The Iraqi army that U.S. forces may soon face in the sands of the northern Persian Gulf area honed its trade-swift tank movements, well-constructed earthworks and tight supply lines-over eight years of fierce battle with a numerically superior enemy often driven by religious fervor.
Even while the Iran-Iraq war raged, the Iraqi government sought to develop sophisticated guided missiles that could carry conventional and chemical warheads over 300- and 400-mile ranges, and a petrochemical industry that could turn out nerve and mustard gas without dependence on foreign supplies.
Saddam Hussein`s government ran a worldwide secret arms acquisition program that gave his 1.13 million-member armed forces specialized long-range artillery and high-speed ground-to-ground ballistic missile strength. Iraq also has sought nuclear weapons, and intelligence analysts recently revised their estimate to suggest that Iraq could have nuclear arms in the early 1990s.
Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Wednesday called the Iraqi army ”capable,” the crisp understatement of a ground officer.
”They have the capability to invade Saudi Arabia with forces in contact and they have the ability to reinforce those forces. That`s what`s caused this problem. . . . ”
Other defense experts said the Iraqis have about 200,000 soldiers in the Kuwait-Saudi region and nearly as many tank carriers as tanks, about 500. This would permit Iraqi ground commanders to move their forces swiftly, overcome Saudi ground forces in as quickly as three days, seize a valuable strip of oil refineries and shipping facilities along the gulf and move on to Riyadh, the capital.
These sources, several of them in government who asked anonymity, said there is grave danger of such an attack for at least the next several days and little that U.S. forces in the region could do to stop the onslaught.
In the long run, other Arab and Western forces could land and build up a major force while conducting strong aerial, naval and missile attacks, and prepare a full-scale ground war to dislodge the Iraqis. The greatest weapon for this force would be that Iraq could not get sufficient ammunition, parts, lubricants and petroleum products to sustain long combat with an expeditionary force.
”The outcome might be that the Iraqis would remove Hussein before this played out,” said one congressional expert on the region, ”as the devastation of bombing and missile attacks on chemical and munitions facilities and the shortages of food intensified.”
But few in Washington are optimistic about any of these speculations. Conservative estimates set the casualty toll for Iraq in the war with Iran at 120,000 killed and 300,000 wounded, but others think that up to twice that many may have died. As the war progressed, Hussein seemed to increase his power, not lose it.
For a nation of 17 million, a million-man armed force means virtually every family has a personal stake in the war machine. Hussein kept the army up to strength after the war, experts said, in part because the economy was so bad and the army gave employment and funds to a vital group of supporters.
Even while the Iran-Iraq war was being fought, Hussein began an extraordinary missile development program under his son-in-law, Hussein Kamil Majid, which has operated no fewer than five ambitious programs. The most sweeping, Condor II, developed with Egypt and Argentina, failed after a worldwide search for parts and technology. This missile was designed to carry a 1,000-pound payload 600 miles, a major explosive device.
But last December, the Iraqis tested another missile, the Tammuz, with a range of 1,250 miles, meaning it could hit any target in the Arab gulf states. Its payload is not known to civilian analysts.
It is developing smaller missiles-the Fahd, the Al-Husayn and the Al-Abbas-with payloads that would be most useful on smaller military targets, and Iraq also has large carriers.
What makes the Iraqi missile development most dangerous are the indications of chemical-warfare capability. The country has worked to develop self-sufficiency in the preparation of nerve gas, using vast natural supplies of phosphate, and mustard gas, the World War I weapon that scarred millions in Europe.
The key technology, according to W. Seth Carus, an expert on Iraqi arms who teaches at the Naval War College, is ”pure explosive technology. Pure explosives are bombs that are created by taking an explosive liquid and disbursing it as an aerosol and then detonating it. . . . That`s what you need for chemical and biological weapons for efficient delivery.”
To Gen. Powell on Wednesday, it seemed important to reassure Americans that these capabilities are not overwhelming. The Iraqis ”are not invincible and they`re not 10 feet tall,” he said.
Iraq has vulnerabilities. In the ”war of the cities,” the missile battle with Iran that began Feb. 29, 1988, and lasted 52 days, Carus said, the Iraqis fired 190 missiles. But loading, sighting and firing kept them to 13 or so a day, a slow fire rate that could be countered by other missiles or air attacks.
The Iraqis have one of the larger air forces in the Middle East, but congressional analysts say only a small portion of their pilots are trained to U.S. or Israeli standards, and that it is only the 90 or so French Mirage fighters and 25 MiG-29s that pose a real air threat.
Much of Iraq`s spectacular military development program-the research center near Mosul, the petrochemical works south of Baghdad, the phosphate mine facilities, the missile centers and the uranium enrichment centers-were built with the aid of foreigners-Germans, French, British and U.S. firms. This will give U.S. bombing officers clear information of where and how well protected these facilities are.
Also, Iraq never has fought an enemy with an advanced satellite surveillance of the kind launched by the U.S. The satellites will give U.S. intelligence agencies a vast daily knowledge of Iraqi troop movements.
