Saddam cannot outfight the United States but he hopes to outlast it by bogging it down in a bloody quagmire like the war in Vietnam, which is a constant reference in his thinking. Like Hitler, he thinks Americans are soft and cannot stomach casualties - American casualties or Iraqi civilian casualties. He probably perceives the US failure to finish him off after the 1991 Gulf War as a sign of weakness, not of restraint.
Saddam is rational, but only
when it is understood that his ultimate goal is holding on to
power, not defending the interests of the Iraqi people. Saddam knew he would lose the 1991
Gulf War, but probably believed that if he backed down and pulled
out of Kuwait with his tail between his legs, he would be
overthrown by his own army. Indeed, there were at least two
reported military coup attempts in the year before he invaded
Kuwait.
Saddam
learned in the 1991 Gulf War that Iraq had little chance of
defeating U.S. military forces in the open desert, because that
left Iraqi forces vulnerable to superior American armor and
overwhelming air power. This
time around, the Iraqis have made little attempt to defend Iraq's
borders, but have concentrated their best military units - the
Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard - in central Iraq
close to Baghdad and Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.
American and
British columns are now cutting through Iraq's soft peripheral
defenses like a knife through butter. But as they approach Baghdad,
Saddam likely plans to bog them down in urban street fighting.
This not only will help
neutralize American air power and armor columns, but also will
generate greater American casualties. Moreover, such a strategy will
generate more Iraqi civilian casualties, because Saddam's diehard
troops will be entrenched inside the city amid a hostage civilian
population.
Saddam hopes that
his last stand will be broadcast live by the international media
and will provoke a firestorm of political protest in the Arab world
and strong international pressure to halt the U.S. offensive in its
tracks. Such a strategy of
using human shields helped Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to
escape from Beirut after his terrorist forces were encircled and
besieged by the Israelis in 1982 during the Israeli intervention in
Lebanon. But holding Baghdad
hostage cannot save Saddam now, only delay the inevitable.
The Bush
Administration initially sought to defeat Saddam's human shield
strategy by trying to eliminate the Iraqi dictator in a bold air
and cruise missile strike at the outset of the war. This apparently failed and now
American and British forces are streaming towards Baghdad for the
final showdown with Saddam.
Speed is critical because allied forces need to overwhelm and disarm Iraq's military forces before they recover their balance and regroup for urban street fighting. The faster American forces can converge on Baghdad, the sooner Iraqi morale will collapse, and the faster Saddam's few remaining loyalists will desert his cause.
