Allies Hope to Move Quickly to Seize City in Iraq's
South
By PATRICK E. TYLER
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/international/middleeast/18BASR.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
KUWAIT CITY, March 17 � One of the first major
objectives in the war against Iraq will be to seize
its largest southern city, Basra, and secure its port
facilities and nearby oil fields.
Officials say they are aiming for a rapid and "benign"
occupation of Basra that results in flag-waving crowds
hugging British and American soldiers � all of which
would create an immediate positive image of American
and British war goals while undermining Iraqi
resistance elsewhere in the country.
But things rarely go as planned in war, and as the
onset of conflict appeared imminent today, soldiers
prayed and prepared to move. Everywhere a sense that
the waiting was almost over was palpable among
military units.
This afternoon, soldiers of the Third Infantry
Division's First Brigade Combat Team began packing up
and dismantling parts of a mobile command center in
the Kuwaiti desert. They packed their own bags, too.
The division is to head for Baghdad and beyond.
"You could call it relief, almost, that something is
happening," said Capt. Andrew J. Valles, the brigade's
civil-military operations officer.
[In a further sign that military activity was rapidly
speeding up, marines at the forward headquarters in
Kuwait for the First Marine Division, which will lead
the drive toward Baghdad, began on Tuesday morning to
load their gear onto Humvees, trucks and other
vehicles. There was a sense that they would not be
returning to the base, Camp Matilda, anytime soon.]
As a military objective, Basra, a largely Shiite
Muslim city of more than one million people with no
great affection for President Saddam Hussein's
government, is thought to be vulnerable.
The Iraqi military command has ordered all of its
front-line divisions to pull back to defend Baghdad,
officials said, leaving poorly trained and equipped
garrison units to protect the port city and the oil
fields that straddle the border region with Kuwait,
just 40 miles south of Basra.
The city is a key to Iraq's southern oil region. Not
all of the signals suggest that it will fall easily.
Last week President Hussein appointed the most
notorious member of his inner circle, Ali Hassan
al-Majid, to direct the defense of southern Iraq. Mr.
Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," has been accused of
war crimes for his use of mustard and nerve gases
against the Kurdish population in northern Iraq in
1988.
American officials are not certain whether Mr. Hussein
appointed Mr. Majid, a close relative, to ensure that
the restive Shiites of southern Iraq remained loyal to
Baghdad, or whether Mr. Majid has been entrusted with
executing a military strategy devised to blunt or
undermine the American-British invasion.
"We fully recognize his image and his track record," a
military official said.
One fear is that Mr. Hussein, by appearing to expose
Basra to easy occupation, is preparing to surprise
American and British forces by attacking them with
chemical or biological weapons.
"All I can tell you is that the marines will be
wearing their chem suits," the official added,
referring to the protective clothing and gas masks
designed to protect soldiers from attacks with
chemical or biological weapons.
The fate of Basra is viewed as critical. "The first
image of this war will define the conflict," said Maj.
Chris Hughes, a Marine Corps spokesman. Military
officials said the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit,
under the command of the British Royal Marines, had
been designated to take Basra.
An early success, if secured, would inoculate the
military to some extent against any setbacks that
occur in Baghdad, where a powerful American army of
tanks, mobile artillery and infantry will face down
Mr. Hussein's most loyal and best armed Republican
Guard divisions. The willingness of these Guard
divisions to fight will determine in greatest measure
the human cost of the war, military officials say.
If Basra falls, American and British officials are
planning to organize relief convoys of food and other
aid that can roll into the city from depots positioned
here and in Iranian cities that lie just east of Basra
across the Shatt-al-Arab waterway.
Soldiers will carry packets of food to pass out to
children, and medics will provide care to Iraqis in
need as the occupation forces roll in, military
officials said. To speed the relief work, the Pentagon
has dispatched a 60-member disaster response team that
will enter the city with British and American troops.
American officials said they had begun radio
broadcasts and leaflet drops in and around Basra to
notify residents that the attacking allied forces will
use kid gloves in taking the city.
They will avoid bombing electrical and other civilian
infrastructure targets, the officials said, and are
advising civilians that they will be safe in their
homes and that there is no need to flee the city.
Still, Major Hughes said there was no guarantee of
success.
"As important as images are, we don't have a lot of
control over it," he said.
Nevertheless, American and British military officials
are already discussing plans to act at the first sign
that Basra's residents are ready to greet them with
open arms. They have discussed busing journalists into
the city, and even flying in television correspondents
by helicopter to record any scenes of jubilation.
Such scenes, in the view of many analysts, are
possible if the Basra campaign is carefully
orchestrated.
Iraq's southern population is dominated by Arabs who
follow the Shiite branch of Islam. Theirs is a history
of discontent since the Ottoman Empire collapsed at
the end of World War I and the province of Basra was
incorporated into a new Iraqi state dominated by
Baghdad and the Sunni Muslims of central Iraq.
Basra's Shiites staged an uprising at the end of the
Persian Gulf war in 1991, after the first President
Bush encouraged all Iraqis to overthrow Mr. Hussein.
Thousands were killed, tortured or imprisoned when Mr.
Hussein's scattered army regrouped and brutally
suppressed a series of rebellions in the south and
among the Kurds in the north.
This time, Saudi and Kuwaiti intelligence services
have worked with Western officials to communicate to
tribal leaders in Iraq that the British and American
forces are coming to liberate them for good.
"The Iraqis inside Iraq are talking about one thing:
the salvation," said Abdel Reda al-Asiri, a professor
at Kuwait University and a scholar of Shiite history
in the region.
Today, he added, Iraqis regard the impending invasion
by a Western army as "a war that will end all their
misery, wars and tyranny."
Iraqis, he said, though they are still isolated, get
enough information from foreign radio broadcasts to
understand the difference between the impending
military operations and the 1991 war to push Iraqi
forces out of Kuwait.
"During the uprising in 1991 the people felt
powerless," he said. "But now you can be assured there
will be tens of uprisings this time around the south.
In '91 the Americans came to liberate Kuwait; in 2003
they are coming to liberate Iraq."
British and American officials would not comment on
the size of the British and American marine force that
is to peel away from the main army that marches on
Baghdad. A British official said a "pumped up"
division of 15,000 to 20,000 British marines was ready
in Kuwait.
An American official said the 15th Marine
Expeditionary Force, which saw extensive action in
Afghanistan, could contribute as many as 2,500
marines.
For Britain a successful campaign to liberate Basra
would be a vindication of its last war in Mesopotamia,
which sought to claim Iraq and its oil wealth during
World War I.
The Ottoman Empire was collapsing, and after taking
Basra in 1914, a small British force under the command
of Maj. Gen. Charles Townshend marched up the Tigris
to within 25 miles of Baghdad, only to fall back in
the face of Turkish counterattacks. British losses
were 23,000 dead and wounded, with another 7,000
British prisoners dying after Townshend's surrender.
=====
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq:
Your enemy is not surrounding your country � your enemy is ruling your
country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be
the day of your liberation." -George W. Bush 1/29/03
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
