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Iason
Athanasiadis
The
Iraqi army has abandoned conventional stratagems and is hitting coalition
forces with a range of stratagems that are proving more effective than
traditional methods of warfare.
US
war planners have been instituting stringent new measures to better
respond to changed tactics from an Iraqi side that is utilising
guerrilla-style attacks to considerable effect.
In
addition to hitting Anglo-American troops with a human bomb on Saturday,
Iraqi irregulars are increasingly seeking to sidestep the main advance and
hit the coalition�s frail supply lines.
Since
Saturday, when a man driving a taxi killed four US soldiers by setting off
a bomb at a key military checkpoint outside the southern city of Najaf,
Anglo-American forces have stepped up their
vigilance.
New
security measures include razing trees at checkpoints to improve
visibility and stopping cars some distance away to reduce the possibility
of being hit by a blast.
US
soldiers deployed at the checkpoint hit by the human bomb outside Najaf
are now turning back all cars coming from the north, not just those
suspected of containing fighters, as was the case before the attack.
"They
have five seconds to turn around and get out of here," said an angry
Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rutter, commander of the Third Infantry Division
batallion which lost the four men.
Iraq�s
army rapidly came to terms with the realisation that stationary battles of
the type fought in the 1991 Gulf War are hopeless against a
technologically superior opponent.
The
shift from static, Soviet-style warfare to highly mobile guerrilla,
counter-insurgency tactics has led US commanders to the conclusion that
occupying Baghdad in one swift thrust may not lead to the swift surrender
of other cities.
"The
easiest solution hasn't worked but that doesn't mean the plan was a
failure," he said Michael Codner of Britain's Royal United Services
Institute for Defence Studies.
"It's
worth trying a high-risk high-payoff strategy provided you've got a plan B
to fall back on. The problem is if you have no plan B. That's what we saw
in Kosovo when there was no armed invasion force in place right at the
beginning," Codner said.
As
more Iraqis head back to their country from Jordan, bypassing the tents
set up by international organisations for the expected refugee outflow,
commentators are coming to the conclusion that they are motivated more by
hatred of the invaders than love for President Hussein.
Robert Baer, a former
CIA Middle East operative, has corroborated reports that Iraqis are
crossing into Iraq by car and bus from Jordan and Syria in order to fight
on the side of the Iraqi government.
�Everybody wants to
fight. The whole nation of Iraq is fighting to defend Iraq. Not Saddam.
They�ve been given the high sign, and we are courting disaster. If we take
fifty or sixty casualties a day and they die by the thousands, they�re
still winning. It�s a jihad, and it�s a good thing to die. This is no
longer a secular war.�
The
challenge of limiting contact between soldiers in the field and Iraqi
civilians, even as they try to win over their �hearts and minds�, is
becoming increasingly apparent even as British troops conduct often
violent house-to-house searches in Basra.
"The
unexpected thing has been the lack of support for the invasion," Hopkinson
said. "An awful lot was posited on the idea of cheering maidens throwing
flowers at the invading troops, and that's
not happened, even in the south."
�It's
certainly not going to happen near Baghdad," he
added.
So
far, the United States has shied away from using all its destructive
capabilities in a bid to preserve Iraq's infrastructure. No one has yet
suggested it may be necessary to destroy Baghdad in order to save it, in
the inimitable language of the 1965-75 Vietnam war.
To
do so would put Iraqi "hearts and minds" forever beyond Washington's
reach. --- Al Jazeera with agency inputs
The
Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni Uganda is in
Anarchy"
Le groupe de transmission de Mulindwas
" avec Yoweri Museveni, Ouganda
est dans anarchy "
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