portland imc - 2003.03.27 - STOP A VIOLENT MAN!

message for 'JD'

27.Mar.2003 19:18

You All Have MONTHS of this to 'endure'.

When Can My Privileged White Middle Class American Life Go Back To Normal?

The Anglo-American war now being fought in the Middle East is without question the most flagrant act of aggression carried out by a British government in modern times. The assault on Iraq which began a week ago, in the teeth of global and national opinion, was launched without even the flimsiest Iraqi provocation or threat to Britain or the US, in breach of the UN charter and international law, and in defiance of the majority of states represented on the UN security council.
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They are fighting for their independence, not Saddam

Resistance to the US-British occupation will not end with this regime

Seumas Milne
Thursday March 27, 2003
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,922710,00.html

The Anglo-American war now being fought in the Middle East is without question the most flagrant act of aggression carried out by a British government in modern times. The assault on Iraq which began a week ago, in the teeth of global and national opinion, was launched without even the flimsiest Iraqi provocation or threat to Britain or the US, in breach of the UN charter and international law, and in defiance of the majority of states represented on the UN security council.
It is necessary to descend deep into the mire of the colonial era to find some sort of precedent or parallel for this piratical onslaught. However wrong or unnecessary, every previous British war for the past 80 years or more has been fought in response to some invasion, rebellion, civil war or emergency. Even in the most crudely rapacious case of Suez, there was at least a challenge in the form of the nationalisation of the canal. Not so with Iraq, where the regime was actually destroying missiles with which it might have hoped to defend itself only a couple of days before the start of the US-led attack.

But there is little reflection of this reality, or of Anglo-American isolation in the world over the war, in either the bulk of the British media coverage or the response from most politicians and public figures. Little is now heard of the original pretext for war, Iraq's much-vaunted weapons of mass destruction, and regime change - that lodestar of the US hawks which Tony Blair struggled to dissociate himself from for so long - is now the uncontested mission of the campaign. Having lost the public debate on the war, Blair has demanded that a divided nation rally round British troops carrying out his policy of aggression in the Gulf. And under a barrage of war propaganda, the soft centre of public opinion has dutifully shifted ground - in the wake of those MPs who put their careers before constituents and conscience once Blair had failed to secure UN authorisation. Many balk at criticising the war when British soldiers are in action, but it's hardly a position that can be defended as moral or principled when the action they are taking part in arguably constitutes a war crime. And whether public support holds up under the pressure of events in Iraq - such as yesterday's civilian carnage in a Baghdad market - remains to be seen.

Events have, of course, signally failed to follow their expected course. The pre-invasion spin couldn't have been clearer. The Iraqis would not fight, we were told, but would welcome US and British invaders with open arms. The bulk of the regular army would capitulate as soon as soon as they saw the glint on the columns of American armour. The war might even only last six days, Donald Rumsfeld suggested, in a contemptuous evocation of the Arabs' humiliation in the Six Day war of 1967. His hard right Republican allies insisted it would be a "cakewalk". British ministers, as ever, took their cue from across the Atlantic, while the intelligence agencies and US-financed Iraqi opposition groups reinforced their arrogant assumptions.

But Rumsfeld's six days have been and gone and resistance to the most powerful military machine in history continues to be fierce across Iraq - in and around the very Shi'ite-dominated towns and cities, such as Najaf and Nasiriyah, that the US and Britain expected to be least willing to fight. Nor has the Iraqi army yet collapsed or surrendered in large numbers, while regular units are harrying US and British forces along with loyalist militias. One senior US commander told the New York Times yesterday, "we did not put enough credence in their abilities," while another conceded that "we did not expect them to attack". The International Herald Tribune recorded dolefully that "the people greeting American troops have been much cooler than many had hoped".

