John Rapley - Foreign Focus WHILE VESTIGES of the Iraqi state remain, and pockets of resistance to the Anglo-American invasion hold out, the regime of Saddam Hussein is now finished. After running into snags in the early days of the invasion, the alliance pulled itself together and has raced to a fairly quick victory in the struggle for Baghdad.
The celebrations that accompanied the symbolic toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in downtown Baghdad yesterday will probably be temporary, though. Few expected the battle to take out the regime of Saddam Hussein to be the most difficult part of the invasion. It was the occupation which followed that would be most problematic, and the early omens from the war still indicate that the greatest challenges lie ahead.
The allies do not have much time on their side. While they have effectively overthrown the government of Saddam, they have yet to replace it. Indeed, something of a power vacuum has emerged. Most of the country remains unoccupied by the invasion force. As a result, Saddam's brutal police-state has given way to anarchy, looting and lawlessness. The risks of revenge killings and ethnic conflict are ever-present.
HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE
Equally, the war's destruction of Iraq's already-feeble infrastructure has raised the risk of a humanitarian catastrophe. Water supplies are strained in much of the country. Food supplies are running low. Medical supplies, especially in Baghdad, are nearly gone. If the allies do not impose themselves on the country quickly, the situation could grow dire.
Yet conditions remain dangerous, and the Americans in particular are still reluctant to take full control of the areas they are occupying. In part, this results from the military strategy they adopted as the war unfolded. Unlike the British advance in the south, which involved a deliberate and methodical occupation of cities like Basra, the Americans seized the initiative when it became apparent that the Iraqi state was crumbling. Rather than allow the Iraqis to retreat and regroup, the Amer-icans chose to pursue them aggressively and keep them on the defensive.
CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
This entailed a more heavy-handed approach than the British used, resulting in higher civilian casualties. More importantly, though, it meant defeating the Iraqi government before the Americans were actually in a position to take control on the ground. Consequently, pockets of resistance remain in the zones occupied by the Americans. Cut off from their central command and short on ammunition, these guerrillas will be unable now to mount a rearguard attack. On the other hand, reinforced by volunteers from elsewhere in the Arab world, they may be willing to take desperate measures to bloody the Americans.
Not many Americans are likely to die as a result. However, they may have to slow their consolidation of power while they neutralise this threat. Meanwhile, Baghdad edges closer to a crisis. Food supplies throughout the country can probably last a few more weeks. Water and medical supplies are more limited. In other words, the allies have only days in which to take full control of the country. If they fail to do so, they may be forced into a rearguard action to stamp out anarchy in which they have to turn their guns on ordinary Iraqis.
Meanwhile, the situation in the north remains volatile. With only a few thousand of their soldiers on the ground, the Americans are relying on Kurdish guerrillas to roll back the Iraqi army. So far, this has worked. The problem is that as the Kurds move closer and closer to the centre of the north's oil-producing region, the Turks are growing anxious. At all cost, they do not want the Kurds to develop an independent power-base from which they could fight for their own homeland within Turkey. Should the Kurds occupy Kirkuk and Mosul, the Turks might well decide to invade northern Iraq themselves.
This sort of internecine warfare, and a power vacuum that turns Iraq into another Afghanistan, remains the greatest danger to the Americans. Saddam loyalists in Baghdad may only have a few days' worth of supplies available for a fight; elsewhere, such as Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, they can hold out longer. But if the British experience in Basra is anything to go by, pacifying Iraq may prove a good deal more difficult than making war on it has been. Time, meanwhile, is short.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
