Operation Desert Fox: A Preliminary Balance Sheet

The US and British attack on Iraq, Operation Desert Fox, began late on December 16, only a day and a half before this issue of The Estimate was due at press. The approach of the holidays makes it impractical to hold the issue over the weekend, so the assessment offered here is necessarily preliminary, offered well before the operation is completed and before even a general target list has been made available. Most readers will have much fuller knowledge of the targets and results by the time they receive this issue than was available when written.

Some things are clear however: the general scope and nature of Desert Fox — despite that curious evocation of the ghost of Erwin Rommel — is comparable to the attack which was aborted in November. It was using naval assets — the carrier Enterprise on scene and the Carl Vinson arriving at presstime — along with limited ground-based aircraft (at presstime only Kuwait was openly allowing its airfields to be used, though other countries may be quietly participating in support) and B-52s from Diego Garcia. Only the British, flying from Kuwaiti bases, joined with the US Naval and Air Force assets. President Clinton’s initial remark that the raid was timed to avoid the beginning of Ramadan was subsequently followed by Pentagon spokesmen and the Secretary of Defense refusing to commit to ending the raids by the first night of Ramadan, but clearly the raids were envisioned as lasting several days rather than several weeks. Given the air assets available now compared with the much more extensive ones available during the air phase of Desert Storm in January-February 1991, which bombed for weeks, it is clear that the objectives must also be more limited. The forces in the area simply cannot do what was done in 1991, even if they wished to.

The objectives have been the problem faced by the US ever since Saddam began these confrontations a year ago. Air power alone cannot remove Saddam Hussein (unless one gets lucky), or guarantee an end to his weapons programs, but there is neither the political will nor the military force present to do much more than use air power, and at lower levels than in 1991. While clearly the goal of the inspections and/or the military action in lieu of inspections is to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD), that is easier said than done. Despite years of intrusive inspections, it is clear that some capabilities are still being hidden. If the West were certain where they are hidden, they could be easily targeted, but that has been the whole problem. Chemical and biological weapons, in particular, are easy to manufacture and easy to hide. Nuclear-related plants have either already been dismantled or are presumably targets, but the nuclear physicists who work there do not forget their trade. Thus the objectives presumably are not only what can be identified as related to WMD, but also the delivery systems, particularly missiles, which are harder to hide. Yet it is estimated by the UN that Saddam has indeed hidden several Scud launchers, missiles, and perhaps WMD warheads.

Since even the most ardent air power enthusiast will not claim that air attacks can guarantee destruction of every vial of anthrax or canister of gas in Iraq, the key word usually used by the policy planners has been the need to “degrade” Iraq’s capabilities. One method, clearly, is to strike at military formations which might be involved in manufacture or delivery of weapons of mass destruction; another, clearly acknowledged by the US, is striking at military and intelligence bodies whose primary role is the protection of the regime. The leaked estimate of high casualties expected in November (challenged by many and misquoted by the press) was probably based on sustained attacks against special Republican Guard barracks, with resulting casualties. It is also clear that the Special Security Organization (Jihaz Amn al-khass), which is run by Saddam’s son Qusayy, has been a key target, along with military intelligence. There are some potential problems with these targets: because they involve attacks on personnel they may create large numbers of casualties, though these would be military casualties; because they are sometimes headquartered in urban areas, even downtown Baghdad, there is also danger of civilian collateral damage casualties with resulting negative publicity.

The negative side of the ledger is fairly obvious, as well. The fact that the US and the UK alone, not the broad coalition of 1991, carried out the attacks is one item. President Bill Clinton’s visit to Gaza won a great deal of applause in the Arab world, when he seemed to be envisioning a Palestinian state: his bombing of Iraq loses much of that good will (and some of those American flags which were waving on Monday were being burned by Thursday). Ostensibly at least, only Kuwait in the Arab world seemed to cheer on the attacks. Other Arab states have no love for Saddam, but they worry that if Saddam is still standing at the end of the raid, he will have won again: despite the losses he takes, he will still be in power, the US unable to remove him, and the Iraqi people’s suffering gaining more and more sympathy in the Arab street. The Saudis in particular very much want Saddam gone, but they are reluctant to support air strikes precisely because at the end they expect he will not be gone, and their own street will blame the Royal Family for Arab casualties. They would applaud Machiavelli’s dictum that if you would strike at a prince, you must kill him. Striking at Saddam without killing him makes things worse. The “wag the dog” issue is also a real one, in the US political scene where some Republican leaders questioned the coincidence of timing the attack the day before the impeachment vote, and abroad, where US arguments can easily be dismissed as political expediency on Clinton’s part.

Saddam can be expected to play the sympathy of the Arab street as fully as ever. He may well have chosen to time his blocking of inspection of the Ba‘th Party headquarters — the first of several last minute refusals which led ultimately to the strikes — with full awareness of the impeachment issue in the US and, of course, the emotional impact of the beginning of Ramadan. He will have more sympathizers in the Arab world on the present issue — the Arab world is well aware that the West looks the other way on Israel’s nuclear and biological and chemical arsenal — than he had when he was occupying Kuwait. Some of these issues will be explored more fully in the next issue.

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