Risks of Iraqi war emerging Some officials warn of a mismatch between strategy and force size.

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------------------------------------------------------------------------Post
ed on Tue, Mar. 25, 2003

Risks of Iraqi war emerging
Some officials warn of a mismatch between strategy and force size.
By Joseph L. Galloway
Inquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Five days into the war, the optimistic assumptions of the
Pentagon's civilian war planners have yet to be realized, the risks of the
campaign are becoming increasingly apparent, and some current and retired
military officials are warning that there may be a mismatch between
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's strategy and the force he has sent
to carry it out.

The outcome of the war is not in doubt: Iraq's forces are no match for the
United States and its allies. But, so far, defeating them is proving to be
harder and it could prove to be longer and costlier in U.S. and Iraqi lives
than the architects of the U.S. war plan expected.

And if weather, Iraqi resistance, chemical weapons or anything else turned
things suddenly and unexpectedly sour, the backup force, the Army's Fourth
Infantry Division, is still in Texas with its equipment sailing around the
Arabian peninsula.

It's not clear that Saddam Hussein, his lieutenants or their praetorian
guard are either shocked or awed, despite the aerial pounding they have
taken. Instead of capitulating, some regular Iraqi army units are harassing
U.S. supply lines. Contrary to U.S. hopes - and some officials' expectations
- no top commander of Hussein's Republican Guard has capitulated. Even some
ordinary Iraqis are greeting advancing U.S. and British forces as invaders,
not as liberators.

"This is the ground war that was not going to happen in [Rumsfeld's] plan,"
a Pentagon official said. Because the Pentagon didn't commit overwhelming
force, "now we have three divisions strung out over 300-plus miles and the
follow-on division, our reserve, is probably three weeks away from landing."

Asked yesterday about concerns that the coalition force was not big enough,
Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke replied: "... Most people
with real information are saying we have the right mix of forces. We also
have a plan that allows it to adapt and to scale up and down as needed."

Knowledgeable defense and administration officials say Rumsfeld and his
civilian aides at first wanted to commit no more than 60,000 U.S. troops to
the war, on the assumption that the Iraqis would capitulate in two days. The
total combat force now numbers about 180,000 troops.

Intelligence officials say Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and other
Pentagon civilians ignored much of the advice of the CIA and the Defense
Intelligence Agency in favor of reports from the Iraqi opposition and from
Israeli sources that predicted an immediate uprising against Hussein once
the Americans attacked.

The officials said Rumsfeld also made his disdain for the Army's heavy
divisions very clear when he argued about the war plan with Army Gen. Tommy
Franks, the allied commander. Franks wanted more and more heavily armed
forces, said one senior administration official; Rumsfeld kept pressing for
smaller, lighter and more agile ones, with much bigger roles for air power
and special forces.

"Our force package is very light," said a retired senior general. "If things
don't happen exactly as you assumed, you get into a tangle, a mismatch of
your strategy and your force. Things like the pockets [of Iraqi resistance]
in Basra, Umm Qasr and Nasiriyah need to be dealt with forcefully, but we
don't have the forces to do it."

"The secretary of defense cut off the flow of Army units, saying this thing
would be over in two days," said a retired senior general who has followed
the evolution of the war plan. "He shut down movement of the First Cavalry
Division and the First Armored Division. Now we don't even have a nominal
ground force."

He added ruefully: "As in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, we are using
concepts and methods that are entirely unproved. If your strategy and
assumptions are flawed, there is nothing in the well to draw from."

Robin Dorff, the director of national-security strategy at the U.S. Army War
College in Carlisle, Pa., said three things had gone wrong in the campaign:

A "mismatch between expectations and reality."

The threat posed by irregular troops, especially the 20,000-strong Fedayeen,
a Baath Party paramilitary organization, who are harassing the 300-mile-long
supply lines crucial to fueling and resupplying the armor units barreling
toward Baghdad.

The Turks threatening to move more troops into northern Iraq, which could
trigger fighting between Turks and Kurds over Iraq's rich northern oil
fields.

Dorff and others said that the nightmare scenario was that allied forces
might punch through to the Iraqi capital and then get bogged down in
house-to-house fighting in a crowded city.

"If these guys fight and fight hard for Baghdad, with embedded Baathists
stiffening their resistance at the point of a gun, then we are up the
creek," said one retired general.

John Collins, a retired Army colonel and former chief researcher for the
Library of Congress, said the worst scenario would be sending U.S. troops to
fight for Baghdad. He said every military commander since Sun Tzu, the
ancient Chinese strategist, has hated urban warfare.

"Military casualties normally soar on both sides; innocent civilians lose
lives and suffer severe privation; reconstruction costs skyrocket," Collins
said, adding that fighting for the capital would cancel out the allied
advantages in air and armor and reduce it to an infantry battle, house to
house, street by street.

Another retired senior officer said the Air Force was bombing day and night,
but its strikes have so far failed to produce the anticipated capitulation
and uprising by the Iraqi people.

"Expectations were raised for something that might be quick and relatively
painless," Dorff said. "What we're seeing in the first few days probably
ought to dispel that. Part of the problem is that expectations were raised
that we would march in and everybody would surrender - sort of the four-day
scenario of 1991."

Instead of streams of surrendering Iraqi soldiers, the U.S. and British
forces report that they are holding about 3,000 enemy prisoners.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact reporter Joseph Galloway at jgalloway () krwashington com. 

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