Mission creep might force US to quit Iraq

So far, few things have gone the right way for the occupation armies. The confusing statements by field commanders about the true identities of the guerrillas prove that the Iraqi fighters had adapted well to the tactics and strategy followed by hard-hitting unconventional forces.

The Iraqis can hit now without being hit back. They're elusive but impeccably effective. It takes quite a skill to shoot down Blackhawk helicopters with Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG). Iraqi fighters are doing that pretty effectively. Triggering remote controlled explosive is another achievement of the guerrillas. They are more sophisticated than what was thought of them. They also stand on a moral high ground as liberators of their motherland.

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As well, the war is proving too costly for the invaders while the world around suffers due to the uncertainties sparked by the conflict's intensity and duration. Economically, the US had faulted in its assessment of Iraqi oil production, which plummeted from 2.5 million bpd of the pre-war level to a trickle of 700,000 bpd. Pipelines toward Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have all been blown up.

Plus, the cost of reconstruction is proving horrendous. The damage done by a brutal air attack is well over $200 billion this time. Add to this the 1991 war damage and the cost of over a decade-long sanctions. All these left Iraq too pauper to cope with basic needs. The 78 billion reconstruction budget for Afghanistan and Iraq is a political ruse to deflate criticism surrounding thousands of deaths among Iraqi and Afghan civilians.

As more infrastructures are being destroyed each day and international organisations --including the Red Cross and the UN -- are packing out of Baghdad, Iraq's neighbours insist upon the US' unconditional withdrawal, and soon. The Syrian president emphatically said so recently as did Iran and Egypt earlier.

Why such an anti-climax? The reasons are not nebulous. The war itself kicked off on faulty and illegitimate premises. From the outset, the US decided not to heed what neutral experts predicted about the likely consequences of this campaign. Eight months on, Iraqi resistance is ever in the rise (numbering over 30 attacks per day), as are the instances of global terrorism. The US and the UK are more isolated than ever before while a replay of the Vietnam syndrome seems unavoidable. Even the Europe, which the US had built from ashes after the devastation of the Second World War, loathes the US now. Europeans say Israel poses the greatest danger to world peace, implying the US's culpability in the Mid East as Israel's main patron.

Militarily, the recent spike in attacks is reminiscent of the 1968 Tet offensive launched by North Vietnam guerrillas against US forces. The impact of the Tet forced President Johnson to take a strategic decision to withdraw US troops from Vietnam. But the botched campaign had by then cost the US nearly 75,000 lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. The blunder ended with a bang in US internal politics; in anguish Johnson refrained from seeking re-election and his military was left disgraced. Bush may not follow Johnson's footsteps, but he seems unable to wriggle out of it either.

Conflicts in Iraq and Vietnam are far from identical. But the military in both the instances succumbed to the trauma of a mission creep, caused by a combination of factors. The first reason is bad judgement, which the military terms as "appreciation of the situation." The US-UK coalition prepared for the war on bad intelligence inputs about Iraq's capability to wage an unconventional war. Saddam and his loyalists also did not play to the coalition's expectations. In the thick of battles, coalition troops donned gas masks in anticipation of Iraq using chemical weapons; but Iraqi military preferred to offer token resistance before melting away within the population. They wanted to get the enemy sucked into a slump first before hitting hard.

The morale of occupation forces nose dived further since the false declaration by President Bush on May 1 that the "mission is accomplished." If anything, the declaration was followed by an intensification of attacks on coalition forces. Although astute military strategists absorbed Bush's declaration with indigestion and bemoaning, the president is widely accused of deceiving his nation. Even the hawks in Washington say that the president and his advisers underestimated the strength of the 450,000 strong battle-hardened Iraqi military and their decision to suck the US into a prolonged war of attrition. Former Vice President Al Gore too accused Bush on November 9 of "recklessly putting USA in grave and unnecessary danger."

That aside, military as an institution has its own dynamics. If soldiers feel they're being used to pursue a goal that is not just, their morale saps. Another reason is nostalgia. All armies are prone to this depressive trend while undertaking missions abroad. However, the most important reason behind a mission creep is the fear of being defeated or killed. Iraq is fast turning into a killing ground for coalition forces. The coalition commanders find it harder to cope with the changing tactic of an enemy that fights on its own turf, on its own term.

Then, there is the absence of a raison d'etre that ought to have decided the fate of this campaign. As Scott Ritter, one of the US weapons inspectors, aptly said, "We lost this war the very first day. You don't win militarily if you lose the politics and diplomacy of it." He added, "Those who think the US is winning have no knowledge of how modern warfare is fought and won." The Washington Post claims, the administration is sick and tired of the provisional authorities' incompetence. Well, how can they do better amidst fear of death? Whosoever collaborates with the coalition gets blown off, including Iraqi police.

Now that the US mulls an exit strategy, one is reminded of the horror unleashed by the largest war machine of the world once it rolled past Kuwait-Iraq borders on March 20. Whatever the Bush administration said before and after that D-day proved false and "sexed up." Bush cannot reply to some basic queries of his soldiers, such as: Why the Iraqis never received the invaders with flower and festivity? Why the Iraqi army did not surrender? Why the WMD was not found? Why the resistance intensified and the reconstruction hampered? And, why the war was not over in weeks with dozens of casualties, as was predicted?

Above all, despondency and an acute sense of foreboding grip US soldiers due to the failure of the US diplomacy to cobble together an international force under the UN to maintain peace and stability in the war ravaged country.

At the close of the 1991 Gulf war, the senior Bush claimed haughtily, "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all." If he proved right then, the syndrome is back with a vengeance under the calamitous leadership of his son. The US is indeed mired in an Iraqi swamp and it needs a strategy to creep out of a killing field paved by die-hard Iraqi guerrillas. If it fails to withdraw, the inferno might engulf the entire region.

Author and columnist M. Shahidul Islam is a Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.