There was little public preparation for the resistance that is now taking place. Third World peoples have after all been allocated a largely passive role in the security arrangements of the new world order - the best they can hope for is to be "liberated" and be grateful for it. There has been little understanding that, however much many Iraqis want to see the back of Saddam Hussein, they also - like any other people - don't want their country occupied by foreign powers. No doubt Ba'athist militias are playing a coercive role in stiffening resistance. There are also those who cannot expect to survive the fall of the dictatorship and therefore have nothing to lose. But the scale and commitment of the resistance - along with reports of hundreds of Iraqis struggling to return from Syria and Jordan to fight - suggests that it is driven far more by national and religious pride. Most of these people are not fighting for Saddam Hussein, but for the independence of their homeland.

To fail to recognise this now obvious reality is not only condescending, but stupid. But then we have been subjected to such a blizzard of disinformation in recent days - from the reported deaths of Tariq Aziz and Saddam Hussein to the non-existent chemical weapons plant and Tuesday's uprising in Basra - that it should come as no surprise to hear everyone from British and US defence ministers to BBC television presenters refer to Iraqis defending their own country as "terrorists".

Of course, the US has the military might to break Iraqi conventional resistance and impose a puppet administration in Baghdad in order to change the regional balance of power, oversee the privatisation of Iraq's oil and parcel out reconstruction contracts to itself and its friends. But the course of this war will also have a huge political impact, in Iraq and throughout the world. This is after all a demonstration war, designed to cow and discipline both the enemies and allies of the US. The tougher the Iraqi resistance, the more difficult it will be for the US to impose its will in the country, and move on to the next target in the never-ending war on terror. The longer Iraqis are able and choose to resist, the more the pressure will also build against the war in the rest of the world.

Almost 86 years ago to the day, the British commander Lieutenant General Stanley Maude issued a proclamation to the people of Baghdad, whose city his forces had just occupied. "Our armies," he declared, "do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors, but as liberators." Within three years, 10,000 had died in a national Iraqi uprising against the British rulers, who gassed and bombed the insurgents. On the eve of last week's invasion Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins echoed Maude in a speech to British troops. "We go to liberate, not to conquer", he told them. All the signs from the past few days are that a new colonial occupation of Iraq - however it is dressed up - will face determined guerrilla resistance long after Saddam Hussein has gone; and that the occupiers will once again be driven out.

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The IRAQWAR.RU analytical center was created recently by a group of journalists and military experts from Russia to provide accurate and up-to-date news and analysis of the war against Iraq. The following is the English translation of the IRAQWAR.RU report based on the Russian military intelligence reports.

March 27, 2003, 1425hrs MSK (GMT +3), Moscow - There has been a sharp increase in activity on the southern front. As of 0700hrs the coalition forces are subjected to nearly constant attacks along the entire length of the front. The Iraqi command took the advantage of the raging sand storm to regroup its troops and to reinforce the defenses along the approaches to Karabela and An-Najaf with two large armored units (up to two armored brigades totaling up to 200 tanks). The Iraqi attack units were covertly moved near the positions of the US 3rd Infantry Division (Motorized) and the 101st Airborne Division. With sunrise and a marginal visibility improvement the Iraqis attacked these US forces in the flank to the west of Karabela.

Simultaneously, massive artillery barrages and counterattacks were launched against units of the US 3rd Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division conducting combat operations near An-Najaf. The situation [for the US troops] was complicated by the fact that the continuing sand storm forced them to group their units into battalion convoys in order to avoid losing troops and equipment in near zero-visibility conditions. These battalion convoys were concentrated along the roads leading to Karabela and An-Najaf and had only limited defenses. There was no single line of the front; aerial reconnaissance in these conditions was not possible and until the very last moment the coalition command was unaware of the Iraqi preparations.

During one of such attacks [the Iraqi forces] caught off-guard a unit of the US 3rd Infantry Division that was doing vehicle maintenance and repairs. In a short battle the US unit was destroyed and dispersed, leaving behind one armored personnel carrier, a repair vehicle and two Abrams tanks, one of which was fully operational.

