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The Fall of Saddam's Regime and Its Lessons for the Future
The war in Iraq
can be divided roughly into two phases: firstly, the US invasion
and war against Saddam Hussein's regime, which ended in the complete
defeat of the Iraqi army and US President George W. Bush's declaration
of victory ("Mission Accomplished") on 1 May 2003, and secondly,
the guerrilla war against the occupation, which broke out in Falluja
on that same date, and has continued gathering strength ever since.
The first of the following two articles was written shortly after
the first phase, which it examines in depth, and before the guerrilla
struggle blossomed. A companion piece, written in January 2005,
applies the lessons drawn in the first article to these later developments.-AWTW
It seemed clear to just
about everyone that toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein, capturing
Baghdad and establishing control over the rest of Iraq would be
an undertaking of considerably greater scope and difficulty than
what was essentially a drive-by shooting in Afghanistan. Although
Iraq's armed forces were significantly weakened as a result of the
war with the US-led imperialist coalition in 1991 and the decade
of economic sanctions that followed, they were still estimated to
number somewhere between 280,000 and 350,000 soldiers, with several
thousand tanks and artillery pieces, as well as many thousands of
rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles and light mortars.
Their level of armament, training, organisation and experience -
including the war with Iran that lasted almost a decade and the
war against the US that followed shortly thereafter - far exceeded
that of the Taleban.
On the other hand, something
that increased the US imperialists' confidence that they would achieve
a relatively quick victory in their assault on Iraq was the fact
that they had already been waging a "low-intensity" war against
Iraq for years. This was a multi-faceted campaign lasting over a
decade designed to weaken and if possible prompt the overthrow of
the regime. Among the key elements of this effort was the economic
embargo placed on Iraq. The UN took over control of Iraqi oil exports
and the funds generated by the sale of that oil. With just a few
exceptions Iraq was prohibited from importing any new weapons or
spare parts for its existing heavy weapons systems (artillery, tanks,
aircraft, etc.). This resulted in a severe degrading of Iraq's military
strength. The restrictions on the import of food and medicine led
to a general decline in public health and fitness, which also degraded
Iraq's fighting capability.1 The US used arms inspections to carry
out extensive spying operations in Iraq, allowing it to develop
detailed information on Iraq's communications systems and the location
of vital military facilities, etc. Finally, the US, together with
the UK, carried out what was more or less a continuous bombing campaign
against Iraq, purportedly to protect their planes patrolling the
so-called "no-fly" zones in northern and southern Iraq. In fact,
these bombings were principally designed to degrade and even destroy
Iraq's anti-aircraft defences.2
This campaign reached
its high point in October 1998 when the US Congress passed the Iraq
Liberation Act and US President Clinton announced that it was official
US policy to bring about regime change in Iraq. On 18 December 1998
the US launched "Operation Desert Fox". In a kind of dress rehearsal
for the war in 2003, the US created an "inspections crisis", claiming
falsely that Iraq was not co-operating with the UN inspectors. The
inspectors were withdrawn and US President Clinton ordered a military
strike that included the firing of 415 cruise missiles at targets
in Iraq, 90 more than were used in the entire 1991 Gulf War, and
the dropping of over 600 laser-guided bombs. The US was apparently
hoping that this attack would trigger a coup against Saddam, which
did not materialise. However, the attack did add to the overall
damage to and decline of Iraqi military capabilities.
Operation Desert Fox
was followed by a stepped-up bombing campaign in 1999. This reached
such intensity that by August 1999 the Pentagon announced that Anglo-American
air forces had fired over 1,100 missiles at 359 different targets
in Iraq - three times the number fired during Desert Storm in 1991.
During the build-up to the invasion beginning in March 2003, the
bombing campaign was stepped up again with special attention being
paid to trying to disrupt and destroy Iraqi command and control
capabilities (e.g. military headquarters and communications networks).
This decade-long military
"softening-up" operation combined with economic sanctions had the
desired results, ensuring that when the US-led forces invaded Iraq
in March 2003 they faced an Iraqi military whose arms and equipment
were out-dated and in a poor state of repair, with severely degraded
anti-aircraft defences and a communication system that was largely
disrupted. Its soldiers (and the overall population as well) had
a general health and fitness level significantly below that of the
invading forces.
Looked at in conventional
terms, the contest could have hardly been more unequal. One side
included the world's most powerful military machine, backed up by
its largest and most advanced economy. The US-led forces enjoyed
complete air superiority and bases around the Gulf, Middle East,
Turkey, Indian Ocean, the United Kingdom and the US itself from
which to launch assault and bombing raids and which were beyond
the reach of any Iraqi counter-attacks. The other side, Iraq, was
a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country whose population, relatively
small industrial base and military had been devastated by a decade
of economic sanctions and almost continuous military attacks.
In addition, due to
its reactionary anti-people character, Saddam's regime, which up
until 1990 had loyally served as the local overlord and enforcer
for its imperialist masters, had no perspective of mobilising the
one element that could have made a significant difference in its
favour: the masses of people. It was the certain knowledge of the
isolated nature of Saddam's regime and Iraq's significantly weakened
economic and military strength that gave the US rulers a high degree
of assuredness that they would relatively quickly succeed in their
drive on Baghdad. Feeling fairly secure that another cheap "victory"
was at hand, the US imperialists displayed the cynical arrogance
for which they are so well known, dubbing the rape of Iraq that
was about to take place "Operation Iraqi Freedom". 3
In effect the US military
planners were looking to pull off a Blitzkrieg (lightning war) whose
focus was to take Baghdad, overthrow the regime and thereby end
all organised resistance by the Iraqi military. In this offensive
- as in most of their wars for colonial conquest - the US rulers
were seeking rapid success in which their losses and the sacrifice
faced by their troops (and the population at home) would be kept
to a minimum, and just as importantly, political opposition to their
actions - both at home and around the world - would not have time
to develop and spread. Many of the essential features of the US
strategy and tactics were shaped by these necessities.
In particular, the strategy
of the US imperialists must on some level take into account that,
like all imperialist armies, the US Army is beset with contradictions.
The most important of these is the fact that the bulk of it soldiers
are drawn from the ranks of the proletariat itself. In fighting
such wars the majority of its soldiers are objectively acting against
their own class interests. This remains true even when, as a result
of a combination of imperialist chauvinism, lies and compulsion,
they "volunteer" for duty. Thus, when their losses begin to mount
and the hardships in general rise with the length of deployment
in unfriendly territory their morale is bound to fall. If these
factors are combined with political exposure of the real aims of
an imperialist aggression, their resolve to bear sacrifice and to
fight will be even more undermined. In fact, in such circumstances
it is possible that actual opposition and resistance to a particular
imperialist military adventure - and even to imperialism in general,
as happened in Vietnam - will emerge within the imperialists' own
armed forces. The latter continues to haunt the US ruling class
and its top generals today.
Thus, even if the US
and other imperialists themselves are incapable of fully recognising
it, with all their high-tech weapons and massive fire power, in
the final analysis Mao's famous statement about the relation of
people and weapons in war holds true: "Weapons are an important
factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things,
that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest
of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power
and morale. Military and economic power is necessarily wielded by
people." (Mao Tsetung, "On Protracted War", Selected Works, Vol.
II, pp. 143-44) This truth underlies the necessity for all imperialist
armies to seek quick victory. Especially when a quick victory cannot
be achieved, one of their greatest strategic weaknesses - the contradiction
between their reactionary imperialist aims, interests and methods
and the fact that "military and economic power is necessarily wielded
by people" - can begin to come into play and to lay the basis for
their possible defeat.
