U.S. Invasion Forces Face Real War in Iraq

U.S. firepower was no match to the Iraqi army when U.S. President George W. Bush ordered air strikes against Saddam Hussein’s country March-April this year. That firepower is of no use today however as American forces find themselves attacked from all sides and in all fronts by various Iraqi guerrilla forces. To the Iraqi resistance fighters, the real war has just begun.

By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat.com

U.S. soldiers alight from a Chinook helicopter

“They’re dirty pigs,” an Iraqi blurts out pointing at American soldiers who have occupied his city, Falluja. Fallujah lies in the “Sunni Triangle,” a region north and west of Baghdad where most attacks on American forces have taken place. “We’ve declared jihad against the American occupier and when the rest of the country joins us, we’ll drive them out,” another - a fruit and vegetable seller - fumes in disgust.¹

Such are typical words of anger thrown against some 130,000 U.S. occupation forces in Iraq backed by tens of thousands of British, Italian, Australian, Filipino and other soldiers – America’s proxy coalition units deployed since May to internationalize its colonial takeover of Iraq. And it is this growing wrath that is escalating a classic guerrilla war in this Middle East country aimed at driving out foreign aggression.

Since the jihad against the U.S. armed occupation was declared in May, at least 400 American soldiers have died - more than twice the number of U.S. troops killed during the March-April war in Iraq this year. The death toll does not include scores of other foreign troops killed among them 18 Italian soldiers who died in a blast in Nasiriya on Nov. 12.

The number of American dead over the past five months has surpassed the number of U.S. soldiers killed during the first three years of the Vietnam war (1962-1964) when troop levels in Indochina stood at just 17,000. When the war ended in 1975, more than 58,000 U.S. servicemen had died.²

Reports show that the military casualties were targets of classic guerilla tactics including bombings, sniping, hit-and-run attacks and a few suicide bombings. A popular weapon used by Iraqi resistance fighters is the “improvised explosive device” (IED). A lethal explosive, IED has been used for roadside ambushes that have destroyed Humvees or armored behemoths like the M-1 Abrams tanks killing several American soldiers. IEDs as well as mines and grenades are usually disguised in dolls, stuffed animals and food containers and detonated by remote control as car bombs and other weapons for maximum damage.³ Another popular weapon is the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).

Missiles

But the guerrilla war has also grown sophisticated with the use of heat-seeking shoulder-fired missiles, rockets and other advanced weaponry. In the deadliest strike so far, two missiles slammed into a Chinook (CH-47) helicopter killing 15 U.S. soldiers and wounding 12 others on Nov. 2 west of Baghdad. The most common model of this kind in the former Iraqi army stockpile was the Russian-made SA-7, also known as Strelas.

A rocket attack on coalition-occupied Al-Rasheed Hotel located within the “Green Zone” in the heart of Baghdad on Oct. 26 almost killed visiting Defense Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz. But a U.S. colonel died while 18 others were wounded.

The Al-Rasheed attack appeared to be sophisticated and well-coordinated. An underground cell working with staff hotel monitored the arrival of guests while street sweepers worked with another team to position the rocket launcher. As soon as Wolfowitz – one of the architects of the U.S. aggression in Iraq – arrived, the launcher, disguised as a generator, was remotely activated.⁴

In many attacks, not only armored vehicles and tanks were hit but Chinook, Black Hawk, Appache and other types of helicopters were shot down.

Frequent attacks

The attacks on U.S. troops have increased from six a day five months ago to 35 a day, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the American commander in Iraq, has admitted. In the first two weeks of November alone, the attacks have claimed more than 40 American lives, forcing a leading American hawk, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, to say, “In a long, hard war, we’re going to have tragic days…They’re part of a war that’s difficult and complicated.”

But Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials are miles apart with their British allies over the intelligence assessment of the raging guerrilla war. The Washington hawks insist that remnants of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s Republican Army allied to groups of foreign jihadists and Al Qaeda are behind the resistance using a hierarchical organization under a single command.

British officials see otherwise. “What we are looking at,” one of them said, “is not some monolithic organization with a clear command…Instead, we are looking at lots of different groups with different agendas. They are locally organized with each having its loyalty focused on middle-ranking former commanders.”⁵

Likewise, a former colonel in the Iraqi security services told The Observer that there are different groups including former Mukhabarat (security services), religious groups and Baath party members. “Saddam is playing some role but he is not the only one,” he said.

