Top General Sees Extended War

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHELL, Iraq, March 27 — The Army's senior ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, said today that overextended supply lines and a combative adversary using unconventional tactics have stalled the U.S. drive toward Baghdad and increased the likelihood of a longer war than many strategists had anticipated.

"The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against," Wallace, commander of V Corps, said during a visit to the 101st Airborne Division headquarters here in central Iraq.

The corps commander said the duration of the current pause will depend on advice from his logistics specialists. Another senior commander suggested that a 35-day strategic bombing campaign, similar to that waged before the ground attack in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, would not be preposterous.

Army sources said there was also concern about the wide gap between Army forces driving up the western edge of the Euphrates River valley and Marines on the other side of the river, along a road leading to Kut. Additional Army units are en route to Iraq, including the 4th Infantry Division and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, but it will be weeks before any substantial combat power is added to the fight.

Wallace described an opponent willing to make suicide attacks against superior U.S. forces while also using threats against fellow Iraqis to generate opposition to the U.S. and British invaders. "I'm appalled by the inhumanity of it all," he said, noting that intelligence reports indicate those loyal to President Saddam Hussein are giving out weapons and forcing others to fight, sometimes by threatening their families.

"The attacks we're seeing are bizarre — technical vehicles [pickups] with .50 calibers and every kind of weapon charging tanks and Bradleys," Wallace added, referring to the M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles used by the Army. "It's disturbing to think that someone can be that brutal."

Wallace, a plain-spoken cavalryman whose command is based in Germany and is operating a few miles north of here, gave public voice to what senior officers in Iraq have been saying privately for several days. Asked whether combat developments in the past week increased the likelihood of a much longer war than some planners had forecast, Wallace said, "It's beginning to look that way."

For now, the two divisions that form the heart of V Corps — the 3rd Infantry and 101st Airborne — have paused indefinitely to allow thinly stretched logistics troops to amass a roughly 10-day stockpile of water, ammunition, food, fuel and other supplies. Sustained combat over the past week has depleted the 3rd Infantry's stocks of water, fuel and ammunition, and CH-47 Chinook helicopters today ferried in additional stacks of artillery shells from Kuwait, according to Army sources.

To protect a 250-mile supply line from Kuwait from Iraqi guerrillas, Wallace has been forced to divert some of his combat force, including a brigade from the 101st and the small brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division now in Kuwait. The pause will not affect the firing of long-range artillery, Air Force and Navy bombing sorties and attacks by AH-64 Apache helicopters, which will continue whittling away Republican Guard forces and other Iraqi targets, he said.

"We knew we'd have to pause at some point to build our logistics power," Wallace said. "This is about where we'd expected."

What was unexpected, however, was the zeal of Iraqi paramilitary fighters.

U.S. military planners had anticipated fighting three Iraqi military forces: the regular army, considered a mediocre force of poorly motivated conscripts; a half-dozen Republican Guard units with tanks and better-trained troops; and the Special Republican Guard, 12,000 to 16,000 troops drawn mostly from the Tikriti or Dulaimi tribes who are Sunni Muslims considered deeply loyal to Hussein.

The paramilitary forces, while recognized by planners, have demonstrated a willingness and ability to fight that has caught the Americans off-balance. "The theory was that they might not welcome us but that they wouldn't resist us," a senior officer said today. He later added, "I hope this is what's being cast in some quarters as the dying gasp of a regime on the ropes. But I'm not so sure."

Iraq is believed to have nine to 12 battalions of a militia called Saddam's Fedayeen, with roughly 600 men apiece, an Army intelligence officer said. One battalion, supplemented by other Iraqi security forces including Special Republican Guard troops, has been fighting the 3rd Infantry Division around the besieged city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, the officer said.

A senior Army officer said the number of Iraqi combatants at Najaf, including those allegedly forced to take up arms, is estimated at 3,000 to 6,000. He added that Army strategists have concluded that "if you can't get Najaf to fall, you probably aren't going to go much farther."

The city, considered an important center of Shiite Muslim culture, also acts as a gateway to Karbala and the western approaches to Baghdad. Third Infantry troops, whose lead elements are near Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, have loosely encircled Najaf. But "it would cost a lot of troops to cordon that off" securely enough to bypass the city without worrying about attacks from the rear, the senior Army officer said.

"Everybody's frame of reference is changing," Col. Ben Hodges, commander of the 1st Brigade of the 101st, said shortly after arriving here Wednesday night. "The enemy always gets a vote. You fight the enemy and not the plan. I personally underestimated the willingness of the Fedayeen to fight, or maybe overestimated the willingness of the Shiites to rise up."

U.S. aircraft struck several key targets in Najaf today, including a training base, an air defense headquarters and a checkpoint that was using a taxi fleet for military traffic, Army sources said. It remained unclear how much street fighting will be necessary in Najaf and other cities, a prospect most commanders want to avoid.

"If you're really serious about that, you have to do it the Israeli way, with tanks and bulldozers," a senior Army officer said.

U.S. commanders also were unpleasantly surprised by the well-orchestrated barrage of fire that greeted an attack against the Republican Guard's Medina Division Sunday night by V Corps' 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment. One Apache crashed on takeoff. Another was shot down and the other 33 took such combat damage that only seven were considered battle worthy upon returning to their base near here, Army sources said. Eleven others were scheduled to have repairs finished today.

Enemy gunners on rooftops and balconies had apparently been alerted to the approaching helicopters by dozens of cell phone calls made by a network of observers, the sources said.

"We're dealing with a country in which everybody has a weapon, and when they fire them all in the air at the same time, it's tough," Wallace said.

Iraqi forces have hardly been immune to attack, despite the pause. In addition to the hundreds reportedly killed by the 3rd Infantry Division earlier this week, a half-dozen Iraqi tanks being transported on heavy trucks were ambushed by U.S. planes today, and four long-range, 130mm artillery pieces were destroyed by some of the 30 or so rocket-propelled Army Tactical Missile System artillery rounds that have been fired each night, according to Army sources.

Officers here welcomed news that the 173rd Airborne Brigade had parachuted into Kurdish-held northern Iraq. But expectations of that unit's impact on the campaign are minimal, given that it contains light infantry troops with little mobility. Plans to reinforce the unit with armor are considered problematic because a C-17 transport plane can carry only a single Abrams tank per sortie, and the force would require substantial logistical support by air.

Most of the 101st is now in central Iraq, although the division has yet to engage in serious combat. Dreadful weather shut down most of the division's 260 helicopters for three days before clearing this morning. "I feel," one general said, "as though the corps has been punching with one arm."