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Briefing Advancing troops must watch their backs Dan Plesch Friday April 4, 2003 The Guardian The US accounts of recent battles report the destruction of more than two divisions of the Republican Guard. The puzzle is that these reports do not speak of hundreds of enemy vehicles, nor do they mention taking thousands of prisoners. Rather they speak of dozens of vehicles and hundreds of prisoners. It is unclear how many of the remaining forces have withdrawn into the cities or have abandoned the fight. As US forces approach Baghdad, there are potentially thousands of Iraqi soldiers still holed up in southern towns and cities which the Americans, rather than confront and fight, have simply stepped around. How dangerous could those Iraqi troops be? Could the Americans enter Baghdad only to find themselves attacked from behind? So far the only city that US forces have had to pass through to secure river crossings was Nassiriya. The fighting there reinforced this view of how the Iraqis would fight. The US has suffered more than 20 dead and many more killed in intense fighting. Even earlier this week, embedded reporters providing accounts of the rescue of Private Jessica Lynch described the north of the city as still a "no go" area for US forces. Last weekend the US had several armoured vehicles destroyed and more than a score of soldiers killed as they secured the bridges in the city. More than 5,000 US marines still appear to be besieging this one city. In addition to the irregular forces, the defenders of Nassiriya include part of the 11th Infantry Division of the Iraqi army, which was tasked with defending the river line of the Euphrates. Half a dozen other cities also contain substantial Iraqi forces that have been bypassed by the US 3rd Infantry Division and most of the First Marine Expeditionary Force. Diwaniya, Hilla, Najaf, Kut and Kerbala all have populations of several hundred thousand. As the embedded reports tend to come from advancing forces, the situation in the cities remains unclear. One report from the marines passing Diwaniya described intense fire as every possible point was being defended. Some US forces have been genuinely welcomed in the suburbs of Najaf while fighting continued in the centre. Kerbala was billed as a potential great battle. However, US forces destroyed Iraqi artillery positions in a three hour battle and raced through the three kilometre gap between the city and the lake to the west, but there is already a report of an attack from the city to try to retake and destroy one of the bridges over the Euphrates that was captured on Wednesday. Around Kut, the US is showing convincing evidence of larger Iraqi surrenders and if the Iraqi 4th Army Corps becomes the first major formation to surrender, the eastern cities of Kut and Amara will not present a major additional problem of control. The US has already had to keep tens of thousands of troops tied up controlling the roads supporting the advance of the 3rd Infantry to Baghdad. The extent that this requirement has truly disrupted the war plan drawn up for President George Bush can be shown by the type of forces that the US has had to use to surround the cities. Large parts of the 101st Airborne Division have been used, when they are equipped and trained to fly far ahead of advancing armoured troops. Control of supply lines is a task normally allocated to infantry and military police. Advertiser linksCo-operative Bank Balanced Savings PlanWith the Balanced Savings Plan from The Co-operative Bank... co-operativebank.co.ukSainsbury's Bank Direct Saver AccountMake the most of your hard earned savings with tiered rates... sainsburysbank.co.ukNatWest E-Savings AccountLooking for attractive interest rates and instant access to... natwest.comShould resistance in Baghdad be substantial it would prove a far greater problem for the US forces if it were combined with counterattacks out of cities to the south. These have the potential to tie down tens of thousands of US troops for weeks or longer, especially if the fighting intensifies in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul. This in turn could mean that the airpower so crucial to keeping US casualties down will be stretched to breaking point. Indicators of the extent of US concern will be whether the 101st is released soon to join the attacks in and around Baghdad and how many of the US reinforcements - 4th Infantry Division, 2nd and 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiments - are needed to defend the lines of communication. · Dan Plesch is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute Printable version | Send it to a friend | Save story
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