Originally the US's
plan of attack called for its forces to open two fronts - in the
north through Turkey and the area of northern Iraq under Kurdish
control and in the south from Kuwait - and to converge on Baghdad
from both directions. The idea was to force the Iraqis to split
their forces to the north and south of the Iraqi capital, thus weakening
both fronts. This plan suffered a serious blow when mass resistance
in Turkey to the attack on Iraq led to the Turkish parliament refusing
to give approval for the movement of US troops through Turkish territory
and into Iraq. This gave rise to a fairly significant controversy
within the US's leading circles and especially between the political
and military leadership. With an entire division tied up off the
Turkish coast, some of the US's top generals wanted more time to
move these and other troops into position in the Gulf before starting
the assault. The US political leadership overruled them and ordered
the attack to begin without much delay.
This controversy and
its resolution once again highlights the interconnection between
war and politics. Over the entire planning process for the war the
political leadership demanded that the fewest troops possible be
assigned to the task. The military leadership, very aware of the
uncertainty of war and steeped in their doctrine of applying overwhelming
force, consistently insisted on using more forces than the civilian
leadership were inclined to commit. This controversy became so heated
that when US Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki publicly called
for many more troops than the US administration was prepared to
employ, his replacement was announced a year before his scheduled
retirement. This effectively discredited him and undercut his authority.
This desire to use as
few troops as possible and accept the resulting military risks was
driven by political considerations. The imperialists are faced with
a great political necessity of maintaining public support for their
wars of aggression. At least at the outset of such wars the promise
of quick and relatively painless victory is an important tool for
achieving this aim. In addition, in the overall strategic concept
currently being implemented by the US imperialists the seizure of
Iraq was just one step in a whole series of military aggressions
it is planning to carry out in order to reshape the world in its
interests and cement its hegemony. If at that point they had conceded
that the number of troops needed to implement their plans in Iraq
was as high as what many of their own generals were saying, the
attack on Iraq would have to have been postponed for at least months
- thereby putting the whole enterprise in jeopardy - and the promise
of quick and painless victory in their offensive as a whole would
have been undermined.
This fact created a
great compulsion to seek a way of moving these plans forward with
the smallest possible troop commitment. Such compulsion - which
ultimately stems from their class position - is also an important
factor underlying their inability to take a fully materialist approach
to understanding the world in general and military affairs in particular.
It can lead to them making strategic miscalculations and even fatal
mistakes.4 Whether or not at the time (or currently) the US war
planners actually believed they could conquer and pacify Iraq with
the troop levels they predicted, no one can say for sure - most
likely there were and are major differences of opinion in their
ranks on this. The essential thing is that they were determined
to go ahead, and their political goals and necessities had to take
precedence in military affairs.
Three specific factors
were involved in the US decision to push ahead without delay: 1)
Key US decision-makers were confident that Iraq's weakened military
would be no match for the juggernaut they intended to field. 2)
The US was desperate to get its forces into place and launch the
attack no later than the end of March so as to avoid major fighting
in the oppressive heat of the Iraqi summer. 3) The international
movement against the planned invasion was growing at a speed that
caught almost all observers off-guard and was causing the political
cost of the coming war to rise daily. When combined with the open
split between the US and France, Russia and Germany, and the efforts
of these last three countries to use diplomatic manoeuvres to delay
- if not actually prevent - the start of the war, the US felt compelled
to attempt to short-circuit all opposition by launching the invasion.
They also had a great specific necessity to stop the UN inspectors,
who were at the time in Iraq looking for Saddam's supposed "weapons
of mass destruction". The inspectors were finding nothing, including
at those sites identified by the US as "certainly" containing such
weapons. The US rulers were well aware that these weapons most likely
did not exist and that if the inspectors were allowed to continue
the inspections for several months longer the US's casus belli -
the pretext of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction that was
supposed to justify the war - ran a great risk of being exposed
for the ruse it was.
To carry out its plans,
the US and its allies drew together an attack force of impressive
size and power. At the time the war began, the US-led forces in
the Gulf Region and other areas surrounding Iraq numbered over 270,000
personnel and were armed with over 1,300 armoured vehicles (tanks
and armoured personnel carriers), hundreds of artillery pieces and
rocket launchers (self-propelled and towed), hundreds of helicopters
(including almost 150 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters), over 1,000
advanced jet aircraft (both carrier- and ground-based, including
strategic bombers using airfields in the Indian Ocean, the UK and
the US itself), six carrier battle groups and dozens of other warships
armed with 2,100 Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of carrying both
conventional as well as nuclear warheads (of which there were also
at least several hundred in theatre). These forces were assisted
by a multi-layered airborne and space-based surveillance, navigation
and communications network made up of various types of piloted aircraft
(U2, AWACS, RC-135, EP-3E, JSTARS, etc.), unmanned drones (Hunter,
Global Hawk and Predator) and as many as 100 satellites (military,
GPS, weather and commercial earth-sensing). By the time the operation
was completed a total of 467,000 US military personnel were deployed
world-wide to support it. This included 30 per cent of all active-duty
US military personnel.
As these force levels
show, the claim made by the US imperialists that in the "new warfare"
light and highly mobile forces would be central to future wars was
- at least in the case of Iraq - quickly put to rest. This was to
be a massive armour and air assault using the heaviest divisions
currently in existence anywhere in the world. In addition to all
these troops and military hardware, the US launched an extensive
psychological warfare operation. US agents in southern Iraq established
radio and television stations and printed millions of copies of
leaflets claiming that the Iraqi people would be free after Saddam's
regime was defeated and spreading the lie that the occupying aggressors
would be their "liberators".
With its original plan
of moving the 4th Infantry Division through Turkey to attack from
the north no longer viable, and faced with tremendous time pressure
to launch the attack before the end of March, the US military was
forced to make some modifications to its original plans. The principal
ground assault would be launched from Kuwait in the south heading
north toward Baghdad, with two main forces proceeding parallel to
one another. To the east the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (including
one British division) would move toward Baghdad from the south-east
along a route that for the most part lay between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers (crossing to the east of the Tigris as it approached
Baghdad), and to the west the US Army V Corps would approach Baghdad
from the south-west along a route that lay mainly west of the Euphrates
and which led through the Karbala Gap.
As mentioned, the necessity
of achieving a quick victory while holding US casualties to a minimum
was reflected in the plan of attack. It was designed to be a shock
attack whose speed and firepower would overwhelm the Iraqi forces,
destroying any major troop concentrations with air attacks, long-range
artillery and armour, thereby preventing any significant counter-attacks.
Since speed was of the essence, the major population centres and
urban combat were to be avoided to the greatest extent possible.
At the same time, any Iraqi forces along the planned route of advance
that refused to surrender were to be engaged and destroyed. The
principal objective was to proceed north, and encircle and capture
Baghdad. The US rulers were fairly certain that by concentrating
on capturing Baghdad they could bring about the fall of the regime,
and that this would result in the rapid end of any significant military
resistance. They were even hoping that the regime might collapse
before that, either as a result of a "decapitation" strike (killing
the regime's leadership) or just the shock of the invasion itself
coupled with the capitulationist inclinations that are fairly widespread
in such a comprador regime.5
In addition to this
main axis of attack the first actual objective of the US forces
was to capture Iraq's southern oil fields. Along with this, the
British forces were tasked with capturing the port city of Um Qasr
and Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, which is on the Shat al Arab
waterway not far from both the Gulf, the border with Iran and the
southern oil fields. Special Operations Forces (SOF - Green Berets,
Navy Seals, etc.) were deployed in large numbers to the west of
Baghdad in the area extending to the border with Jordan and tasked
with capturing key objectives in that region (mainly airfields,
etc.). This was also intended to tie down additional Iraqi forces
away from the main line of attack.
