Flawed conclusions mar account
Harwant Singh

War Despatches: Operation Iraqi Freedom
by Ashok K. Mehta. Military Affairs Series. Pages 216. Rs 395.

WAR despatches are normally the daily or periodic reports sent by the highest field commander to the service headquarters/government or, as in earlier times, to the monarch. Besides the overall battle plans and progress of operations, these despatches often note the acts of bravery and or otherwise good performance of certain individuals. That is how the term, ‘mention in despatches,’ as a form of decoration or recognition of good performance, came into usage. There is another book by the same title, War Despatches by Lt-Gen Harbaksh Singh, the overall field commander during the 1965 war with Pakistan, which gives a detailed and authentic account of the 1965 operations. So Ashok Mehta could have given his book some other title. More so, when his daily reports were merely gleaned from various TV/news channels, internet, newspapers, daily briefing at America’s Central Command headquarters in Doha broadcast on TV, etc and not from the front itself.

There are in all 27 very brief dispatches related to the operations and 10 that pertain to subsequent actions, while the last chapter brings out the lessons learnt from the war. These dispatches were filed from Delhi for a Malayalam paper called Mangalam. The day-to-day progress of operations from March 20, when pre-emptive strike to target Saddam was launched till the end of active operations on April 9, 2003, are covered in these 27 dispatches. The fact is that the Iraqi army simply did not put up any resistance as acknowledged later in the book, but merely melted away. Therefore, these dispatches had little worthwhile to record.

The advance of US 5 Corps, over a distance of 520 km of desert terrain in the period of few days has been adequately covered. However, given the detailed intelligence and satellite coverage available to the Americans, as rightly noted by the author, it is wrong to assume that they believed in the existence of a ring of forces defence around Baghdad, manned by the Republican Guard or for that matter, fortifications within Baghdad. Therefore, the pause by the advancing troops at an Najaf-Karbala line, before entering Baghdad was to allow the logistics to catch up and to give time to mechanised forces for repair and maintenance of equipment, and for the weather to clear. Inability to get Turkey on board did hamper the operational plans, but did not materially affect the outcome of the war, as recorded in the book. The author rightly brings out the mismatch between the military plans and the follow up political action.

Comparisons are frequently drawn with Indian Army’s operations in East Pakistan, advance in the desert during the 1965 war, and deployment in Sri Lanka, which do not sit well in the narrative, besides being inappropriate. Some snap and faulty conclusions are drawn, such as the author’s contention that the Scud missiles were inaccurate because these were fired from mobile platforms, whereas inaccuracy of this missile is due to primitive navigational systems, homing devices etc. Similarly, the shortage of infantry with the US forces in Iraq, which resulted in an inability to exercise control over cities which had been overrun, has led the author to conclude that to add teeth to the Indian Army, it should be reconfigured to replace some of the surplus armoured formations with infantry. These show a lack of understanding of technology and of the Indian security perspective.

The Special Forces have rightly been praised for their work in securing oil fields before these could be torched or damaged, and in target designation tasks. Here again the author seems to run off with faulty conclusions and recommends that the Indian Army should have an increased number of such forces. The author also misses out on the tactical compulsions in restricting British Forces to Basra and Umm Qasr sector. The chapter Lessons of War covers the conduct of operations, ground, air, naval, special forces, application of technology and logistics etc of this war in a perfunctory manner. He rightly brings out the failure to plan ahead for the urban guerrilla war that followed. It is recorded that together over 40,000 missile and air sorties with precision guided weapons were delivered on Iraqi targets. This excludes 21,736 sorties attacking targets in southern Iraq from June till the commencement of the offensive on March 20. This extent of application of firepower should have resulted in far more Iraqi casualties than put out by the U.S. The author fails to raise this issue. The wanton destruction of civic amenities and large-scale casualties amongst their people, is perhaps the reason for the hostility from the local population encountered by the invading forces. The world’s most powerful and technology-savvy nation engaged a fifth rate country, debilitated by years of sanctions and subjected to relentless air strikes in the name of, ‘no fly zone’ etc, and which simply refused to put up resistance. This could carry no lessons for Indian armed forces. Yet the author goes on to draw lessons for application to the Indian armed forces.

The author fails do delve into the real underlying reasons for this unjustified war. He could have enlightened the reader on the causes, which resulted in the Iraqi army refusing to put up resistance. In the face of overwhelming air power available to the adversary, the options available to the Iraqi forces could have been examined. All in all, it is one of those books which have limited value.

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