Report: US Military
Operations Already Underway in Iraq
US Iraq Campaign Has
Its First Engagement
DEBKAfile Special
Military Analysis
Saturday, 10 August, 2002
10 August: America's offensive
against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq has begun as an
exercise in gradualism rather than a D-Day drama.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that tens of
thousands of US, British, French, Netherlands, Australian
troops may take part in the campaign, openly or covertly, but not in massive
waves that fling themselves telegenically on Baghdad.
The fact of the matter is that American military concentrations
are already unobtrusively present in northern and southern Iraq. The US
campaign to oust Saddam is therefore unfolding already, albeit in
salami-fashion, slice by slice, under clouds of disinformation and diversionary
ruses - like the latest statements by President George W. Bush (No date set yet
for the offensive) and British premier Tony Blair (Plenty of time before the
war begins), or the grave reservations issuing from the Russian, French and
German leaders. The peasoup of deception is further
thickened by utterances in the last 48 hours from Turkish prime
minister Bulent Ecevit,
King Abdullah of Jordan, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and the Saudi
crown prince Abdullah. They warn Washington that attacking Iraq would be a
terrible mistake, one which they want no part of.
DEBKAfile's military sources attempt here to
pierce some of the thickets of confusion with a few facts on the ground:
A. Special US forces entered the Kurdish regions of north Iraq towards the end
of March nearly four months ago, to set up local Kurdish militias and train
them for battle.
B. At around the same time, Turkish special
forces went into northern Iraq in waves that
continued through April, fetching up in Turkmen regions around the big oil
towns of Mosul and Kirkuk.
C. Meanwhile, the Americans threw a ring of bases - using existing
facilities and adding new ones - around Iraq. They have
since been pouring into those bases US armored ground
units, tanks, air, navy and missile forces, as well as combat medical units and
special contingents for anti-nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. According
to our sources, the noose around Iraq extends from Georgia and Turkey in the
north, Israel, Egypt and Jordan to the west, Eritrea and Kenya in the
southwest, and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain to the south.
Furthermore, a large US armada,
including aircraft carriers, has assembled at three points: the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
D. Since June, American and Turkish construction engineers have
been working in northern Iraq, building and
expanding airfields and air strips to make them fit for military use.
First US Military Steps
In the past week, once those preparations were in place, the United States carried out two
military operations:
1. Tuesday August 6, at 0800 hours Middle East time, US and
British air bombers went into action and destroyed the Iraqi air command and
control center at al-Nukhaib
in the desert between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The center
contained advanced fiber optic networks recently
installed by Chinese companies. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources say the
raid made military history. For the first time, the US air force used
new precision-guided bombs capable of locating and destroying fiber optic systems. The existence of such weaponry was
hitherto unknown.
Following the destruction of the facility, about 260 miles (415 kilometers), southwest of Baghdad, waves of US warplanes
swept in from the Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia and from US aircraft
carriers in the Gulf and flew over the Iraqi capital.
The Iraqi air force and anti-aircraft system held their fire on
orders from above. This deep air penetration told the Americans that the early
warning radar system protecting Baghdad and its
environs from intrusion by enemy aircraft and missiles was inactive.
2. Two days later, on Wednesday night, August 8, Turkey executed its
first major military assault inside Iraq. DEBKAfile's military sources learn from Turkish and Kurdish
informants that helicopters under US, British and Turkish warplane escort flew
Turkish commandos to an operation for seizing the critical Bamerni
airport in northern Iraq. This airport,
just outside the Kurdish region, lies 50 miles north of the big Iraqi oil
cities of the north, Kirkuk and Mosul. With the
Turkish commandos was a group of US special forces
officers and men. Bamerni airport was captured after
a brief battle in which a unit of Iraqi armored
defenders was destroyed, opening the airport for giant American and Turkish
transports to deliver engineering units, heavy machinery and electronic support
equipment, which were put to work at once on enlarging the field and widening
its landing strips.
The American unit, reinforced, went on to capture two small Iraqi
military airfields nearby.
The Turkish expeditionary force in northern Iraq now numbers
some 5,000 men, in addition to Turkish air force contingents.