To the north, although
the assault on Baghdad from that direction had to be cancelled,
the US brought in a large number of SOF to lead the troops of the
KDP and PUK, the two main Kurdish political parties, which were
collaborating with the imperialists. These forces were reinforced
by the US 173rd Airborne Brigade, which flew from bases in Europe
and parachuted into northern Iraq with around 1,000 soldiers. Ironically,
the real military significance of this action was probably aimed
more at Turkey than at Iraq. Turkey continues to claim large areas
of northern Iraq, including the city of Mosul and the oil fields
north of Kirkuk, as its own. Deploying the 173rd in this way was
certainly meant as a clear signal to Turkey that it should not attempt
to take advantage of the impending war to move into and occupy the
Kurdish areas of Iraq. The US was counting on using the Kurdish
forces for its own aims. A Turkish invasion would have certainly
produced serious fighting between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds, threatening
a collapse of the US alliance with these forces. It also would have
created serious contradictions between the US and the comprador
elements in Iraq that the US was seeking to unite around its banner.
Undoubtedly the US commanders also hoped that this well-publicised
action might also tie down more Iraqi troops in the north and keep
them from joining the defence of Baghdad. The US military later
estimated that when the war started approximately 40 per cent of
Iraq's regular forces were stationed on the front north of Baghdad.
As stated above, the
US estimated the opposing Iraqi force to be at 280,000 to 350,000
troops organised in 17 divisions - no more than a third of the numerical
strength that Iraq had at the beginning of the 1991 Gulf War. Approximately
2,200 tanks of all types, 2,400 armoured personnel carriers and
4,000 artillery pieces were presumed to be in the Iraqi inventory.
Much of this equipment was considered to be obsolete or in a poor
state of repair.
In contrast to the 1991
Gulf War and contrary to many people's expectations, the ground
invasion was not preceded by weeks of a discrete campaign of aerial
bombardments. There were two reasons for this. The first is that
the US decided to try to eliminate Iraqi resistance by launching
a surprise cruise missile and bombing attack aimed at killing Saddam
Hussein and other top leaders of his regime at 50 separate locations
(all of which failed).6 Launching this attack on 20 March forced
them to set into motion the other portions of their land attack,
in particular the seizure of the southern oil fields, which the
US imperialists, for obvious reasons, considered one of their key
strategic objectives. The second reason for not preceding the ground
invasion with an air campaign was the fact that an air campaign
had been going on for the past 10 years. Thus, there was little
need to repeat the pattern of what had been done in 1991. The necessary
damage had already been inflicted.
A particular advantage
that the US was counting on was complete control of the air space
over the battle area. This would enable the unrestricted use of
its vast array of aerial reconnaissance assets to find any major
Iraqi troop concentrations that might confront its advancing forces
and would offer the chance to severely weaken if not destroy them
utilising air attacks and long-range artillery before the US troops
would have to engage the Iraqi defenders directly on the ground.
For the way the US and other imperialist armies fight, this kind
of "force multiplier",7 as they call it, is a crucial advantage.
In the context of this
overall matrix of freedom and necessity, the US decided it was safe
enough to implement what it called a "rolling deployment": starting
their offensive before their follow-on forces - the forces they
would be using to secure their lines of communication and rear area
- were completely deployed in theatre. This approach was somewhat
controversial before the war actually began, but would at least
in this instance prove to be workable. As we will see, the much
bigger gamble involved not the number of troops they would need
to topple Saddam's regime, but what it would take to consolidate
their control over the country once Baghdad was taken.
The Assault:
19 Days to Baghdad
On 20 March 2004 at
5:34 AM local time in Baghdad, US and UK forces attempted to kill
Saddam Hussein and other top members of the Iraqi regime with the
above-mentioned series of missile and bombing attacks. Shortly thereafter
the US-led coalition began large-scale ground operations.
The "decapitation" strike
failed to achieve its goal and on the night of 21-22 March more
air strikes were carried out. On that night alone the number of
sea- and air-launched cruise missiles used was three times greater
than the number launched throughout the entire 1991 Gulf War. Compared
to "Desert Storm" (the 1991 Gulf War) where in 43 days 283 Tomahawk
cruise missiles were used, in "Operation Iraqi Freedom" somewhere
around 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles and several thousand smart
bombs were launched or dropped in just the first 15 days. In the
campaign as a whole US and allied aircraft conducted about 41,000
sorties, of which 20,000 were strikes. Approximately 20,000 guided
munitions were dropped, almost 70 per cent of all bombs dropped.
In contrast only around 7 per cent of all bombs dropped in the 1991
Gulf War were guided munitions.
On Day 5 the US-invaders
had reached an Nasiriyah, a city of about 500,000 people, about
a third of the 500 kilometre distance between the Kuwaiti border
and Baghdad, and were pushing forward. By Day 10 the US forces attacking
along the western route were gathering between Najaf and Karbala
and preparing to attack Iraq's last major line of defence before
Baghdad. To the east the 1st MEF was advancing, but had not reached
quite as far north. At this point the US was reporting just 28 Americans
dead, 16 missing in action and 107 wounded. On Day 15 elements of
the US 3rd Infantry Division (3rd ID, part of the US V Corps) had
pushed through the Karbala Gap and were attacking Baghdad Airport.
By Day 20 the battle against US Army forces who had attacked Baghdad
from the south and southwest had shifted to central Baghdad, while
on the eastern side of the city the 1st Marine Division (part of
the 1 MEF attacking from the south-east and east) crossed the Diyala
River and captured the Rasheed Air Base in the eastern part of Baghdad.
The next day, 9 April, units of the 1st Marine Division, moving
through Baghdad from the east, linked up with the US 3rd ID, holding
positions in the central city. This was the day that US soldiers
tore down a statue of Saddam Hussein in a scene staged for television
and shown non-stop around the world in an effort to convince world
public opinion that the imperialist invaders were being welcomed
as "liberators". By Day 26, 14 April, Saddam had fled Baghdad, and
his regime along with its military had essentially collapsed, and
US-led forces had pretty much consolidated their control over Baghdad
and over most of Tikrit, the last major bastion of organised resistance
by Iraqi armed forces.
In 19 days the US-led
invaders captured Baghdad and after 26 days they had achieved their
essential goal of toppling the Saddam regime and ending all organised
resistance by the regime's military (both regular and irregular
forces). Everything had certainly not gone according to plan (more
on this point below), but it is a material fact that in three and
a half weeks they had succeeded in advancing over 500 kilometres
and had militarily defeated the Iraqi Army along the way. The US
claims that in this operation it suffered 109 killed in action and
545 wounded (of which 119 returned to duty within 72 hours). Iraqi
military casualties are estimated to be between 10,000 and 20,000
soldiers killed, with perhaps twice that number wounded. Beyond
this basic fact, a determined defence of Baghdad, which Saddam had
promised and many had expected, did not materialise. All of this
raises very sharply a number of questions: why did the Iraqi military
fall apart so quickly; was the relatively rapid defeat of the Saddam
regime evidence that there is some truth to the claims being made
by the US imperialists that their high-tech weapons have fundamentally
changed the nature of warfare; have the imperialists, and in particular
the US, become so strong that nothing can defeat them; and if they
can be defeated what will it take to do it?
Why and How
the US Won so Quickly at so Little Initial Cost
"War is the continuation
of politics.' In this sense war itself is a political action& But
war has its own particular characteristics and in this sense it
cannot be equated with politics in general. 'War is the continuation
of politics by other& means.'& It can therefore be said that politics
is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
(Mao Tsetung, "On Protracted War", Selected Works, Vol. II, pp.
152-3.)
To more fundamentally
understand the war in Iraq, its course of development and its outcome,
we have to start by understanding the politics of which it was a
continuation. For the US imperialists (and the other imperialists
allied with them) this was a war of colonial conquest - a reactionary
war that is a key element of a long-planned offensive to reorganise
the entire Middle East, Gulf region and Central Asia (the "Greater
Middle East" as they call it) firmly under the control of US imperialism.
