War 'lite' needs to get heavier

If the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, according to Wellington, the American strategy for this one comes from the business school culture of MIT, Harvard and California. But on day eight of the ground campaign in Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld's scheme for a "new way of war" is beginning to look pretty old. As Tony Blair and George Bush review the progress so far, some military advisers might be muttering in the background that it is "back to the drawing board".

Mr Rumsfeld proposed that with a high-tech air campaign, backed by a lightning advance by light ground forces, the knockout blow could be delivered within days and the victory parade held within a week. This is the "just in time, just enough" theory favoured by US and Japanese business schools applied to modern war.

"The trouble is that it doesn't work for military planners," says Charles Heyman of the Jane's Group, "because they always have to factor in the worst case, and what to do when things go wrong."

The campaign would be one of "shock and awe" according to the Rumsfeld formula, devastatingly accurate air strikes at the heart of Saddam's command in Baghdad, and the lightning rush of ground forces of the US 3rd Infantry through the desert and onto the capital. We got the sound and light show over Baghdad but Saddam is still in his palace, by all accounts, even if it appears to be several miles underground. We also had the sight of the 3rd Infantry Division charging through the empty desert like a scene from Mad Max 3.

Progress was swift at first because the desert was empty. Now the coalition forces are moving into heavilypopulated areas between the Tigris and Euphrates, and the enemy does not appear to be playing by the expected rules. They are giving battle then moving, and their militias fighting to a crude choreography of hit and run, sudden ambushes from civilian grounds, and hitting the Americans and British where it hurts most, right in their logistical rear.

The forward US troops, and the British in Basra, are having to work on long lines of communication - more than 200 miles from Kuwait to the furthest forward US units near Karbala - which are becoming increasingly frayed and vulnerable. The plan of General Tommy Franks and Mr Rumsfeld seems to have gambled on two huge assumptions - that

most of the population of southern Iraq would hail the Americans and British as liberators and come to their aid, and that the bulk of the Iraqi forces would not fight, and furthermore would come across to the coalition side. It has not gone to the script on either count. Most Iraqis forces are still fighting.

Even in the heavily Shi'ite Basra, most citizens are wary of the Americans who failed to come to their aid when they rose up against Saddam in March 1991. In Saddam's orchestrated campaign of revenge more than 30,000 died. The result is that the theatre of operations is now a mosaic, in the benign interpretation of General Franks. There are pockets of fighting up and down the Euphrates valley, and well short of Baghdad. The huge logistical chain is vulnerable, though still working.

Basra is still the stalking ground of Saddam's militias. If the US forces now strung out across the plains of old Mesopotamia are not to be carved up by guerrilla actions and suicide counter strikes by elements of the Republican Guard, the Americans will have to reinforce soon, in days rather than weeks.

THE "operation lite" of the Rumsfeld doctrine will have to go heavy. General Barry MacAffery, one of the most outspoken critics and one of the few generals in 1991 to take on and destroy a Republican Guard Division, believes that General Franks must now double the force in central and southern Iraq and bring in two more divisions at least, and fast. That will mean Britain must also bring in what forces it can to protect the rear of its division now operating in Basra, Faw and on the Tigris and Euphrates. The requirement is for an infantry brigade of four battalions, which could be available if the firemen cancel their strike.

The "just in time school" of war believes it has learnt the lesson of the Kuwait campaign of 1991, which it regards as lumbering, slow, and very expensive. It was based on heavy armour and artillery and the careful preparation of the battlefield by devastating air power. The ground force only moved when it knew it had superiority in numbers - like Montgomery at El Alamein. The whole concept was effective and highly unoriginal. If team Rumsfeld thought it knew the lessons of Kuwait 1991, so did armed forces in Baghdad. The Iraqis produced a detailed operational analysis of what happened. Some very obvious lessons were drawn, in particular that the weakness of American and British forces lay in their logistics, which were always stretched and vulnerable - and very nearly came apart at the seams in the 100-hour dash into Kuwait by General Schwarzkopf 's forces. The Iraqi forces appear to have implemented major reforms in organisation and tactics. Whenever the legions of America came again full frontal battle would have to be avoided and they must be hit in the rear.

SOME deep but simple tactical cunning has been deployed, though it is difficult to know by whom. Saddam himself has the unnerving habit of slaying his generals, literally, particularly those who become too powerful, popular, or imaginative. However, it is known that the Iraqi forces have received technical advice and training from Pakistan, India and Serbia throughout the Nineties, producing the shape of forces, motivation and tactics we are now seeing.

Like Stalin in his hour of trouble after the invasion of the USSR, the assault on Moscow and the siege of Stalingrad, Saddam has dropped his habit as compulsive control-freak and seems to have allowed his military men to act on their own initiative. Three figures now emerge as running the Iraqis' battle, the son and heir Qussay, in charge fo the central sector, General Hassan Ali Al Majid ("Ali Chemical") in the south, and General Izzet ad Douri in the north. All three are real toughs, survivors with a capital S. Most intriguing is ad Douri, the one senior commander with no blood links to Saddam's ruling Tikriti clan - whereas Chemical Ali, for example, is the boss's cousin.

They are now working to a rough and ready campaign of resistance and survival. This means not giving battle in the obvious place - so the notion of the "three rings of defence" round Baghdad should be treated with caution. Most of the tanks and artillery on the 30 mile outer perimeter of the capital are most likely decoys. The plan is to surprise and harass, a difficult option if there is no air cover, ambush and sabotage of supply routes.

One fundamental is as old as war itself - however hard Mr Rumsfeld may try to rewrite the recipe. One army beats another by either surprise or superior force, or a combination of both. Surprise, alias "shock and awe", now seems out of the window. So that now means overwhelming force.