Dartmouth government professor and urban warfare expert Daryl Press joined such national luminaries as Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman on the March 26 editorial page of The New York Times to analyze the course a battle for Baghdad might take.
"The basic argument is a good news/bad news story," Press explained to The Dartmouth. "The bad news is that if in fact we have to come into the city of Baghdad, and if they resist quite hard, this military operation will be the hardest thing the U.S. has asked its military to do in decades."
"The good news is that that although urban warfare is very hard, in this case it's not as difficult as some may argue. We probably could take Baghdad if we wanted to."
Press emphasized the complexity of fighting house to house and street to street. "Urban fighting is extremely difficult. It causes many military casualties and kills a lot of civilians."
Why is fighting in a city so hard? Urban areas provide defenders with places to hide snipers, and buildings interrupt lines of sight, negating some of the technological advantages for armies with more sophisticated weaponry. Additionally, moving large armored vehicles through a tangle of city streets is not as easy as racing them across the open desert.
"If a column of vehicles is driving down a narrow street, and you destroy the lead and the back one, the column can easily be destroyed because they're trapped," Press said..He pointed out that these dangers are somewhat mitigated by Baghdad's unique urban geography. The Iraqi capital, especially the area near most of Saddam Hussein's compounds, is marked by wide boulevards and short buildings.
American troops will also have the added advantage of night vision goggles. "Some Iraqi troops have night vision equipment, but most will be blind in the dark," Press wrote in The New York Times.
Nonetheless, fighting through the heart of Baghdad will no doubt be hellish for those involved. "The main strategy [the Iraqi defenders] will use include all kinds of ambushes, soldiers dressed in civilian clothing, guerilla tactics, snipers in buildings, booby trap the doors and the stairs, use the sewers and utility tunnels to get behind us, they'll plant mines in the sewers and utility tunnels," Press said.
By looking at "fatality ratios" from past urban battles in Israel, Vietnam and Panama, Press predicted that U.S. forces would most likely lose between 400 and 800 soldiers in a battle for Baghdad. A worst-case scenario could mean up to 2,000 dead. He also warned that many more soldiers will be wounded than killed.
"In urban operations, civilian casualties are frequently higher than military casualties," Press said. However, he qualified this assertion. "The quality of the data on civilian casualties is horrendous. Everyone has an incentive to lie."
Press sharply criticized military planners for their overconfidence in expecting Saddam's most loyal units to surrender. "The whole war -- especially the operation to take Baghdad -- hinged on the assumption that the security forces and the Republican Guard wouldn't fight. That's shameful."
In his editorial, Press pointed out that the Republican Guard actually fought quite well in 1991. They also supported Saddam Hussein in suppressing the uprisings that followed the First Gulf War even when the leader's grip on power seemed to be slipping.
"People now might say that hindsight is 20/20, that what we're doing now is a bunch of Monday night quarterbacking. However, I don't think that's the way we should look at it," Press said. "We shouldn't have gone to this war assuming they wouldn't fight."
Press reported that the U.S. military still hopes to avoid fighting its way through Baghdad by besieging the city. "The way a siege works is you surround the city, encourage the civilians to leave, and then eventually the government just collapses," Press said. "The problem is this: Saddam wants us to come into the city, and he has some cards to play to make us do it."
Press expressed deep concern that coalition forces will eventually be drawn into a painful battle for Iraq's nerve center. "The thing that worries me the most is that when we're standing outside the city, the people might finally do what we want them to do and rise up against Saddam. If they do and he brutally puts down the uprising, literally mows thousands of people down with machine guns, there will be no way we can stay out."
