WASHINGTON, April 2 (UPI) -- The UPI think tank wrap-up is a daily digest covering opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events and position statements released by various think tanks. This is the first of eight wrap-ups for April 2.
The Brookings Institution
WASHINGTON -- The big breakthrough?
By Michael E. O'Hanlon
Even if it proves somewhat exaggerated, the assessment of U.S. Central Command spokesman Gen. Brooks Wednesday that Republican Guard divisions south of Iraq's capital have been seriously damaged, and that the Baghdad division in particular has been "destroyed," is extremely good news.
More work remains to be done on the road to Baghdad, and the likely urban fight ahead could still be tough as well. But if U.S. forces seriously degrade Iraq's half-dozen Republican Guard divisions before that final battle, and only have to face perhaps 30,000 Special Republican Guard, fedayeen, and related personnel, the task will not be as hard as it might have been.
It is not only very good news, but quite surprising news, that the coalition has soundly defeated a substantial fraction of Iraq's elite military within two weeks of the beginning of the war -- and after less than 48 hours of intensive ground-force contact. It is worth pausing and taking note of the impressive military accomplishment that seems to be taking place, and speculating a bit about why it has been possible.
First, according to Joint Chiefs Chairman General Myers and others, U.S. and U.K. airpower managed to weaken many Republican Guard units by 50 percent or so even before the ground battles began. This is remarkable if true.
An attrition threshold of 50 percent was the U.S. goal in Desert Storm. After 40 days of bombing, however, the United States had achieved no better than a loss rate of about 25 percent in Iraqi formations. True, Iraqi armor was more plentiful then, meaning there was a great deal more to destroy. Also true, fewer U.S. planes carried precision munitions in those days, meaning that the 200 or so aircraft with laser-guided bombs had to do most of the work on their own.
But the United States also had the ability to conduct "tank plinking" of Iraqi armor that was badly camouflaged in the desert terrain of Kuwait. Now, by contrast, coalition forces are facing Iraqi units in terrain where vegetation is plentiful, human dwellings are much more numerous, and Iraqi forces are more experienced at hiding from airpower than they were 12 years ago. Targets are also further away from air bases than they were during Desert Storm.
In technical terms, the capabilities of U.S. sensors are still severely challenged when looking for stationary vehicles against a complex backdrop. That was also true in Kosovo, where U.S. forces thought they had destroyed one-third of all enemy armor by late May of 1999, only to discover after the June 10 termination of the war that actual Serb losses were no more than 25 percent of initial totals -- and probably much less.
The United States has more JSTARS reconnaissance aircraft today than in 1991 or 1999, but they are better at finding moving vehicles than stationary, dug-in objects. U.S. forces also have unmanned aircraft or UAVs, but they are relatively few in number, and better at monitoring one or two dozen sites of extremely high importance than in surveying an entire battlefield for thousands of armored vehicles.
Yet somehow, coalition forces found Iraqi forces and hit them very heavily in recent days. What might have been the key was the interaction between Apache helicopters, ground forces, and combat jets. The coalition could use the lower-flying and ground-based assets to monitor the battlefield and try to draw Iraqi fire or induce Iraqi vehicles to move about. Either way, they would have revealed their locations. That targeting information could then be passed to fighter jets above, and to counter artillery batteries and other ground weapons, enabling powerful attacks.
It is also possible that Iraqi forces made major mistakes again, just as in Desert Storm. They may have done a bad job of digging in, or may have believed they could move about the battlefield at night or in bad weather without being seen.
It is too soon to say because the battles against the Medina division and other Republican Guard forces south of Baghdad continue as of this writing. But the accomplishments of recent days and hours are remarkable, and bode quite well for the future course of the battle.
(Michael E. O'Hanlon is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.)
WASHINGTON -- It's the story, not the storyteller
By James M. Lindsay
Will news coverage of the fighting in Iraq undermine the American public's support for the war?
That question arises now that the initially euphoric war coverage has turned more sober. Read a newspaper or watch television and you know why General Sherman said, "War is hell."
