TIME: Desert Storm - The War in the Persian Gulf/TIME: Desert Storm - The War in the Persian Gulf.iso/time2_04/cf040023.t01

Text File | 1991-06-27 | 15.7 KB | 332 lines

DATE: JAN. 24, 1991          13:06        REPORT:
TO: SPECIAL REPORT
FOR:
CC:
BUREAU: CAIRO
BY: WILLIAM DOWELL
IN: DHARHAN
SLUG: WAR NARRATIVE

 As the first week of the Gulf war draws to a close there
is no question that the forces opposed to Saddam are
rapidly moving into position for what promises to be a
fierce and potentially bloody combat on the ground. All
week long, seemingly endless convoys of men, equipment
and armor have been moving north along muddy desert
tracks towards the border. Elite units like the 82nd
Airborne and 101st Airborne have repositioned themselves
westwards along the border for what obviously looks like
it will turn into a flanking operation. Even the French
Foreign Legion which had pulled back from the border last
fall, has now moved north towards the border. The French
have also given up their isolationist approach of last
fall, and have now finally agreed to place themselves
under operational control of U.S. commanders, at least
for specific missions.

 There are indications that Iraqi troops trying to fend
off a flanking move from U.S. and coalition army forces
knifing into Kuwait from the west may also find
themselves having to fight a Marine amphibious assault
from the east.

 While the preparations for a ground assault are getting
underway, the current phase of the war is being fought in
the air--the objective, at least at the beginning of the
week, was to hit strategic targets in Iraq and Kuwait,
and to annihalate some 30,000 elite Iraqi Republican
guards who form the backbone of Saddam's army and are
currently poised as Baghdad's emergency reserve force to
the north of Kuwait. Besides having plunged Baghdad into
darkness by knocking out its electric power plants, and
cutting off its water, U.S. airpower has also destroyed
roughly half of Iraq's petroleum refining capacity, a
move that will hopefully deprive the military of the
gasoline it needs to keep its war machine rolling. An
indication that that might be working came during the
week as Baghdad announced that gasoline sales to private
individuals would be suspended.

 The Airwar at a first glance looks as though it has been
suprisingly effective. So much so that at the beginning
of the week U.S. officers had to suppress an almost
uncontrollable burst of euphoria. By now though, some
thoughtful analysts have started asking themselves some
nagging questions. There are two basic reasons for
uncertainty. The first is that bad weather and low cloud
cover have hampered accurate Bomb Damage Assessment
efforts, so that the truth is that we don't know
precisely how much damage the bombing has really done.
The U.S. command did announce early on that 80% of the
sorties flown against Iraq have been successful. But in
military parlance that means only that aircraft which set
out to bomb a target were able to identify it and deliver
their ordinance. To know whether the target has actually
been destroyed or not requires a much more subtle
analysis involving another reconnaisance flight or
alternate means of observation. An example is the case of
U.S. pilots who drop bombs on anti-aircraft missile
installations and have a hard time telling whether the
battery has been destroyed or has simply switched off its
radar.

 The low clouds over Iraq and Kuwait mean that at week's
end it is still difficult for the command to know exactly
how much damage the bombing had done, and to what extent
Saddam's military offensive capability has been taken out
of action. One military officer here quipped,"The weather
is all that Saddam has going for him." But at the moment
we do not even know that for certain. Some U.S. Marine
officers nar the Kuwaiti border, who came under low
intensity sniper fire and some sporadic shelling during
the week, noted that large scale defections from the
Iraqi army, which had been expected, never materialized.
Says Colonel Ron Richard, of the U.S. Marine's 2nd
Division, "Discounting enemy capability is just wishful
thinking. He still has plenty of firepower and a
willingness to use it." Adds Richard, "This is not an
enemy that is going to go easy."

 The Marines noted that they had picked up increased
movments back and forth across the border, and were
unsure whether it was armor or infantry.

 The other element which has some analysts nervous is the
failure of Saddam to deploy much of his vaunted Air
Force. Time after time, U.S. pilots have spotted an Iraqi
Mig on their radar screens in the last few days only to
see it vanish before it could be intercepted. For some
pilots that is just fine. In the ready room of the
aircraft carrier, U.S.S. America, with the public address
system playing The Rolling Stone's "I Can't get No
Satisfaction" this week, Lieutenant Tyler Kearly, 29, of
Houghton, Michigan, a navy F/A-18 pilot who had just
observed a flight of Iraqi Migs suddenly peel off to
escape in another direction, sighed with a note of
exhaustion,"To be perfectly honest, I've had enough
excitement for one day." Asked about whether he regretted
not getting into a dog fight, Lt. Commander Don Barbaree,
35, a 14-year veteran responded "The ego in you says yes.
but sanity says no."

