Guerrilla War in Iraq: Some Lessons, Part 1

So what is the situation in Iraq? Certainly we're fighting Ba'athist remnants throughout the country. I believe there's mid- level Ba‘athist, Iraqi intelligence service people, Special Security Organization people, Special Republican Guard people that have organized at the regional level in cellular structure and are conducting what I would describe as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us. It's low-intensity conflict, in our doctrinal terms, but it's war, however you describe it.
— Gen. John Abizaid, Commander, US Central Command, July 16

General Abizaid, the new CENTCOM Commander, openly used the words which some civilian leaders in the Pentagon had long been avoiding: “a classical guerrilla-type campaign”. The refreshing candor merely acknowledged what has been increasingly obvious: there is a persisting low-level, but lethal, insurgency under way in parts of Iraq. The diehard Iraqi resistance has begun to use weapons such as mortars and shoulder-launched missiles, in addition to the small arms and rocket-propelled grenades which had been standard. The death toll is rising, after trailing off for a while in June: the last full week of July was the bloodiest for the US since the end of major operations. The deaths of ‘Udayy and Qusayy Saddam Hussein may in the long term work towards diminishing the resistance, but initially provoked retaliatory measures.

Some US Administration figures have continued to downplay the continuing resistance, noting its geographical limitations and narrow social base. Some editorialists have used the persisting guerrilla war to call for a quick withdrawal from Iraq. In the heat of partisan debate, it is easy to overlook the immediate problem facing the United States: first, to protect its forces adequately; second, to combat the insurgency; and thirdly, to find a way to transfer power to some sort of Iraqi authority that enjoys credibility with the people.

To some, the phrase “guerrilla war” apparently evokes echoes of Vietnam, and with it the assumption that the US cannot fight and win guerrilla wars. But the US has fought and won quite a few of them. Still, counterinsurgency operations (or low-intensity conflict, or any of the other phrases that have been applied) are a very different military challenge than fighting and defeating an enemy regular force. To a far greater degree, the attitudes of the local population and their perceptions of the challenged force are essential to the outcome. The United States is not certain to lose a guerrilla-style war, but it can, if it misjudges the situation and alienates the population. In Vietnam, the US failed for many reasons, but it has succeeded elsewhere. (Whether it should combat the Iraqi insurgency is of course a different, though related, issue.) This Dossier looks at some of the historical lessons of guerrilla insurgencies and how they may apply in the Iraqi case.

Mao Zedong put it most succinctly in his famous slogan that the guerrilla (or the People’s Army in a People’s War) must swim like a fish in the sea of the people. A popular insurgency in which the vast majority of the population shares the goals of the insurgents is a very difficult challenge indeed. But that does not appear to be the sort of challenge presented to the coalition forces in Iraq — at least, not yet.

Although the casualty toll is mounting and there is certainly a potential for a shift in US public opinion if the loss of American lives seems not to be balanced by some visible victories (such as the deaths of ‘Udayy and Qusayy), the toll is not that extraordinary when one considers the sequence of offensive operations the US has been conducting in recent weeks against insurgent elements and the core of the old regime’s support base in the so-called Sunni Triangle. The reasons for the high casualties are, basically, that US forces are engaged in search missions aimed at seeking Saddam and the leadership and at disrupting the resistance; that the July Ba‘ath revolutionary anniversaries and the growing successes of the coalition in rounding up their “most wanted” list give the resistance further inducement to carry out dramatic strikes; and that the US is still trying to transition from a force designed for conquest and occupation to one designed for administration and counterinsurgency.

Even the greatest victories can see insurgencies; some of the Nazi SS’ Werewolf operations of resistance at the end of World War II continued as late as 1947. (They ended, so they have been largely forgotten.)

In recent years the US Army’s old doctrinal field manual on low intensity conflict and counterinsurgency, FM-100-20, has been renumbered to FM 3-07, and renamed Stability Operations and Support Operations, to embrace a broader spectrum including peacekeeping and the support of what is now known as foreign internal defense (FID). But it still retains some of the definitions of insurgency and counterinsurgency principles of its predecessors, and among these is the statement that “Insurgency is not simply random political violence; it is directed and focused political violence. It requires leadership to provide vision, direction, guidance, coordination, and organized coherence. Leaders of the insurgency must make their cause known to the people and the government to establish their movement’s credibility. They must replace the government’s legitimacy with that of their own.”

The nature of the low-intensity conflict the US faces in Iraq at the moment is still not entirely clear, but it is safe to say that it is “not simply random political violence”. Surviving elements of the former regime, including the security forces, the irregular “Saddam’s Fedayin”, and other elements loyal to the former power structure are clearly behind the attacks. Leaflets posted in Baghdad and elsewhere have spoken of an organization calling itself al-‘Awda (the Return), meaning the return of Saddam and the Ba‘ath; how well-organized this movement is is not clear, at least from the public record.

