I’d bet on long bloody fights in the major towns with thousands of Allies casualties. I don’t see the elite troops surrendering quickly, and I would not be surprised if the regular citizens join the troops in fighting the invaders. Like they did in Germany.
Saddam Hussein cannot flee to Syria or Iran, despite their being adversaries of the US. Remember the Iran-Iraq war? If the Iranians had Saddam in their hands, I imagine that he would be begging for death within a few hours. And Syria is another enemy of Iraq. The Syrian Baath party regards the Iraqis as traitors and vice versa. I’m sure that Syria would find a use for Saddam…as a bargaining chip with either the US or the Gulf States.
Will the army fight? I don’t expect formal surrenders everywhere, but I imagine that most army units will be afraid to advance or fire on American units. Any fire would be met with overwhelming firepower, as they learned in the first war. But they also would be afraid to surrender. I imagine most Iraqi soldiers will simply hunker down in their foxholes and hope to be bypassed. Any unit that attacks will be destroyed.
The conquest of Iraq has a pretty good chance of being relatively bloodless. Relatively. The occupation is another story. Once Saddam is gone, I imagine Iraq will begin to be infiltrated by jihadis from all over the Muslim world. I don’t know how effective the US will be in keeping them out or preventing guerilla/terrorist strikes against occupation forces. Tough call. But again, to attack US troops identifies them as an enemy, and once you are identified overwhelming firepower can be directed against them. Guerrillas have to do everything in their power to avoid direct contact with US forces and will have to concentrate on soft targets.
So would disobeying orders, I would imagine.
I also imagine that since most of the fighting would happen in the cities communication would be at best diffcult. One scenario could be “I can’t see any of my commanders. To hell with it. I surrender” or the commanders themselves have surrendered and the soldier fights on. Massive confusion all around.
I don’t think it will be a situation where they’re sitting around watching the full might of the US army bear down on them from afar and surrender en masse.
I suppose the real wild card will be the civilians. They can pick up a gun and shoot at american soldiers and drag it on or shoot at Iraqi leaders and end it quickly, hunker down and wait for it all to end, or just flee the cities altogether. who knows?
I can’t see militant jihadis getting a very warm welcome in Iraq. Apart from the fact that the Iraqis follow a different branch of Islam to that followed by the militant ones, there is also the fact that the Iraqis are a pretty secular bunch - more Turkey than Taliban.
I started this thread by wondering whether the Iraqis might surrender but I think another outcome, perhaps equally as likely, is that there will be a miltary coup. Any coup would only come when war is imminent and the high-up generals feel they can get away with conspiring against Saddam since he’s going to be overthrown soon anyway.
The cite given by december seems to suggest there may be something going on behind the scenes already. A coup would be preferable to invasion in a few ways:
- the Iraqis will be seen to dealing with the Saddam problem by themselves
- any general involved in a coup will automatically guarantee he keeps his job after the revolution
- the Iraqi army will be seen as heroes rather than having to have a change of regime forced on them from outside
- a coup would mean that the Iraqis would have more control over what form the next government takes, rather than waiting for America and Britain to impose something
I’m actually half expecting to hear that a coup has taken place every time I turn on the news. While all the talk goes on in the UN and elsewhere and while all the protests go on around the world, the US and Britain every so often quietly slide into place another 10,000 troops and another 5 aircraft carriers. Ratcheting up the pressure one more notch.
The whole thing seems like one big game of chess. The Iraqi military will have to believe, I mean really believe, that an invasion is inevitable before they can risk a coup. And so that means that the amount of force in the area has to be credible.
I think that the military build-up is possibly intended to be an end in itself. To bring home to the Iraqi top brass just how much damage is going to be done to their army and their country if they resist. And all for what? To save one man’s ass!
No one man is worth that much trouble, I don’t care who he is. Eventually, the pressure in the military in Iraq will reach critical mass and Saddam’s regime will implode.
So my current thinking is that there will either be a military coup or, if that doesn’t get organised, the Iraqi military will allow the US and Britain through and Saddam will be removed that way. Either way, I still think a war is the least likely scenario.
There is of course the remote possibilty that Saddam will go into exile but I think this is unlikely - dictators rarely go voluntarily. If they go at all, they usually have to be “asked” to leave. Which is what we are currently doing to Saddam - politely “asking” him to leave.
Mack,
I agree, I can’t see them surrendering en masse as one whole unit. It would start off as a piecemeal thing which would gain momentum - once a quarter of the army is no longer fighting, it becomes all the harder for the remaining three quarters to mount a resistance. Word will get round and soon no one will be resisting. A kind of ripple effect.
Presumably the US will drop leaflets on the army units first saying (effectively) “We are about to attack - do you wish to fight or do you wish to die? Now would be a good time to tell us.” The Iraqi army isn’t known for being suicidal. I’m not questioning their courage, just their willingness to die needlessly for Saddam.
The civilians will I think most likely hunker down - the Iraqis aren’t particularly a “battle-hardened” people.