Lurking behind the more critical coverage is the specter of Vietnam. The news media have long been blamed for contributing to the U.S. defeat there. For years the Pentagon acted on that belief by keeping journalists away from the battlefield. It blocked reporters from accompanying U.S. troops during the 1983 invasion of Grenada. A U.S. fighter jet even flew a mock bombing run over a boat carrying journalists had chartered to reach the Caribbean island.
The Pentagon switched to pool reporting for the Persian Gulf War. Military officers escorted small groups of reporters through the war zone. News organizations weren't grateful. They cried censorship. In Afghanistan, the Pentagon simply kept reporters off the battlefield.
For Iraq, the Pentagon tried something revolutionary -- "embedding" journalists in combat units. Some 600 reporters are now in the field. Even Al Jazeera has an embedded reporter.
The Pentagon changed strategies partly because officials concluded that denying reporters access hurt U.S. interests. It encouraged the belief Washington had something to hide. In contrast, having independent journalists on the battlefield would help protect American forces against being blamed for war crimes committed by Iraqi forces.
Some officials also hoped that journalists would bond with their units and write more positive stories as a result. These stories would enjoy credibility at home and abroad because they would be coming from independent journalists. That would let the Pentagon shape the war story without appearing to do so.
The embedding strategy rested on the same assumption that guided the Pentagon's overall planning for war -- that it would be short and popular. Decisive wars in which the vanquished cheer the victors make for glowing news coverage.
The Iraq War may still turn out to be short. But a cakewalk it is not, as the embedded reporting makes clear. Whether these reports cast the war in a good or bad light often lies in the eye of the beholder. A story that lionizes the bravery of U.S. troops facing unexpected resistance also can be seen as an implicit rebuke of an administration that underestimated its adversary.
The television commentary of numerous retired generals adds to the skepticism. They too began as cheerleaders for U.S. forces. Now many have begun to grouse about the wisdom of the administration's "rolling start" strategy.
The Pentagon is creating its own problems. Lt. Gen. William Wallace's statement last week that "the enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against" legitimized every complaint that the administration had hoped for the best and planned for it as well.
Central Command's daily briefings haven't helped. The $200,000 state-of-the-art auditorium with its five plasma television screens cannot hide the briefers' reluctance to share news. Their formulaic answers recall the famed "Five O'Clock Follies" press briefings of the Vietnam War.
So are we witnessing Vietnam redux as critical news coverage saps public support for the war? No.
One reason for this conclusion is that Americans didn't sour on Vietnam because reporters told the story badly. Polls show that a majority of the public had concluded Vietnam was a mistake by summer 1967. As Daniel Hallin demonstrated in his classic work, "The Uncensored War," news coverage at that time was largely positive and blood-free.
Americans soured on Vietnam because the story was bad. The war combined high casualties and no apparent progress toward victory. Two administrations destroyed their credibility pretending otherwise. The Johnson White House recalled Gen. William Westmoreland to the United States in late 1967 to shore up flagging public support.
He assured Americans that "We have reached an important point where the end begins to come into view." The Tet Offensive came two months later.
The other reason to doubt we are witnessing Vietnam redux is that Americans are, as the political scientist Bruce Jentleson has written, "pretty prudent." They know the easy victory didn't happen. They have adjusted their expectations accordingly. Whereas only one in three Americans thought two weeks ago that the war would last several months, now two in three do. A majority has also concluded that the Bush administration underestimated the difficulty of unseating Saddam. This conclusion may come back to haunt the White House even if the war ends quickly.
But Americans also understand that misplaced optimism does not make the decision to invade Iraq wrong. Support for the war continues to exceed 70 percent. Reports of executed prisoners of war and terrorist attacks on U.S. troops are likely to further stiffen public resolve.
American patriotism is at least as potent a force as Iraqi nationalism. What will sap public support is if U.S. forces suffer high casualties and the march on Baghdad stalls. That is the real lesson of Vietnam. What matters is not the storytellers, but the story itself.
(James M. Lindsay is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.)