 Although some U.S. pilots tend to dismiss the lack of
Iraqi resistance to air attacks as a sign that Iraqi
pilots know they are outgunned by American planes, there
is also a nagging suspicion that the Iraqis may be
holding back from combat intentionally in order to ride
out the initial onslaught of American air attacks.
Basically saving their planes in hardened bunkers so that
they will be ready for a massive strike later on. The
Allied airforces in the meantime are trying to take the
hardened bunkers out one at a time with laser guided
bombs, but it is a painstaking process, and it is hard to
assess how successful the bombing is, or whether there is
even anything in the bunker--a fact that was brought out
by a conviction circulating in the command that some of
the targets hit had actually been decoys. Technically a
decoy has a different infra red heat reading at night
since the metal of a real piece of armor retains heat
longer than a wooden and canvas mockup. But pilots
ducking intense anti-aircraft fire have a hard time
sticking around long enough to make subtle distinctions.

 Saddam's other tactic -- putting downed American pilots
on television and threatening to use them as human
shields-- has managed to raise the level of anguish, but
shows no sign, for the moment at least, of slowing down
the air attacks against Iraq. "All it does is piss us
off," says a navy pilot identifying himself only as Pat,
on the carrier, U.S.S. America. "It's not going to slow
us down one bit. We all knew what we signed up for.
Nobody was forced into this. And I know if I were in
their place I'd be cheering when I heard the bombs coming
down. You know where they keep ytou is not going to be
fun. The only good thing is they'd be there with you, and
you'd know you took a few out with you."

 "It puts a jab in your gut," says U.S. Air Force Captain
Pete Edgar, 28, of Littleton, New Hampshire, "It doesn't
make you feel that great about what is going on up there,
but I would hope that he would treat them under the
Geneva convention."

 Air Force Major Scott Hill, 38, from Chagrin Falls,
Ohio, also notes that despite Saddam's actions, the
pilots try to avoid working out their need for revenge
during missions. "When we go to war," says Hill, "we go
to war smart. We don't go with our hair on fire and our
fangs hanging out."

 Pilot anger at Saddam's treatment of prisoners was
counterbalanced at the beginning of the week by the
daring rescue of a downed American pilot. As a helicopter
and two A-10 Warthogs were approaching the pilot, an
Iraqi truck suddenly appeared to be heading in his
direction. It was a fatal error. One of the A-10's opened
fire with its gatling gun, and the truck vanished in a
cloud of twisted metal. Moments later the helicopter
swooped in, grabbed the pilot and was gone.

 One of the major differences between the tactics
employed by the U.S.-led coalition from those used by
Iraq during the first week of war, in fact, seems to be
that the U.S. has gone to extraordinary lengths to target
military objectives, causing as few civilian casualties
as possible, while Saddam, lacking the technological
muscle of the west, has been doing just the
opposite--shunning military confrontations and striking
instead at defenseless civilian targets with the hope
that terror will frighten the west into abandoning its
effort.

 In lieu of an airwar, Iraq's only real option this week
has been the notoriously inaccurate Scud missile, which
he has directed feebly at Israel, Dhahran and Riyadh. The
result at first did have a headline grabbing, gut
wrenching psychological impact. U.S. Women's Army Corps
Private First Class Wendy Urich was just one of the U.S.
GI's to get a shock from the nearly nightly firings.
 "I was lying on my bed, reading a Tom Clancy novel, and
there was a kaboom!" says Urich. She rolled on to the
floor and shouted for her fellow female soldiers to don
their chemical gear.

 "I may look like a fool," said an American contract
worker wandering the halls of the Meridien Hotel in Al
Khobar in full gas mask and chemical suit during an alert
at 3 a.m., "but I'm not taking any chances."

 As Patriots sliced into Scuds exploding over Dhahran,
the greatest danger at times seemed to be the risk of
getting hit by a car driven by an hysterical Saudi. But
after only a few days of Scud firings and successful
interceptions by U.S. Patriot surface-to-air-missiles ( a
distressing number over the hotels where reporters were
staying), the initial panic gradually gave way to an
increasingly blase attitude. A sign posted in front of
the Free Kuwait office in the Dhahran International Hotel
kept score: "Patriots 19, Scuds 0."

 None of the Scuds carried chemical weapons--possibly
because the warheads are too small to be effective at
carrying mustard gas, and the heat and shock of the
rocket firing was too much to make delivery of nerve gas
or biological weapons practical.