The "Greater Middle East" project is itself a central element of
the US imperialists' drive for world hegemony. It is essentially
an attempt to seize the historic opportunity presented by the collapse
of the social-imperialist Soviet Union (a once socialist country
turned imperialist) and its bloc and cement for decades to come
the US's current position as the dominant imperialist power in the
world. The strategy and tactics the imperialists applied in this
war are a continuation of these politics. Their reliance on massive
firepower and the enormous number of civilian casualties this produces,
the need for huge quantities of munitions and high-tech weapons,
their necessity to seek quick victory and their blatant lies about
their motives and goals are all expressions of their politics -
their basic class position and the interests and goals that flow
from this.
For the Iraqi people
the struggle against the US-led invasion was (and is) a just struggle
against imperialist aggression and domination. The most serious
obstacle it faced in waging this struggle was the Saddam regime
ruling over it and the fundamental comprador character of that regime.
Comprador means that it represents the interests of reactionary
exploiters and oppressors who themselves serve and are dependent
upon foreign capital - on imperialism - for their position, even
though they may have conflicts with one or more imperialist regimes
at any given moment. As this war again showed, more often than not
such regimes cannot and will not mobilise the masses of people to
wage a determined struggle against imperialist aggression, and certainly
not one that relies on the conscious fighting desire and spirit
of the masses of people as its basic strength. These types of regimes
represent the interests of a tiny minority that is oppressing and
exploiting the vast majority for their own interests and those of
the imperialists on whom they are economically dependent. They cannot
truly mobilise and arm the broad masses to fight imperialist domination
and aggression without endangering their own grip on the population.
But it is exactly the mobilisation of the broad masses to fight
in their own interests that is crucial in waging a just war against
a powerful reactionary enemy. As Mao wrote in "On Protracted War",
"The richest source of power to wage war lies in the masses of people."
(Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 186).
The imperialists tried
to rally the masses in the imperialist countries - including their
own soldiers - with lies and demagoguery about "weapons of mass
destruction", "international law" and the "liberation" of Iraq,
etc., combined with appeals to imperialist chauvinism. The latter
was and is being applied in extremely large doses, especially in
the US itself. Thus, while in Europe the ruling classes were issuing
dire warnings about "anti-Americanism" and the "danger" of calling
the US "imperialist", the US ruling class and its mouth pieces were
openly proclaiming that indeed the US should dominate the world.
They even went so far as to publicly discuss how the time had come
for the US to openly pursue an admitted "imperialist" foreign policy
(though they weren't using the word imperialism in the Leninist
sense), and how "benign" US world hegemony is the best and only
way to "civilise" and "democratise" the world.
Saddam hoped that by
political and diplomatic manoeuvring, aligning himself with Russia
and the west European imperialists - particularly France and Germany
- he could delay and ultimately prevent the invas Saddam hoped that
by political and diplomatic manoeuvring, aligning himself with Russia
and the west European imperialists - particularly France and Germany
- he could delay and ultimately prevent the invasion. After all,
he knew full well that there were no weapons of mass destruction.8
This strategy required a lot of bluster about the massive casualties
that would be inflicted on the invading forces, raising the spectre
of political upheaval throughout the Middle East and other parts
of the world, including talk about turning Baghdad into another
"Stalingrad", etc. In fact in the lead-up to the invasion no large-scale
mobilisation of the population or all-around preparations for waging
a protracted war of resistance in Iraq ever took place. The armed
forces were deployed, some defensive measures were taken and the
so-called Saddam Feddayim and Baath Party militia (irregular forces
drawn mainly from regime supporters) were mobilised, but the broad
masses as a whole were not actively drawn into the preparations
for the struggle or the fighting itself. In retrospect it is clear
that Saddam and his regime had no real outlook or plans for actually
trying to defeat an invasion and occupation. Their entire strategy
revolved around their diplomatic manoeuvres aimed at somehow stopping
an attack from happening.
The fundamental class
character of every state structure - whether it serves the interests
of a minority of exploiters or the interests of the majority in
their struggle against the foundations and consequences of class
society - has a decisive impact on the nature and structure of its
armed forces. The armed forces of Saddam's comprador regime were
principally tasked with suppressing the masses and pursuing the
regime's regional aspirations in the context and under the overall
domination of imperialist power relations. Of necessity these overall
political and social relations were reflected in relations between
the officers and solders in the Iraqi armed forces themselves and
overall played an important role in determining the morale and fighting
spirit of the basic soldiers. It was thus unavoidable that the reactionary
nature of the regime and its long history of crimes against the
people could only serve to weaken the Iraqi armed forces' capacity
to wage the kind of determined struggle that would be necessary
to resist the coming invasion.
Despite this fundamental
weakness imposed upon them, in many instances the Iraqi soldiers
fought with determination and bravery against the US-led invaders.
But, along with the fact that the broad masses were never mobilised
to support them in the struggle, they were saddled with military
leaders who for the most part were incompetent and often cowardly.
In a comprador regime the officer corps is not only loyal to the
ruling class, but is also made up of people who - especially the
higher one goes in the hierarchy - have close political ties, and
often even family ties to the regime itself. Their level of competency
in military affairs is secondary9 and their ability and desire to
wage a determined life-and-death struggle under difficult conditions
are in most cases non-existent. Such handicaps in a war with an
enemy possessing greater economic and military power are extremely
difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.
"Unquestionably, victory
or defeat in a war is determined mainly by the military, political,
economic and natural conditions on both sides. But not by these
alone. It is also determined by each side's subjective ability in
directing the war. In his endeavour to win a war, a military strategist
cannot overstep the limitations imposed by the material conditions;
within these limitations, however, he can and must strive for victory.
The stage of action for a military strategist is built upon objective
material conditions, but on that stage he can direct the performance
of many a drama, full of sound and colour, power and grandeur."
(Mao Tsetung, "Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War",
Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 238)
In terms of technology,
advanced weapons, overall military strength and economic power the
US and its allies were clearly superior to Iraq. Does that mean
that Iraq was under all circumstances predestined to lose the war,
that there was no room left on "the stage of action" to "strive
for victory"? And in a broader sense, does it mean that a small
country like Iraq can never defeat a powerful opponent like the
USA? Despite the initial success of the US-led coalition in Iraq
the answer to both these questions is very clearly no. A closer
look at the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath helps to illustrate
this.
US Dependence
on Advanced Weapons and Massive Logistics: A Two-edged Sword
One of the US's most
important strengths is its huge quantity of heavy and advanced weapons:
armour, artillery, missiles, rockets, aircraft, satellite surveillance,
communications, radar, etc. All of this provides the US military
with tremendous firepower and especially with a deadly stand-off
capability: the ability to concentrate fire on targets accurately
at great distances and out of range of the opponent. This is an
expression of the fact that, as Mao pointed out, while strategically
imperialism and all reactionaries are "paper tigers", tactically
they are "real tigers which can devour people".
The US military is especially
noted for considering warfare to be chiefly a logistical problem
- the idea that the key to winning lies principally in overwhelming
the enemy with so much firepower that the opposing forces are simply
crushed. This approach reflects both the material position of the
US - its tremendous technological and industrial strength - and
the class position and outlook of its rulers and officer corps -
seeing weapons and not people as decisive. It is, therefore, no
wonder that the concept "amateurs study tactics, while professionals
study logistics" is a widely held belief within the US officer corps.
