Guerrilla War in Iraq

INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING
18 June 2003

by Dr. George Friedman

Summary

The United States is now clearly involved in a guerrilla war in 
the Sunni regions of Iraq. As a result, U.S. forces are engaging 
in counterinsurgency operations, which historically have proven 
most difficult and trying -- for both American forces and 
American politics. Suppressing a guerrilla operation without 
alienating the indigenous population represents an extreme 
challenge to the United States that at this point does not appear 
avoidable -- and the seriousness of which does not appear to be 
broadly understood.

Analysis

The United States currently is involved in an extended, low-
intensity conflict in Iraq. More precisely, it is involved in a 
guerrilla war in the Sunni areas of the country, including much 
of Baghdad proper as well an arc that runs from due west to the 
north. The almost daily guerrilla attacks against U.S. forces 
have resulted in nearly 50 deaths since U.S. President George W. 
Bush declared the end of major military operations; they also 
have tied down a substantial number of troops in 
counterinsurgency operations, two of which (Operations Peninsula 
Freedom and Desert Scorpion) have been launched already.
The war is not strategically insignificant, even though the level 
of intensity is relatively low at this point. Guerrilla warfare 
can have a disproportionate effect strategically, even when it 
can be tactically and operationally managed. 

There are two reasons for this. The first is that it violates the 
principles of economy of force: The quantity of force required to 
contain a guerrilla operation is inherently disproportionate 
because the guerrilla force is dispersed over a large geographic 
area, and its stealth and mobility requires a much larger force 
to contain. Second, guerrilla war generates political realities 
that affect the strategic level of war. Because of the nature of 
counterinsurgency operations, guerrillas can generate a 
simultaneous perception of weakness and brutality, regardless of 
the intentions of the conventional forces. Since guerrillas 
choose the time and place of their own attacks and use mobility 
to evade counterattacks, the guerrilla appears to be outfighting 
the regular forces. Even when they are merely holding their own 
or even losing, their continued operation generates a sense of 
power for the guerrillas and weakness for the counterguerrilla 
force. 

The nature of counterinsurgency requires that guerrillas be 
distinguished from the general population. This is 
extraordinarily difficult, particularly when the troops trying to 
make the distinction are foreign, untrained in the local language 
and therefore culturally incapable of making the subtle 
distinctions needed for surgical identification. The result is 
the processing of large numbers of noncombatants in the search 
for a handful of guerrillas. Another result is the massive 
intrusion of force into a civilian community that may start out 
as neutral or even friendly, but which over time becomes hostile 
-- not only because of the constant intrusions, but also because 
of the inevitable mistakes committed by troops who are trying to 
make sense of what appears to them an incoherent situation.

There is another level on which the guerrilla war intersects 
strategy. The United States invaded Iraq in order to be perceived 
as a decisive military power and to set the stage for military 
operations elsewhere. Guerrilla warfare inevitably undermines the 
regional perception of U.S. power -- justly or not -- while 
creating the impression that the United States is limited in what 
it can do in the region militarily. 

Thus, the United States is in a tough spot. It cannot withdraw 
from Iraq and therefore must fight. But it must fight in such a 
way that avoids four things:

1. It cannot fight a war that alienates the general Iraqi 
populace sufficiently to generate recruits for the guerrillas and 
undermine the occupation.

2. It cannot lose control of the countryside; this could 
destabilize the entire occupation.

3. It cannot allow the guerrilla operation to undermine its 
ability to project forces elsewhere.

4. It cannot be allowed to extend the length of the conflict to 
such an extent that the U.S. public determines that the cost is 
not worth the prize. The longer the war, the clearer the 
definition of the prize must be.

Therefore, the task for U.S. forces is:

1. Identify the enemy.
2. Isolate the enemy from his supplies and from the population.
3. Destroy him.

The dos and don'ts of guerrilla warfare are easy to write about, 
but much more difficult to put into practice.

The centerpiece of guerrilla warfare, even more than other types 
of war, is intelligence. Knowing who the enemy is, where he is 
and what he plans to do is the key to stopping him. In Vietnam, 
the North Vietnamese had much better intelligence about these 
three things than the United States. Over time, despite material 
weakness, they were able to turn this and a large pool of 
manpower into victory by forcing the United States to do the four 
things it should never have done.

Since intelligence is the key, we must consider the fact that 
this war began in an intelligence failure. The core assumption of 
U.S. intelligence was that once the Baath regime lost Baghdad, it 
would simply disappear. Stratfor had speculated that Saddam 
Hussein had a postwar plan for a national redoubt in the north 
and northeast, but our analysis rejected the idea of a guerrilla 
war on the basis that Iraq's terrain would not support one. 

Nevertheless, it is the strategy the Baathists apparently have 
chosen to follow. In retrospect, the strange capitulation of 
Baghdad -- where large Iraqi formations simply melted away -- 
appears to have been calculated to some degree. In Afghanistan, 
the Taliban forces were not defeated in the cities. They declined 
combat, withdrawing and dispersing, then reorganizing and 
returning to guerrilla warfare. Hussein appears to have taken a 
page from that strategy. Certainly, most of his forces did not 
carry out a strategic retreat to return as guerrilla fighters; 
most went home. However, a cadre of troops -- first encountered 
as Mujahideen fighters in Basra, An Nasiriyah and Karbala -- seem 
to have withdrawn to fight as guerrillas.

