America’s military and civilian war leaders made an aggressive effort to present a united front yesterday, amid claims that US troops are beginning an enforced pause of days or weeks before advancing on Baghdad. The pause has reportedly come at the insistence of commanders who are furious that they do not have the forces they require.
In a barrage of US television appearances, the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, insisted that the attack was going to plan. He denied a report that he had overruled his generals’ requests for more troops on at least six occasions in the run-up to the war, and had micromanaged the conflict to prove his belief that a light, manoeuvrable force would be sufficient to deal with the Iraqi leadership.
Rumsfeld last autumn astounded the military by announcing that he would not be guided by the central document coordinating the troop deployment — the ”time-phased forces deployment list” — according to the veteran New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
The US supply of satellite-guided bombs is running out, Hersh reported, and much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been used.
When Turkey refused access to the US 4th Infantry, the commander in the Gulf, General Tommy Franks, argued for a pause in the war but was overruled by Rumsfeld, the magazine claims.
As coalition warplanes continued to target suspected Republican Guard strongholds on the southern fringes of Baghdad at the weekend, thousands of US marines pushed north towards the capital, trying to provoke attacks in unsecured areas.
Many American infantry units, though, had to pause on their northward journey, waiting for vulnerable supply lines to be reinforced.
Field commanders have speculated in recent days about a ”pause”, and reporters embedded with the military at the front of the ground assault, 80 kilometres south of Baghdad, said troops were preparing for a waiting period.
But Gen Franks mounted a strong defence of the US war plan yesterday, insisting that the original plan had not been put on hold, and denying any rift with Rumsfeld.
”The plan you see is the plan we have been on,” Gen Franks told a press conference at US central command in Qatar. ”Those who would seek to find a wedge between the various leaders among us who have been party to this will likely not be able to do so, because this has been worked and studied over a long period. Its chief characteristic is flexibility, adaptability,” he said.
He acknowledged that there had been questions about the plan and suggestions that the assault on Baghdad was on hold, ”that perhaps we are in an operational pause. It is simply not the case.”
Echoing Gen Franks, Rumsfeld said in a TV interview: ”We have no plans for pauses or ceasefires or anything else.” Confronted aboutthe New Yorker report, in which unnamed intelligence officials claim Rumsfeld kept refusing troop requests and insisted on personally controlling the flow of troops to the combat zone, he said: ”The planners are in the central command. They come up with their proposals and I think you’ll find, if you ask anyone who’s been involved in the process, that every single thing they’ve requested has happened.”
But with military personnel in the field hinting to reporters that a war could stretch into the summer, neither man was willing to predict the length of the conflict. ”One never knows how long a war will take,” Gen Franks said. ”Oh, goodness, we’ve never had a timetable,” Rumsfeld concurred.
They were responding to growing signs of a deep split between senior politicians and the military over the US-led strategy, which has only one heavy mechanised army division, the 3rd In fantry, advancing north from Kuwait, backed by the 101st Airborne, the Marines, and British forces. The intention is to swiftly enter Baghdad, sending a signal of allied success to the Iraqi people and cutting off the nerve centre coordinating resistance in the south.
That is the plan President George Bush insisted on in a teleconference from Camp David on Saturday with Rumsfeld; his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice; the CIA director, George Tenet, and others.
At the forefront of reinforcements on their way is another heavy division, the 4th Infantry, which intended to enter from the north but was kept on hold in Texas as negotiations with Turkey slowed to a halt. It is expected to be two or three weeks before its equipment, which was originally waiting on ships in the Mediterranean, is fully offloaded in Kuwait.
But a chorus of former and current senior military officers have said a pause is needed while the new troops arrive, to reinforce supply lines and prepare to punch through the last ring of defences into Baghdad — with a sustained air assault on the city in the meantime.
William Wallace, commander of US ground forces in Iraq, last week predicted a longer war because of Iraqi resistance.
But Gen Franks said yesterday that he alone had given the decision to start the ground invasion of Iraq, after evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime was about to destroy oilfields. ”That decision was made by me alone, not influenced by anyone else,” he said. – Guardian Unlimited Â