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Monday, April 21, 2003
Nalzaro: Some inside story on Iraq war
By BOBBY G. NALZARO
Through the magic of technology, the world has witnessed how the combined military might of the United States and Great Britain crushed and toppled the regime of the world’s most feared leader, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in less than a month of heavy military campaign.
We have witnessed how the coalition forces unleashed its military superiority against the loyal Republican Guards of Saddam. Through television coverage, we also witnessed the extent of damage and destruction on properties as well as the injuries and casualties among civilians and military men brought about by the heavy bombardments and intense fighting.
Some sectors condemned the war. But maybe some of us joined the Iraqis in jubilation, as they welcomed their long-desired freedom when they heard the news that the Saddam regime has been completely toppled down. Though the coalition forces successfully controlled a large part of Iraq, it was not an easy victory for them.
They encountered difficulties in their task to liberate the Iraqi people from the bondage of Saddam’s tyranny, as the Iraqi soldiers and civilian volunteers loyal to Saddam resisted and defended their leader.
What we saw on television—how the coalition forces conquered Iraq’s land, air and sea territories—was just a tip of the military strategy adopted by the US-led coalition forces.
Beyond what we saw on TV were several inside stories and highly confidential strategies adopted by the US and British defense departments that contributed to their speedy victory. The US military was not only relying on its strength through its sophisticated and state-of-the-art military armaments but also on the actual intelligence gathering of its various intelligence units even before the war erupted.
An article in one of the April issues of Newsweek magazine entitled, “The Secret War,” gave a comprehensive and detailed account on the US military war plan. Saddam had miscalculated his defenses, thinking the coalition will only use the conventional military strategy in attacking his territory.
Though well-equipped, the US armed forces did not rely mainly on its military superiority. It also backed it up with intelligence gathering and even bribery. The US government released a huge amount of money to pay and persuade some oilfield operators to shut down their oil wells even before the first strike so these would not be set on fire by the Iraqis. Bribery was an effective weapon.
The same Newsweek article revealed that the Special Operations Forces and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) played a still shadowy but vital role in Operation Iraqi Freedom. A senior US military officer revealed that the military’s “inoculation strategy” boiled down to killing or disabling Saddam’s forces before they could wreak havoc.
Secret agents roamed Iraq for months before the war. Some were Arabic and Hispanic disguised to look like Arabs. They performed special and essential reconnaissance missions, like measuring water levels, so the US military planners can gauge the scale of flooding in case Saddam would order the blowing up of dams.
Military attacks were even more important. Military officials hinted at commando raids to stop the Iraqis from blowing up bridges and dams. The night before the first bombardment, US Navy Seals seized a key Persian Gulf oil platform, a kind of giant gas station for fueling tankers. Sneaking up in the dark by boat, the commandos overwhelmed the sleeping Iraqi guards before they could even shoot back and detonate their explosives.
There were reports that the CIA was able to penetrate Saddam’s inner circle. The CIA flooded Baghdad with agents before the first strike. One agent even reported that he spotted Saddam and his entourage entering a house. Less than an hour later, there was a large crater where the house had been standing when four bunker busters were dropped by B-1 bombers.
Also, US military commanders were able to see the battlefield and talk to each other in ways never before experienced in the history of war. Spy satellites, unmanned drones equipped with cameras, and orbiting JSTARS, planes with high-resolution downward-looking radars, streamed information not just to the US Central Command but to the individual units in the field.
In the first Gulf War, targeting a cruise missile to hit a specific building in Baghdad required about three days of plotting. But in this war, the interval between a tip from a spy on the ground to a bomb hitting its target took only 45 minutes. That is why when the US Central Command received information on the presence of Saddam in one of the buildings in Baghdad, in a span of minutes the coalition forces bombed it.
That is why they are still debating until now whether Saddam is already dead, incapacitated or alive and kicking. If the Iraqi leader was able to escape death during the heavy bombardment but was near the site where the bomb dropped, he must be disabled by now due to the high intensity impact of those bombs. Ug wala man gani ma-intimano ug mamatay si Saddam, posible bungol na siya ron. Tawgon na siya og Saddam bungol.
(Send your comments and suggestions to: Bobby@sunstar.com.ph or at bgn@cebu.gmanetwork.com. My cell phone number is, 09193181404) |
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