Of course no armed force
can exist or function without taking logistics into consideration,
but the US army's approach to this question has historically taken
on almost perverse proportions. For example, one study estimated
that in Vietnam the US forces expended between 30,000 and 50,000
rifle and light machine gun rounds for every liberation fighter
it claimed to have killed. And since their claims for the number
of casualties they were able to inflict were notoriously exaggerated
the actual amount of ammunition used was probably much higher! In
2004 the US Army is predicting it will need a total of 1.5 to 1.7
billion rounds of rifle ammunition. This significantly exceeds the
current production capacity of US government-owned ammunition factories,
necessitating large-scale outside purchases from other manufacturers
and even other countries, with Israel being the largest outside
supplier.
But this reliance on
advanced weaponry, massive firepower, etc., also means that an imperialist
army like that of the US is dependent on a logistics support system
of equivalent dimensions. All the advanced arms and equipment must
be maintained and repaired. When it fights, the US Army consumes
supplies of all types at a tremendous rate. As one example, in preparing
the attack on Iraq the US war planners "estimated a daily fuel requirement
approaching 2 million gallons [7.57 million litres] through about
day 14, when they expected the total requirement to exceed that
amount" (On Point). Over the 26 days of "Operation Iraqi Freedom"
(OIF) the US V Corps alone transported and consumed a total of 54
million gallons (204 million litres) of fuel for ground vehicles
and aircraft, 4,859 tons of ammunition, 26.6 million bottles of
water and 14.7 million MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat - army field rations).
To put this in some
historical context, during the entire four years of the First World
War the Allies used only a total of 40 million gallons of fuel -
which at that time prompted Winston Churchill to comment that the
war had been won "on a sea of oil". In the Second World War the
entire consumption of all US forces in Europe never exceeded 800,000
gallons a day. During "OIF" just to maintain fuel supplies for its
tanks and other vehicles, along with its helicopters, the US forces
needed to establish a whole series of refuelling stations along
their line of march toward Baghdad. The 1st MEF even deployed a
portable pipeline extending 240 kilometres northward from the border
with Kuwait. This logistics undertaking was so enormous that according
to the authors of On Point systematic planning for it began in autumn
of 2001.
Obviously the hundreds
of kilometres of mostly unsecured supply lines on which the US forces
depended were extremely vulnerable. There were not too many options
in terms of choosing lines of march northwards toward Baghdad. This
was especially true given the size and weight of the US's armoured
vehicles, heavy weapons and supply trucks. The major highways running
north/south were clearly of strategic importance. Yet the Iraqi
forces did not prepare a systematic effort at attacking this weakness.
The US commanders reported
"persistent" attacks along their lines of communication and there
is the famous incident when the 507th Maintenance Company made a
wrong turn and suffered heavy casualties (the incident in which
Private Jessica Lynch was injured and captured). But the problem
was that although these attacks caused some temporary difficulties
for the US forces, most of these attacks were relatively ineffective
(as seen by the small number of casualties they caused) and it is
simply a fact that this weakness was not really exploited to the
extent possible.10 For example, hardly any of the major highway
bridges between Kuwait and Baghdad (and none within Baghdad for
that matter) were destroyed in order to slow down the US advance.
Some were wired with explosives. Of these, most were never triggered.
On a few others explosives were set off, but not enough to cause
major damage. In most cases there were no demolition preparations
at all. This is an expression of the fact that there was no serious
plan - or will - to resist the invasion on the part of the Iraqi
leadership.11
Of course the US was
expecting that most or all of these bridges would be destroyed and
had moved a large part of its portable bridging assets to the Gulf
region in advance of the invasion, ready to be moved forward rapidly.
So knocking down the major bridges would not altogether have prevented
the invaders from crossing the rivers and gorges they spanned. But
it would have significantly slowed their advance and made large-scale
re-supply more difficult since the portable bridges the US uses
are less capable of bearing heavy loads in comparison with Iraqi
highway bridges. Most importantly, the delays caused by destroying
these bridges would have given the defending forces precious time
to prepare defences, reorganise and move into position to attack
and harass all along the line of the US advance and especially the
lines of communication, which were growing longer and more exposed
with every passing day.
Here another important
principle outlined by Mao was largely ignored, namely that of "drawing
the enemy in deep". Mao pointed out that in defending the base areas,
and later China as a whole, there was no point in trying to stop
a powerful enemy at the border. Rather it was much more advantageous
to draw him deeply into liberated territory where he is surrounded
by the masses, forced to depend on and defend long lines of communication,
and where the enemy puts himself in a position where his flanks
and rear area are vulnerable. A similar approach could have been
adopted in Iraq. Instead, although there were some attacks in the
rear and along the lines of communication, the main thing the Iraqi
forces did as the US columns approached was to attempt to meet them
head-on. This was doomed to failure. On Point quotes one US general
as saying, "We did not predict that they were going to come out
of the cities and expose themselves to up-armoured vehicles and
armoured formations without similar protection." It goes on to summarise
this aspect of the battle as follows: "More surprising, these irregular
forces chose to come out of the relatively safe urban areas to engage
coalition armoured forces out in the open& Even more surprising,
the paramilitaries chose to attack the lead armoured forces in waves
rather than waiting for the soft-skinned, logistics convoys that
would follow. Because the paramilitary forces were essentially untrained,
if dedicated, their tactics were suicidal in that they literally
ran, and drove, to their deaths."
From a strategic point
of view, attacking the supply lines of an invading imperialist force
is a key element in any successful resistance, especially in a situation
where the resistance forces are waging a just struggle, know the
local terrain and generally have the support of the local population.
The deeper the invaders move into the country they are attacking,
the longer their lines of supply and communication and generally
speaking the harder these are to defend. This was certainly true
in the Soviet Union during the Second World War, when the German
army's advance had brought it to the gates of Moscow and the city
centre in Stalingrad, and the corresponding lines of supply stretched
out over 1,200 kilometres and more. The territory being occupied
encompassed thousands of square kilometres. In this vast area, hundreds
of thousands of Soviet soldiers carried out partisan warfare, destroying
supply convoys, railroads and bridges and attacking and harassing
the invading German army at every opportunity. This played an important
role in finally turning the tide, so that the Soviet forces could
go from the strategic defensive to the offensive and drive the German
army out. The fact that very little of this kind of fighting took
place in Iraq during the invasion greatly weakened the resistance
to the US-led invasion.
This is all the more
true when one realises that, according to the authors of On Point,
although the US did move tremendous quantities of fuel, ammunition,
water and other supplies into Iraq to support its invasion force,
during the entire operation almost no spare parts were delivered
to US forces in the field. To keep things moving US units cannibalised
their own equipment, took parts from abandoned or captured Iraqi
equipment or even bought parts from local Iraqis.12 Many US unit
commanders reported being only one or at most two weeks away from
having to reduce or even cease offensive operations due to lack
of spare parts and the corresponding inability to maintain their
heavy vehicles, artillery and other equipment.
Lack of Preparation,
Training and Leadership and the Breakdown of the Iraqi Army
Of course this does
not mean that they would have not been able to overcome this problem
over time. But if the Iraqi forces had been better able to take
advantage of this US weakness the effect on the overall military/political
dynamic might have had an important impact on the overall outcome.
A significant slowdown would have given the Iraqi forces an important
opportunity to re-group, re-supply, etc.
The mismatch between
the attacking US-led forces and the defending Iraqi forces had numerous
facets. In addition to all the disadvantages already discussed,
the Iraqi forces were so poorly trained that to a large extent it
was an army that couldn't shoot straight. Unfortunately, the following
example shows that this statement is no exaggeration.
In the year before the
war began, large sections of the Iraqi army had engaged in little
target practice, or in some cases none at all. In the previously
cited US Army War College study, Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American
Military Transformation, it is noted that:
"Most Iraqi fighters
had fired little or no live ammunition in the year prior to the
war; some had never fired their weapons at all. The 2nd Division
of the Iraqi Regular Army, for example, had no live fire training
in the twelve months prior to the war. The 3rd Division held a single
live fire exercise in which each soldier fired four rounds of ammunition.