At the present time visibility in the combat zone does not exceed 300 meters, which limits the effectiveness of the 101st Airborne Division and that of its 70 attack helicopters representing the main aerial reconnaissance and ground support force of the coalition. One of the coalition transport helicopters crashed yesterday during take-off. The reason for the crash was sand in the engine compressors.

The Iraqis were able to get in range for close combat without losses and now fierce battles are continuing in the areas of Karabela and An-Najaf. The main burden of supporting the coalition ground troops has been placed with the artillery and ground attack aircraft. Effectiveness of the latter is minimal due to the weather conditions. Strikes can be delivered only against old Iraqi targets with known coordinates, while actually supporting the ground troops engaged in combat is virtually impossible and attempts to do so lead to the most unfortunate consequences.

Intercepted radio communications show that at around 0615hrs this morning the lead of a flight of two A-10 ground attack planes detected a convoy of armored vehicles. Unable to see any markings identifying these vehicles as friendly and not being able to contact the convoy by radio the pilot directed artillery fire to the coordinates of the convoy.

Later it was discovered that this was a coalition convoy. Thick layers of dust covered up the identification markings - colored strips of cloth in the rear of the vehicles. Electronic jamming made radio contact impossible. First reports indicated that the US unit lost 50 troops killed and wounded. At least five armored vehicles have been destroyed, one of which was an Abrams tank.

During the past day the coalition losses in this area [ Karabela and An-Najaf ] were 18-22 killed and up to 40 wounded. Most of the fatalities were sustained due to unexpected attacks by the Iraqi Special Forces against the coalition rears and against communication sites. This is a sign of the increasing diversionary and partisan actions by the Iraqis.

During the same period of time the Iraqi forces sustained up to 100 killed, about the same number of wounded and up to 50 captured.

Since the beginning of the operation no more than 2000 Iraqi troops were captured by the coalition. The majority of the captured troops were members of regional defense [militia] units.

The Iraqis were able to move significant reinforcements to the area of An-Nasiriya making it now extremely difficult for the Americans to widen their staging areas on the left bank of the Euphrates. Moreover, the Americans [on the left bank of the Euphrates] may end up in a very difficult situation if the Iraqis manage to destroy the bridges and to separate [these US units] from the main coalition force. The US forces in this area consist of up to 4,000 Marines from the 1st Marine Division and supporting units of the 82nd Airborne Division. Currently, fighting has resumed in the An-Nasiriya suburbs.

During one of the Iraqi attacks yesterday against the US positions the Iraqis for the first time employed the "Grad" mobile multiple rocket launch systems [MLRS]. As the result an entire US unit was taken out of combat after sustaining up to 40 killed and wounded as well as losing up to 7 armored vehicles.

There are no other reports of any losses in this area [ An-Nasiriya] except for one US Marine drowning in one of the city's water canals and another Marine being killed by a sniper.

During the sand storm the coalition command lost contact with up to 4 coalition reconnaissance groups. Their whereabouts are being determined. It is still unknown what happened to more than 600 other coalition troops mainly from resupply, communications and reconnaissance units communication with which was lost during the past 24 hours.

The situation around Basra remains unclear. The Iraqis control the city and its suburbs, as well as the area south of Basra and the part of the adjacent Fao peninsula, which the British have so far failed to take. The British forces are blockading Basra from the west and northwest. However, due to difficult marshy terrain crossed by numerous waterways the British have been unable to create a single line of front and to establish a complete blockade of the city. Currently main combat operations are being launched for control of a small village near Basra where the local airport is located. The British field commanders report that there has been no drop in the combat activity of the Iraqis. On the contrary, under the cover of the sand storm up to two battalions of the "surrendered" Iraqi 51st Infantry Division were moved to the Fao peninsula to support the local defending forces.

Rumors about an uprising by the Basra Shiite population turned out to be false. Moreover, the Shiite community leaders called on the local residents to fight the "children of the Satan" - the Americans and the British.

