Impressed as we all are by the pinpoint accuracy of our expensive arsenal of advanced weaponry, I am less awed – but more shocked – by our adherence to certain self-imposed paradigms that drive our military strategies.
Let me explain why this is so. Our primary paradigm drives several corollaries that underpin our strategic planning for the campaign to unseat Saddam. This underlying assumption is that the general Iraqi populace would be more than happy to see Saddam’s regime crumble into the dust of history. A very reasonable supposition, based on all of the history and first-person narratives we have all had access to. However, the corollary that these same citizens will rise up has been clearly seen by both sides of the conflict, but dealt with far more effectively and pragmatically by Saddam’s regime.
Why would I make this statement? One needs only to understand the regime’s long-standing policies and tactics while assessing the war news to see the evidence of this more effective approach.
While truth is most often the first casualty of war, a remarkable degree of candor can be seen minute by minute in the U.S. broadcast media as a result of the embedding of a medley of international reporters in a variety of front-line and supporting coalition units.
First of all, there is the lack of the outflow of Iraqi refugees from the towns and cities that lay in the path of our forces. Using our self-imposed assumptions, we have interpreted this to mean that the populace has faith that the coalition forces will not harm them. But from just where would the average, dirt-poor Iraqi gain this impression? Certainly not from the Iraqi or Arab press, television or radio. Given the level of coerciveness normal within Saddam’s regime, it is much more reasonable to assume that they are held back by forces loyal to the regime. Did we not hear or understand Saddam’s pre-war pronouncements of forcing the U.S. and its allies to fight house to house?
Our ability to reconnoiter the entire Iraqi countryside in minute detail has failed to disclose the prepared positions of the Republican Guards divisions in Baghdad. It would seem reasonable that within a plainly limited and heavily populated urban area, it would be nigh on impossible to hide a 40,000+ man force and, therefore, we should able to effectively target it. Yet that is not our current situation.
We have hit the various compounds and facilities in that urban area with great precision, seeking to spare the populace from harm. Yet in ignoring the publicly announced paradigm of our enemy, we are in all likelihood targeting places long empty of the enemy’s strength. So where are these divisions of Republican Guards?
In town after town in southern Iraq, our forces have found only a few organized units, usually poorly supplied and equipped, and assume that the bulk of the forces have slunk away rather than face the coalition onslaught. As long announced, we have not sought to enter these towns for fear of inflicting civilian casualties, and so have routinely bypassed them intact. But the news is that our hyper-extended supply columns are now being attacked in the area of these same towns by irregular units, is the assumption, rather than line units in mufti. But the populace of the coalition-spared towns are not coming out to greet our forces other than in small numbers who, immediately after we depart, turn to the Arab media to back the Baath regime. Why is this the norm?
If we use the same facts plainly in evidence – but evaluate them by first taking Saddam at his word, in the awful knowledge of his brutal tactics and arrogant disregard for human life – it becomes apparent that he has not planned to use human shields for his facilities, but rather for each of his individual soldiers. This stratagem at a stroke accomplishes several critical military and political goals. First, it reduces the effectiveness of our advanced standoff weapons – forces us into close combat and the increased casualties, both civilian and/or coalition that it will inevitably create. It also suppresses any internal revolt without diverting forces away from engaging coalition forces. On the political side, it uses our own citizens’ paradigm of expecting quick, bloodless victory and our public policy of reducing civilian casualties against us.
So where is the Iraqi military? It is hiding in the homes of everyday citizens, suppressing any nascent revolt while using their own country’s women and children as living sandbags – a stunningly brutal, but highly effective tactic. Hitler told us what he was planning in “Mein Kampf” and was ignored at the cost of rivers of blood, but we cannot afford to discount Saddam’s announcement – nor should we. Sept. 11 should have already taught us that innocents are of no concern to terrorists or their supporters.
What I have seen leads me to suspect that what we are being drawn into is a partisan style, urban conflict rather than the conventional one we hoped for. This will create a flood of civilian and coalition casualties with the predictable adverse political fallout.
We will have to deal with the political costs, for the world is not likely to blame Hussein for the death of the innocents that he so blithely positions to hide behind.
Tom Marzullo is a former Special Forces soldier and a veteran of submarine special operations. He resides in Colorado.
Pam Bondi crushes Dems at confirmation hearing
Around the Web