Baghdad ain’t Hollywood. In war there are no prizes for shocking special effects, awesome cinematography or Best Supporting Performance. The only garlands are those that go to the victor. Victory isn’t decided by an international jury of human rights observers. It is secured, as it always has been on the battlefield, by sheer force of arms. But in Iraq now there are too few men in arms, too sparing a use of force, too much concentration on subordinate ends and insufficient focus on victory.
As Jacky Fisher, the architect of Britain’s naval superiority at the turn of the past century, put it, “the essence of war is violence, moderation in war is imbecility”. No matter how brittle President Saddam Hussein’s regime may appear, it will not be coaxed into collapse by noises off. It must be smashed. I had hoped that Tony Blair, who has been so admirably resolute in making the case for war, would appreciate that. But I fear that progress towards crushing Saddam’s tyranny has been hindered by the politically correct manner in which he and President Bush have prosecuted this war so far.
In the Second World War Churchill had no end save victory. In this war the allies have no end of other priorities, from pursuing a green agenda to winning Brownie points from anti-war protesters. Three errors above all have hampered the prosecution of this conflict. Three traits which I had hoped Blair had transcended. They are an over-reliance on spin, complacency over delivery and the subordination of efficiency to political correctness — in true new Labour style, we’ve got a Third Way war.
The manner in which the coalition has attempted to “spin” the conflict so far has been a clear mistake. They raised false hopes on the eve of battle by briefing, from Washington and the front, that large-scale defections were looming. Last Wednesday coalition sources were claiming that there would be “mass desertions” including the flight of “nearly a quarter of Saddam’s elite Republican Guard”. The collapse, we were assured, went well beyond the military. “The defection of senior figures from Saddam Hussein’s ruling circle” was alleged to be “gathering pace”. One week later, with the Republican Guard slung across the allies’ line of advance, Saddam’s ministers smiling broadly at their daily press conferences and fierce resistance still being encountered in Shia cities, the PR offensive has to be considered a spin too far.
As for all those claims that Saddam was dead or at death’s door, it seems that the wish has been father to the talk. The old monster is live on television more often than John Simpson. The suggestions that it may be a body double behind the moustache don’t convince. They certainly don’t convince in the streets of Baghdad, where the lively performance of Saddam’s apparatus of terror suggests to the population that someone malevolent is still very much in command and exercising his traditional, lethal, form of control.
If the consequences of this PR failure were merely a few journalists, or politicians, with red faces, it wouldn’t matter. But the real price is being paid in Iraq, where the visible maintenance of Saddam’s grip on power after protestations to the contrary emboldens his loyalists and dispirits any potential opposition. For those Iraqis who were betrayed by the West in 1991, when we walked away while their rebellion was crushed, there needs to be a guarantee that we’re serious this time. While an intact Iraqi TV network still broadcasts pictures of a visibly intact president presiding over a well dug-in regime, Iraqis will conclude the situation for Saddam isn’t yet serious enough.
But if the propaganda war has misfired, what about the ground campaign? Surely the stunning scale of the allied advance and the still, relatively light, number of coalition casualties is a source of cheer? Well, up to a point, General Copper. There are reasons to be worried that the coalition forces are being stretched on the same rack the Blairites have set up before, being asked to deliver without enjoying the freedom and resources that guarantee success.
It is true that the invasion of Iraq has been the most complex, and sophisticated, exercise in resisted liberation since D-Day. Compared with the losses endured in Normandy, when hundreds died in the first minutes, or even the Falklands, allied casualties have been mercifully low. But while that may be a source of satisfaction I pray that it doesn’t encourage complacency.
For the truth about the military advance is that we’re asking a lot of too few who’ve already gone a long way. The West has gambled on credit once before, when the allies went to war in Kosovo without the necessary ground troops. The enemy folded then, but we can’t risk that bluff again.
The extended and attenuated supply lines of the coalition forces are vulnerable, as we have already seen in al-Nasiriyah, to determined guerrilla assault. The prisoners now in Iraqi hands are just one, powerful, symbol, of how under-protected the allied flanks are.
Meanwhile, at the front, the concentration of allied firepower against the forces defending Baghdad is not what it should be. The strike force of one mechanised division, one marine division and one air assault division facing three Iraqi Republican Guard divisions should prevail. But if we want to minimise our own casualties and topple Saddam as quickly as possible, there should be at least one other allied heavy division in the balance. The fewer troops we have, the bigger the butcher’s bill Saddam will force us to pay.
That’s not the taproom consensus of assorted half-pint bombardiers and white wine generals in the Pig and Missile but the considered judgment of the veteran Gulf War commanders William Nash and Barry McCaffery. It is also the basis on which allied strategy was conceived, with at least one other heavy division threatening Baghdad from the north. Thanks to the diplomatic logjam with Turkey, those troops are way in the rear, their armour’s in the Red Sea, yet battle is about to be joined. Fortune may favour the brave. But if it’s a choice between Lady Luck on my side or a few thousand heavily armed US soldiers, I’ll take the GIs.
And I’d let them off the leash. For the third, Blairite, imperative impeding the effective prosecution of this war is the subordination of military effectiveness to politically correct calculations. Having failed to convince the likes of France and Russia that this conflict was just, we seem to be trying to persuade the anti-war crowd that it can be won without giving offence. In the process the requirements of victory are being subordinated to the judgment of Paris and the sensibilities of Charles Kennedy. Considerations about “not breaking the china” have meant deploying less than exemplary force. The New York Times reports that the Pentagon has removed hundreds of airstrikes from its military’s attack plan to limit the disruption to Baghdad. Coalition forces make much of their determination to secure ports not for reinforcements, but humanitarian aid.
Oxfam may be delighted by this course of action, but how many divisions has it got? Admirable as such scrupulousness may appear, this attempt to soften the blow is beside the point. The most effective way to relieve the suffering of Iraqis is by destroying the Baghdad regime. Until their commander goes, there will always be Fedayin in the field determined to thwart any relief work. The greatest assurance the Iraqis could have that the West will deliver is not Red Cross parcels piling up at Umm Qasr but Saddam’s demise broadcast on al-Jazeera.
The ambivalence with which coalition forces have been met so far proves that the battle for Iraqi hearts and minds can be won only once the battle for Baghdad has been satisfactorily concluded. As far as the Iraqi population is concerned, any alms we dispense now could become tickets to a torture chamber in future, unless they can be certain the Baathists have gone for good. Once the regime has been smashed we can, and must, turn all our energies to reconstruction of the country. But until then, effort, however well-meaning, diverted from victory is perfume wasted on the desert air.
Difficult though it may be to accept, the time has come to escalate. It took Tony Blair five years to recognise that the Third Way didn’t work here and that he had, in his own words, “not been bold enough”. Neither he, nor the troops in the Gulf, nor the Iraqi people can afford to wait anything like that long.
michael.gove@thetimes.co.uk
Simon Jenkins returns on Friday.
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