US Major General Thomas Rhame is not impressed by Saddam’s much-vaunted elite troops, the Republican Guard. ”They are simply terrible,” he said. ”They did not perform worth a crap.”
As one of the few US commanders to have engaged the Republican Guard in battle, Gen Rhame should know. During Desert Storm, he commanded one of the most famous combat units in the US, the First Infantry Division (Mechanised), which collided at night with the Tawakalna division of Republican Guard — a tank and mechanised force — and the 37th Iraqi tank brigade.
”Did they stay? Yes. Did they fight? No,” he said, in the brisk, no-nonsense style that might be expected of an infantry commander. ”They were decimated.”
Gen Rhame, who retired in 1997, said: ”I have nothing to indicate that they are any better than they were in 1991, which is not very good.”
There is a consensus in the west that the regular Iraqi army, which is made up of conscripts and which is concentrated at the border, will surrender as soon as possible. But there is no such consensus about the Republican Guard, which is a professional army, and the Special Republican Guard, both of them deployed in and around Baghdad, preparing for a siege of the capital.
Others are less dismissive of Iraqi forces. Amatzia Baram, a professor at Haifa University, said it was ”anybody’s guess” whether the Iraqi army will fight. ”It is no match for the American army but it will cause problems.”
Iraq has three armies, plus militia and Saddam’s bodyguards. The weakest is the Jerusalem army, a militia who are poorly trained and equipped, with about 80-90% of them Shia Muslim and hostile to Saddam. They and the regular army are not expected to fight but even the surrender of 100 000 soldiers will create problems for the US-British forces.
The regular infantry, as opposed to the Jerusalem army, could delay the US-British advance for a day or two, fighting on in pockets. But morale is low, with a desertion rate estimated at 20%.
The regular army’s tank divisons — the 10th, 6th and 3rd — have better discipline than the infantry but their Russian-made tanks are antiquated. A former British commander described the Iraqi tanks as ”frozen in time” because of 12 years of sanctions.
With no air cover, the best option for the tank commanders is to fight in the towns and villages, behind the cover of houses, daring the US to risk killing civilians.
The cities and towns of the south — Basra, Nassiriya and Samawa — are expected to fall quickly or be bypassed by US and British forces, as will those of the north, Mosul and Kirkuk. The population rose in the north and south in the aftermath of the Gulf war in 1991 and army units mutinied, and there is no reason why it should be any different this time.
Lying halfway between the northern border and Baghdad is Tikrit, birthplace of Saddam and most of his officers in the army and the security services, but it too could be bypassed.
The danger lies in Baghdad, where the 60-70 000-strong Republican Guard, which is better equipped, paid and trained than the regular army, and the 20-25 000-strong Special Republican Guard, which has spent the last 25 years training in street fighting for the defence of the capital. The Republican Guard has three armoured divisions, plus one mechanised division and two infantry. At present, they are about 15 to 20 miles from Baghdad but will almost certainly withdraw to the outer perimeter of the city.
There is also Saddam’s bodyguard, the Special Security Organisation, which is estimated to have 1 000 to 1 500 troops.
Few can be sure how the Republican Guard will respond. Some of the units might disintegrate while others fight on. The former British commander said: ”There is the factor of crumbling morale but any sensible assessment is that the Republican Guard would stand and fight.” An important difference from the last Gulf war, he said, was that in Kuwait they were defending territory they had invaded; this time, they will be fighting on their own territory, for the homeland.
One of the US’s main advantages is its huge array of helicopter gunships but this could be neutralised in Baghdad, which has one of the biggest concentrations of anti-aircraft batteries in the world.
According to Major General Dan Leaf of the US air force Baghdad is ringed with surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. Trenches filled with oil which could be set alight have also been dug around the city. In contrast to the rest of the country, defences are in fact stronger now around the capital than they were in 1991. ”It is a hornets’ nest right now. There is nothing subtle about it,” he told the New York Times.
US commanders said over the weekend that they will not be drawn into street fighting and are prepared to sit outside Baghdad. In that case, much will depend on the morale of the population and the Republican Guard.
Few expect the bulk of the population to fight for Saddam. But there are others, senior military commanders and members of the ruling Ba’ath party, who will fight on, fearful for their own lives if Saddam falls, and the Sunni Muslims who live in the wealthier parts of Baghdad and fear the revenge of the impoverished Shia Muslims who make up at least half the population of the city.
One of the best weapons available to the US in any stand-off with the Republican Guard is pyschological. With Iraqi communications and media knocked out by the bombing, the US will be well-placed to try to persuade the Republican Guard that Saddam has been killed, whether or not he has been.
Prof Baram said: ”The US has to break their will to fight. Psychological warfare will be crucial. They have to convince these guards he is dead. They can also promise these people amnesty if they surrender and they will have to bring with them their non-conventional weapons, promising them some financial rewards for bringing information about weapons of mass destruction. They can even promise the Republican Guard that, if they behave, they will be integrated into the new Iraqi army.”
Western analysts believe that if Saddam can survive the first 48 hours, resistance might stiffen. One of them predicted: ”If one assumes that the Republican Guard will fight in urban territory, which diminishes the west’s technological superiority, it could go on for as long as morale stands up.”
Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Langton, an analyst with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, lists various options available to Saddam. He said chemical and biological attacks might be used to contaminate areas in front of attacking forces. Other options included a missile attack on a neighbouring country, such as Israel, the firing of oil wells and flooding of marsh ground in the south.
But Gen Rhame remains unimpressed. Noting that Baghdad is a city of 734 square kilometres and six-million people and ”so by definition will be a lot more complicated” than Desert Storm, he said: ”It is not impossible, just difficult.”
He rejected too the view that the US-British technological advantage will be negated by house-to-house fighting, citing as one example the much better night viewers used by the US-British forces.
The former commander of the First Infantry Division said one of the main drawbacks of the Iraqi army is that ”they do not possess a culture of being efficient”.
He said the gap between the forces has increased, both militarily and technologically, since 1991. The Iraqis ”start at a psychological disadvantage. They would not have forgotten what happened to them in 1991.” He said: ”I do not think they present much of a threat myself. I do not think their heart is in it.” – Guardian Unlimited Â