Confusing and vague reports emerged from the southern city of Basra and swirling winds complicated operations on the road to Baghdad yesterday, confounding reporters and military planners alike as the war in Iraq entered its sixth day.
Ronald Edsforth, a history professor and the coordinator of Dartmouth's War and Peace Studies program, warned that the fog of war makes it difficult to jump to conclusions even in an era of 24-hour news broadcasts.
In southern Iraq, British military officials confirmed reports of a civilian uprising against Saddam loyalists inside the city of Basra. However, details remained elusive.
"We don't know what has spurred them. We don't know the scale, we don't know the scope of it," Maj. Gen. Peter Wall of Great Britain told the Associated Press. When pressed for more specifics, Wall provided only that "significant numbers" of people were "being less compliant with the regime than they are normally."
This development was welcomed by American and British officials eager for ammunition in the battle for world opinion. Many had predicted that Basra's predominantly Shiite population would quickly rise against the regime once war began, providing the coalition with early images of celebrating civilians to beam around the world.
Edsforth warned that expectations of a warm welcome for U.S. troops may be unrealistic. He suggested that Iraqis may feel obligated to "defend their homeland" even if they do not support its regime.
Edsforth also said that emotion tends to take over "when people witness bombing and destruction and see their countrymen being killed." He emphasized that people's actions are shaped by their sources of information. "One of the things we're not seeing is the civilian casualties," he said, adding that news outlets in the Middle East are more likely to broadcast images that show U.S. military operations in a negative light.
Public relations victories, such as the civilian uprising in Basra, play an important role in American and British war plans, Edsforth said. "War today is a 24-hour television show."
On the ground, fighting raged around Basra in the sixth day of military action as forces attempted to gain control of the city and avert a humanitarian crisis. Coalition planners had hoped to avoid urban warfare inside Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, but water and food shortages -- caused in part by the disruption of the city's electrical power by Friday's strikes -- compelled them to act. The International Red Cross said that it has begun repairs at an important water-pumping facility in an attempt to mitigate the humanitarian crisis.
Officials discussing the fighting around Basra described a complex battle requiring caution and sensitivity toward the native population. "I believe that the U.S. is trying very hard to avoid civilian casualties," said Edsforth. "I think the restraint on that is that this is on a world stage." He added that unforeseen consequences are a fundamental part of war.
Chris Vernon, a British spokesman, told the Associated Press that Iraqi troops are using civilians as human shields in firefights around Basra. He described the difficulties of combined warfare in an urban setting. "We are not firing into the center of the city because we cannot risk the collateral damage to civilians, even though we are being fired on by their artillery."
U.S. and British troops fought an estimated 1,000 pro-Saddam troops in and around Basra, with at least two British soldiers killed in a friendly fire accident. American F/A-18 Super Hornet warplanes joined the fighting to drop satellite-guided bombs on military sites hidden in civilian buildings in central Basra.
Although intense sandstorms slowed the progress of U.S. troops toward the Iraqi capital, elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division were reported to be engaging Republican Guard units just 50 miles south of Baghdad. Other troops rushed north as quickly as the adverse conditions would allow.
A senior defense official also reported that U.S. troops had killed between 150 and 500 Iraqi troops in intense fighting near the central Iraqi city of An Najaf. The battle began after troops from the 7th Calvary Regiment came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades to the east of the city.
At a press conference in Washington, U.S. officials tamped down expectations that the war will end anytime soon. Edsforth agreed that no one should expect a resolution to the conflict in the next few days or even weeks. "I don't think it would go as long as two months," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
