[iwar] FW: IRAQ - WAR TIMING

From: snooker3 (snooker3@mindspring.com)
Date: 2002-12-24 14:38:40
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Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 15:38:40 -0700
Subject: [iwar] FW: IRAQ - WAR TIMING
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                            S T R A T F O R

                    THE GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE COMPANY

                        http://www.stratfor.com
___________________________________________________________________

War Timing

Summary

The United States is under pressure to provide intelligence that 
shows Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. This leaves 
Washington with a problem. The main threat comes from Iraqi 
chemical weapons, which must be attacked early in a war. If 
Washington makes public information on where chemical weapons are 
located, Baghdad can move those weapons around. If the United 
States provides intelligence, it must follow up rapidly with 
attacks. For this and other reasons, the pressure to launch the 
war is growing as diplomatic pressure to avoid the war is 
beginning somewhat to abate.

Analysis

When chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix delivered his report 
to the U.N. Security Council last Thursday, he took the U.S. 
position, saying that Iraq's 12,000-page weapons declaration 
contained serious omissions. He did not, as U.S. Secretary of 
State Colin Powell had, use the term "material breach," which is 
the magic word for war. Blix was in no position to use that term: 
He is a technician reporting to the Security Council. He reports 
the facts. It is up to the Security Council to draw conclusions 
from those facts -- conclusions that are political in essence.

What was most striking was the quiet that followed Blix's report 
and Powell's evaluation. Russia pointed out that it was not up to 
the United States, but the Security Council to determine whether 
a material breach had occurred. Moscow focused on procedure, not 
on substance. As for the rest of the permanent Security Council 
members, there was mostly silence. That silence is ominous for 
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The focus has shifted away from the question of Iraq's compliance 
with the inspection regime; it is now obvious that Baghdad is not 
compliant. The question now is whether Iraq actually has weapons 
of mass destruction, and the spotlight is on U.S. intelligence. 
First Blix, then Iraq, challenged the CIA to reveal information 
on Iraq's weapons program, but the CIA has a couple of reasons 
for hesitating:

1. The agency has an institutional aversion to revealing its 
sources and methods. Information comes from sources within Iraq, 
monitoring of telecommunications, penetration of Iraqi computer 
systems and so forth. Every bit of information provided can 
compromise a source.

2. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities are heavily 
focused in the area of chemical weapons. These chemicals, 
contained in drums and shells, can be moved easily and quickly. 
They will be one of the first targets of U.S. air attacks. Any 
report filed by the CIA would give Baghdad the opportunity to 
move them quickly. In fact, even if the inspectors find these 
chemicals and report them, the Iraqis still would have time to 
move them before the United States could act. Therefore, 
providing intelligence on the location of chemical weapons would 
undermine the United States' ability to destroy them.

Officials in Baghdad understand this. Having lost the first line 
of defense, they've moved to the second. Having been shown to be 
uncooperative, they are trying to shift the focus of the question 
to their actual possession of weapons. This creates a minor 
problem for the United States. If Washington provides accurate 
intelligence, it could lose a target. If it fails to provide 
accurate intelligence, a case could be made that Iraq has no WMD. 
The United States, therefore, will focus on the non-cooperation 
issue while trying to work through back channels with France and 
Russia, which know about Iraq's capabilities through their own 
intelligence and, of course, because they provided some of the 
production facilities themselves.

The point here is that the situation is shifting perceptibly from 
a diplomatic to a military issue. The United States has, with 
some real skill, gone a long way in defusing opposition to an 
attack. There is no enthusiasm for it and most nations will not 
participate, but there is now a sense that war no longer can be 
resisted. The standard position that is emerging, from France to 
Syria, is that (1) war is coming, (2) other countries don't want 
to be deeply involved, yet (3) they don't want to be left out of 
the spoils. That's about as good as it's going to get for the 
United States this time around.

Which brings us to timing. Blix is supposed to file a definitive 
report by Jan. 27. The United States will push to make that a 
negative report. Washington also will use the interim period to 
perpetuate the atmosphere of resignation that has gripped most 
third parties in the last few weeks. We expect the U.N. Security 
Council will declare Iraq in breach of the resolution and will 
develop some vague language under which the United States can 
launch an attack without an actual U.N. endorsement. That will do 
for the United States.

All forces for a ground assault have not yet moved into place. 
Britain still is moving equipment in, as is the United States. 
U.S. reservists and National Guardsmen are being told that they 
will be mobilized around mid-January. Many of these will replace 
regular troops that are going overseas and others will be 
providing increased security in the United States. But others, 
particularly Marines, will be sent overseas, including to Iraq. 
If they are mobilized in mid-January, they will not arrive for 
several weeks -- and they will need several more weeks of 
training in-theater for acclimation and integration into the war 
plan. 

