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Resistance by militia is delaying Baghdad battle - officers
( 2003-03-26 17:44 ) (7 )

Allied forces have shifted the focus of their land campaign in Iraq to concentrate on defeating the fedayeen and other militias serving Saddam Hussein in the south before beginning the battle for Baghdad, senior officers said Tuesday night.

The American strategy had been to bypass Iraq's southern cities and drive toward the capital to take on the Republican Guard and ultimately topple Mr. Hussein's government.

But the resistance from the militia groups to the rear of the advancing allies has been so stiff that commanders have concluded that this Iraqi threat has to be addressed first.

The attack on the Republican Guard will be delayed while American and British forces fight in and around Iraq's southern cities.

Allied commanders sought to dispel any suggestion that the delay would be long, suggesting that it would be measured in days, not weeks.

"We will go to where the enemy is," a senior American military official said tonight.

Indeed, today, while the British were moving to the outskirts of Basra, forces from the American Seventh Cavalry Regiment fought a fierce battle near Najaf with what was reported to be a mixture of fedayeen and regular troops.

As many as 450 Iraqis were killed. In Nasiriya, American marines captured about 170 paramilitary fighters in a hospital that they had turned into a outpost, and confiscated weapons caches and gear to protect against chemical weapons, American military officials said.

The marines also recovered a T-55 tank, over 3,000 chemical suits with masks, and Iraqi munitions and military uniforms, the United States Central Command said.

The forces available to attack the paramilitary groups include Special Operations forces, light infantry and mechanized units. American military officials said they intend to cut off the routes to the southern cities and, if necessary, send forces into those cities and towns to take the fight to the Iraqis.

The aim will be to avoid street-to-street fighting and to direct attacks against the command centers, weapon caches and hide-outs used by the fedayeen ?a group of some 60,000 fighters said to be commanded by Mr. Hussein's son Uday ?hard-core members of the ruling Baath Party and other Iraqi security forces.

That change of plan commits allied forces to some form of urban warfare in southern Iraq. Today, the British around Basra called in an air attack on the Baath Party headquarters. American satellite-guided JDAM bombs turned the building into a pile of rubble, allied officials said.

Allied military officials said the new approach was necessary to protect the long supply lines upon which the American military relies to support the advance of the Army and the Marines on Baghdad.

The shift in tactics is also of psychological importance: to demonstrate to Iraqis in the south ?overwhelmingly Shiite Muslims ?that allied forces are prepared to encourage and protect any rebellion against Mr. Hussein.

The Bush administration and the British government had hoped that allied troops would be hailed as liberators, a development that might mollify critics of the war, especially in the Arab world. But many Shiites have been sitting on the sidelines, waiting to see whether the Americans or Mr. Hussein will prevail.

Shiites in the south recall the Persian Gulf war in 1991, when the administration of President Bush's father called for the Iraqi people to get rid of their dictator but did not intervene when the Shiites began to rise up.

"We are going to prosecute this fight in a violent manner," Maj. Gen. J. D. Thurman, the chief operations officer for the land war command, said. "We must make the people know we are prepared to take care of them."

The new strategy was in evidence today. British forces, under the command of Maj. Gen. Robin Brims, moved to cut off Basra from other Iraqi forces by using air power to take out a bridge and by repositioning ground forces.

The British moves came amid reports of rebellion in the Shiite-dominated city and harsh reprisals by security forces loyal to Mr. Hussein's government.

A woman who waved to British forces on the outskirts of the city was later found hanged, an American officer said, and the Iraqis moved D-30 artillery in place to shell rebellious residents.

A cache of arms was found at Tallil Air Base, near Nasiriya. American officials said the fedayeen were retrieving the weapons from a bunker.

American officials had anticipated that they would have to confront the fedayeen, but the general assumption was that they would primarily be a problem in Baghdad.

The principal opposition in the south was thought to come from Iraq's regular army troops, whose role was thought to slow and weaken the Americans before they fought the Republican Guard around the capital.

In recent days, however, it became clear the paramilitary group was a far bigger problem than the United States had anticipated.

Other paramilitary groups are also operating, including hard-core Baath Party units and the Al Quds Army.

The size of forces in the south is hard to gauge, given the swirl of fighting and the civilian dress. Allied military officials said there may be 2,000 to 3,000 in each city and there were reports that Mr. Hussein was dispatching more.

The delay in moving on Baghdad has a silver lining because there were indications that the American forces could use more time to prepare for an onslaught on Baghdad, especially with the onset of ferocious sandstorms and bad weather.

There will be more time to bomb the Republican Guard units on the approaches to Baghdad. Today, American warplanes bombed the Medina Division, which is defending one approach. The weather was especially bad, with high winds, clouds and sand.

A delay will also give the Army time to move up men and supplies. Even now, units like the 101st Airborne Division are trying to get their units ready for the Baghdad fight.

The turn of events in Iraq is likely to raise questions about the influence of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on military planning. Mr. Rumsfeld had rejected the doctrine of overwhelming force promulgated by Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the current secretary of state.

Instead, Mr. Rumsfeld has favored the use of airpower, more joint operations among Army and Marine units and the use of Special Operations forces. As the spectacular bombing of Baghdad got under way on Friday, Mr. Rumsfeld suggested that Iraqis were eager to surrender.

The American military has considerable combat power, but it also has a multitude of tasks. Those included moving to win the battle of Baghdad, protecting long supply lines, searching for Scud and other surface-to-surface missiles and caches of weapons of mass destruction, ensuring that civilians have food and water and preventing the breakup of the country.

Some former generals have said that for all its capability, the current force of more than 150,000 is too small to carry out all those tasks with confidence.

The backup force is a brigade or somewhat more of the 82nd Airborne, potentially swift, but light, forces. More units are on the way, including the Fourth Infantry Division, the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment and several additional armored divisions. But it will take weeks, if not longer, for all units to arrive and prepare for combat.

The Iraqis, for their part, have continued to harass the allies. Today, they launched two surface-to-surface missiles at the same time on Kuwait ?one at the Ali Al Salem Air Base and one at Camp Doha. Both missiles were traced and shot down by three American and Kuwaiti Patriot batteries. It was the first time that the Iraqis have launched two missiles at the same time during the war.