The Hindu : Forces closing in on Baghdad: U.S. General

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 01, 2003

International

International

Forces closing in on Baghdad: U.S. General

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

New York MARCH 31. Brushing aside criticism that the administration may not have fully understood what was in store by way of Iraqi resistance, top military planners are insisting that the war plans are proceeding on plan and that the final assault on Baghdad will be at a time of United States' choosing.

"It will not be a siege that people have thought about before. We have plans for several different contingencies'', remarked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers. "We have the power to be patient on this, and we're not going to do anything before we're ready. We'll just continue to draw the noose tighter and tighter'', he argued on Sunday. The top military official maintained that the coalition forces were closing in on Baghdad from the south, north and the west. One of the important things that Gen. Myers sought to convey is that the aerial bombardment of the Republican Guards has brought down this elite unit's capacity to less than 50 per cent. And military strategists are making the point that in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Republican Guard's capacity was down to 60 per cent or so before the U.S.-led ground assault started.

Senior military and civilian officials of the Pentagon are also saying that the U.S. commanders have a "target percentage'' of the Republican Guards' capacity in mind, but will not divulge what this is. "Their fighting capability is going down minute by minute, hour by hour. There's not going to be much left to fight with'', Gen. Myers maintained. The pounding of the Republican Guard units in and around Baghdad has been going on for the last several days, from land inside Iraq, from air and from the decks of aircraft carriers in and around the Persian Gulf.

It is said that of the 800 strikes carried out on Sunday, nearly 60 per cent were focussed on the Republican Guards. The U.S. military is further saying that there have been signs that reinforcements are being sent to Saddam Hussein's elite forces even as there are indications that many of the units are being pulled back to Baghdad.

Meanwhile, questions are being posed on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that this military conflict was supposed to be all about. Thus far, coalition forces have not stumbled on any weapons type chemical munitions or factories that are producing them. Yet, top military officials are not ruling out the possibility of Iraq resorting to the use of chemical and biological weapons. "There's no doubt they have chemical weapons, that they have weaponised them, they have them in artillery shells. They probably have other means of delivery'', Gen. Myers insisted, going on to stress the discovery by coalition forces of protective gear issued to Iraqi forces.

The Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, spent a portion of his Sunday talk shows debunking charges that he underestimated the troop strength and armour required to take on Iraq.

The known hawk in the Republican administration insisted that the war plan started with Gen. Tommy Franks and moved up the chain all the way to the President. "What you're seeing is fiction. You're seeing second guessers out there'', Mr. Rumsfeld argued, making the point that it is "too early to write history''.

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