Certainly the resistance is organized, and the continuing toll in US lives is of concern. But the degree of organization and the goals of the resistance are less clear. What does seem clear from the tape recordings attributed to Saddam Hussein and other indicators is that the resistance hopes to maintain a guerrilla resistance to the United States until public opinion in the US demands a withdrawal from Iraq. That would presumably require that the US itself maintain its occupation role for the time being and that efforts to hand over administration, policing, and other duties to indigenous Iraqis must be frustrated.

One of the few elements working in the insurgents’ favor is the legacy of a totalitarian-style society. The ubiquitous and merciless power of the ruling party was so thoroughly feared, that many Iraqis cannot yet fully believe that it is gone. Thus the prospect of its return can be used to intimidate Iraqis into non-cooperation with the occupying power. The choice of the term al-‘Awda suggests a shrewd piece of propaganda: it evokes the prospect/threat of Saddam returning to power and wreaking vengeance on those who collaborated with the occupier. (And the Shi‘ites remember how, in the 1991 uprising, the US stood to one side and allowed them to be crushed.) It is no accident, either, that the term ‘Awda or return evokes Palestinian rhetoric of return to Palestine as well, further cementing the effort psychologically to equate US occupation of Iraq with Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The fear of Saddam’s vengeance may work in favor of the insurgents, but little else seems to. They clearly do not have access to major combat weapons. Most of the attacks have relied on AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades, and explosives such as mines or car bombs; mortars have occasionally been used and so have shoulder-launched SAMs against aircraft, but without success in the latter case. The insurgents appear to operate in small units, have included suicide bombers, and show little sign of being able to mount sufficient forces to attack US strongholds. Rather, they have relied on attacking convoys as they move between better defended positions.

The insurgents cannot, and presumably do not particularly want to, defeat US forces force-to-force. They can, however, paint the US into a sort of garrison position, in which armed convoys must move between fortified positions, a stance which has the appearance of isolating the occupier from the local population and also may lead to overreactions on the part of troops on the defensive. In environments in which the insurgents can force the defending troops to overreact — as has often happened with Israeli forces in the West Bank and (formerly) Gaza, and happened with British troops in Ulster on “Bloody Sunday” and other occasions during the worst of the troubles there, such overreactions, especially if genuinely innocent blood is shed, can win new support for the insurgents among the population. That is, of course, a classic goal of any guerrilla.

This Dossier, which will consist of at least two parts, examines the nature of the insurgency and the means by which, based on current doctrine and historical experience, the US is likely to try to combat it. This first part analyzes the insurgency itself.

FM 3-07, already mentioned, retains a definition that has figured in both US Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency doctrine for some time. This is the assertion that there are seven elements common to all insurgencies: leadership, ideology, objectives, environment and geography, external support, phasing and timing, and organizational and operational patterns.

In terms of leadership, the history of Saddam Hussein’s rule has endowed his personality with an enormous force and has, to a large degree, reduced the power of the Ba‘ath Party as a mass organizing force. Although many successful insurgencies have had collective leaderships, those that have been most successful — Mao in China, Ho Chi Minh against the French, Castro against Batista — have tended to center on a charismatic personality.

The problem with such a system is that the charismatic personality can be removed from the scene. The late Ernesto “Che” Guevara had charisma and little else when he set out on his fatal venture in Bolivia. He may still be remembered as a romantic figure and memorable poster art, but few study him anymore as a guerrilla theorist.

In this context, the deaths of ‘Udayy and Qusayy certainly were a boon to US planning, since this demonstrated that the old regime is not invulnerable and that its re-establishment and return is something less than likely. But a far more decisive blow to the leadership of the insurgency will be struck if Saddam himself is killed or captured and there is no room for doubt about the fact. (Although many think that Usama bin Ladin is in fact dead, the fact that this is unproven means that he is still a potent leader around whom his supporters rally.)

The second characteristic, ideology, is particularly slippery here, because although the Ba‘ath was founded as a highly ideological party on the slogans of [Arab] Unity, Freedom [from colonial rule], and Socialism, Iraq had become a state so thoroughly focused on the Saddam cult of personality that ideology was virtually nonexistent. If Saddam is removed from the scene, it is hard to imagine the surviving Ba‘athists winning much support based on the party’s traditional ideology. More likely, the remaining opponents of the US would try to turn the resistance into a liberation movement promising to drive the Americans out.

