A Longer Timetable For War

If the size of the Feb. 15-16 global antiwar demonstrations greatly exceeded the expectations of the organizers, their timing was also important. They closely followed the report from Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, to the UN Security Council that was clearly far too soft for the Bush administration. One evident implication of Blix's tone and content was that inspections should continue. Indeed, a significant part of his speech was devoted to detailing the impressive inspection process that has been built up in only 11 weeks, as well as the substantial expansion in UNMOVIC's activities that is currently under way.

This combination of popular discontent, Security Council discussion, and the concurrent splits in NATO have combined to refocus intense attention on the political process, leading to a central assumption that the risk of war is primarily dependent on what happens at the United Nations.

This may be missing a key element. While so much emphasis is on the UN and attitudes in western capitals, what is actually happening on the ground may be the real determining factor of what happens next. In this respect, the pivotal reality at present is that the Pentagon is simply not yet ready for war against Iraq.

Planning for the Full Moon

By Feb. 14, there were about 106,000 U.S. forces in the Central Command area that covers the Gulf, with perhaps 10,000 more in Turkey (see www.globalsecurity.org for the most recent information). The Gulf forces are made up of 26,000 Army troops, 20,000 in U.S. Air Force units and 60,000 in the Navy and Marine Corps. The army and marine troops together comprise no more than 50,000, about one third of the ground forces that need to be in place before a war starts.

Most of the equipment is already there, and at least 1,000 troops a day are now being flown into the region. Even so, the key additional component is the highly mobile 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell in Tennessee, regarded as essential for a rapid war that will see the near-simultaneous use of a massive air bombardment and rapid ground force invasions from both the south and north of Iraq.

The 101st Airborne will not be in place for another four weeks. In the past few days, huge quantities of the division's equipment have been loaded onboard two Military Sealift Command ships, the USNS Dahl and the USNS Bob Hope at Blount Island near Jacksonville in Florida (as reported in The Tennessean newspaper). The supplies include nearly 300 helicopters and 3,800 trucks, together with spare parts, food and medical supplies.

Both ships were due to sail earlier this week, and they will take up to 21 days to make the transit to the Gulf. Once there, the process will begin of unloading equipment, matching it to the troops who will have been flown in and preparing the forces for highly mobile deep strike attacks into Iraq. This is likely to be completed by about March 15, by which time most of the other U.S. forces, including further aircraft carrier battle groups, will have been assembled.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the latter part of March is considered by the military to be an appropriate time for an invasion, as the cloudy winter weather will have largely been replaced by clear days. Another preference is for moonless nights, enabling more effective use of night-vision equipment where the U.S. forces have a huge advantage. With a full moon due on March 18, this would make March 25 the most likely starting date of the war --quite a lot later than most analysts have been predicting.

Sand in the Machine of War

There are other possible factors to be taken into account. The current U.S. and UK air operations over the no-fly zones could be ratcheted up substantially, but this could well lead to some kind of preemption by Iraqi forces. Such an action, and reaction, cannot be ruled out. If the Saddam Hussein regime eventually decides that a U.S. attack is inevitable, and that action through the UN is irrelevant, then it could well decide to start the war before all the U.S. forces are ready.