I need to go bed, but…
Regardless of the opinion often stated on the board that the Iraqis would most likely welcome us, there is every reason to believe that the populace would not be all that happy to see US troops in their collective living rooms. First, this is their home we are invading, and (as stated well by Alessan) “they’ll most likely prefer the devil they know.” The Baghdad populace, especially, was, before the Iran/Iraq war, quite young and vibrant; Baghdad was considered a university city, and had a strong professional class. The current citizens have been worn down by years of subsistence living; for many, their homes are the only things they have left. This does not mean that they will all fight to the death to defend their property, but I do feel that they will not flee out of the city unless the situation gets pretty dire.
As such, it will be difficult for the US forces to avoid civilian casualties: Baghdad is fairly densely populated, and the most important targets will be in the central and more heavily peopled parts of town. Even if we execute with a higher degree of accuracy than displayed in more recent actions, there will most likely be substantial casualties, as most people will refuse to leave their homes, in winter, for the unknown. Once the ground war starts, there could still be a great number of people in and around Baghdad; numbers of casualties could quickly rise, especially once the battle concentrates in the more congested areas of the city.
In addition, it is common knowledge that the Iraqi AD forces use rooftops throughout the city as defensive points; there are many decoys set up, and the real units rotate frequently. The more dangerous type of AD, as far as we are concerned, would be the AAA: we won’t be able to use the high level bombers out of concern for the citizenry, so we will most likely depend on raids of F-15E’s, F-117’s in night sorties, and other coalition (if one exists) ground attack aircraft that can get in close to put guided munitions on target. These aircraft, in order to be accurate, will be fairly low in altitude, and relatively close to their targets; your basic run of the mill ZSU-23 (aka Shilka) and ZSU-57 can cause a lot of damage in these circumstances - they pump large amounts of steel into the air quickly, and can create havoc at anything under about 4KM. These cannons are also much harder to take out with Wild Weasel missions, as they usually depend on optical sighting for primary acquisition, and can quickly switch targeting modes; this means that many of them will most likely survive any preparatory strikes before the ground attack fighters come in.
Since we can’t just flatten Baghdad due to civilian concerns, air power will have a much more limited role when it comes down to assaulting the city. Iraqi aerial assets are extremely limited, therefore giving the US forces aerial superiority from the start; however, it will be of limited use when the fighting gets to the city proper. There are several considerations that the US military will have to respect: 1) large concentrations of civilians will most likely be present, even at the urban stage of assault; 2) weak support for the war among the US populace, which may lead to desires on the part of the command to execute and seize as quickly as possible; 3) minimization of large-scale damage, as this war will most likely be highly publicized; 4) seizure of the command and control elements will be of utmost urgency, to avoid any unwanted missile launches on allied countries and forces [specifically Israel]; and 5) avoidance of a protracted struggle, for political and logistical reasons.
The ground phase will have to take all of the above, as well as other concerns, into account; as such, there will be heavy pressure on the command to strike certain areas of the city quickly and with extreme force. I would expect SF forces to hit areas like the presidential palaces shortly before the ground assault took place; air cav would also be effective in creating multiple points of attack (and therefore of concern) for the defenders, in an attempt to weaken their positions in any one area. Even with highly mobile forces distracting and softening the defenses, one of the most difficult issues to overcome for the US forces will be lack of intelligence: though we have a good idea of the Iraqi OOB, our goal will be to neutralize command and control within the city quickly and efficiently; they have been on the defensive and in a paranoid posture for quite a few years now, and it will be difficult to find and assault the command centers without some pretty decent intel. We didn’t do well on this score in Desert Storm; if don’t want this dragging on for many months, with a distasteful amount of civilian and US casualties, we will have to be much better at the intel game this time around.
The types of forces we could potentially face will run the gamut: conscripts, Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard, SSO troops, average civilians (who are allowed to possess weapons), and the bedu tribesmen. The bedu have threatened to take up arms against any invaders; they number about 10,000 (very rough estimate) and could conceivably be fairly well-armed with small arms, supplied by the government. You could expect decent rates of desertion among the conscripts and the Guard units; the SGR and SSO will not desert, and the SSO would be the last to surrender (if Desert Storm is any indication). Many SSO can be expected to pose as regular civilians, to add confusion and to infiltrate our lines (they know we will try to provide aid to the civilians, and will take advantage of that); the core officer cadre of the SSO and the SGR are usually trained outside of the country, or by advisors, and are the main troops to receive urban warfare training. Once we hit Baghdad, we can reasonably expect all of the above to be arrayed against us; propaganda will be full force from the beginning of the conflict, and the population will be expecting us to forcibly rip them from their homes to be forcibly exiled in camps in Israel or half a world away. They are also being told that their families will be separated, and that many will be put on trial by us and imprisoned. I would expect a large number of them to believe what they are told; they are in a closed society since the end of the war, and cannot afford (economically) to have much contact with many outside of their immediate neighbors. {As a quick aside, we live in an open country, and look how many of us take the government’s word at face value…} In such an environment, hostility to the US forces should be expected; the view of us as liberators may be romantic, but it is totally unrealistic. There are few that view us as such; more likely as meddlers and imperialists. The Iraqis that can really be said to support our views are mostly living in exile, outside of Iraq; they have little respect within the country itself, in any event.
Got to go, hope this is informative in some way.
Thanks
Greco
