Battle of Baghdad looms

Battle of Baghdad looms

By Paul Reynolds BBC News Online world affairs correspondent

With US forces getting ever closer to Baghdad, the prospect is looming of a battle which will test not just the military strategy of this war but its political aims as well.

US-led forces are keen to avoid risky street battles

If the war ends in a damaging siege, it will undermine and possibly destroy, the concept that this is a war of liberation. Street fighting in Baghdad in which civilians are killed is not supposed to be the way it ends.

Much will depend on where the battle for Baghdad is fought. The US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that Saddam Hussein had withdrawn his Republican Guard back towards the city and it is not yet clear if it will fight inside or outside the capital. Perhaps it will do both.

American firepower

The Americans very much hope that it offers battle outside. That gives US forces an advantage because they can use their firepower. Otherwise, as one US colonel put it, it becomes a "knife fight in a telephone booth".

Retired General Barry McCaffrey, who commanded a division in the Gulf War of 1991, said that in an open battle, the Republican Guard would be "destroyed" within 12 hours by the tanks and in particular the helicopters and aircraft with the US 3rd Infantry Division which is the main force of the American advance.

Targeted air attacks have aimed to break down resistance

The battle with the Republican Guard, he said, was the "central reality, which Tommy Franks (the commanding general) is engaged on."

The Iraqi army commander indicated the Iraqi tactics when he said said dismissively that the Americans could have the desert and the Iraqis would keep the towns.

The latest reports indicate that the US and UK have started air attacks on three Republican Guard divisions to the south of Baghdad in an attempt to destroy as much possible and to stop them from moving back into the capital.

Retired Air Marshal Sir Timothy Garden remarked with understatement that there would be a "difficulty" if the end game were ultimately played out in "clearing Baghdad street by street".

There is supposed to be a collapse of the regime amid the destruction of its armed forces, the bombing of its key buildings and the uprising of the people.

Leadership defiant

Which is perhaps why Mr Rumsfeld is sounding increasingly urgent as he calls on Iraqi commanders to surrender.

"It's over," he said in an interview on CNN. "The regime will shortly be history."

However, the signs from the Iraqi south are that elements at least of the Iraqi army will make a stand.

And, interestingly, Mr Rumsfeld revealed that efforts to persuade commanders to come over were being conducted at unit level only.

Saddam Hussein shows no signs of surrendering

This suggests that, contrary to some reports, there are no contacts with the Iraqi leadership in the hope of persuading them to dump Saddam Hussein and save themselves.

The leadership appears to be defiant. They have not so far been shocked or awed, it seems.

Vice President Taha Yassir Ramadan appeared at a news conference in Baghdad on Sunday and showed no signs of surrendering. Nor did the interior minister on Friday who appeared in combat gear and with his chrome plated AK 47.

Indeed, Mr Rumsfeld, a student of history, will know that regimes facing even certain defeat do not necessarily crumble. The Argentine commander in the Falklands, the hapless General Menendez, fought on until the end.

Hitler knew he would be defeated yet held on until the Russians were at the doors to his chancellery.