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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
Most foreign military analysts feel that neither Iraq nor
Iran has used its modern equipment efficiently. Frequently,
sophisticated materiel had been left unused, when a massive
modern assault could have won the battle for either side. Tanks
and armored vehicles were dug in and used as artillery pieces,
instead of being maneuvered to lead or to support an assault.
William O. Staudenmaeir, a seasoned military analyst, reported
that "the land-computing sights on the Iraqi tanks [were] seldom
used. This lower[ed] the accuracy of the T-62 tanks to World War
II standards." In addition, both sides frequently abandoned heavy
equipment in the battle zone because they lacked the skilled
technical personnel needed to carry out minor repairs.
Analysts also assert that the two states' armies have shown
little coordination and that some units in the field have been
left to fight largely on their own. In this protracted war of
attrition, soldiers and officers alike have failed to display
initiative or professional expertise in combat. Difficult
decisions, which should have had immediate attention, were
referred by section commanders to the capitals for action. Except
for the predictable bursts on important anniversaries, by the
mid-1980s the war was stalemated.
In early 1984, Iran had begun Operation Dawn V, which was
meant to split the Iraqi 3rd Army Corps and 4th Army Corps near
Basra. In early 1984, an estimated 500,000 Pasdaran and Basij
forces, using shallow boats or on foot, moved to within a few
kilometers of the strategic Basra-Baghdad waterway. Between
February 29 and March 1, in one of the largest battles of the
war, the two armies clashed and inflicted more than 25,000
fatalities on each other. Without armored and air support of
their own, the Iranians faced Iraqi tanks, mortars, and
helicopter gunships. Within a few weeks, Tehran opened another
front in the shallow lakes of the Hawizah Marshes, just east of
Al Qurnah, in Iraq, near the confluence of the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers. Iraqi forces, using Soviet- and French-made
helicopter gunships, inflicted heavy casualties on the five
Iranian brigades (15,000 men) in this Battle of Majnun.
Lacking the equipment to open secure passages through Iraqi
minefields, and having too few tanks, the Iranian command again
resorted to the human-wave tactic. In March 1984, an East
European journalist claimed that he "saw tens of thousands of
children, roped together in groups of about twenty to prevent the
faint-hearted from deserting, make such an attack." The Iranians
made little, if any, progress despite these sacrifices. Perhaps
as a result of this performance, Tehran, for the first time, used
a regular army unit, the 92nd Armored Division, at the Battle of
the Marshes a few weeks later.
Within a four-week period between February and March 1984,
the Iraqis reportedly killed 40,000 Iranians and lost 9,000 of
their own men, but even this was deemed an unacceptable ratio,
and in February the Iraqi command ordered the use of chemical
weapons. Despite repeated Iraqi denials, between May 1981 and
March 1984, Iran charged Iraq with forty uses of chemical
weapons. The year 1984 closed with part of the Majnun Islands and
a few pockets of Iraqi territory in Iranian hands. Casualties
notwithstanding, Tehran had maintained its military posture,
while Baghdad was reevaluating its overall strategy.
The major development in 1985 was the increased targeting of
population centers and industrial facilities by both combatants.
In May Iraq began aircraft attacks, long-range artillery attacks,
and surface-to-surface missile attacks on Tehran and on other
major Iranian cities. Between August and November, Iraq raided
Khark Island forty-four times in a futile attempt to destroy its
installations. Iran responded with its own air raids and missile
attacks on Baghdad and other Iraqi towns. In addition, Tehran
systematized its periodic stop-and-search operations, which were
conducted to verify the cargo contents of ships in the Persian
Gulf and to seize war materiel destined for Iraq.
The only major ground offensive, involving an estimated
60,000 Iranian troops, occurred in March 1985, near Basra; once
again, the assault proved inconclusive except for heavy
casualties. In 1986, however, Iraq suffered a major loss in the
southern region. On February 9, Iran launched a successful
surprise amphibious assault across the Shatt al Arab and captured
the abandoned Iraqi oil port of Al Faw. The occupation of Al Faw,
a logistical feat, involved 30,000 regular Iranian soldiers who
rapidly entrenched themselves. Saddam Husayn vowed to eliminate
the bridgehead "at all costs," and in April 1988 the Iraqis
succeeded in regaining the Al Faw peninsula.
Late, in March 1986, the UN secretary general, Javier Perez
de Cuellar, formally accused Iraq of using chemical weapons
against Iran. Citing the report of four chemical warfare experts
whom the UN had sent to Iran in February and March 1986, the
secretary general called on Baghdad to end its violation of the
1925 Geneva Protocol on the use of chemical weapons. The UN
report concluded that "Iraqi forces have used chemical warfare
against Iranian forces"; the weapons used included both mustard
gas and nerve gas. The report further stated that "the use of
chemical weapons appear[ed] to be more extensive [in 1981] than
in 1984." Iraq attempted to deny using chemicals, but the
evidence, in the form of many badly burned casualties flown to
European hospitals for treatment, was overwhelming. According to
a British representative at the Conference on Disarmament in
Geneva in July 1986, "Iraqi chemical warfare was responsible for
about 10,000 casualties." In March 1988, Iraq was again charged
with a major use of chemical warfare while retaking Halabjah, a
Kurdish town in northeastern Iraq, near the Iranian border.
Unable in 1986, however, to dislodge the Iranians from Al
Faw, the Iraqis went on the offensive; they captured the city of
Mehran in May, only to lose it in July 1986. The rest of 1986
witnessed small hit-and-run attacks by both sides, while the
Iranians massed almost 500,000 troops for another promised "final
offensive," which did not occur. But the Iraqis, perhaps for the
first time since the outbreak of hostilities, began a concerted
air-strike campaign in July. Heavy attacks on Khark Island forced
Iran to rely on makeshift installations farther south in the Gulf
at Sirri Island and Larak Island. Thereupon, Iraqi jets,
refueling in midair or using a Saudi military base, hit Sirri and
Larak. The two belligerents also attacked 111 neutral ships in
the Gulf in 1986.
Meanwhile, to help defend itself, Iraq had built impressive
fortifications along the 1,200-kilometer war front. Iraq devoted
particular attention to the southern city of Basra, where
concrete-roofed bunkers, tank- and artillery-firing positions,
minefields, and stretches of barbed wire, all shielded by an
artificially flooded lake 30 kilometers long and 1,800 meters
wide, were constructed. Most visitors to the area acknowledged
Iraq's effective use of combat engineering to erect these
barriers.
On December 24, 1986, Iran began another assault on the Basra
region. This annual "final offensive" resulted in more than
40,000 dead by mid-January 1987. Although the Iranian push came
close to breaking Iraq's last line of defense east of Basra,
Tehran was unable to score the decisive breakthrough required to
win outright victory, or even to secure relative gains over Iraq.
Data as of May 1988
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