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Saddamafat
While the New York Times was gleefully revealing classified information from the
Pentagon about U.S. war plans, Saddam Hussein was personally discussing his counter strategies. In an interview
mid-August with British M.P. George Galloway published in The Mail of London, Saddam revealed his battle
plans. They boiled down to imitating Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. His war plan has two main parts:
"suffering victim" public diplomacy and urban warfare.
Attempting to raise fears in the U.S. of a second Mogadishu, Hussein's military have moved their defensive units
into urban areas and surrounded themselves with civilians. According to columnist James Robbins, key defensive
positions are being fortified, subterranean passages being made ready, food and supplies stockpiled. The Iraqi
government is moving underground, Baath Party members are being trained in urban fighting techniques and communications
are limited to word-of-mouth in order to avoid electronic eavesdropping.
Urban warfare is conceded to be particularly nasty, with heavy casualties on both sides, but it is especially costly
for the attackers in the early stages. City fighting, Robbins continues, minimizes or negates the U.S. hallmark
advantages - airpower and mechanized warfare. Within the city, mobility is compromised and it is easy for perhaps
non-uniformed troops to hide among civilians from air strikes and mechanized attack. Command and control communications
will be enhanced because of the close proximity of units who will have less opportunity to mutiny or surrender.
They also will be readily available to quell civic unrest.
Finally, these tactics will support Iraqi public diplomacy efforts by providing handy human shields that can be
used to feed the international media a steady diet of gruesome pictures of "innocent civilian" casualties.
The false cacophony over Jenin is a current example. Not even the United Nations, in its final report, could approve
the "massacre" distortions so readily, eagerly and uncritically broadcast by international television.
Urban warfare inflicts punishing casualties that aims to weaken American resolve and foment world opinion in the
direction of a truce that deprives the United States of victory.
The success of Saddam's urban plan depends on American willingness to march right in and start house-to-house combat.
One might think that even Saddam had studied sufficient history to hear of a siege. The former Commandant of the
Army War College, Major General (Ret.) Robert Scales, describes one alternative approach. "Cities," he
says, "are fairly complex systems. The attacking force can use the inherent instability of an urban structure
as a means to defeat itself." Cities require fresh water, food and electricity to function. These are elements
that cannot be defended equally well everywhere at all times. Attacking forces can fight by cutting off cities,
knocking out the elements of the infrastructure and making small-scale attacks at opportune moments in key areas.
General George Patton put it this way, "Fixed fortifications are monuments to man's stupidity." Fixed
defensive positions are death traps, a la Tora Bora. Bunkered, immobile and surrounded, Saddam will have already
given up governance of the nation as well as the oil fields that are the source of his power and wealth. Saddam
rules through fear, not ideology. His Republican Guard works for money. No oil, no money.
Robbins, a student of history, gives Saddam one more thing to think about. In 695 B.C., the Assyrian king, Sennacherib,
conquered the city then called Babylon by diverting the Euphrates River and flooding the place.
That leaves public diplomacy. Managing the public relations of war is something that the American's don't do very
well. The Republicans are even worse at it than the Democrats. Nevertheless, this week both Congress and the administration
announced funding for efforts to counter the PR skills of the terrorist world. One of the first items of business
is to get a largely hostile media to discuss the benefits of a victory over Iraq.
Iraq. The prospect of Iraq developing weapons of mass destruction that can be handed off to untraceable
non-state third parties for delivery must be eliminated. In a high-tech age, waiting to be attacked first is a
form of insanity. The potential for destruction is simply too great. "If the Iraqi oil fields are operational
in the friendly hands of American companies," says Trent Telenko, "and the Iranian state becomes a rational
non-mullah regime and Russia attracts the investment to maximize its own oil production then the Saudi oil weapon
is eliminated."
Saudi Arabia. The "do nothing" and "do something else first" crowds ultimately want
to leave Saddam as the regional muscle, says Mark Steyn in the Canadian National Post. That means allowing the
Saudis to continue providing the ideological heft to Islamist radicals. A new regime in Baghdad, however, means
more oil at cheaper prices which puts more pressure on the House of Saud. The less money they are getting from
oil, the less they have to fund radical Islam in Europe, Asia or North America.
Jordan. Leaving Saddam in power means losing Jordan to the corruption caused by ever-expanding sanction-busting
business deals. The Hasemites are the most reformable of the Arab regimes.
Iran. The liberation of Iraq hastens the liberation of Iran. The young, pro-western populace will not be
beaten by the Arab mercenaries the mullah's have hired to do their dirty work.
The Palestinian Authority. Steyn continues, "Living in a UN-mandated limbo has produced a remorseless
descent into depravity and a death-cult psychosis. The PA is armed by Iran, bankrolled by Iraq and sustained by
the beliefs of Saudi radicals. (Backstopped by a Europe that is unable to explain its hostility to Israel in polite
company.) If that trifecta remains in place, all-out war to the death would be preferable to the status quo. Either
the Arabs will push Israel into the sea or they will be decisively beaten once and for all.
Columnist Steven Chapman stated the public diplomacy dilemma this way. 'The basic values and interests of Europe
and America diverged as long ago as the 18th Century, on a fairly profound disagreement over the notion of liberty,
The skeptical observer might conclude that fighting terrorism by tackling poverty, desperation and oppression first
sounds a lot like giving the homicidal terrorists what they want, which, in turn, sounds a lot like the dreaded
A-word, appeasement."
Writing in Tech Central Station, Dale Franks sums it up this way. "The trouble with the idea of solving all
problems through negotiation is that it assumes both sides have something to offer. What do you offer Saddam Hussein
when you have nothing that he wants? There are, unfortunately, evil men in the world who are uninterested in either
negotiations or compromise. For as long as they wish to engage in power politics, we must be willing to do so ourselves,
in order to oppose them." The United States is both willing and able, as it has been throughout the 20th Century.
We will not be found weak nor wanting.
The Middle East Newsline reported that the United States has sent a nearly identical letter to leaders in the Middle
East warning them to prepare their public opinion for a change in the Iraqi regime. U.S. National Security Advisor
Condoleeza Rice said in an interview with BBC this week that "We certainly do not have the luxury of doing
nothing. We believe that the case for regime change is very powerful."
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