Projection And Reality

The projections of many non-governmental analysts, including this writer, regarding the likely pace andoutcome of the war in Iraq have not come true in the first week of the war. Their assessments underlining thepossibility of an early collapse of the Iraqi resistance due to the quantitative and qualitative superiorityof the coalition forces led by the US have not been borne out by the performance of  both sides so far. The Iraqis have done much better than one expected them to do and the Americans have been facing much greaterdifficulty in enforcing their will on the battle-field than one would have thought.

One does not know what were the secret and hence real projections to their political and militaryleaderships by  the intelligence collection and assessment agencies of the US and the UK, asdistinguished from the policy-makers' open and often make-believe projections made with a view to influencingpublic opinion on both sides.  As such, it would be difficult to judge whether they too went wrong and ifso, how far and why. However, from the initial statements of President Bush of the US and Prime Minister TonyBlair of the UK, it was apparent that they were worried over public expectations of a rapid end to the war andhad cautioned their people that it was unlikely to be a walk-over.

Having said that, one has to underline that after seeing the difficulties initially faced by the coalitionforces ,one should not  rush  to the conclusion that the US and the UK may ultimately findthemselves in a quagmire and that Bay of Pigs or Vietnam or Somalia may be repeated.   In theinitial stages of a war of this nature, things often do not go according to expectations and one should not,consequently, swing to the other extreme of under-projecting the chances of an outcome of the war favourableto the US and the UK.

This war has differed from the Gulf War  of 1991 as well as from the wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan insome significant aspects. The weather has been an important factor in dictating  the initial pace. The1991 war was fought before summer had set in across  the deserts.  Weather was not a worrisomefactor in Kosovo either.  In Afghanistan, it was since the US-led military action started just eightweeks before the onset of winter. However, this did not create any special difficulties for the US because itwas fighting not against a well-trained and well-experienced conventional army, but against an ill-trainedmilitia and a rag-tag group of terrorists.  The outcome of that war is still uncertain and the militarycampaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq are not strictly comparable.

The delay in the US and the UK coming to a decision to move unilaterally after bypassing the UN led to themilitary campaign being launched under unfavourable weather conditions, which improved after D-Day, butunpredictably deteriorated again by March 25,2003.  The impact of the frequent  sandstorms on thepace of the war is likely to be considerable.

The ground campaign of 1991 and that in Kosovo were preceded by days of pulverising air action whichdefinitely had a negative impact on the morale and motivation of the ground forces of the adversary. Thisfacilitated the ground action when it was launched.

In the present war, days before the allied onslaught was launched, there was definitely intensified airaction in the no-fly zones to neutralise the still-remaining air defence capabilities of Iraq, but this wasnowhere comparable to what had preceded the ground action in 1991.   This time, the air action accompaniedand did not precede the ground action.  As a result, the allied ground forces, on entering into battle,had to face an adversary whose command, control and communications, ability to operate autonomously inscattered small pockets without  the need for centralised operational directions from Baghdad and moraleand motivation had not been damaged as badly as they were  when ground action started  in 1991.

The Iraqi armed forces have definitely drawn lessons from their unsatisfactory performance of 1991 due tothe total disruption of their command, control and communications consequent upon the USA's air action and hadapparently trained their forces for contingencies where they may have to operate autonomously. That is what those resisting the allied advance have been doing at various places in the south.

The possibility that the Iraqis might have learnt the right lessons from their humiliating experience of1991 and incorporated them into their self-defence strategy seem to have been overlooked by the alliedcommanders.  The responsibility for this has to be shared by the Pentagon as well as the CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA).

It was  unrealistic on the part of the US planners to have expected the Shias of southern Iraq to risein revolt against the Saddam Hussein Government and welcome the invading forces as liberators.  By his unwise action of last year in  clubbing together  Iran, Iraq and North Korea in the so-called axisof evil and by the irresponsible talk in the US governmental and non-governmental circles that Iraq was notthe end, but only the beginning of a campaign which might next target Iran, the Bush administration createdfor itself a situation where the Shias of southern Iraq, with ties of solidarity with their co-religionists inIran, would consider it wise not to facilitate the achievement of the US objectives in Iraq. They may not likeSaddam Hussein, but they do not definitely like Bush
either.

Many rulers of the Gulf, who have been quietly helping the US in its military action in Iraq, would not betoo unhappy to see the US caught in a quagmire there.  In their calculation, this could teach the US alesson and inhibit its embarking on similar adventures in other parts of the Islamic world, including theirown countries.   Dissimulation comes naturally to them.

The first week of the war has underlined the dangers of an unbridled psychological warfare (Psywar)campaign being waged by the coalition forces under the US against the Saddam Hussein Government. When many oftheir initial claims such as the firing of Scud missiles by Iraq on Kuwaiti targets, large-scale surrenders inthe south, easy occupation of southern objectives without major resistance, the public anger against SaddamHussein  etc proved to be incorrect, large sections of the public became disinclined to accept evenclaims, which were or might be correct such as the rapid advance made by the US rapid action force towardsBaghdad despite all the difficulties encountered.

Within a few weeks of the launching of the military action in Afghanistan, the Bush administration realisedhow its over-demonisation of Osama bin Laden had proved counter-productive by giving him alarger-than-life-size image in the eyes of millions of impressionable Muslims all over the world who startedseeing in him not a terrorist, but a true Muslim standing up to the might of the world's sole super-power bythe sheer force of his faith in his religion and in his co-religionists.

A similar campaign of over-demonisation of Saddam Hussein has given him an image of a valiant fighteragainst the sole super power, which is widely viewed in the Islamic world as anti-Islam. Some of the mostinsightful accounts of the state of mind of the Iraqi people have come not from the so-called embedded andcompliant  journalists, but from ordinary foreigners from the third world such as nurses, humanitarianworkers, students etc who have chosen to stay behind in Baghdad even at the risk of death  as a mark oftheir solidarity with the Iraqi people.

According to some of them, the vicious campaign, without credible evidence, carried on by Washington DCagainst the Saddam Hussein Government on the question of its alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction(WMD) has had the unexpected result of giving ordinary Iraqi soldiers a feeling of psychological parity withthe Americans.  Saddam Hussein and the UN inspectors might deny the presence of WMD in Iraq, but manymembers of the public and the military have started believing that this must be correct and this has removedany inferiority complex vis-a-vis the USA in their mind. They have been thinking and saying: "We don'thave to fear the Americans now.  If the worse comes to the worst, we can use these weapons against theAmericans. " This has apparently fortified their morale.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer ResearchFoundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter)