was widely ostracized by the “hawks” for having delayed the war by choosing the UN-route and being sidelined had no input in the planning stage. In emphasizing civilian control over the military, French PM Clemenceau once said that “war is too important to be left to generals”. The comment of US battlefield Commander in Iraq Lt Gen William Wallace of US 5th Corps, “the enemy we are fighting is a bit different from the one we war-gamed against”, unquote, was telling. The present conflict was war-gamed on computers, Fred Kaplan says that “militia fighters” did play a critical role in the US $250 million “war game” called “Millennium Challenge 2” which was conducted in July and August 2002 involving 13500 Armed Forces personnel in 17 simulation centres and 9 line-force training sites. The scenario was designed to stimulate combat in a fictitious Persian Gulf country resembling Iraq. Pentagon officials disregarded or over-ruled the militia’s strong moves in the war game. Amend Clemenceau’s saying to read, “War is too important to be left to generals, computer experts or those without combat experience”. The factor of “suicide bombing” could not have been foreseen, battlefield procedures and tactics will have to be adjusted to this new threat. Almost a dozen women and children were shot dead in a car by edgy US soldiers, other such incidents have followed.

If Baghdad defences do not collapse from within, which it probably will, the focus of the Coalition will be to (1) keep on trying to eliminate Saddam Hussain and (2) subvert the loyalties of mainline Iraq units as well as security services. Not having planned to fight urban warfare in any other Iraqi localities except Baghdad, the Coalition was surprised in Basra, having expected the port city to fall by way of a spontaneous Shia revolt. With civilian casualties rising in number, the resolve of even Saddam-haters among the Iraqis had seemed to harden against the Coalition. Rumsfeld’s threat to Syria and Iran, labelled as “megashore diplomacy” to quote some unnamed British sources, is a dangerous development. Colin Powell later confirmed that this was not an off-the-cuff comment but a considered US policy statement. Syria has no time for Saddam and neither has Iran but the embarrassment of the public US warning could goad them into assistance.

Decision-makers must keep their cool, backdoor diplomacy is recommended rather than open-ended public threats that may be difficult for countries like Syria and Iran to swallow, their leaders will soon feel the pressure from their own streets. The “shock and awe” strategy has spread “shock and woe” among the general population of Iraq. With the Coalition at the gates of Baghdad it is difficult to see how the war drags on.  Whatever the backlash of this “woe” it will eventually make the streets of Arab and muslim countries boil over in frustration and rage.

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