On the same day, President Bush told military leaders at the Pentagon: "In terms of the overall strategy, we're just in the beginning phases, and we're executing a plan which will make it easier to achieve objectives and… spare innocent lives." White House spokesman Ari Fleisher said that the fight for Baghdad "could be long and hard, but… there is no doubt about success."
Things had been going wrong even before the coalition forces failed to kill Saddam on the first day of the war. The US and Britain, despite intense pressure, failed to win a majority of nine at the Security Council sanctioning a military attack on Iraq. Under international law this renders the invasion a violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter, i.e. the very same transgression committed by Saddam when he invaded Kuwait in 1991. Most of the world's states declared their opposition to the war. On February 15th, more than 30 million people took part in anti-war demonstrations across the globe. This may well have stayed the hands of the US military from unleashing the full force of its "Shock and Awe" strategy, in order to avoid the massive civilian casualties such a course would have resulted in.
American and British officials have dismissed the loss of a northern front due to opposition in the Turkish parliament as unimportant to the conduct of the invasion. But US Army General Wesley Clark, a CNN analyst and former NATO supreme commander, asserted that Turkey's "failure to permit the 4th Infantry Division to go through was a significant problem." Neither could the coalition count on the Iraqi Kurds, who, more worried about Turkey than about Baghdad, decided to stay out of the fight. Clark asserted that a quick coalition victory in Iraq is "not going to happen" and "that the liberation didn't quite occur. They didn't uprise."
Indeed, there was no uprising anywhere in the predominantly Shiite south despite British claims of an uprising in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, which became "a legitimate military target". The coalition forces faced stiff resistance every step of the way in their northbound drive towards Baghdad. Iraqi strategy avoided large troop deployments and direct confrontations in which superior firepower would be decisive. It preferred to create relatively small detachments, ensuring greater maneuverability, luring invading forces into the cities and forcing them to fight there. Paradoxically, an Arab military dictator faced with certain death opted for popular warfare.
The coalition military chiefs have been yelling foul. Some of the greatest losses suffered by the coalition forces, complained the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "were due to the Iraqis' committing serious violations of the law of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions by dressing as civilians and luring us into surrender situations and opening fire on our troops". None of the coalition officials admit what history has revealed on countless occasions - that a people faced with foreign invasion of their homeland takes up arms in its defense.
Yesterday, fighting continued to rage around Karbala, Najaf, Nasseriya and Basra, while intensified air raids pounded Baghdad with bombs and missiles. One missile hit a poor residential district in Baghdad, leaving at least 15 scorched corpses on the street. Iraqi television resumed airing news bulletins after a 45-minute stoppage caused by a US-British bombardment of its building, which Amnesty International condemned as a possible breach of the Geneva Conventions that forbid attacks on non-military targets.
Nevertheless, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, when interviewed by a private radio station in Lisbon, was doubtful of a US victory. "We do not have the military means to take over Baghdad," he said. "The United States is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs, defeated. It is a war we cannot win." A week after the foreign invasion of Iraq, the Arab world was awed - not by the viciousness of an illegal invasion of Arab land, but by the Iraqi people's resolve in its defense.
Note: Most of this article is factually correct. Its assertion that "anti-war demonstrations across the globe" played a part in modifying the "Shock and Awe" strategy, in order to avoid massive civilian casualties is also probably correct. Up to the time of writing, the allied desire to appear humane liberators has reduced the number of Iraqi civilian dead to a very small proportion of that normal in war, while increasing the number of American and British military casualties. No Arab is likely to express appreciation for this.
The author is on much more shaky ground when he accuses the US and Britain of violating Article 2 of the UN Charter because they " failed to win a majority of nine at the Security Council sanctioning a military attack on Iraq." The size of the majority is immaterial because their proposal would have been vetoed. And there is an excellent case for basing the attack on Iraq's infringement of Security Council resolution No.1441.
It is too early to establish whether or not there was a Shiite uprising in Basra suppressed by forces loyal to Saddam Hussein in the city. However, there is no evidence to support the statement that Saddam Hussein "opted for popular warfare." The author is also disingenuous when he defends Iraqi breaches of the Geneva Convention as "taking up arms in defense of the homeland," yet citing this Convention in condemning the bombarding of the Iraq Television building. The Geneva Convention, drawn up by the victors of World War II after they had infringed almost every major provision of it, is a much overrated and somewhat hypocritical document.
Finally, Scott Ritter is entitled to his opinion that "The United States is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs, defeated". However, it is still not credible and citing it only detracts from the praise bestowed on the Iraqi forces for their determined resistance.
