It's War!
By William Thomas
US military officials say that the optimum time for sending ground forces into Iraq is immediately after the bombing campaign, between mid-February and early April, before blazing hot weather makes it difficult for troops to function wearing rubberized chemical warfare suits. Officers add that it will be tricky starting an offensive before mid-February, the earliest date currently arriving troops can will be accustomed to desert conditions. [New York Times Jan. 12/03]
Secretary of State George Shultz earlier confirmed this timetable, telling the Financial Times last November 21 that "there will be military action. I would be surprised if we have not acted by the end of January."
The day before, top Bush security advisor Richard Perle told British Labour Party MPs that President Bush intends to go to war "even if inspectors find nothing." Perle stunned the Parliamentarians by insisting that even a "clean bill of health" from UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix would not stop America's war machine. [Daily Mirror Nov. 21, 22/02]
By then, thousand of US Marines had already embarked for the Gulf onboard the Belleau Woods. Helicopters and heavy armor followed in the cargo ships Bob Hope and Fisher, with the troop transport Tarawa sailing in their wakes. [The Observer Nov. 3/02]
Blix has loudly complained that if Washington has evidence that Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction, it should pass the locations to UN inspectors so they can investigate. So far, the White House has failed to provide such evidence. Hasam Amin, the general in charge of Iraq's compliance with UN resolutions demanding disarmament, insists: "I reiterate, Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction." [The Observer Dec. 8/02]
NUKES DUPES
The ostensible fear is nuclear weapons. Iraq's atomic threat was centered at Tuwaitha Heavily damaged by allied aircraft during the Gulf War, radioactive fallout from the complex spread into Baghdad, 11 miles away. [Scorched Earth, Vancouver Sun Nov. 21/91]. UN weapons inspectors later filled the ruined fissile handling labs with concrete and epoxy resin.
According to UN resolution 1441 authorizing the current inspections, only the Security Council can trigger war by declaring Iraq in "material breach" of 1441. But as recently as two days ago, the unelected US President warned that "time was running out for Saddam" to disarm.
Bush has yet to spell out what nuclear, chemical or biological arms Iraq retains, where they might be hidden, or how Iraq could threaten the US without strategic missiles while more than 200 UN inspectors roam the country accompanied by TV crews.
WHY BUSH CAN'T WAIT
Referring to mounting pressure on an unelected President, a Republican Party aide adds that with anti-war opposition growing in the United States and Britain, "The longer he leaves it, the greater the political risk." [The Observer Dec. 8/02]
Though Bush Sr. convinced Americans that his attack on Panama was "justified" in kidnapping that country's leader - former drug-running ally Manuel Noriega - his son is losing the political momentum needed to again violate UN rules against launching an unprovoked attack against another country. At least 3,000 impoverished Panamanians were killed by US gunships and artillery in this "model" atrocity. [see "The Panama Deception" video-documentary]
An unmistakable sign of impending war against Iraq is the call-up of National Guard and Reserve forces, at least a month before an invasion. According to the New York Times, the Pentagon plans to eventually mobilize more than 250,000 reservists to augment and replace regular forces.
DEPLOYING FOR WAR
Kuwaiti military sources say that as early as last June, tanks and artillery to equip two more armored brigades began arriving in the emirate, preparing the way for 10,000 American GIs to fly in and invade Iraq within 72 hours. [Asia Times Nov. 14/02]
According to the Toronto Sun, US warplanes based in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar continue to bomb Iraq "almost daily". Predatory B-2 bombers have come to roost on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, and Fairford RAF base in England. As aging Americans grapple with unemployment, drug abuse, failing infrastructure and lack of subsidized health care, each $2.2 billion stealth bomber can drop 16 satellite-guided "precision" bombs similar to the one-ton blockbuster which - oops! - blew up friendly Northern Alliance officers observing the strike on Taliban forces from a mile away.