During the past 24 hours the British sustained no less than 3 killed and up to 10 wounded due to mortar and sniper fire.

It is difficult to estimate the Iraqi losses [in Basra] due to limited available information. However, some reports suggest that up to 30 Iraqi troops were killed during the past day by artillery and aircraft fire.

During an attack against a coalition checkpoint in Umm Qasr last night one British marine infantry soldier was heavily wounded. This once again points to the tentative nature of the British claims of control over the town.

Information coming from northern regions of Iraq indicates that most of the Kurdish leaders chose not to participate in the US war against Iraq. The primary reason for that is the mistrust of the Kurds toward the US. Yesterday one of the Russian intelligence sources obtained information about a secret agreement reached between the US and the Turkish government. In the agreement the US, behind the backs of the Kurds, promised Turkey not to support in any way a formation of a Kurdish state in this region. The US has also promised not to prevent Turkey from sending its troops [ to Northern Kurdistan] immediately following [the coalition] capture of northern Iraq.

In essence, this gives Turkey a card-blanche to use force for a "cleanup" in Kurdistan. At the same time the Kurdish troops will be moved to fight the Iraqis outside of Kurdistan, thus rendering them unable to support their own people.

Along the border with Kurdistan Turkey has already massed a 40,000-strong army expeditionary corps that is specializing in combat operations against the Kurds. This force remains at a 4-hour readiness to begin combat operations.

All of this indicates that the coalition command will be unable to create a strong "Northern Front" during the next 3-4 days and that the US Marines and paratroopers in this area will have to limit their operations to distracting the Iraqis and to launching reconnaissance missions.

During a meeting with the Germany's chancellor [ Gerhard ] Schroeder the heads of the German military and political intelligence reported that the US is doing everything possible to conceal information on the situation in the combat zone and that the US shows an extremely "unfriendly" attitude. Germany's own intelligence-gathering capabilities in this region are very limited. This is the result of Germany, being true to its obligations as an ally, not attempting to bolster its national intelligence operations in the region and not trying to separate its intelligence agencies from the intelligence structures of NATO and the US.

There has been a confirmation of yesterday's reports about the plans of the coalition command to increase its forces fighting in Iraq. The troops of the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) are currently being airlifted to the region, while its equipment is traveling by sea around the Arabian Peninsula and the unloading is expected to begin as early as by the end of tomorrow. The Division numbers 30,000 soldiers and officers. By the end of April up to 120,000 more US troops, up to 500 tanks and up to 300 more helicopters will be moved to the region.

In addition to that, today the US President [George W] Bush asked the British Prime-Minister [Tony] Blair to increase the British military presence in Iraq by a minimum of 15,000-20,000 troops.

At the current level of combat operations and at the current level of Iraqi resistance the coalition may face a sharp shortage of troops and weapons within the next 5-7 days, which will allow the Iraqis to take the initiative. The White House took this conclusion of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff with great concern.

During the past seven days of the war the US Navy detained all ships in the Persian Gulf going to Iraq under the US "Oil for Food" program. Since yesterday all these ships are being unloaded in Kuwait. Unloaded food is being delivered by the US military to Iraq and is being distributed as "American humanitarian aid" and as a part of the "rebuilding Iraq" program. These US actions have already cause a serious scandal in the UN. The US explained its actions by its unilateral decision to freeze all Iraqi financial assets, including the Iraqi financial assets with the UN. These assets the US now considers its property and will exercise full control over them. Captains of the detained ships have already called these actions by the US a "piracy."

(source: iraqwar.ru, 03-27-03, translated by Venik)
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By the end of the war, therefore, the very idea that the Americans and British invaded Iraq to make its people free will look utterly absurd.

