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Republican Guard losses probably overestimated
Michael O'Hanlon Special to The Yomiuri Shimbun On NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers claimed that some Iraqi Republican Guard units had already been weakened by 50 percent due to air attacks in the war's first 12 days. His comments were repeated later by another military officer. Although I have little doubt the war is going well, these estimates seem misleadingly high. The Pentagon has been very sparing in providing information to the public about how many bombs it has dropped in the war so far. It has been even more circumspect about estimating damage to Iraqi forces. But historical and technical considerations suggest the 50 percent estimate might be high. Perhaps certain very small and select units have suffered that level of attrition, but it seems more likely that Republican Guard forces on the whole have absorbed losses of less than 10 percent to date. It still seems likely to me that a serious ground-air battle will be needed to neutralize Republican Guard divisions such as the Medina and Baghdad units outside Baghdad. While we are capable of conducting that mission successfully, it will not be as easy as Myers seemed to suggest the other day.... This is what worries me: ...the capabilities of U.S. sensors are still severely challenged when looking for stationary vehicles against a complex backdrop. We saw that 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 only 25 percent of initial totals--and possibly much less. We have more joint surveillance target attack radar system (JSTARS) aircraft today than in 1991 or 1999, but they are better at finding moving vehicles than stationary, dug-in objects. Posted by: JAB 2003-04-01 |
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