 To some analysts, the inability of the Scuds to carry
chemical weapons may explain why Saddam has been keeping
the Iraqi Air Force out of combat. The Iraqis, realizing
that U.S. forces are currently beyond effective range may
be trying to draw American forces into ground combat in
Kuwait where U.S. soldiers suddenly would be within range
of artillery and Iraqi aircraft capable of delivering
lethal doses of debilitating mustard gas. In short,
Saddam's weak response in the first week of combat may
actually be intended to save Iraq's punch until the U.S.
can be drawn into a trap. If true, it is a risky game.
One of the primary rules in war is: "Use it or lose it."

 The prospect of chemical warfare in ground combat is
clearly foremost in the minds of most GI's though.

 "Everyone here can probably handle clean, quick death,"
observes Marine Major Jack Carter, "But there is
something horribly dirty and alien to human nature about
poison gas. It sends a shiver up my spine just thinking
about the effects of mustard gas which lingers on and on
for years maybe, and then kills you."

 Poison gas is not the only weapon Saddam is keeping up
his sleeve. He also has a healthy stock of French-made
Exocet missiles and Chinese-built Silkworms, which until
now he has been in no particular hurry to use.. Today
(Thursday, Jan 24), two Iraqi French-built Mirage F-1
jets tried to attack a British ship with Exocets. Both
planes were shot down by a Saudi F-15.

 The quick demise of the Iraqi jets reinforces the view
of those who argue that regardless of how much he is
holding back, Saddam will never again be able to mount a
surprise attack, especially with the tight control over
air corridors maintained by AWACS. On the other hand,
while U.S. technology has come out of the first week
looking pretty good, the hunt for Saddam's embarrassingly
mobile Scud missile launchers serves as a reminder, if
one was needed, that technology has its limits in the
real world.

 Asked about why it has been so hard to track down the
Scud launchers, U.S. Air Force Colonel Hal Hornburg, 45,
Dallas, Texas observes :" They're not very big and
they're camouflaged. You don't just look down and see a
Scud--at least in our aircraft. But we use our systems to
find and destroy them." U.S. Marine officers near the
border told pool reporters that they believe the Iraqis
may have as many as 600 Scuds left. At the rate Iraq has
been firing them, that means that Baghdad will be able to
ruin everyone's sleep for quite awhile.

 With Iraq's military apparatus still very much in tact,
the reasonable approach may be to stay just beyond
Saddam's reach and to continue the Air war for at least
another week or so until a more accurate assessment of
Iraq's strengths and weaknesses can be worked out. The
command appears determined to do just that. In the
meantime, the emphasis on bombing has shifted from
disrupting Iraq's infrastructure to hitting directly at
troops in Kuwait, in what commanders refer to as Phase 2.
Aircraft will still have to continue pounding inside Iraq
to make sure that bomb damage is not repaired right
away.

 While that is going on, the final bits and pieces can be
put into place for the ground war. So far progess is
good, if occasionally hectic. Some of the ground units
have been moving up so quickly that a group of pool
reporters who were flown out to a combat hospital a day
ago, arrived only to find it deserted. Doctors and
personnel had already been sent up to erect a new
hospital nearer the forward lines.

 While the Army seems to be positioning itself to move
westwards in order to outflank Iraqi troops in Kuwait,
the Marines have been readying themselves for a possible
amphibious assault that would hit Iraqi troops from the
other direction. U.S. Marine officers told pool reporters
that marine and Navy commanders have already held a
meeting on the U.S.S. Ridgeway to map out a strategy if
and when amphibious invasion is called for. The Marine
operation will use amphibious landing ships, like the
U.S.S. Guniston, which are protected against chemical
weapons. If it comes, Marine officers say, the attack
will be very different from landings in World War II. The
Guniston carries three LCACs (Landing Craft Cusions),
large hovercrafts which can move men and equipments into
shore at speeds up to 25 to 30 knots. Says Navy Commander
William Marshall, "We have the capacity to launch an
assault from as far out as 200 miles." The LCACs, which
have never been used in combat before, can approach a
landing zone at high speed from a point over the horizon
and zoom onto the beach, disgorge their cargo and head
back for the water and be back in the water in around 3
minutes.

 The Army is also gearing itself up psychologically for
battle. "When we strike it's going to be swift and it's
going to be complete," says Colonol Johnnie B. Hitt, 45,
commander of the Army's 11th Aviation Brigade, which is
responsible for deploying tank- killing Apache attack
helicopters, armed with 70mm rockets and a 30 mm chain
gun.. "Once the army goes," says Hitt, "it's pulling out
all the stops."

 Chief Warrant Officer Carl J. David, who serves with
Hitt sounds sounds as Gung Ho as they come. "If we go
down," says David, "we've got 120 rounds. If they want to
come and get me, they're going to have to pay." All
that's fine, but the command's intention at the moment
seems to be to try to get Saddam to pay with out
exchanging American lives. That's likely to require a bit
more patience, and a lot more aerial bombardment.