DEBKAfile's military experts explain that
with Bamerni airport and the two additional airfields
the Americans have acquired full control of the skies over the two oil cities
of Mosul and Kirkuk, as well as
over the Syrian-Iraqi railroad, which they can now cut off by aerial
bombardment. A prime strategic asset, this railroad is Saddam's back door for
taking delivery of his illegal overseas arms purchases, which are ferried from Syrian
ports to Baghdad by the
Syrian-Iraqi railway. On the return journey, the same railway carries illegal
Iraqi oil exports, over and above the quantities allowed under UN
sanctions, out to market. The Iraqi war effort and the Syrian treasury depend
heavily on the revenues accruing from these smuggled oil sales.
The battle over this airfield was in fact the first important
face-to-face engagement between a US-led invasion force and Iraqi troops. It
was carried out seven hours before the Iraqi ruler delivered his televised
speech to the nation, on the 14th anniversary of the bloody eight-year
Iraq-Iran war.
In that speech, Saddam threatened American troops going to war
against Iraq that they would
return home in coffins.
Next Steps
Just before the Saddam address, US spy satellites and planes
detected unusual movements by elite Republic Guard units in the capital. They
appeared to be digging positions below ground on the banks of the Tigris. Some military
commentators were convinced the Iraqi ruler had decided to bury himself and his
key associates in fortified bunker-type positions. He was said to be counting
on American reluctance to engage in urban warfare in Iraqi towns for fear of
large-scale-casualties that would force them to withdraw.
DEBKAfile's military experts see little sign
of this tactic - aside from the initial report. In fact, the bulk of the Iraqi
army is concentrated in three regions outside Baghdad - the Kurdish
regions of the north, the H-3 and al Baghdadi air bases opposite the Jordanian
border in the center, and along the Saudi and Kuwaiti
frontiers, in the south.
In the north, the Iraqi armored
divisions, which are massed opposite the Turkish border along the Little and Big Zeb Rivers, show
now sign of movement in response to US-Turkish activity. Iraqi concentrations
in the center and south have been augmented somewhat
but not substantially.
Iraq's military
passivity in the face of US-led advances and strikes is beginning to worry the
American, Turkish and Israeli high commands. They suspect that Saddam is
playing the same fog-of-war game as Washington, so as to put
them to sleep and then catch them unawares.
Such sudden action could take the form of an Iraqi missile or
bomber attack on Israel using warheads loaded with radioactive, chemical or
biological materials, a combined missile-terrorist strike to sabotage Saudi oil
fields, or a mass terrorist attack in the United States.
The sharpest alert to a threat to Iraq's southern neighbors came not from military intelligence but from
international oil dealers, who warned that Saddam Hussein if attacked may well
decide to set fire to Saudi and Kuwaiti oil fields, sending oil prices
skyrocketing above US$ 40 per barrel.
Israel's Concerns
Israel faces three
threats, all of them in the realm of the unknown:
a. An Iraqi missile attack, when the size of Saddam's arsenal has
not been reliably established.
DEBKAfile's military experts dispute the
assessment heard this week from retired Israeli military leaders that the
Iraqis have only a few missiles.
The truth is that no one outside Iraq knows how many
Saddam has cached or what advanced missile technologies he has secretly
developed. According to one estimate, Iraq may have
accumulated between 70 and 150 warheads, or maybe more.
b. A WMD threat, when no one knows what Saddam has up his sleeve -
whether radiological bombs with a limited radius, or a more highly developed
type.
The same questions apply to Saddam's biological and chemical warfare
capabilities.
c. Notwithstanding the presence of US forces in Jordan and the
strategic-defense relationship developed between
Jordan and Israel, the possibility of the old Eastern Arab Front coming back to
life against Israel, though unlikely, cannot be entirely ruled out.
The gloomiest scenario envisages Iraqi units surging through Jordan to attack
Israeli from the east concurrently with a Syrian-Hizballah
strike from the north - a combined assault that may sweep King Abdullah into
the fray against Israel.
The Jordanian king is an unknown quantity, untried in war
situations. Therefore the odds on his executing an about-face as radical as
this cannot be estimated with certainty. Israeli war planners, however, are not
ignoring this possible peril, however improbable.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those interested in the information for research
and educational purposes.)
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