TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/111290/1112104.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.8 KB | 117 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 34

They Don't Need to Fight


The Islamic allies deployed in the Arabian desert have already
done their job even if they never fire a single shot


    Billowing plumes of dust high into the air, a column of
heavy tanks rumbles across the flat Arabian desert just south
of the Kuwaiti frontier. The M-60s are American-made, but their
crews are Egyptian. Five miles away, a cluster of British-built
Chieftain tanks are poised with their guns pointed toward the
border. This detachment is part of a Kuwaiti army brigade that
managed to escape the Iraqi invaders. "Our mission," says
Colonel Ibrahim Al-Wasmi, the unit's deputy commander, "is to
return to Kuwait."

    The vast inland desert, empty until a few weeks ago, is
filling with the troops and equipment of 11 Arab and Islamic
armies committed to the liberation of Kuwait. On paper they make
up a formidable military force: 60,000 Saudis, 10,000 men of the
other gulf states, armored divisions from Egypt and Syria,
infantry regiments from Bangladesh, Morocco and Pakistan. By
joining publicly with the U.S. and its European allies, they
have already made their most important contribution by proving
that the confrontation with Iraq is not a neocolonial attack on
the Arab nation. But if a war begins, the Islamic armies could
vastly complicate problems of command.

    One key question is whether the Arabs would carry the fight
across the border into Kuwait. The Saudi Defense Minister,
Prince Sultan, said early in the crisis that his country could
not be used as a launching pad for an attack on Iraq without
King Fahd's approval. Commanders of the Egyptian and Syrian
units have said their troops are deployed to defend Saudi Arabia
and not for offensive operations. While a United Nations
resolution authorizing force against Saddam Hussein might
galvanize the Islamic forces, for some of them the thought of
killing their "Arab brothers" is still a strong deterrent to
their involvement in an offensive against Iraq.

    Since the Arab armies are positioned between the Kuwaiti
border and the more than 200,000 American, British and French
troops in Saudi Arabia, their commitment to an offensive would
be no small matter. "The Arab forces complicate Saddam's
problems if he chooses to go south," says retired U.S. Army
Lieut. General William Odom, now an analyst with the Hudson
Institute in Washington. "They complicate ours if we choose to
go north."

    If the Islamic forces do enter the fray, there are doubts
about how well they might fare. In a major battle, only those
units equipped with large numbers of tanks could play a
significant role: the Saudis, Egyptians and Syrians. While the
Saudi air force is modern and well trained, the army is not.
According to Anthony Cordesman, an expert on Middle East
military issues, the Saudi army is at least 30% under strength.
Most army units are commanded by members of the Saudi royal
family selected for loyalty rather than military prowess.
Exercises involving more than 6,000 men are rare. If it becomes
necessary to move larger numbers, "considerable confusion at the
front" is likely, says Cordesman.

    The Egyptian armored units have been slow to arrive, and
only 300 tanks are on station in the desert so far. Those are
mostly older M-60s, slower and packing less punch than the new
M-1 Abrams. One big advantage: Egyptian forces have been
training with the U.S. army for several years in biannual Bright
Star maneuvers in Egypt.

    Syria has pledged an armored division -- 15,000 men, 300
Soviet-made T-72 tanks -- but they too are trickling in, with
only 3,000 troops deployed so far in Saudi Arabia, though more
were expected last weekend. Coordination between the Syrian and
Western forces would face another serious obstacle: the Syrians
are armed mostly with Soviet hardware. As a radical Arab state
standing shoulder to shoulder with the conservative royalty of
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Syria's greatest value is political.
"If they never fire a shot," says Jeffrey Record, a Washington
military analyst, "they are worth their weight in gold." But the
idea of an alliance with the U.S. grates on many in Syria, and
the official press is protesting increased American arms
shipments to Israel.

    If fighting starts, the biggest problem of all will be
command and control, forging the various forces into a cohesive
military whole. The Islamic troops are officially under the
command of the Saudi chief of staff, General Khalid bin Sultan.
But the Saudis use American weapons and tactics, while the
Syrians operate like the Soviet army. Even talking to one
another is difficult. The Saudis and Moroccans speak different
Arabic dialects, while the Arabs have to use English to
communicate with the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

    U.S. contingency plans call for heavy use of air power
against Iraqi targets. At some point, however, ground forces
would surely be needed to drive Saddam's army out of Kuwait. The
U.S. would mount this attack as a lightning strike at night --
a style of warfare the Arab allies are not equipped or trained
for. In that moment, American planners in Washington say, they
hope the Islamic units can move aside and leave the way clear
for a U.S. dash forward.

    There is even a political problem with that hope. If an
invasion force composed solely of American and European troops
moves against Iraq, the attack would be seen as a Western
assault on the Arab nation. To prevent a ground swell of
resentment from sweeping across the Islamic world, some of the
blood shed by Saddam's foes will have to be that of Muslims.


By Bruce W. Nelan. Reported by William Dowell at the
Saudi-Kuwaiti border and Bruce van Voorst/Washington.