None of the soldiers in the 11th Division's 3rd Battalion had fired
their weapons in the past year. Even the Baghdad Republican Guard
division held only a single live fire exercise with just ten rounds
for every soldier in the year leading up to the war. By contrast,
a typical US infantry unit might fire 2,500 rounds or more of ammunition
per soldier in an average year; for units preparing to enter combat
that figure would be much higher. The typical American infantryman
might thus have had over 250 times as much target practice as even
the best Iraqis."
This lack of basic marksmanship
skills13 had disastrous effects on the ability of the Iraqi defenders
to inflict damage on the invading forces. The War College study
goes on to remark:
"Against the 3ID's 3rd
Brigade in Baghdad, Iraqi paramilitaries attained a hit rate of
under ten per cent for the RPGs fired at ranges of under 500 meters.
At Objective Montgomery14 west of Baghdad, an elite Republican Guard
tank battalion fired at least 16 T-72 main gun rounds at ranges
of 800-1000 meters at tank-sized targets with full flank exposure
- with zero hits at what amounted to point-blank range for weapons
of this calibre& Similar results are reported by American and British
combatants throughout the theatre of war, and across all Iraqi weapon
types employed in OIF."
Generally speaking,
reports of the fighting seem to confirm that not only were the regular
forces of the Iraqi Army poorly equipped and trained, but their
morale was very low as well. The unit cohesion of the regular Iraqi
forces often broke down rather quickly when the US-led attack struck
with full force. Sustained or accurate air attacks often resulted
in soldiers deserting their posts in large numbers and putting up
little or no fight against the advancing invader ground forces.
This was in many if not most cases preceded by the commanding officers
deserting first, leaving the rank and file soldiers with no leadership.
The entire Iraqi northern front essentially collapsed as a result
of sustained aerial bombardments and officer defections. Although
no major ground attack was mounted by the imperialist forces, thousands
and thousands of Iraqi soldiers were seen on television having discarded
their uniforms and weapons and walking back toward Baghdad and points
south.
The number of Iraqi
prisoners the US and its allies took was in the thousands and not
the tens of thousands they had expected before the invasion began.
Iraqi military killed and wounded were somewhere between twenty
and forty thousand. Thus, there is no other way to account for the
rest of the estimated 280,000 to 350,000 soldiers who made up the
pre-invasion Iraqi regular forces other than to conclude - they
went home. By most accounts the bulk of the fighting was carried
out by the irregular forces (Baath Party militia and Saddam Fedayeem).
According to US summations, these forces fought with tenacity and
bravery, but were poorly equipped, trained and led. The War College
summary contains the following descriptions:
"And combat motivation,
while very weak in the Iraqi Regular Army and some Republican Guard
units, was stronger elsewhere - and especially among paramilitary
fighters in Iraqi cities. In fact, paramilitary combat motivation
bordered on the suicidal in 2003. In Nasiriyah, Samawah, Basra,
Najaf, Baghdad, and elsewhere, Iraqi paramilitaries executed repeated
frontal assaults against American armoured vehicles using civilian
sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, minivans, and even bicycles.
In Samawah, Iraqi SUVs rammed American armoured vehicles. Even after
initial waves of such kamikaze chargers were mowed down, others
followed."
And further:
"Much of the close combat
in OIF took the form of Iraqi paramilitaries charging Coalition
armoured vehicles on the outskirts of Iraqi cities using unarmoured
civilian vehicles. These were typically simple frontal assaults,
fully exposed, with no apparent attempt to co-ordinate movement
with suppressive fire, use terrain for cover, or employ smoke or
other obscurants. Moreover, they were usually directed at Coalition
heavy armoured units; Iraqi paramilitaries appear to have systematically
avoided softer-skinned command or logistical elements in order to
seek out Coalition tanks and infantry fighting vehicles."15
These descriptions are
themselves painful enough, but the absolute lack of serious and
systematic preparation for a war that the whole world saw coming
the better part of a year in advance was further demonstrated by
the failure on the part of the Iraqi leadership to prepare to wage
urban warfare (or as the US military calls it MOUT - Military Operations
on Urban Terrain). One of the things the US imperialists feared
the most going into the invasion was the possibility that they might
be forced to engage in sustained combat operations in urban areas.
Their own pre-war manoeuvres had led them to the conclusion that
sustained urban combat in which they were forced to dismount from
their armoured vehicles to attack dug-in defenders and clear buildings
would result in at least one casualty among their own forces for
every defender killed. Thus, they had every expectation that such
sustained combat in Baghdad and Iraq's other major cities could
easily result in thousands of killed and wounded among their own
forces.16
One of the things that
engaging imperialist forces in urban combat does (and this is true
of close quarters combat in general) is that it eliminates the advantage
that stand-off weapons give the imperialists. At close quarters
they cannot easily employ artillery, air support, missiles, etc.
When they are forced into a situation where they lose these advantages,
the morale and fighting spirit of US and other imperialist troops
can quickly decline. For example, when one US unit was subjected
to a night of ambushes and close-range combat on the way to Baghdad
its commanding officer was quoted in On Point as saying that this
had "traumatised everyone". In the words of Lieutenant Colonel Terry
Ferrel, "We do own the night, but we also train to own the night
with stand-off. When you have the guys crawling up beside your tank
and you are using the 9 mil [Beretta 9 mm pistol] or stepping off
to draw an AK to shoot somebody, your average tank crew does not
train to do that."
For the reasons already
stated, this did not happen much in Iraq in 2003. But it could have
happened and the course and even the result of that war could have
been dramatically different, if for instance the US-led forces had
become bogged down in a siege of Baghdad and Iraq's other major
cities, taking large numbers of casualties and having their lines
of supply being repeatedly and effectively hit by guerrillas operating
along their vast supply lines.
In a scenario where
a determined resistance was inspiring protest against the invasion
throughout the Middle East and around the world - including in the
US itself - both the military as well as the political cost of continuing
the campaign would have risen dramatically. The outcome of such
a course of events could have potentially been very different from
that which actually occurred. The corrupt and reactionary character
of Saddam's regime stood firmly in the way of such a scenario, and
there was no organised revolutionary vanguard capable of stepping
into this void to provide the political, organisational and military
leadership that was necessary for bringing about a radically different
result. But even a more cohesive and determined non-revolutionary
regime might have been able to do at least some of the things necessary
to have prolonged the conflict. This point is not lost on the more
astute imperialist observers. The War College summary makes the
following observation about what the course of the conflict might
have been like if the Iraqi forces had been better prepared and
led:
"The result could well
have been an extended stalemate, with Coalition forces pinned down
in static sieges across Iraq, beset by partisan warfare against
overstrained, overstretched lines of communications, and facing
a steady loss of lives to guerrilla actions against patrols and
garrisons even without an assault on a city centre& this could have
produced a very long war."