Stuck in Iraq
Prem Shankar Jha
March 27

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_222668,00120001.htm

Barely a week into the second Gulf War, most of the cosy assumptions on which the US had based its decision to attack Iraq are in danger of being proved false. These were, first, that Saddam Hussein was a hated tyrant whom all but a handful of Iraqis would be happy to see the last of.

Second, that the bulk of the Iraqi army, which was made up of 'wretched conscripts', was not prepared to fight a vastly superior force and would surrender in droves. Third, that there would, as a consequence, be relatively few Iraqi casualties, especially civilian. Fourth, that most Iraqis, especially the Shias of southern Iraq and the Kurds in the north, would welcome the 'coalition forces' as liberators.

All this would lead to a swift end to the war, perhaps in as little as two weeks. That would enable the 'coalition' to rush relief supplies into the Iraqi cities well before the food supplied before the war by the World Food Programme and slated to last for six weeks ran out. All this would facilitate a smooth and painless changeover from a dictatorial regime to a democratic one overseen by the United States.

As of today, all these calculations seem to be going haywire. Very few Iraqi soldiers have surrendered. On the contrary, the British and US forces moving towards Basra from Kuwait and towards Baghdad from the south have encountered unexpectedly stiff resistance. There have been pitched battles at Najaf and Nasiriyah. Heavy artillery fire has halted a British advance into Basra.

There has been a noticeable lack of enthusiasm for the 'liberators' among the people. There have been no civilian uprisings against Saddam, barring possibly a small one in Basra which might be part of a US-British covert operation using Iraqi dissidents. On the contrary, a top US army officer admitted to Bernard Weinraub of The New York Times that the Shia uprising that they had expected did not take place.

Still more unexpectedly, many civilians, currently estimated at 40,000, seem to have joined various irregular forces to fight the invaders. It is difficult not to conclude that while Saddam may be highly unpopular within the domestic Iraqi context, he has become a symbol of resistance to foreign aggression.

Even the US's capacity to keep Iraq united after the war is now in grave doubt. In the north, the Kurds, so far the US's staunchest allies, could be facing a monstrous betrayal. The Turkish Parliament seems to have concluded that the fall of Saddam will be a prelude to the emergence of an independent Kurdish state and has authorised the army to move into Iraqi Kurdistan should the need arise. The US is adamant that Turkey should not do this, but is hardly likely to declare war on Turkey if Ankara ignores its admonitions and moves in.

In the south, the unexpected resistance by armed civilians using guerrilla tactics has thrown into sharp relief the basic contradiction between the military and political objectives of the Bush administration in Iraq. Faced by a well dug in and hostile military force inside Nasiriyah, Najaf and Basra, US and British military commanders had to decide whether or not to call in artillery fire and aircraft strikes in order to minimise their own casualties when they went in, or to avoid calling in such strikes in order to minimise civilian casualties and the consequent anger of the populace against them.

Reports from the frontlines suggest that initially the senior commanders resisted insistent appeals by their field commanders to 'soften' the enemy, but eventually gave in.

As a result, civilians died in considerable numbers in Najaf and Nasiriyah on Monday. On Tuesday, the British declared Basra a 'legitimate military target', and artillery shells and bombs began to fall upon that city too. Inevitably, civilians have begun to die in Basra too.

As in Baghdad, the rising death toll has aroused a wave of anger in the people. This has become much more strident after the US bombing of a marketplace and residential area in Baghdad which have reportedly claimed about 20 Iraqi lives. The stiffer the resistance that the coalition forces will meet, the greater the civilian death toll will be, making it more difficult for the Americans to convince anyone in Iraq that they have come as liberators.

But the damage has not ended there. The invaders no longer know which civilian is a friend and which is a foe. As a result, they are increasingly treating all of them as foes. American marines have been given a checklist of the types of civilian vehicles upon which they are allowed to fire. Video clips aired on BBC and CNN have shown a truck with its windscreen shot out and the driver dead beside the open door. The truck turned out to contain fertilisers. The commentator stuck gamely to his script and insisted that the fertilisers could have been used to manufacture explosives.

