With US tanks assuming control of ever larger chunks of Baghdad, politicians in London and Washington were asking last night how long it would take for the Iraqi regime to collapse.
British officials believe there is unlikely to be a defining moment, as there was in 1945 when Soviet troops hoisted the red flag from the Reichstag amid the burning ruins of Berlin.
”We do not have a list we are ticking off,” one source said. ”We will know it when we see it.”
So what signs will show that Iraq’s Ba’ath party’s days are over, and how will events pan out over the next few days, barring an unlikely 11th hour Iraqi counter assault?
Signs of life in the Saddam regime
Most experts agree that Saddam Hussein has effectively lost command and control of his armed forces and the machinery of government. This was underlined vividly last night when Mohammed Al-Douri, the Iraqi ambassador to the UN, was forced to admit that he had no way of communicating with Baghdad.
Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Warwick University, was blunt: ”We must assume that effective command and control of military forces is finished.” His remarks were echoed by Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at Bradford University.
Asked whether the media was getting a little carried away, Prof Rogers said: ”It is probably the case that we are getting a little carried away, but not excessively so. The regime may be close to collapsing. But in many of the cities loyal units carried on without central command and control. If you have thousands of Special Republican Guards and other forces dependant for their survival on there not being a total US takeover, then many will fight on.”
Both Dodge and Rogers thought that the blacking out of Iraqi television yesterday morning was an ominous sign for the regime. Dodge said: ”That is significant, although it is amazing that the US have taken so long to pull that stunt.”
But Dodge was in no doubt about when the regime’s days would finally be over — the moment the ever-jovial Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saaed al-Sahaf, disappears from view. ”That is the only key factor left,” he said. ”The fact that Sahaf could brief from the Palestine hotel is a testament to the determination of the regime.”
Even if Sahaf is silenced, the US should not expect a walkover because Iraqi forces will continue to resist, Dodge and Rogers warned.
”While the government has collapsed, the resistance has not,” Dodge said. ”The resistance will continue because they are fighting not for the Iraqi government but for Iraqi nationalism.”
How soon will the Fedayeen give up?
The enduring commitment of the regime’s ultra-loyal, black-clad paramilitaries remained evident yesterday when they were among 500 fighters who crossed westwards over the Tigris in central Baghdad shortly after dawn as part of a counterattack in response to Monday night’s strike.
Anthony Cordesman, an expert on the Iraqi army at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, disagrees with the British experts about how long they will fight. ”They will go when the regime clearly loses cohesive control,” he said.
How quickly they capitulate in Baghdad — where they were first spotted at the weekend — may also be affected by how swiftly news permeates the capital of the increase of displays of public sympathy for coalition forces in the south.
”But many will not give up — they will simply fade away,” Cordesman said. ”Some will be diehards, particularly those afraid of some kind of persecution, but others can walk away.”
That creates a different kind of threat: a potential pool of fighters with a track record of brutality who might never resurface, who might become conventional criminals, or who might — particularly if Sunni-Shia ethnic tensions gave them the opportunity — return as a serious paramilitary force.
How do Iraqis find out that Saddam is dead?
Even Iraq’s information minister would struggle to put a positive spin on the death of Saddam Hussein. If and when Britain and the US declare that he is dead they will waste little time in spreading the message to Iraq, because leaders on both sides of the Atlantic believe this will be a key factor in persuading Iraqis to accept that his regime is finished. Expect to hear ministers piling into BBC World Service studios and hundreds of thousand of leaflets being dropped over Iraq.
Britain and the US insist that they would only embark on such a propaganda offensive with good evidence. But the Iraqi people are likely to be highly sceptical of their claims without incontrovertible evidence.
How soon will the civil authorities abandon Saddam?
Britain and the US hope that doctors, policemen, teachers and other key civil staff will work with the coalition’s military forces when they accept that Saddam’s regime has been broken.
Prof Rogers believes that securing the support, if not the whole-hearted embrace, of civilian workers will be a turning point. ”That is a key sign that it is over. In the south the British have co-opted members of the Ba’ath party. It is awkward, but if you strip out the Ba’ath party you have no police or state structure, and end up with a vacuum.”
Will the US declare victory?
Almost certainly, but not necessarily in traditional fashion. The second world war may have ended with official surrenders by the German and Japanese governments, but there were no such formalities in Afghanistan in 2001 — the US just declared that the war had been won.
Pentagon officials have been playing down the idea of a single moment at which the regime’s defeat would be declared, speaking instead of a ”rolling victory” as American forces extend their dominance. The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, has been among those suggesting that Saddam’s personal survival might be irrelevant.
Crucial indicators that a ”rolling victory” was under way might include the coalition central command moving from Qatar to Iraq. ”There won’t be a single point,” Donald Rumsfeld said this week, calling the issue of when to declare victory ”a tough question”.
Of course, it might become a less tough question if conclusive evidence emerged that Monday night’s ”decapitation strike” did kill Saddam: 83% of Americans said in a recent poll that, for them, his death would constitute winning the war. – Guardian Unlimited Â