Seeking to prolong the
conflict so as to be able to neutralise to the greatest extent possible
the strengths of an imperialist army, exacerbate and utilise its
internal contradictions and create space and time to mobilise the
strengths of a genuinely anti-imperialist or revolutionary army
and mass resistance is a key factor in defeating the kind of imperialist
aggression represented by "Operation Iraqi Freedom". A World to
Win News Service made the following summation in light of the collapse
of the defence of Baghdad:
"The Iraqi regime was
unable to make use of these favourable factors to put up the kind
of fight that would have really put a stick in the spokes of the
US war chariot and rallied the people of the region and the world
to their defence. The Iraqi military was dependent on oil sales
and arms purchases from the imperialists. Its economy had been crippled
by 12 years of imperialist-imposed sanctions and the people impoverished
and exhausted. Yet the Iraq regime had a more fundamental flaw that
assured its ultimate failure. It was a reactionary regime that had
ruled over the peoples of Iraq with an iron fist. The only chance
of defeating the US was through a lengthy people's war, a war that
mobilised the entire population and relied upon it, and used a strategy
and tactics that could neutralise the advantages of the US. From
such a perspective, the importance of the battle for Baghdad was
not that the whole war would be decided by it. The question was
how the battle there, which the Iraqi forces could not avoid even
if it was not the most favourable terrain for people's war, would
set the stage for a protracted struggle by the people throughout
the country against the occupiers and spark even more support from
the people in every country, especially the bordering countries
in the Middle East. Given this context, even if the city ultimately
were to fall, a fierce and heroic battle would have made it possible
to continue the war. This was what people throughout the world hoped
for, only to have these hopes dashed by Saddam Hussein once again."17
Footnotes
1. The effects
of this economic blockade on Iraq's civilian population were so
devastating that one UN official, Denis Halliday, who headed the
UN's Iraq programme, resigned in protest in 1998, calling them "genocidal".
UNICEF's Executive Director, Carole Bellamy, held a 1999 press conference
to announce the release of a "Situation Analysis of Women and Children
in Iraq", providing a detailed account of how these economic sanctions
contributed to the "excess deaths" of over 500,000 Iraqi children
under age five.
2. It has
been widely documented that by the mid- to late-1990s Iraq had destroyed
all of its so-called weapons of mass destruction and essentially
dismantled the programmes designed to produce such weapons. The
UN weapons inspections confirmed this. Nevertheless, while as a
result of Iraqi compliance with the UN's disarmament demands France,
China and Russia were prepared to lift the economic sanctions on
Iraq, the US refused to allow this. This was an essential part of
the US's long-range plans to bring about "regime change" in Iraq
(read install a compliant pro-US government, gain control over Iraq's
oil resources and re-make Iraq as a US base for reorganising the
entire Middle East).
3. On Point,
a study of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" (OIF) that was commissioned
by the leadership of the US Army and written by US officers, openly
declares that the decade of attacks and sanctions against Iraq were
nothing less than preparation for the open war against Iraq: "While
combat operations began on 17 March 2003, preparations for Operation
IRAQI FREEDOM began on 1 March 1991 - the day after the first Gulf
War ended. In the broadest context, OIF marks the latest chapter
in the continuous US involvement in the Middle East and Southwest
Asia theatre. America's national security is directly tied to the
region's stability and prosperity. As such, the nation has been
applying the elements of national power - diplomacy, information,
military action, and economics - to reach this elusive goal. From
enforcing sanctions and international inspections, to protecting
the Kurds and Muslims, to responding to Iraqi violations of the
no-fly zones, the military has been a central element of the US
policy toward Iraq since the end of DESERT STORM." In fact, throughout
almost the entire 1990s the US military had spent hundreds of millions
of dollars building new bases and other infrastructure and pre-positioning
thousands of tonnes of weapons and supplies in the Gulf in preparation
for "Operation Iraqi Freedom".
4. After
all, for years the US imperialists thought they could actually win
the war in Vietnam. They believed that by applying increasing amounts
of massive firepower along with a campaign of terror and assassination
aimed at the resistance forces there, they would be able to carry
the day militarily. They completely miscalculated the ability of
the masses in both southern and northern Vietnam to endure the hardships
necessary to wage a protracted struggle against them. And they miscalculated
the extent to which they would become politically exposed and isolated
in public opinion around the world, including in their own homeland
(and, it should be added, within their own armed forces on the ground).
5. The US
Army study On Point states: "Planners thought it possible that the
combination of effects from Tomahawk missiles, air attacks, ground
attacks, and robust information operations would either render the
regime irrelevant or cause it to collapse very early in the fight
- in effect, like a balloon pops when poked."
6. Not
only did all 50 of these attacks fail, but it turned out that the
bunker in which Saddam was supposedly staying that night did not
even exist. While not killing any of the Iraqi leadership these
attacks did kill dozens of Iraqi civilians.
7. The imperialist
military generally use the term "force multiplier" to refer to weapons,
intelligence and communication systems that give its forces more
effective fire power or striking force than just their numeric strength
alone would normally suggest.
8. Some imperialist
commentators, and especially those in the countries taking part
in the invasion, claimed that Saddam's supposed refusal to co-operate
with the UN weapons inspectors was definitive proof that he had
something to hide. The facts show something quite different. After
being caught in the mid-1990s trying to conceal weapons from the
inspectors, Iraq destroyed all its weapons and production facilities
that were in violation of UN resolutions. This was widely documented
before the war by former inspectors, especially by Scott Ritter,
who had served as an officer in the US Marines in the 1991 Gulf
War. Ritter along with others also made public that the US had used
the UN inspections to spy on Iraq (including illegally installing
advanced eavesdropping equipment) and that the information thereby
gained was used to develop targets and plans for attacking Iraq.
Saddam was well aware that the US would never agree to declare his
regime in conformity with the UN resolutions and lift the sanctions
as long as he remained in power. Any further inspections would only
be used to gather intelligence for the coming invasion. Nevertheless,
in the run-up to the war and under tremendous international pressure,
Iraq agreed to let the inspectors back into the country and give
them almost unlimited access. Saddam's strategy of depending on
the US's imperialist rivals to prevent an invasion was, in light
of the world balance of power following the collapse of the Soviet
Union, really nothing more than grasping for straws, albeit - given
his class position - the only option he felt he had.
9. Here there
is a clear contrast to an imperialist army where the level of professionalism
in the officer corps is in most cases much higher. The ensemble
of imperialist relations and everything they entail, including both
advanced means of production and the ability to carry out bribery
of significant sections of the population, mean that the material
and social basis of the regime in an imperialist country are much
stronger and broader than in an oppressed country dominated by imperialism
and a comprador regime. This allows the imperialists to broaden
the ranks of their officer corps and use more objective criteria
in selecting even the top-level commanders of their armed forces.
Of course even here political reliability remains the main criterion.
10. Even so,
as the US forces quickly advanced toward Baghdad and their supply
lines became more extended, the level of attacks on these lines
became a growing problem. To deal with this threat the US commanders
deployed elements of the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions that
up until that point had been held as a strategic reserve and used
them to secure the US lines of supply. Within a few days of this
deployment the level of attacks dropped significantly and ceased
to be a major problem for them.
11. A study
of "OIF" by the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College
entitled Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation
states: "The Coalition advance was obviously premised on its ability
to use a series of key bridges over the Euphrates River. The towns
at these crossings were in fact major battlefields in the war, as
the Iraqis apparently understood their importance and sought to
contest the bridge sites. Yet few of these bridges were wired for
demolition, and even fewer were actually destroyed. At Nasiriyah,
the Iraqis fought a week-long battle for a city whose military importance
turned on its bridges - yet the Iraqis made no systematic effort
to destroy them."
12. "The
theatre did not do as well with repair parts. Generals Christianson,
Kratzer, and Stultz all agree that the parts distribution system
never worked, despite heroic efforts. More than enough parts reached
the theatre and were duly processed, but almost none reached the
intended customers during the fighting. Forward, the troops made
do by cannibalising broken-down equipment and towing what they could
not repair. So, as the force moved north toward Baghdad with adequate
fuel, water, and food, its ability to sustain an adequate maintenance
readiness rate began to suffer. Fortunately, major combat operations
ended before the failure of the parts distribution system affected
operations in a meaningful way." (On Point)
13. Of course
it cannot be expected that it would be possible to expend the huge
amounts of ammunition in training that the US or other imperialist
armies do. Nevertheless, it is both necessary and possible to carry
out such training while being more economical with available resources
and at the same employing additional methods that allow the substitution
for at least some amounts of live ammunition while still improving
proficiency.