What is important is that they have retained cohesion. That does 
not necessarily mean that they are all being controlled from a 
central location, although the tempo of operations -- daily 
attacks in different locations -- seems to imply an element of 
planning by someone. It does mean that the basic infrastructure 
needed to support the operation was in place prior to the war:

1. Weapons and reserve weapons caches placed in locations known 
to some level of the command.

2. A communications system, whether simply messengers or 
communications gear, linking components together by some means.

3. Intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities designed to 
identify targets and limit enemy intelligence from penetrating 
their capabilities.

The central question is how they do this. First, how many and 
what kind of weapons are stored, and where are they? Not only in 
terms of conventional weapons, but also of weapons of mass 
destruction. This is a critical question. We continue to suspect 
that Hussein had chemical and possibly biological weapons before 
the U.S.-led war. Where are the weapons now? Are they stored in 
some way? Are they available for use, for example, against U.S. 
base camps at some point?

Second, what is the command and control system? Are these 
autonomous units operating without central control, are they 
centrally controlled or is it a mixed system? Suddenly, the 
question of Hussein's whereabouts ceases to be irrelevant. Are 
Hussein and his lieutenants operating the war from a bunker 
somewhere? How do they communicate with whatever command 
authority might exist?

How can U.S. intelligence penetrate and disrupt the guerrilla 
movement? The United States is best at electronic and image 
intelligence. If the guerrillas stay away from electronic 
communications except in extreme cases, electronic intelligence 
will not work. As for image intelligence, it might be used to 
find arms caches, but it is generally not particularly helpful in 
a guerrilla war at this level. 

Vo Nguyen Giap, who commanded communist forces against both 
France and the United States in Vietnam, divided guerrilla war 
into three stages:

1. Stage one: very small unit, hit-and-run actions without any 
attempt to hold territory.

2. Stage two: continuation of stage one attacks combined with 
larger units, regimental and below, engaging in more intense 
attacks and taking and holding remote terrain as needed.

3. Stage three: conventional warfare against a weakened enemy who 
is engaged and defeated.

Giap argued that the transition between stages is the key to 
successful guerrilla operations: Too late or too early are the 
issues. In Iraq, the guerrillas have a separate problem -- the 
terrain makes the concentration of forces too risky. It is one 
thing to mass several companies of light infantry in the 
Vietnamese jungle. It is another thing to do the same in the 
Iraqi desert. The Iraqi Achilles heel is that the transition from 
the current level of operations is very difficult to achieve.

This is the same problem facing the U.S. forces. If a guerrilla 
war is to be won, the second stage is the point at which it can 
be won. During the first stage, the ratio between operational 
costs and damage to the enemy is prohibitive. Carrying out 
battalion-sized operations to capture or kill three guerrillas is 
not only exhausting, it also undermines popular support for 
counterinsurgency measures. In a stage two operation, the ratios 
are more acceptable. But the Iraqis can't move to stage two 
without playing into the hands of the Americans.

That seems to argue that the Iraqis intend to remain at this 
level of operations for an extended period of time. How long 
depends as much on their resources as on their intentions. How 
many fighters they have, how secure their command system is, 
where their weapons are located and how many they have will 
determine the length of the fight.

From the U.S. point of view, fighting a retail guerrilla war is 
the worst possible strategy. The key for the United States is the 
destruction of the Iraqi guerrilla command and control system. 
The North Vietnamese had a clearly defined command and control 
system, but it was in the north and in Cambodia. There were 
sanctuaries. At this moment, it would appear that the Iraqis have 
no sanctuary. Therefore, the command centers are within political 
reach of the United States. The question is where are they? Where 
are Hussein, his sons and his other commanders? Gen. Abid Hamid 
Mahmoud al-Tikriti, Hussein's No. 4 commander, was seized today, 
which certainly represents a breakthrough for the United States. 
What is not yet clear is whether this is the beginning of the 
systematic collapse of the guerrilla command structure or whether 
he was irrelevant to that.

Unless the United States is fortunate and this war comprises only 
a handful of fighters who quickly will be used up, the only 
strategy the United States has is to find and destroy the command 
structure. Every army -- even a guerrilla army -- depends on 
commanders, communications and supplies. Find and destroy the 
commanders, and the army will not be able to resist a general 
offensive. But first you have to find the commanders. Sweeping 
after foot soldiers will only upset the population; going after 
the generals is the key.

Therefore, the question of where Hussein, his sons and the rest 
of the officials pictured on the deck of cards is not academic. 
It has become the heart of the military equation.

(Publisher's Note:
Part of the strategic equation are the large numbers of foreign 
fighters from other Arab countries that are in Iraq, not because 
of any loyalty to Saddam Hussein but rather are in Iraq to answer 
the call for a Muslim Jihadi to kill all Americans in Iraq. These 
fighters are highly trained terrorists and are well funded as 
exhibited by the U. S. raid of a terrorist camp along the 
Iraq-Syria border, where a large cache of new weapons from Basra
was discovered.)

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