Differing with Rumsfeld’s views, U.S. intelligence officials last week identified several guerrilla groups while General Abizaid estimated the number of resistance fighters at 5,000. In the U.S. intelligence officials’ list is the Return Party which is composed primarily of members of Saddam’s Baath Party and maintains pre-war regional and local organizations. Aiming for the return of Saddam to power, the party is strong in Baghdad as well as in central and western Iraq, the U.S. officials say.⁶

Another is Muhammad’s Army which consists of several hundred former members of Iraq’s intelligence and security services.

According to Fawaz A. Gerges, however, although elements of the former Hussein military are in the resistance, other important groups whose interests converge with those of the old government are also on board. These include the Secular Baathists, indigenous Iraqi fundamentalists, Arab Islamists and dissatisfied Iraqis.⁷

Gerges, professor of Middle East studies and international affairs at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, says that Sunni Salafits – indigenous Iraqi Islamic fundamentalists – appear to be heading the guerrilla fight. The Sunni Salafits, estimated to be in the hundreds, are determined to establish an Islamic state in Iraq, he says.

Recruiting tool

Iraq has become a powerful recruiting tool for Islamist militancy and the armed tactics used in Iraq are vintage jihadi tested in southern Lebanon, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, Gerges adds. Hundreds of young militants have also reportedly left France, Germany and other European countries and crossed Syria and Iran to join the resistance. A similar movement into Iraq is taking place in Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries.

The various guerrilla forces apparently share a single patriotic goal of expelling the U.S. and coalition forces from Iraq. Like most Arab militants in the Middle East, these Iraqi patriots see the U.S.-led colonial occupation as an assault against both Islam and the wider Arab nation. They believe that all Iraqis must resist and those assisting the occupiers are an enemy as much as the U.S. troops.

The other guerrilla forces are dissatisfied with the U.S. occupation particularly over atrocities committed by its forces. Many well-trained soldiers who lost their jobs when the U.S. dismantled the 350,000-man Iraqi army have also joined the resistance, Gerges says.

Ritter, a former American colonel and UN weapons inspector (1991-1998), warns: “The growing number, sophistication and diversity of attacks on U.S. forces suggests that the resistance is growing and becoming more organized – clear evidence that the U.S. may be losing the struggle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.”

Aware of the danger to U.S. power that lies ahead in the midst of Iraqi resistance and growing anti-war sentiments at home, U.S. President George W. Bush last week vowed to accelerate the turnover of government to the Iraqis in two years. He was silent however on the increasing calls for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Arab country although nobody believes that would happen.

Meantime, the U.S. forces and a small coalition of supporters – including Filipino “peace-keeping” missionaries – are finding themselves more and more isolated and vulnerable. Turkey, which earlier promised to send 10,000 soldiers, has canceled the mission. Japan has also postponed the sending of a similar expeditionary force. The UN mission in Baghdad has been reduced while the Red Cross headquarters has been withdrawn.

Observers liken the current quagmire that American forces have found themselves in to the Vietnam debacle although others cite the Battle of Algiers in 1956 when Algeria’s whole Arab population, women and children included, fought French colonial forces and precipitated a coup d’etat in France. Algeria won its freedom.

Signs of things to come for the American colonial forces can be gleaned during a rally in Baghdad on Nov. 7. Hundreds of Sunni Muslims marched to the U.S. coalition headquarters to demand the release of 36 clerics arrested. In their rally, protesters chanted slogans: “America’s army will be wiped out,” and “America is the enemy of God.” Bulatlat.com

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Sources:

1. Philippe Grangereau, “In Falluja, at the Heart of Anti-American Hatred,” La Liberation, Nov. 7, 2003.

2. David Morgan, “U.S. War Dead in Iraq Exceed Early Vietnam Years,” Reuters, Nov. 13, 2003.

3. Scott Ritter, “Defining the Resistance in Iraq – It’s Not Foreign and It’s Well-Prepared,” Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 10, 2003.

4. Peter Beaumont and Patrick Graham, “Rebel War Spirals Out of Control as U.S. Intelligence Loses the Plot,” The Guardian, Nov. 2, 2003.

5. Beaumont, ibid.

6. Associated Press, Nov. 13, 2003

7. Fewaz A. Gerges, “Understanding Iraq’s Resistance,” Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 10, 2003.

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