Yesterday U.S. forces continued thrusts into Baghdad and held on to several symbolic sites within the city in the wake of a downtown bunker-buster bombing that may have killed Saddam Hussein on Monday afternoon.
Government professor and urban warfare expert Daryl Press, who has recently appeared on CBS, CNN and the Upper Valley's own WMUR to present his analysis, expressed surprise about the ineptitude of Saddam's loyalist forces fighting on Baghdad's boulevards but stressed that the American-led coalition still controls only a small portion of the Iraqi capital.
After seizing and holding a presidential palace and the Information Ministry in downtown Baghdad on Monday, U.S. forces took hold of a Republican Guard headquarters and a military airport on Tuesday. The New York Times reported that nearly an entire armored brigade, which typically includes around 120 tanks, remained in the heart of the city.
Despite these gains, Press explained that the American-led coalition only controls small parts of the capital. "U.S. forces don't hold much of the city at all. All they've done is capture a few government facilities in the center of the city."
Press said that the current mission is focused more on psychological gains than on territorial ones. "Success or failure in this operation can't be measured in the number of blocks we control. We will know we have been successful if and when the Iraqi government surrenders and Saddam's loyalists stop fighting."
According to Press, coalition planners hope to "draw Saddam's loyalist fighters into a firefight so that the U.S. military can kill them."
Many students expressed surprise that early raids into Baghdad killed thousands of Iraqi soldiers while producing few American casualties. The first U.S. thrust into the capital left between 1,000 and 3,000 Iraqis dead with only one American death.
Press said that many military experts are equally miffed. "What is surprising is that the columns of U.S. tanks haven't yet been ambushed by Iraqi soldiers wielding the hundreds of anti-tank missiles that we know they own."
Instead, Iraqi troops have primarily used machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, weapons typically ineffective against modern tanks. "Ambushing tanks with anti-tank missiles is Urban Warfare 101. The Iraqis are proving to be as inept at urban conflict as they have been at all the other types of military operations," Press said. "Thank God we're not fighting the Chechens."
Nonetheless, the fighting may become more difficult in the absence of a complete surrender of Saddam's loyalists. "What we have shown so far is that we can move columns of tanks down the main boulevards of Baghdad with near impunity," Press said. "What we don't yet know is how we'll do when we get into more constrained parts of Baghdad with narrower roads and more civilians."
So far, U.S. troops in the streets of Baghdad have not had to wander far from their armored vehicles. Those that remain at select sites inside the city are most likely defended by companies of tanks. "We don't yet know how safe Baghdad will be for dismounted infantrymen; soldiers walking on the street," Press said. "We're desperately trying to avoid going through Baghdad block by block."
Though some analysts have expressed worry about the possibility of waves of suicide attacks against U.S. forces -- seven American soldiers have already died in three "martyrdom missions" -- Press suggested that coalition forces in Baghdad are not presently in grave danger from this threat because "U.S. soldiers will probably not allow any Iraqi vehicles to get too close to them."
This was attested to by Associated Press reporter Ellen Knickmeyer, who recorded seeing an apparently disoriented old man shot dead by Marines when he continued toward their position after several warning shots.
Press warned that U.S. troops will be in greater danger once the peacekeeping phase of the mission in Iraq commences. "When we're policing the streets of Baghdad, there will be no way to avoid close contact with Iraqi civilians and vulnerability to terrorist attacks," Press said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
