Iraqis put pressure on as battle takes to the streets

“WE let them go for a walk in the desert, but all our towns will resist.”

With these words, Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan seems to have summed up Iraq's military tactics. And they appear to be working quite effectively.

In the build-up to war, Iraqi newspapers carried editorials about the US military's experience in Vietnam and more recently in 1993 in Somalia when 18 US servicemen were killed in Mogadishu's labyrinth of alleys. The aim of the editorials was probably to raise the morale of Iraqi soldiers. But with US-led forces meeting stiff resistance and suffering casualties as they try to take even small Iraqi towns, the analogy now seems prescient.

Bluster or not, coalition forces now face the possibility of having to clear Iraqi towns and cities street by street something that takes a great deal of time and may exact a high price in casualties, both military and civilian.

Short of a chemical or biological weapons attack, guerrilla-type urban warfare is the US-led coalition's greatest fear in Iraq a type of fighting that has the potential to even out the overwhelming superiority of the forces invading Iraq.

"The basic problem with urban warfare is that you have buildings, streets, bridges and civilians to negotiate.

"It is impossible to use stand-off weapons [weapons used at a distance] and you don't have a clear view of the terrain," Tim Ripley of the Centre of Defence Studies at Lancaster University said.

"Simply put, you don't know where the enemy is and your usual methods for killing them aren't much use."

In 1991, Iraq lost thousands of soldiers in the vast southern desert. The lesson from this appears to have been: cede the open spaces and defend the cities.

Military analysts believe the Iraqi Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard have been specifically trained in urban warfare. Reports have suggested that no Republican Guard units were stationed in the south of Iraq that all had been stationed to defend Baghdad and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

Saddam's Fedayeen militia are also expected to play a major role in defending the cities.

Tactical doctrine stresses that urban combat operations are conducted only when required and that built-up areas are isolated and bypassed rather than risking a costly, time-consuming operation in this difficult environment.

US troops have trained for this eventuality in the US and Kuwait during the months of military build-up.

Pictures of US soldiers working their way from one cardboard house to the next were widely broadcast and published perhaps intended to deliver the message that coalition forces were willing to engage in this kind of warfare if necessary.

Baghdad, many military analysts say, might well be at the heart of the crucial battle for central Iraq.

It is home to five million people, and is reported to be defended by four Republican Guard divisions.

However, Paul Beaver, a BBC military analyst, says that the American plan is not to go into Baghdad or other large cities.

The American aim, he says, is to surround the cities in the hope that the Iraqi Republican Guard can be drawn out into the open, or the Iraqi military capitulates.

A deep nervousness over urban warfare has permeated US military doctrine.

The US Army field manual has this to say: "Tactical doctrine stresses that urban combat operations are conducted only when required and that built-up areas are isolated and bypassed rather than risking a costly, time-consuming operation in this difficult environment."

Historically, urban warfare has been among the most difficult offensive operations, leaving many attackers and defenders dead.

Russian forces who met resistance from Chechen rebels using guerrilla tactics in Grozny simply levelled the city under artillery bombardment unrestrained by concern for civilian casualties.

This is not really an option for the US-led forces victory using the Russian tactics in Chechnya might be a strategic and political disaster.