2. Two days later, on Wednesday night, August
8, Turkey executed its first major military assault inside Iraq.
DEBKAfile's military sources learn from Turkish and Kurdish
informants that helicopters under US, British and Turkish
warplane escort flew Turkish commandos to an operation for
seizing the critical Bamerni airport in northern Iraq. This
airport, just outside the Kurdish region, lies 50 miles north of
the big Iraqi oil cities of the north, Kirkuk and Mosul. With the
Turkish commandos was a group of US special forces officers and
men. Bamerni airport was captured after a brief battle
in which a unit of Iraqi armored defenders was destroyed, opening
the airport for giant American and Turkish transports to deliver
engineering units, heavy machinery and electronic support
equipment, which were put to work at once on enlarging the field
and widening its landing strips. The American unit, reinforced, went on to capture two small Iraqi military airfields nearby.
The Turkish expeditionary force in northern
Iraq now numbers some 5,000 men, in addition to Turkish air force
contingents.
DEBKAfile's military experts explain that with Bamerni airport and the two additional airfields the Americans have acquired full control of the skies over the two oil cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, as well as over the Syrian-Iraqi railroad, which they can now cut off by aerial bombardment. A prime strategic asset, this railroad is Saddam's back door for taking delivery of his illegal overseas arms purchases, which are ferried from Syrian ports to Baghdad by the Syrian-Iraqi railway.
On the return journey, the same railway carries illegal Iraqi oil
exports, over and above the quantities allowed under UN
sanctions, out to market. The Iraqi war effort and the Syrian
treasury depend heavily on the revenues accruing from these
smuggled oil sales.
The battle over this airfield was in fact the first important face-to-face engagement between a US-led invasion
force and Iraqi troops. It was carried out seven hours before the
Iraqi ruler delivered his televised speech to the nation, on the
14th anniversary of the bloody eight-year Iraq-Iran war. In that
speech, Saddam threatened American troops going to war against Iraq that they would return
home in coffins.
Next Steps
Just before the Saddam address, US spy
satellites and planes detected unusual movements by elite
Republic Guard units in the capital. They appeared to be digging
positions below ground on the banks of the Tigris. Some military
commentators were convinced the Iraqi ruler had decided to bury
himself and his key associates in fortified bunker-type positions. He was said to be counting on American reluctance to engage in urban warfare in Iraqi towns for fear of large-scale-casualties that would force them to withdraw.
DEBKAfile's military experts see little sign of
this tactic aside from the initial report. In fact, the bulk of
the Iraqi army is concentrated in three regions outside Baghdad -
the Kurdish regions of the north, the H-3 and al Baghdadi air
bases opposite the Jordanian border in the center, and along the
Saudi and Kuwaiti frontiers, in the south.
In the north, the Iraqi armored divisions,
which are massed opposite the Turkish border along the Little and
Big Zeb Rivers, show now sign of movement in response to
US-Turkish activity.
Iraqi concentrations in the center and south
have been augmented somewhat but not substantially.
Iraq's military passivity in the face of US-led
advances and strikes is beginning to worry the American, Turkish
and Israeli high commands. They suspect that Saddam is playing
the same fog-of-war game as Washington, so as to put them to
sleep and then catch them unawares.
Such sudden action could take the form of an
Iraqi missile or bomber attack on Israel using warheads loaded
with radioactive, chemical or biological materials, a combined
missile-terrorist strike to sabotage Saudi oil fields, or a mass
terrorist attack in the United States.
The sharpest alert to a threat to Iraq's
southern neighbors came not from military intelligence but from
international oil dealers, who warned that Saddam Hussein if
attacked may well decide to set fire to Saudi and Kuwaiti oil
fields, sending oil prices skyrocketing above US$ 40 per barrel.
Israel's Concerns
Israel faces three threats, all of them in the
realm of the unknown:
a. An Iraqi missile attack, when the size of
Saddam's arsenal has not been reliably established. DEBKAfile's
military experts dispute the assessment heard this week from
retired Israeli military leaders that the Iraqis have only a few
missiles. The truth is that no one outside Iraq knows how many
Saddam has cached or what advanced missile technologies he has secretly developed. According to one estimate, Iraq may have
accumulated between 70 and 150 warheads, or maybe more.
b. A WMD threat, when no one knows what Saddam
has up his sleeve whether radiological bombs with a limited
radius, or a more highly developed type. The same questions apply
to Saddam's biological and chemical warfare capabilities.
c. Notwithstanding the presence of US forces in
Jordan and the strategic-defense relationship developed between
Jordan and Israel, the possibility of the old Eastern Arab Front
coming back to life against Israel, though unlikely, cannot be
entirely ruled out.
The gloomiest scenario envisages Iraqi units
surging through Jordan to attack Israeli from the east
concurrently with a Syrian-Hizballah strike from the north a
combined assault that may sweep King Abdullah into the fray
against Israel.
The Jordanian king is an unknown quantity,
untried in war situations. Therefore the odds on his executing an
about-face as radical as this cannot be estimated with certainty.
Israeli war planners, however, are not ignoring this possible
peril, however improbable.[/COLOR]
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Lock n' load this looks like a real report!