Thus the primary focusing ideology would be nationalism. Iraqi nationalists have long looked to the 1920 uprising against the British as the critical moment in forging an Iraqi nation out of disparate tribal and urban elements of Arabs, Kurds, Sunnis and Shi‘ites. How potent such a rallying cry could be today depends on the degree to which the US is seen as an occupying rather than a liberating power. And, as in many other areas, that is going to be the crucial determining factor: if the sea of the people is hostile to the defender, the guerrilla fish has a place to swim.

In terms of objectives, the insurgents are presumably restorationists: they want to bring back Saddam. If Saddam is removed, then their objective will most likely be presented in terms of driving the Americans out, but their identification with the old regime will make it much less likely that they will win much support beyond their present power base. However, tactically, they might seek to identify themselves with other elements opposed to the American presence, combining forces against a common enemy. It is hard to imagine a “national front” composed of ex-Ba‘athists and Muqtada al-Sadr’s radical Shi‘ites, however, though perhaps not impossible. Certainly one goal of the US must be to prevent various elements opposed to the US from coming together against the US as the common enemy, and that doubtless means that the US must once again win the battle of perceptions. If it is perceived as an occupying power rather than a temporary administrator in a transitional period, then Iraqi nationalists of many different stripes might find common cause.

The element of environment and geography is particularly important here. The only good guerrilla country in Iraq is the Kurdish north, which is mountainous (there is a Kurdish proverb that “the Kurds’ only friends are the mountains”) and where guerrilla warriors have fought for generations. (Or, as one is reminded by Xenophon’s Anabasis, recording conflicts with the Kardukhoi, millennia.) The resistance has no real support in the mountains. The geographic area in which most of the attacks have played out is the area between the Euphrates and Tigris (and adjacent valley regions) north and west of Baghdad, roughly that part of Iraq historically known as al-Jazira (the island) or, in the West, Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers. The Shi‘ite south may be hostile to the US presence but, except for the deaths of six British military policemen, it has not been a scene of resistance.

Geography not only limits the insurgency’s range but also its options. Most of the region involved is open farmland, surrounded by open desert beyond the river valleys. While the desert can provide mobility for a bedouin-style force (as in the campaign of the Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I), that is not the way these Iraqi resisters have been trained, nor are they for the most part familiar with the desert. And they lack the sanctuary of the mountains, or the jungle cover of the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Perhaps most importantly, the next element, external support, is nonexistent. A few insurgencies have succeeded without external patrons, but usually not against a major power. The backing and resupply provided by the Soviet Union to the Chinese Communists during the civil war, or by the Soviets and Chinese to the North Vietnamese, have no parallels here. A few radical Islamists, Arab nationalists, or others who hate the US may volunteer to fight (though Islamists and Ba‘athists are strange bedfellows indeed), but these are unlikely to have much decisive effect. Most of the foreign volunteers who went to Afghanistan or to Iraq before the war found themselves prisoners quickly, often abandoned by their putative allies.

Phasing and timing is of course better judged after the insurgency has run its course and won or lost. Both Mao and Vo Nguyen Giap saw guerrilla war as an adjunct to conventional war, and anticipated that guerrilla operations would evolve into or be replaced by conventional war as victory neared. (In fact, in Vietnam, the guerrilla war essentially dwindled after 1968, as North Vietnam increasingly used regular forces.) But it seems quite possible that the Iraqi insurgents have misjudged their timing: they have attacked early, in the wake of the occupation, with most of the original invading force still present on the ground, and with US attention still focused intently on Iraq. They may therefore have given the US an opportunity to strangle the insurgency in its infancy, before it can broaden its support base.

It is also perhaps a bit early to judge the organizational and operational patterns of the insurgents. They do appear to be drawn from the coercive instruments, regular and irregular, of the former regime. They appear to rely on some sort of small-cell organization, and their primary base appears to be urban (Baghdad, Falluja, Tikrit, Ramadi, Samarra, etc.), their tactics essentially hit-and-run.

As the nature of the insurgent challenge becomes more apparent, assessing the proper means of countering it also becomes more crucial. One problem the US faces at the moment is that it is heavily reliant in the northern parts of Iraq on two formations, the Fourth Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). Neither is particularly designed for the counterinsurgency mission. Clearly, force planning will be an important part of any long-term counterinsurgency effort in Iraq.

But will there be a long-term requirement? Is this likely to be a long-term guerrilla war? That would appear to depend on two hugely important factors: whether Saddam himself can survive as a rallying point (hence the stepped-up US efforts to find him), and whether or not the United States can persuade the masses of the Iraqi people that it is indeed a temporary visitor and not an imperial power. There’s an old enough term for this: “winning the hearts and minds” of the people. It is a cliché, but like most clichés, it holds a fundamental truth.

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