During the closing days of the Gulf War one of the reasons cited for the US not driving on to Baghdad and toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein was that we were afraid of getting bogged down in a protracted military engagement in an urban environment and the large number of causalities that taking and pacifying the city would require. Today the same arguments are being put forth by some in the military for why we should not pursue the war on terrorism to Iraq and end the threat of weapons of mass destruction that Saddam holds against us. A report last week from the Washingtonpost.com detailed the military's concerns about going to war with Iraq and included this excerpt about the Joint Chief's of Staff in particular:
In their Tank sessions, the chiefs focused on two specific concerns about the conduct of any offensive. One was that Hussein, if faced with losing power and likely being killed, would no longer feel the constraints that during the Persian Gulf War apparently kept him from using his stores of chemical and biological weapons. The other was the danger of becoming bogged down in bloody block-by-block urban warfare in Baghdad that could kill thousands of U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.
The first concern seems to give Hussein far too much credit for "constraining" his use of chemical or biological weapons. He didn't feel too constrained about using chemical weapons to gas his own people in the mid-80's or lobbing Scud missiles at Israel during the Gulf War. Had the Iraqis been able to get chemical or biological warheads onto those Scuds I have no doubt they would have. Personally, I would prefer a situation where Hussein desperately attempts to use such weapons while under heavy US attack with little time for preparation, planning, or coordination than sitting back and letting him choose the time and place to put them to use. And if he supplies these weapons to a terrorist group they could be used anywhere in the world without us necessarily knowing that Iraq was behind the attacks until possibly much later.
The second point seems reasonable enough until you start putting it into the proper perspective. When the conversation turns to urban warfare the images that come to mind are of the German 6th Army trapped and annihilated in the ruins of Stalingrad during World War Two suffering hundreds of thousands of causalities. However, there are numerous other urban combat experiences that are probably much more relevant to a discussion about a battle on the streets of Baghdad.
During the Vietnam War thousands of hardened North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces captured the citadel city of Hue in South Vietnam during the 1968 Tet offensive. It took US and South Vietnamese forces twenty six days of fierce fighting to drive the NVA and VC from the city and regain control. The enemy forces were well trained, experienced, and entrenched. Total US causalities were 150 killed and 850 wounded while the South Vietnamese had 350 killed and 1800 wounded. Urban Operations Site
Hue had a civilian population of roughly 100,000 before the battle and so is much smaller than Baghdad's estimated four million. But does anyone think that the sort of resistance offered by the Iraqis would be anywhere near that displayed by the dedicated NVA and VC troops at Hue? It's hard to imagine more than a fraction of Iraq's armed forces choosing to hold out against overwhelming US forces deployed against them. This was dramatically born out by what transpired during the Gulf War. Saddam does have the much talked about 100,000 member strong Republican Guard but any US military plan of action would surely include specially targeting them early and often in the campaign and by the time we reached Baghdad their numbers would be significantly reduced.
Other more recent examples also point out that urban operations do not automatically mean atrocious losses. Somalia is often brought up as an example of what can happen when a modern army is bogged down in an urban environment. But our forces in Mogadishu were small in number and lacked critical support both in armor and in airpower(Spooky gunships anyone?). And even though they stumbled into a trap and were surrounded by thousands of armed Somalis they were able to shoot their way out while suffering eighteen dead and seventy three wounded. They were able to inflict many times that number of losses on the enemy both in killed and wounded. At the time the country lacked the will to sustain causalities in what seemed like a meaningless operation but in the wake of September 11th I have to believe that the American public now recognizes that in order to defend our freedom a price will have to be paid. The price to take Baghdad does not have to be overly expensive.
Recent Israeli military operations in the urban environment of Jenin resulted in the capture of over four thousand Palestinians, the seizure of thousands of weapons, and the destruction of large caches of explosives. The IDF suffered twenty nine killed and one hundred and twenty seven wounded while conducting activities in a manner to completely minimize civilian causalities in order to appease world opinion (not that it did them much good). While I would never condone intentionally inflicting civilian losses I would not expect or want US forces to show the same level of restraint in Baghdad. I also don't believe that the Iraqis would demonstrate the same resistance shown by the Palestinians at Jenin.
The bottom line is this. We need to wage a war against Iraq to eliminate Saddam Hussein. In order for it to be successful we likely will have to take Baghdad and in doing so we will suffer some causalities and so will Iraqi civilians. This is the unfortunate but necessary cost of victory. But the losses will not be a repeat of the ghastly levels of death and destruction witnessed at Stalingrad. Although Saddam admires and respects him, he is no Stalin and the Iraqis are nowhere near the Red Army of World War II.
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