From the WSJ Opinion Archives
THE NEXT FRONT
Iraq Can't Resist Us
The Gulf War was a cakewalk. The enemy is even weaker now.
After Afghanistan, what? Iraq is the big prize. Its regime has committed mass murder, trained and supported terrorists, plotted the assassination of an American president, and worked unremittingly to develop weapons of mass destruction. Overthrow Saddam Hussein, and the U.S. not only rids itself and the world of a menace and a monster. It may bring about a regime that will serve as a moderate influence on the region, and increase the world's oil supply.
But how hard would it be to do?
Consider where Iraq is today. Its defense budget is less than 0.5% that of the U.S. The International Institute for Strategic Studies reports that most of its divisions are at "50%" combat effectiveness--its units undermanned, the equipment in poor condition, and spare parts lacking.
Iraq's army is about a third the size it was during the Gulf War. Of its 2,200 tanks, some 1,500 are obsolete T-54s and T-62s, death traps even if encountered by the light automatic artillery on American infantry fighting vehicles, let alone American tanks or aircraft. Its air force is in no shape to put up a fight. Like the rest of the Iraqi military, it has not replaced any of its major platforms since 1991. Only in the area of air defenses have the Iraqis recovered--a little. They have, with great ingenuity, repaired and to an extent modernized their communications systems, and have also rebuilt and imported some radars and missiles; but for the most part, they rely on massed but inaccurate anti-aircraft artillery. They have yet to shoot down American and British airplanes that routinely patrol Iraq's air space.
Compare this with the U.S. military which, whatever its faults, has modernized continuously since the Gulf War--which was, lest we forget, a cakewalk by any historical standard. In 1991 American aircraft dropped mostly dumb bombs (over 90% of the total); they had few advanced night-flying and targeting systems; certain aircraft (the B-1 and B-2 bombers) were unavailable. Today the situation is radically different. American air power is precision air power, and includes weapons not available in 1991, such as satellite-guided bombs, that can be dropped with extraordinary accuracy even in bad weather from just about any aircraft. The U.S. now has brilliant weapons such as the Sensor Fuzed Weapon--a bomb that spews out 40 submunitions that seek out and destroy armored vehicles.
More important yet, the military intelligence and command networks that can bring this power to bear are a quantum level beyond what they were in 1991. Then, the U.S. Navy had to get the daily tasking of its aircraft as a ream of computer printouts, flown from shore to aircraft carriers; now the information passes electronically. Then, unmanned aerial vehicles were experimental devices of little real utility; now, systems like Predator and Global Hawk provide extended surveillance of the battlefield, sending live video to command centers and other aircraft. The combination is far more deadly than that of a decade ago, which was, in turn, enough to terrify the Iraqi military into collapse. To all this one must add the 10 years' experience and knowledge the U.S. has accrued in monitoring, overflying and spying on Iraq. The enemy is far weaker, and we know him far better than in 1991.
How, then, should we compare U.S. and Iraqi forces? In the Gulf War, the U.S. vastly overestimated the size and effectiveness of the enemy. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf's memoirs claim that over half a million Iraqis took the field, when perhaps half as many did. They were not battle-hardened, but battle-weary, and the average Iraqi soldier is no more motivated now than he was then. The qualitative gaps were huge back then: No American tank was destroyed by enemy fire in that war, despite a series of head-to-head engagements.
Numerical comparisons of the type defense analysts cherish (in particular, the canonical and fraudulent rule requiring odds of 3-to-1 to attack) mean nothing. Offer a professional soldier this hypothetical choice: a battalion of 54 American tanks with American soldiers versus a crack Iraqi division with five times as many tanks and 10 times as many soldiers. He will not hesitate for a moment. The American battalion would crush the Iraqi division.
Under these conditions, the U.S.--so long as it has Kuwait (where we have a brigade's worth of gear stowed, several thousand troops, and access to airbases) to operate from--can quickly liberate the southern part of Iraq and go beyond. With Kuwait and Turkey in our corner, the problem is relatively straightforward. And with Saudi participation it is not quite effortless (in war nothing is), but the odds of a very rapid Iraqi collapse are overwhelming.
What would be the critical issues in planning such a campaign? Begin with information preparation of the battlefield. If the average Iraqi knows that after the war his country will remain whole, that it will be rid of Saddam (and not just his biological weapons programs), and that the U.S. is in dead earnest, he is unlikely to fight. To neutralize Saddam's most important counter--chemical or biological weapons--the U.S. has the right kind of protective gear. But more importantly, it must warn the enemy that it will track down and punish any Iraqi soldier who, pursuant to orders or not, uses such weapons. After the doings of the last two months in Afghanistan, we will be taken at our word.
This should be an unorthodox campaign: The American military can do just that, as Afghanistan demonstrates. One important element will be the use of the Iraqi National Congress to help foster the collapse of the regime, and to provide a replacement for it. The INC, which has received bad, and in some cases malicious treatment, from the State Department and intelligence community over the years, may not be able to do the job with U.S. air support alone. So, it would be best to plan on a substantial American ground component, although nothing like the size that was required for Desert Storm.
Furthermore, the operational concepts should probably look quite different from the linear style of warfare adopted in 1991. This should be a war of many and simultaneous fronts, massive air attacks directed at the regime, and extensive use of special operations as well as conventional forces.
It is virtually certain that rather than face waves of Apache helicopters or onrushing M-1 tanks, Iraqi soldiers will flee or capitulate. If Saddam tries to move the fight into cities, he will probably lose control of most, if not all of his forces. Above all else, however, the Iraqi people need to know that this war will not end until Saddam falls, but that when it does, it will bring about a far, far better life than they have known for more than 20 years. Even more than in Afghanistan, the follow-through to this campaign will be decisive.
This will be an unpopular war in some quarters, and it will encounter resistance from our clients and nominal allies in the Middle East. Here, the U.S. should use a different tone from the usual. Henceforth, we should say (to the Saudis above all) that the U.S. plays by "9/11" rules. These mean that we help our friends, punish those who impede us, and annihilate those who attack us. Curiously, we have managed to express gratitude to Saudi Arabia for its permission to defend the desert kingdom, even as it has undermined Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, allowed its money to go to terrorists, refused cooperation in our investigations, and even (unwittingly, to be sure) provided the bulk of the manpower for the attacks of Sept. 11. Now, we will expect Saudi support, and not regard it as a favor or an indulgence.
War with Iraq will have its perils. Some are likely to be illusory: the Arab "street," for example, which never quite rises as promised. Others may be quite real, to include the use of chemicals and biological weapons. Should the U.S. fail to take the challenge, sooner or later it is sure to find Iraqi terror on its doorstep. It may have already. Should the U.S. rise to the occasion, however, it may begin a transformation of the Middle East that could provide many benefits to the populations of an unfree region. That will, in the end, make us infinitely more secure at home.
Mr. Cohen is a professor of strategic studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