14. The US
battle plan contained a series of predetermined objectives along
their route to Baghdad that they intended to seize and control.
The US V Corps' plan of attack had 13 such objectives extending
from near the border with Kuwait all the way to just north of Baghdad.
"Objective Montgomery", the second to last of these objectives,
was located just west of the city. On Point describes this encounter
as follows: "April 4, 2003. A full-strength Iraqi T-72 battalion
from the Hammurabi Republican Guard division, with about a battalion
of artillery in direct support, was dug in along the crest of a
berm astride Highway 10... creating a natural kill sack along the
Highway 10 approach route... some 1,000 meters from the nearest
Iraqi positions... Irrigation ditches alongside the highway prevented
easy off-road movement, canalising any attack from the front and
enabling most of the defenders to engage a road-bound attack from
the flank.
At about 1500
hours on April 4, Troop A ("Apache") of the 3-7 US Cavalry drove
directly into the kill sack, in column formation, along the expected
Highway 10 approach route...
"The Americans
spotted the Iraqis as they opened fire. At least 16 rounds of 125mm
T-72 main gun fire were observed. None hit. American return fire
then wiped out most of the battalion in less than ten minutes, whereupon
Apache Troop pulled back and American aircraft and artillery barraged
the position to neutralise the Iraqis' dismounted infantry and destroy
its supporting artillery...
"If the Iraqis
were ever going to fight a battle on their own terms, this should
have been it. They enjoyed a numerical advantage of almost 2:1 in
armoured vehicles and nearly 3:1 in tanks. They were in prepared
defensive positions of their own choosing, on highly advantageous
ground, and we attacked them frontally without extensive air support
from precisely the direction they expected, driving straight into
a prepared kill sack. Yet the Iraqis failed to inflict any losses
before losing their entire battalion and all of its supporting artillery
to an advance by a single US cavalry troop."
15. As a
general point, although it is certainly true that the US battle
summaries are written from the viewpoint of an imperialist military
- and at times are blatantly self-serving - nevertheless the ones
written after the events often contain important observations and
insights. In addition, there is the overall point about knowing
both oneself and the enemy, so it is important to try to understand
their point of view and approach. Given the actual speed with which
Baghdad was taken and the low number of casualties suffered by the
invaders, much of what is summarised is probably true or at least
contains a lot of truth. Finally, up to this point this author is
not aware of any post-war summations written by those taking part
in the resistance to the invasion. These would, of course, be very
helpful if they were able to shed more light on this important subject.
16. The US
War College analysis pays a lot of attention to this question. Again,
while it is written from a bourgeois perspective and almost completely
ignores or negates the role of the broad masses in combating imperialist
aggression and invasion, it nevertheless contains a number of important
insights and reveals quite a bit about the bourgeois view of this
question as a whole. For that reason it is cited here at some length:
"Perhaps the
most serious Iraqi shortcoming was their systematic failure to exploit
the military potential of urban terrain. Cities offer a natural
source of cover and concealment, they canalise attacks, they facilitate
barrier construction, they pose difficult problems of intermingling
and collateral damage avoidance, and they make effective employment
of stand-off precision weapons much harder&
"Yet the Republican
Guard and Iraqi Regular Army systematically avoided major cities,
deploying instead in rural areas and suburban outskirts. They appear
to have been deliberately denied access to major city centres by
the Iraqi high command&
"The great
majority of the true urban combat in OIF was against lightly armed
irregular paramilitaries, who fought mostly on the tactical offensive,
sallying out into the open to charge Coalition armoured vehicles.
Not only did the paramilitaries lack the heavy weapons or armour
protection of Iraq's large mechanised formations, they also forfeited
the tactical potential of urban terrain by taking the offensive
in exposed, unprepared frontal assaults.
"More conventional
Special Republican Guard (SRG) units deployed some heavy weapons,
especially in Baghdad, but these were a tiny fraction of the total
available to the Iraqi military. And even the SRG failed systematically
to make effective use of urban terrain for their employment. The
SRG's prepared positions were almost entirely outdoors, typically
in shallow foxholes dug along the roadside or in simple sandbag
emplacements on building roofs or at intersections. SRG tanks were
often simply parked in the open at major intersections, with no
effort at cover or concealment. Practically no buildings received
the interior preparations that would be normal for urban warfare
in Western practice, such as interior barricades, wall reinforcement,
loophole construction, or wire entanglements. Outdoor obstacles,
barriers, or minefields were almost completely absent&
"The Iraqis'
shortcomings left them extremely vulnerable to the Coalition's technological
and training advantages. For example, the Regular Army, Republican
Guard, and Special Republican Guard's inability to exploit complex
terrain for cover and concealment left them exposed to the full
weight of Coalition stand-off precision strikes&Against such an
armada, failure to secure cover and concealment can be lethal to
hundreds of combatants in just minutes; the Iraqis' exposure enabled
the Coalition to annihilate whole formations at safe distances,
and persuaded many Iraqis to abandon weapons lest they suffer the
same fate.
"But while
precision weapons are tremendously lethal against exposed targets,
they are much less so against opponents who exploit terrain for
cover and concealment& Most important, though, a skilled urban defender
could not have been broken by an all-mounted assault of the sort
waged in Baghdad and Basra. The Iraqis of 2003 were exposed and
could thus often be slaughtered in the open even within the city
centre without the attacker dismounting from its armoured vehicles.
By contrast, a defender who exploited the natural potential of urban
terrain by remaining in cover to fire from within buildings, who
prepared those buildings for maximum cover and concealment, used
barriers and obstacles to canalise attacks into prepared ambushes,
and who used covered retreat routes to slip away for subsequent
engagements a couple of blocks away, would have been a much tougher
target. Historically, it has been impossible to destroy such urban
defenders without supporting armoured advances with dismounted infantry
who can enter buildings to clear rooms, kill concealed defenders,
and hold the building interiors to prevent their reoccupation by
defenders& unless such defenders are cleared before the armoured
vehicles advance, the vehicles' weaker roof, rear, and flank armour
risks easier penetration from bypassed but unseen defenders. Working
together, skilled dismounted infantry and supporting armour can
clear urban terrain, but they cannot do so cheaply if the defender
makes the most of that terrain: even with skilled attackers, and
even with armoured support, dismounted building clearance against
skilled defenders has typically been very costly. Recent exercises
by the U.S. Marine Corps have suggested that against skilled urban
defenders, even well-trained attackers might expect little better
than a 1:1 loss exchange ratio (LER), a 1:1 LER against multiple
thousands of Iraqi urban defenders would have produced thousands
of friendly casualties and a much costlier outcome for OIF, even
given the technological advantages of the Abrams and the Challenger
[tanks]."
17. One
of the main conclusions of the War College study is that it might
be very difficult for the US to repeat what happened in Iraq:
"But because
both technology and a major skill imbalance are required, the same
Coalition skills and equipment would probably not produce comparable
results against a more skilled opponent. In particular, the troop
level required to destroy a skilled force the size of Saddam's military
could well have exceeded that available in 2003, and the costs required
could well have been significantly higher.
"This is because
skilled militaries can survive stand-off precision engagement and
compel close combat on terms unfavourable to us, and because such
close combat, even with modern technology, is inherently dangerous
and labour intensive when waged against a skilled opponent. To survive
stand-off precision and wage close combat effectively, however,
requires high tactical proficiency and an ability to exploit complex
terrain for cover and concealment. The Iraqis in 2003 were anything
but highly proficient. Their poor training and leadership produced
a combination of mistakes, ill-prepared fighting positions, poor
marksmanship, and flawed dispositions that left them fatally exposed
to Coalition technologies at all ranges. This in turn enabled a
relatively small Coalition force to prevail in a short, relatively
low-cost campaign - but it would be a mistake to assume similar
outcomes against better prepared opponents."
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