A simulation of a U.S.-led attack on Iraq resulted in a
split between the military and the Bush administration.
The Brookings Institute's Saban Center conducted the war game with the
participation of former senior U.S. officials and diplomats.
The U.S. force was composed of nearly 300,000 troops who moved quickly
through Iraq and toward Baghdad. At Baghdad, however, the war game
encountered major disagreements between the U.S. political and military
leadership, Middle East Newsline reported.
The simulation,
held on Oct. 23, included scenarios of Iraqi missile attacks on Israel, an
insurgency in Jordan and fighting between Kurdish forces and Turkish troops
in northern Iraq.
Organizers of the war game reported that in the first stage of the
simulation, U.S. military chiefs urged a rapid advance toward Baghdad and
resisted any diversion of forces to other missions. This included the
deployment of U.S. troops in northern or western Iraq.
Northern Iraq contains opposing Turkish and Kurdish forces and western
Iraq is the likely launching pad for Iraqi missile attacks against Israel.
Political leaders advocated a diversion of U.S. forces in an attempt to
satisfy the concerns of such allies as Israel, Jordan and Turkey.
"Once U.S. forces reached the outskirts of Baghdad, however, the
political echelon changed its tune," a Saban Center memorandum on the war
game said. "With Baghdad surrounded and the final showdown with Saddam
looming, the American political leadership made a rapid denouement its
highest priority. Their assumption was that, at that point, the best and
fastest way to solve most of the political problems created by the invasion
and Saddam's efforts to strike back, was to put the final nail in the
regime's coffin as quickly as possible, even at the expense of higher
casualties."
But at this point, U.S. military chiefs advocated imposing a siege on
Saddam's remaining forces in an attempt to minimize U.S. and Iraqi civilian
casualties. The Bush administration, however, decided for the rapid
conclusion of the war despite estimated losses of 1,000 Americans and up to
10,000 Iraqi civilian casualties.
The simulation Ñ headed by former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Martin Indyk and National Security Council adviser Kenneth Pollack Ñ
envisioned a major dispute within the United States over a replacement for
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The war game included an offer by an Iraqi
Republican Guard general to assassinate Saddam to prevent a U.S. invasion of
Baghdad. The administration, divided over the issue, ended up dismissing the
offer.
Other questions encountered in the simulation concerned whether the
United States should support Turkey or the Kurds in northern Iraq. In the
end, the United States sided with Turkey, which has provided military bases
for an attack on Baghdad.
Other difficulties that emerged during the war game were Jordan and
Saudi
Arabia. Under the scenario, Saudi Arabia refused to allow its territory to
be used for any ground attack on Iraq.
For its part, Jordan was rocked by large-scale Palestinian unrest during
the war. The protests targeted the presence of U.S. Special Forces operating
from the Hashemite kingdom in the search for Iraqi missiles. The war game
envisioned an Iraqi missile attack on Israel and a U.S. refusal to deploy a
large number of American ground forces in western Iraq.
"While the American political leadership was willing to consider such a
shift of resources, the military echelon resisted the diversion of resources
from the main attack on Baghdad," the Saban memo said. "However, the issue
was decided on practical grounds: it was impossible to move ground forces to
western Iraq without staging them from Saudi Arabia or Jordan and the
Jordanians would not go along because of internal strife."
"While the United States and its allies will have an overriding military
goal -- defeat Saddam's military and overturn the regime Ñ Washington will
also have numerous, important political goals that will impinge on Ñ and
possibly even dictate Ñ certain military operations," the Saban Center
said. "The Middle East region is politically fragile, and ensuring that an
invasion does not cause harm to the interests of our allies in the region Ñ
in particular Jordan, Israel and Turkey Ñ may necessitate attention to
military considerations other than the primary drive on Baghdad."