In the same way an Iraqi irregular who walked straight towards a tank holding aloft a rocket grenade, was shot dead on the presumption that he was a suicide bomber, when he could have been trying to surrender. No one was taking any chances.

What lies ahead is likely to make Basra, Nasiriyah and Najaf look like a picnic. To capture or kill Saddam, the Americans have to take control of Baghdad, a Sunni-dominated city of five million people, and crush all semblance of resistance within it. They will face not only the Republican Guards but the elite of the irregulars, and will not be able to tell friend from foe. They will once again have to choose between sparing civilians at the cost of their own soldiers' lives, or pounding much of the city into rubble.

The stiff resistance from irregulars and civilians has revealed the flaw in the American plan to build a model democracy in Iraq after the war. For any such plan to work, it must have the acquiescence of the people whose polity is being 'reconstructed'. General MacArthur got this in Japan when he obtained the tacit blessings of Emperor Hirohito for his democratisation plans. By contrast, every additional day of war in Iraq will only deepen the chasm that already divides Iraqis from Americans.

By the end of the war, therefore, the very idea that the Americans and British invaded Iraq to make its people free will look utterly absurd. On the contrary, it is far more likely that guerrilla attacks will continue even after Baghdad falls, and will get transformed into terrorist attacks on members of the successor government and on Americans who stay behind.

It is hardly surprising therefore that British and US spokespersons have filled the airwaves with strident protests against Saddam's underhand tactics. They have warned Iraqi military leaders that dressing soldiers in civilian clothes is against the Geneva Convention. So is allowing them to mingle with civilians and use them, in effect, as human shields. Those guilty of authorising these acts will be tried for war crimes. But these warnings are not likely to impress a people who hold the Americans responsible for their impoverishment. They are the same people who can't understand why the Geneva Convention doesn't consider the unprovoked invasion of another country a war crime too.

Barring some kind of miracle, the US seems headed for a quagmire. If guerrilla attacks continue after the war is over, it will have to choose between building a police state in Iraq that will steadily intensify the oppression of the Iraqis as it tries to ferret out the fidayeen and other kinds of terrorists among them, and cutting its losses and beating a retreat. The former choice will lead to an endless involvement in a distant country with no exit in sight.
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The combination of wretched weather, long and insecure supply lines, and an enemy that has refused to be supine in the face of American military might has led to a broad reassessment by some top generals of U.S. military expectations and timelines. Some of them see even the potential threat of a drawn-out fight that sucks in more and more U.S. forces. Both on the battlefield in Iraq and in Pentagon conference rooms, military commanders were talking yesterday about a longer, harder war than had been expected just a week ago.

"Tell me how this ends," one senior officer said yesterday.

War Could Last Months, Officers Say

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 27, 2003; Page A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33955-2003Mar26.html

Despite the rapid advance of Army and Marine forces across Iraq over the past week, some senior U.S. military officers are now convinced that the war is likely to last months and will require considerably more combat power than is now on hand there and in Kuwait, senior defense officials said yesterday.

The combination of wretched weather, long and insecure supply lines, and an enemy that has refused to be supine in the face of American military might has led to a broad reassessment by some top generals of U.S. military expectations and timelines. Some of them see even the potential threat of a drawn-out fight that sucks in more and more U.S. forces. Both on the battlefield in Iraq and in Pentagon conference rooms, military commanders were talking yesterday about a longer, harder war than had been expected just a week ago, the officials said.

"Tell me how this ends," one senior officer said yesterday.

While some top planners favor continuing to press north, most Army commanders believe that the pause in Army ground operations that began yesterday is critical. A relatively small force is stretched thin over 300 miles, and much of the Army's killing power, in more than 100 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, has been grounded by persistently foul weather or by battle damage from an unsuccessful pre-dawn raid on Monday. To the east, the Marine Corps advance on the city of Kut was also hampered by skirmishing along its supply line and fuel shortages at the front.

