Ominous signs
for coalition in
battle for Umm Qasr
By Victor Mallet
But even this small, decrepit
town a few kilometres from the border is proving a challenge. "At
times it's been so frightening it just doesn't feel real," said
Sergeant Dennis Flores, a 22-year-old engineer involved in the fighting.
"Judging from what we've seen here, there might be a lot more work
before this job's done."
US and British marines, backed by tanks and air strikes, fought for
the third day on Sunday to secure full control of the Iraqi frontier
town of Umm Qasr, in a small but politically significant battle that
has become an embarrassment for the invasion force.
Umm Qasr, the port at the
head of the Gulf through which the coalition has announced it will bring
urgent humanitarian aid to the people of Iraq, is home to just 4,000
people and lies within sight of the Kuwaiti border.
The sound of machine gun
exchanges and bombing raids by Royal Air Force Harriers was clearly
audible on Sunday from Kuwaiti territory, in spite of repeated official
assurances in recent days that control of the port had been or was about
to be secured.
In an ominous sign of the
military and ultimately political - difficulties that may lie ahead
for the invasion force if it seeks to capture urban areas, the word
"guerrilla" was used at the weekend by Colonel Chris Vernon,
chief UK military spokesman in Kuwait, to explain the unexpectedly stiff
resistance encountered in Umm Qasr.
"There's a bit of a
fight in Umm Qasr," he said on Saturday, predicting that the area
would finally be cleared of Iraqi resistance by Saturday night. "I
wouldn't call it serious military resistance, but you've got groups
of determined men with rifles and RPG-7s [rocket propelled grenades]."
By Sunday, however, the fighting
had intensified, and coalition commanders were suggesting that a group
of 120 Iraqi soldiers still fighting against overwhelming odds were
either Republican Guards or special forces men sent by president Saddam
Hussein's regime to bolster Umm Qasr's defence. Some were said to be
firing from the windows of civilian houses and switching from military
to civilian clothes.
The failure to bring calm
to Umm Qasr is particularly galling because the US-led coalition wants
to bring in humanitarian aid through the port as quickly as possible
to demonstrate its good intentions to the Iraqis and to world opinion,
which remains overwhelmingly hostile to the war.
"Umm Qasr and the port
is absolutely vital to us and we're going to have to go in and seize
it," said Lt-Col Ben Currie of the British Royal Marines in Umm
Qasr on Sunday. "We're going through and clearing it street by
street, and house by house."
The Iraqi regime of President
Saddam Hussein was quick to capitalise on the fighting, some of it televised
live by crews flown into Umm Qasr by the British. "The heroic Iraqi
fighters in Umm Qasr will throw the infidel British and American mercenaries
to certain death," said Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, information minister
in Baghdad.
Militarily, the outcome of
the battle is not in doubt, since the coalition has complete air superiority
and an overwhelming advantage in firepower. But events in southern Iraq
since Friday when US marines briefly raised the Stars and Stripes over
Umm Qasr before realising the gesture made them look more like occupiers
than liberators suggest the war will be much more complicated than president
George W Bush had hoped.
One problem for the Americans
is that however much the Iraqis hate Saddam Hussein, they do not appear
to be overjoyed in the Shia Muslim south, at least about the prospect
of a US occupation.
Reporters travelling independently
in southern Iraq say some residents of Safwan, another town on the Kuwaiti
border, were openly hostile to the coalition forces, although others
said they were happy that president Bush was seeking to end the rule
of president Hussein.
The street-fighting in Umm
Qasr, meanwhile, underlines why armies, particularly those wary of taking
casualties or of killing civilians by accident, are reluctant to take
on defenders in densely populated towns and cities.
Coalition commanders insist
they are trying to avoid civilian casualties and preserve as much of
Iraq's civil infrastructure as possible, but officers would rather flush
out snipers with tanks and aircraft than risk their troops on the ground.
"It makes sense for
us to do this," said one US commander quoted by Reuters in Umm
Qasr yesterday after Harriers dropped two 500lb bombs on a building
used by Iraqi resisters. "Rather than send men in there, we're
just going to destroy it." By Sunday, one US marine was reported
killed in Umm Qasr, while at least seven Iraqis and possibly dozens
more have died.
So while US forces raced
towards Baghdad, they did not appear to have taken any major cities.
Basra, the country's second city in the south, is supposed to become
an example of how the British and Americans can start to rebuild Iraq
with the help of a grateful population, but for the time being it has
been sealed off and bypassed. "Basra is not in itself an immediate
military objective," said Col Vernon.
Umm Qasr, the coalition says,
was only tackled because of the need to import food and other humanitarian
aid.
But even this small, decrepit
town a few kilometres from the border is proving a challenge. "At
times it's been so frightening it just doesn't feel real," said
Sergeant Dennis Flores, a 22-year-old engineer involved in the fighting.
"Judging from what we've seen here, there might be a lot more work
before this job's done."
23 March 2003
This article originally appeared
on Ft.com