Along with the British fleet now arriving in the region, the number of RAF aircraft may be tripled. Jaguars based at Incirlik airbase in Turkey, and Tornado fighter-bombers in Kuwait have joined Tornados reported to have redeployed from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, where British military commanders have linked with their US counterparts preparing to attack Iraq. British pilots hope to lob newly developed "Storm Shadow" cruise missiles into a country shorn of air defenses, while remaining hundreds of miles from any return ground fire. [The Guardian Nov. 9/02; London Times Dec. 18/02]
The ground war has already begun, with US special forces operating in northern Iraq since early November. American Special Ops teams are also working with Israeli scout units in Iraq's western desert near the important H2 airbase. [Toronto Sun Nov. 10/02]
GOOD TO GO?
More than 75,000 U.S. forces are now reported in the region. On Christmas Eve and Jan. 10, 2003, an additional 87,000 troops were ordered deployed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, ensuring the magic number of 150,000 GI's needed to invade Iraq. [New York Times Jan. 12/03]
Last week, the US Central Command finished transferring its 1,000-member battle staff from its Tampa, Florida headquarters to Qatar, where the Al Udeid air base remains the linchpin of the coming US attack.
Extensive preparations for war have been underway at Al Udeid for the past year - well before the current "crisis" over Iraq. The Arabian base boasts one of the longest runways and most extensive fortifications in the Middle East. Last June 13, Digital Globe's online satellite imagery showed eight KC- 135 tankers and a huge C-17 cargo jet dwarfed by Al Udeid's vast parking ramp. America's two million homeless would be delighted to learn that two "new generation" warplane shelters built by US taxpayers at Al Udeid each feature hardened concrete interiors covering 1.7 acres. [National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty]
Also last week, 15,000 marines embarked on troop ships from camps Pendleton and Lejeune. As the Seay took on Patriot anti-missile batteries in Texas, additional M-1 tanks and Apache helicopter gunships were loaded onboard the Mendonca and Gilliland in Savannah, Georgia. According to GlobalSecurity.org, two Patriot anti-missile batteries have already been moved into position in Kuwait; another two are in Saudi Arabia.
Even more ominous, the 1,000-bed hospital ship Comfort has just sailed for Diego Garcia. [New York Times Jan. 12/03]
All told, as many as four heavy US Army divisions are being sent to attack Iraq, along with the 101st Airborne, which suffered heavy casualties from Gulf War Illness in the last invasion of Iraq. [New York Times Jan. 12/2003; Bringing The War Home]
The Navy is stretched thin. The aircraft carrier Constellation - with its Tomcat and Hornet squadrons the "Bounty Hunters", "Vigilantes" and "Death Rattlers" - is now on station in the Persian Gulf, with attack carriers Harry S. Truman, Vinson and Kitty Hawk steaming to join forces. At least two more 'Stateside carriers are on 96-hour sailing notice. Disciplinary problems onboard the Nimitz, and the Washington's exhausted crew will likely see both carriers withdrawn from the region. With no carriers left in Japan, North Korea's looming nuclear threat remains unchallenged. [The Guardian Nov. 9/02]
The US Air Force has also taken wing. All week, B-1 bombers have been leaving in pairs from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, bound for Oman. An F-15 fighter unit that arrived over the burning Pentagon too late to intervene on Sept. 11 is also winging toward the Gulf, along with F-15s from North Carolina. Four-engine AC-130 gunships mounting a single giant Gatling gun used to pulverize villages in Vietnam and Afghanistan are also deploying from Florida. More robot "Predator" drones equipped with video cameras and Hellfire missiles are being sent from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. [New York Times Jan. 12/03]
Most telling of all, the transport Bellatrix has sailed from California loaded with mobile bridges. "If you really want an indicator they are planning an invasion, it's bridging equipment because you need it to cross the Tigris and Euphrates," a military observer told The Guardian.