More forces are coming, including the Army's 4th Infantry Division, which has begun pushing equipment from 35 ships into Kuwait after Turkey refused to allow U.S. forces to use its bases for a second front, into northern Iraq. But it will probably take the better part of a month for that tank-heavy division to get into position and provide combat power. Other forces heading to this region, including the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, based at Fort Carson, Colo., and the 1st Cavalry Division, from Fort Hood, Tex., will require months to move their tanks and other armor from their bases into combat, the defense officials said.

Pentagon spokesmen rejected that pessimistic assessment yesterday and insisted that the war is still going according to plan. "The plan has moved almost exactly with expectations," Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said at the briefing. "Fast where we expected it to be fast, gathering strength where we expected to do that. So the answer is, it's right on the mark."

But Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who maintains close ties to some senior Army generals, seemed to break with part of that assessment, saying in an interview with National Public Radio yesterday that it was becoming evident that the war "may take a little bit longer, don't know how long." He added: "The point is we have had a good battle plan, and it's a battle plan that will succeed."

In the short term, the Army plans to secure its strained supply lines with a portion of the 82nd Airborne Division, now positioned near Kuwait City, and troops from the 101st Airborne Division, which is gathering at a forward operating base deep inside Iraq, Army sources said.

The degree to which the supply lines have been stretched can be seen in the fact that the 3rd Division this week was alarmingly low on water and was also in danger of running short of food, the sources said. Heroic efforts have been made by truck companies and other logisticians, but a certain amount of chaos has developed, exacerbated by sniping and immense traffic backlogs from the Kuwaiti border. That traffic jam also has undermined Bush administration plans to quickly follow the U.S. military advance with tons of food and other humanitarian relief to win support among Iraqis. "There's tremendous fog out there," an officer said, referring to the confusion of wartime operations, with logistical commanders struggling to figure out where various supply items are in a system that at times resembles "just a bunch of guys out there driving around."

Commanders would like to have a 10-day supply of food, water, ammunition, fuel and other basic supplies before launching a concerted offensive, but equally critical are items such as batteries and vehicle parts.

Also, Army commanders have differing views about how vigorously the war must be prosecuted in Iraqi cities and towns. "How bad do you want to do it? We have the capability to surround a city, cut off the water, cut off the electricity. We don't want to do that," said one general. "It's all about having military success, not about attacking the civilian population. But you have to break [Hussein's] will, to make him understand that he will not win."

But another officer noted that rooting out militiamen and other irregulars fighting in southern Iraqi cities would enormously complicate the U.S. military effort, requiring more troops and many more supplies. "Let's say you throttle An Najaf," he said. "Then you've got 600,000 people in the city and surrounding region you're responsible for providing food, water and medical care for." Each additional combat unit sent to Iraq also will add to the logistical strain, he said.

Overhanging all developments in the war this week is the unsettling realization that thousands of Iraqis are willing to fight vigorously. During planning for the invasion, worst-case scenarios sometimes predicated stiff resistance, but "no one took that very seriously," an officer said.

"The whole linchpin of this operation was the reaction of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi ground force," said retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew, a specialist in war planning. "If they don't turn, and so far they haven't, we have a very different strategic problem facing us than when we went in."

When Army combat operations resume, major adjustments are likely in strategic goals and targets. The sources said that some of the major assumptions underpinning the U.S. approach are being discarded. The planned blitzkrieg to Baghdad has stalled. Airpower has delivered less than expected. And Saddam Hussein and those around him still appear to have a firm grip on the Iraqi military and people. In an extremely unusual battlefield action, two Army M1 Abrams tanks were badly damaged in combat Tuesday.

An Army general and others said that rather than slice through Republican Guard defenders and drive straight for Baghdad, the Army and Marines are likely to be forced to focus on wiping out most of the Guard divisions facing them south of Baghdad.