The United States on several occasions has made it clear that an 
air war can begin before all forces are in place. That appears to 
be the strategy. As long as the U.S. Air Force is ready in 
Turkey, Qatar, Diego Garcia and other air bases from which 
strategic bombers can operate, and as long as both carriers and 
platforms capable of firing cruise missiles are ready, the air 
war can be launched. The current speculation is for the air war 
to begin within days of the Jan. 27 deadline. We expect that to 
be the case: The days from Jan. 29 through Feb. 3 will provide 
excellent conditions for air strikes.

An air war would take four to six weeks. The issue is not early 
suppression of enemy air defenses or disruption of 
communications; both undoubtedly can be achieved on a strategic 
and operational level within the first week of operation. 
However, in anticipation of a ground war, the United States first 
will attack Iraqi ground formations, including armored, 
mechanized and infantry units. Attacking large formations is 
inevitably a time-consuming process involving the delivery of 
munitions to targets. Also, a large number of missions will need 
to be carried out, battle damage assessments made and targets 
revisited. The goal will be to render Iraqi formations incapable 
of resisting. 

We would estimate a minimum of four weeks for the anti-ground 
force mission. That would move us into March for the ground war, 
with March 3-5 providing a reasonable window of opportunity. The 
weather in early March remains acceptable, with increasing 
possibilities of spring rains and flooding. Washington would like 
to have the operation completed by mid-March. 

It should be noted that the actual commencement of ground 
operations need not be as clean as in 1991. There are persistent 
reports of Israeli and other special forces operating in western 
Iraq, which is lightly held. There are similar reports of U.S. 
forces operating in northern Iraq, where Turkish forces are ever-
present. Thus, the war could include effective operations in 
western and northern Iraq while the air war goes on in January.

The real issue will be in the south, where the British are 
leaking promises of an amphibious attack. Stratfor's war plan, 
Desert Slice, which appears to be the model being pursued here, 
views an amphibious attack at the Shatt al Arab as likely, if the 
United States cannot squeeze enough force into Kuwait. However, 
during Desert Storm, an amphibious assault was not carried out 
but was merely threatened in order to hold Iraqi troops in place 
along the coast. In either case, the attack in the south must 
take place before any flooding is possible. 

Allied forces must develop a multi-axis line of attack, including 
a swing to the west to supplement any movement north along river 
lines. Air power will be critical in breaking up Iraqi formations 
on already unpleasant terrain. That means that the southern 
attack is likely to be the last axis implemented.

This returns us -- as it has over and over again -- to Baghdad 
and the fundamental imponderable in the war: morale. There is 
little that is less quantifiable, less predictable and more 
critical in war than morale and its twin, training. It cuts both 
ways: An enemy's morale and training sometimes are wildly 
overestimated, sometimes wildly underestimated, but rarely are 
they correctly evaluated.

The battle of Baghdad depends on morale and training more than on 
any other single factor. If even a relatively small force decides 
to stand and fight and has basic fighting skills, then taking 
Baghdad will become a brutal, bloody process. If the Iraqi army 
shatters under the bombing and ground assault and simply fails to 
resist, then taking Baghdad still will be complex but will not be 
a problem. 

In 1991, the United States overestimated the morale and training 
of the Iraqi army, assuming that the blooded force that fought 
Iran would put up a better fight. Of course, the forces deployed 
in Iraq were cannon fodder, deployed for destruction. The United 
States did not engage Republican Guard units in Baghdad. The 
current assumption is that the victory of 1991 in Kuwait will be 
replicated throughout Iraq, using the same basic combination of 
forces. That might well be true, but it will not be known until 
after the battle is won.

That is why the United States needs to fight earlier rather than 
later. After mid-March, rains turn some of the country into a 
quagmire. Later still, the temperature rises, frequently making 
operations in MOP-4 chemical protection suits unbearable. The 
temperature in July can reach as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit. 
Whoever said that summer is not a problem either has never worn a 
MOP-4 suit at Fort Benning or Fort Bragg on an ordinary summer 
day or knows that the Iraqi chemical weapons stash doesn't exist 
or won't be used. You do not fight in the Iraqi summer if you 
don't have to.

So, given that no one knows how long the battle for Baghdad might 
last or if the United States and Britain will have to pull into 
siege positions for an extended period, launching the battle of 
Baghdad as early as possible is a military necessity. Its very 
unpredictability requires that the battle be waged as early as 
possible. That means that the commencement of the war cannot be 
put off much past Feb. 1. If it is, the entire war could start to 
slide into April and May -- and that means that if the Iraqi army 
doesn't simply crumble in Baghdad, the war could extend beyond 
what the United States wants. Given other requirements, follow-up 
operations in the region and the intensification of activity in 
Afghanistan, the last thing the United States wants is to tie 
forces down around Baghdad.

All of this argues for an air war beginning in late January or 
early February, operations in the west and north beginning a week 
or so later and an attack launched from Kuwait by early March. A 
lot of slippage will not be a good idea here.

CONTACTS AND CUSTOMER SERVICE:
STRATFOR
700 Lavaca, Suite 405 Austin, TX 78701
Phone: 202-204-2580
Internet: http://www.stratfor.com/
Email: info@stratfor.com

R. Miller


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