The rules of the game

Prior to the offensive on Thursday, two 1000-man army battalions had been moved into Najaf to take up position alongside the 1000 marines and few hundred odd Iraqi national guardsmen who have been battling al-Sadr's Mahdi army for the past week.

US troops control most of the northern perimeter of the city and most of the fighting has thus far taken place in the environs of the cemetery on the western side of town, but it was not until yesterday that US troops and the Iraqi national guardsmen who are supporting them launched their offensive on Moqtada's stronghold in the southern part of the city.

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One main reason for this caution was that the old southern part of the city is where the Imam Ali shrine is located, and public opinion against the US forces and the interim government would plummet if the shrine were to be damaged in the fighting.

The other was that any military action at the shrine itself reportedly required the approval of Iraq's interim prime minister, and it was the preference of the interim government to have any military action that needed to be undertaken in the environs of the shrine be carried out by Iraqi forces.

Whether Iraqi forces are well-trained enough to overpower the insurgents who are operating out of the shrine without damaging it remains an open question.

But one thing that is noteworthy is that even the redoubtable US forces would not be strong enough to dislodge the Mahdi army from its stronghold were it not for the massive air support they receive from F-16 fighter planes, B-52 bombers, CH-53 helicopters, and AC-130 helicopter gunships.

As the all-out assault on Najaf unfolds before us, now is the time to reexamine the conventional wisdom on what constitutes an acceptable use of force, and, in particular, the use of air power against an enemy that itself commands no air force and possesses only rudimentary air defences (a handful of shoulder-fired missile launchers and rocket-propelled grenade launchers).

According to the conventions of warfare, many of the tactics used by the insurgents in Iraq, such as suicide bombing and hostage-taking, are considered a violation of the rules of war. All well and good. I am not here to defend suicide bombings or kidnappings and beheadings. Military operations should be directed against military targets, and the targeting of innocent civilians in order to achieve a military objective is wrong.

But the question that I have never been able to receive a satisfactory answer to is why dropping 10,000 pound bunker-busting bombs or daisy-cutter bombs or firing rockets and missiles and 30 and 40 mm cannon fire into buildings is also not considered contrary to the rules of war.

The proponents of massive aerial bombardment argue that there is a world of difference between a suicide bomber blowing himself and all those unfortunate enough to be in his vicinity at a police check-point and the wholesale bombing of military targets.

The difference, they say, is that suicide bombers deliberately target the innocent, whereas bombs and missiles and rockets and cannon fire are not intended to kill innocent civilians -- the unintended death of noncombatants is merely the unavoidable collateral damage of such military maneuvers.

Please.

In the first place, it is simply not true that air support is aimed only at military targets and never targets civilians. Sometimes it does.

But, more to the point, even if it is a military target that is being aimed at, it is impossible to avoid civilian casualties. Even the most effective and precise bombing and firing of missiles from a height of hundreds or even thousands of feet is certain to kill innocent civilians. This is how over 10,000 innocent civilians have died in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003.

Under the law, intent to kill is a necessary element of murder. However, if you, for example, fire a gun into a crowd and thereby kill someone in the crowd, you cannot argue in your defence that you didn't intend to kill the person you have shot. The legal argument is that acting with reckless disregard for the likely consequences of your action is tantamount to intent. Thus, while you may not have had the specific intent to kill the person you shot, you are still guilty of murder.

I do not see why the same standard should not apply to dropping bombs and firing rockets and missiles from a safe distance of hundreds or thousands of feet in the air. Especially if your enemy possesses no such technology.

Nor is there any moral argument to be made that if not for air support, ground troops would be put in greater danger and it would make it exponentially harder for them to achieve their objective. This is true, and I can see why the US army would hold the lives of thousands of Iraqi civilians cheaper than those of its own troops, but it is a bit much to ask the rest of the world to go along with such an assessment.

It is time to draw up a new morality of war which holds that massive aerial bombardment is every bit as immoral as suicide bombings or hostage-taking, if not more so.

No one expects the US to abandon its massive aerial superiority in Iraq or elsewhere, but then the US shouldn't complain or attempt to claim the moral high ground when the insurgents use whatever means they have within their power to fight back.

Nor should the US complain when the rest of the world considers them immoral and cowardly for only engaging in battle when they possess massive technological superiority. A firefight in Iraq typically lasts as long as it takes the US troops on the ground to phone in the coordinates of the enemy position to their air support so that the enemy position can be bombed to smithereens. Bravo.

As fighting rages in and around the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf where many of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army are holed up, we wait anxiously to hear whether or not the shrine is damaged and try to calculate the consequences if it is. If the shrine is damaged, as seems likely, expect the US to try to pin the blame squarely on the Mahdi army for using the shrine as a stronghold and refuge.

But if the US forces drop bombs or fire missiles or rockets into the shrine, even if they do so inadvertently, they will have no one to blame for the devastation and ensuing political catastrophe but themselves. After all, they always had the option of going in after the Mahdi army without air support. But then that would be a fair fight, wouldn't it?

Zafar Sobhan is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.