"I think you need to defeat them in detail," said the general, using the military term for destroying a unit. "I think you should 'Pac Man' the ring around Baghdad," he said, referring to the 1980s computer game in which a big dot gobbled up smaller ones.

Retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey said the Army and Marine forces converging on the Republican Guard south of Baghdad will have no choice but to continue to attack those Iraqi defenders. "We've got no option, we're committed," he said. But, he added, "I wouldn't go into Baghdad before I had another armored division come up into my rear."

The question is whether the 3rd Infantry Division will be able to continue to fight the Republican Guard without reinforcements. "I think the Third I.D. is going to run out of steam pretty soon, both people and machines," said Killebrew, the retired Army planner.

But McCaffrey, who during the 1991 Gulf War commanded what is now the 3rd Infantry Division, said he thought the unit was capable of taking on all three Republican Guard divisions on the southern side of the so-called red zone that marks the capital's defensive perimeter.

Another key variable is how effective U.S. warplanes will be in aiding the Army and Marines by hitting Iraqi military forces moving toward the U.S. position in the heavily populated, well-vegetated Euphrates River valley. That is a far different proposition from striking Iraqi armor in the flat, open desert, which was the major task of U.S. airpower in the Gulf War. Over the last two days U.S. airstrikes have been curtailed by the powerful sandstorms that have howled through central Iraq.

Military intelligence indicated that elements of the Medina Division of the Republican Guard were taking advantage of the cover provided by the tail end of the storms to move toward the "Karbala Gap," a narrow strait between Lake Razzaza and the Euphrates, a military official said yesterday.

Some Pentagon officials were practically gleeful at the development, with one saying the column would be "like shooting fish in a barrel" or like "a turkey shoot."

But others were less sanguine. The column is moving from fighting position to fighting position, from revetment to revetment, always taking protective cover. "This is their turf," one official said. "They've probably done exercises there their whole life. The defense of Baghdad is all they've trained for."

Finally, the resilience of the Medina Division will be a major indicator of whether the 3rd Infantry Division can do the job by itself or will have to dig in and wait for help in April from the 4th Infantry Division.

Unless the Iraqi government collapses after part of the Republican Guard is destroyed, an attack on the capital is likely to be postponed until that division arrives, some defense officials and other experts predicted.

"We're not going to rush headlong into the city, absolutely fruitless to do so and suicidal at best," a Pentagon official said. "The goal is to encircle the city and take it on our terms."

Retired Army Col. Benjamin W. Covington, an expert in tank warfare, agreed, saying: "Everything on the ground depends on the arrival of the 4th Infantry Division. I expect the final battle for Baghdad will occur when they are in the fray."

Some Pentagon insiders and defense experts vigorously contested these pessimistic assessments.

"This is not a crisis," said former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who is a friend of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and of Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the U.S. commander in the war. "The plan is going surprisingly well so far."

Gingrich, who also is a member of the Defense Policy Board, a top Pentagon advisory group, said the key fact to keep in mind is that U.S. forces drove to within 50 miles of the capital in just six days without being engaged by regular Iraqi forces. "If they come out and fight us, they will be annihilated," he said.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich agreed with Gingrich's view, saying: "Despite the best efforts of the Iraqi military, they have not been able to stop a fantastic rate of advance, one of the greatest advances in military history, and they have not been able to do more than ding the coalition juggernaut."

One senior general at the Pentagon, listening to both sides of the argument, said he thinks that in short term the pessimists will look right, but will be proved wrong by mid-April. "There are some tough days ahead," he said. "I think this whole thing is at the culminating point. Within the next week to 10 days, we will find out about the mettle of the Republican Guard." But, he concluded, "Once we smash the Medina and Baghdad divisions, it's game over, and I think Baghdad will fall."

Correspondent Rick Atkinson in central Iraq and staff reporters Jonathan Weisman and Vernon Loeb in Washington contributed to this report.