ALLIES NEEDED - APPLY WITHIN
In Britain - where Iraq is now defined as "the enemy" by the Ministry of Defence - at least 200,000 citizens have taken to the streets to protest their country's involvement in an illegal war. But British armed forces have been on a war footing since Dec. 17. As many as 10,000 reservists are being called up to augment a total British deployment of 30,000 troops, including the 7 Armoured Brigade "Desert Rats" with 200 tanks, and 4 Armoured Brigade. Baffled British defence officials complain that American war planners have not yet revealed their plans. [London Times Dec. 18/02l New York Times Sept. 19/02]
The outflanked Saudis have not yet signed onto Washington's war plans. Last Sept. 19, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told the New York Times that the Iraqi threat must be handled without "the firing of a single shot or the loss of a single soldier". But the prince promised that American bombers could use Saudi bases to bomb Iraqi cities if Bush works through the UN.
Turkey is key to Pentagon plans for a northern thrust intended to pincer Iraq's decrepit teenage conscript forces. Quickly securing northern oil fields, American troops could hopefully prevent a war between the Turkish Army and the Kurds. On Dec. 30, the Turkish daily Sabah reported that the country's newly elected Islamic government has told the US it will accept American invasion forces - in return for 10% of Iraqi oil production. The deal would net Ankara $5.5 billion in stolen oil revenues annually. [ArabicNews.com Dec. 31/02]
A QUICK AND EASY VICTORY?
In Germany, home to the Gulf-bound US First Infantry and First Armored divisions, 3,000 US Army officers and civilian planners are currently concluding a computer simulation called "Victory Scrimmage". Experts keeping score admit that even a quick "touchdown" could see thousands more civilian casualties in Iraq. [New York Times Jan. 12/03]
of a lengthy buildup continue to mislead. As retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey observed, "Most of the ground forces will sprint into place at the last minute." [The Christian Science Monitor Nov. 12/02]
According to Agence France-Presse, US war plans call for a "brief but shattering air campaign", combined with a lightning push into Baghdad by US ground forces moving from north, south and west. The ground attack will seek to achieve tactical surprise by moving fast with maximum violence, without waiting for overwhelming reinforcements. [Washington Post Dec. 18/02]
But unless urban areas are as heavily bombed as they were in '91 campaign, things could go badly wrong. My military intelligence source, who helped designate targets in Bosnia, has been watching TV coverage of the weapons inspections with a practiced eye. He notes Iraqi troops and armor in the background of televised news clips, taking up positions in Baghdad neighborhoods. The footage has prompted charges of "spying" by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Captain Glenn Kozelka of the US Army's 10th Mountain Division warns that heavy fighting in the streets of Iraq's cities could lead to US casualties of up to 30 percent. "We call it three-dimensional warfare," Kozelka told the Washington Post. "You can be shot from all around."
Pentagon pundits favour cordoning off Baghdad, with "escape routes" for civilians and surrendering military personnel. They reason that smashing critical infrastructure will quickly collapse the city, and the government of a man widely seen as posing no threat beyond his own borders. [The Observer Nov. 3/02]
But my source says that Saddam has "learned the lessons of massing troops and tanks in the desert and exposing them to overwhelming bombardment." Instead, the retired analyst and his active duty colleagues are convinced that the fighting will be "house-to-house" - with an armed and angry populace fighting alongside regular army units in defense of their families and country.
Won't the Iraqi people hail their "liberators" with open arms?
"If you've been deprived of food and medicine for 10 years, if you saw your family killed [in bombings that leveled entire neighborhoods], you would not feel friendly toward Americans," the combat-hardened intelligence expert said.
The last time the US went to war against a supposedly ragtag army defending their homeland was in a place called Vietnam.
Will US forces have the stomach for house-to-house casualties? Yes, came the answer. The problem, added this source, is that in eyes of many allied front-line combat units, American troops instructed with comic book manuals are seen as "not too bright."
Even worse, he said, the "management" mentality of U.S. officers more concerned with protecting their careers than pursuing their objectives means there are few combat leaders worthy of respect and a gun-ho effort by the troops they send in harm's way.
