The belief in Iraqi capabilities grew out of the last phase of the eight-year war with Iran. In 1988 Iraq seized the offensive in that war, spearheaded by the newly formed Republican Guards with their high-quality French and Soviet gear. By the end, the Iraqis were burning through decimated Iranian defenses like a blowtorch through crepe paper, sometimes enjoying force ratios of 50 to 1 over Iran. These victories were not alone due to superior Iraqi firepower or tactics, but to steamroller tactics not unlike the human wave onslaught used by the Chinese in Korea. As a result, veteran soldiers are physically and mentally hard. But they are also war-weary. And many more Iraqi combat soldiers, notably many of those dug in in Kuwait, are untried recruits of dubious morale. Colonel Sharaf, the spokesman for the Saudi Arabian Army, told me that more than 400 Iraqi soldiers defected to their forces along the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia border before the first shot was fired in this war. The Egyptian Fourth Armored Division, reported that 200 Iraqi soldiers, with their officers and 50 tanks, defected to them on K-Day. Colonel Sharaf said that he could not confirm this.
However, he did not deny it. Perhaps this tank will disappear like the six helicopters that did not defect last week even though David Evans of the Chicago Tribune was on site with a U.S. Marine Corps unit and heard over the Marine radio that the birds were incoming, landed and defected. He believes that the birds disappeared for political reasons.
A Kuwaiti officer here told me that underground forces in Kuwait City have reported that many Iraqi soldiers are throwing down their weapons and fleeing. He also said that many Iraqi soldiers have surrendered to underground forces and asked for shelter.
How good is the Iraqi Army now? A serving soldier observed Iraqi soldiers on a daily basis for four months as the captive of a Republican Guards unit following the invasion of Kuwait. He considers the Guards “damn good for an Arab force” but no match for the allied forces assembled here. The Iraqi soldiers he saw “were mainly city or farm boys who were unfamiliar with the desert.” He said that during the four months that he was with them he “never saw them perform maintenance on the vehicles or tanks” and that “the tracks were so loose on the tanks that they looked as if they might fall off at any time.” Never in the four months did he see them open up the engine compartments of their tanks. Nor did they train or do battle drill. “They had incredible logistics problems and sometimes went days without food,” he said.
He said that the soldiers were frightened of their officers and especially of their political minders and were instantly obedient. The junior-grade Iraqi officers were much like the old-style Brit officer with a superior elitist attitude complete with batmen and a flunky to carry their maps. The soldiers functioned more out of fear than spirit.
On one occasion, he observed an artillery battery setting up. Its commander chose a site under shade trees. The position was not tactically sound, compared with one a few hundred yards away that would have been far better for firing. It was, however, more comfortable. Throughout the time this position was occupied, no one dug in, laid the guns, camouflaged, performed maintenance or trained. And this was an elite Iraqi unit, part of the key echelon of the three-layer, Soviet-style defense system employed in Kuwait and southern Iraq.
This allied officer rates the Iraqis as being grossly overconfident because of their easy win over Iran, and says, “They’re comparable to a second-rate Home Guard unit.” The impressive and effective air-attack phase will continue for several more weeks before the ground attack into Kuwait jumps off. By that time the Iraqi defenders will be in shock and totally battle-rattled from all of the explosives dumped on them.
On several occasions in Vietnam I saw the effects that B-52 raids had against dug-in North Vietnamese troops. At Dak To in 1966 my 101st Brigade caught the North’s 24th Regiment right on the chin with a B-52 arc-light strike. It was staggering. North Vietnamese soldiers had glazed eyes. They were bleeding from the nose and ears. There was no fight left in them. General Tra, the commanding general of all Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam, recently told me in a four-hour talk in New York City that the B-52s almost had his Army on the ropes, even though they were dug into deep, hard underground positions.
This is the same fate I predict for the Iraqi Army of Kuwait. Once maximum air power is concentrated on the Kuwait battlefield–and that will be done as soon as the critical targets in Iraq are destroyed–the Iraqi Army’s easily identifiable fortifications will be leveled. When I was near the Kuwaiti border last week, I had a feeling of being on the moon. It is empty terrain. Infantry and the other fighting elements cannot dig in well. It is being suggested by Pentagon experts that the Iraqis will hunker down and take the allied air pounding as they did the Iranian artillery barrages. But this is comparing a spring rain with a hurricane.
The Iraqi forces in Kuwait will soon be like the Germans at Stalingrad–cut off and ground down remorselessly. Since it is an Army held together by fear rather than discipline, it will not fight to the bitter end. Air power will break its will to fight. I would not be surprised if it were to cut and run before the war’s ground phase begins sometime in February. Indeed, I hope the Army brass will not push Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf into battle prematurely just to assure their service a piece of the action.