Pointing to the debacles of "Operation Anaconda" and the Tora Bora campaign in Afghanistan, which reportedly saw top terrorist suspects Osama bin Laden and Omar Mullah escape a hesitant U.S. dragnet, he declared that "Tommy Franks will be reluctant to commit troops aggressively, because he does not trust the competency of his infantry troops."
Barry Posen agrees. A specialist in military analysis at MIT, Posen's premise is that the mop-up campaign in Afghanistan was severely hampered by American commanders' unwillingness to commit ground forces. "We didn't want to take risks," Posen told The Observer last Nov. 3. "Tora Bora was a disaster."
"Operation Anaconda" - the American effort to encircle Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan's Shah-e-Kost Valley last March - was another fiasco. Major General Franklin Hagenbeck, "didn't know what he was doing. He didn't send enough forces. He didn't take enough artillery. And there was too much reliance on the Afghans," Posen posited. After meeting determined opposition and taking casualties, Hagenbeck had to be bailed out by 1,700 British marines. He was relieved of his command in the field.
ARMING SADDAM
US forces might be better advised to raid US corporate headquarters. Three Congressional investigations earlier documented extensive chemical and biological weapons and production facilities shipped to Baghdad with White House approval prior to - and after - the last Gulf "war". [Bringing The War Home]
Despite White House removal of more than 8,000 embarrassing pages from Iraq' s 11,800-page weapons dossier, Geneva-based reporter Andreas Zumach has published pages documenting how 24 US corporations and several US government agencies "illegally helped Iraq to build its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs."
Hewlett Packard, Dupont, Honeywell, Bechtel, Rockwell, Tectronics, Unisys and Sperry were among more than two-dozen US sponsors "who gave very substantial support especially to the biological weapons program but also to the missile and nuclear weapons program," Zumach said. Records also show that US government nuclear weapons laboratories Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia trained Iraqi nuclear scientists, and provided non-fissile material for construction of a nuclear bomb. [Financial Times Dec. 19/02]
ARMED ROBBERY
Just who is this fearsome "enemy" who must be crushed by a country that spends more money on weapons than the next 14 countries combined? As veteran British war correspondent John Pilger points out, "More than half the population of Iraq are children, and many of the rest are widows, the elderly and the poor."
Leading British humanitarian agencies, including Save the Children and Christian Aid, recently warned that "Years of war and sanctions have already created an extremely vulnerable population whose ability to cope with any additional hardship is very limited. Child mortality has risen by 160 percent under sanctions."
Driven by the United States and Britain over the past 12 years, line-item blocking of Baghdad's attempts to procure urgently needed hospital equipment and medicines, as well as spare parts needed to repair bombed out water purification and sanitation plants, has led to countrywide epidemics and malnutrition that have so far claimed the lives of more than a half-million children under the age of five. At least 70 members of Congress have condemned the sanctions as "infanticide".
Is Washington concerned about killing yet more children? When asked about the number of Iraqi people slaughtered in the 1991 "Desert Storm" Gen. Colin Powell replied, "It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in." (Estimates at the time totaled a quarter-million Iraqi war dead.)
A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER
"The true danger is not Iraq, or Iran, or North Korea, or China," writes Pilger. "It is the United States, and the cabal of fanatics now in charge, led by a man who on television the other night failed to make sense in his native tongue."
"The more we talk about our power, the more apprehension there is around the world," concurs Edward Luck, director of the Center on International Organization at Columbia University. "The more you talk about it, the more other countries think the major security threat to the world is the undisciplined use of American military power."
Why would the US risk becoming a pariah nation, while destroying the world's oldest cities - birthplace of the mathematics, the alphabet, calendar, laws and 60 units of time taught in American schools?
"They know we own their country. We own their airspace. We dictate the way they live and talk," explained aptly-named Air Force Brig. General William Looney, describing the last carpet-bombing of Basra by B-52s. "It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need." [Washington Post, August 30, 1999]
Stay tuned, general. War is not yet a certainty until the last pollster sings.
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