Target: Saddam

By Johanna McGeary

The world saw two realities in Baghdad last week. Saddam Hussein televised his on Friday, as Iraqi TV showed him rising from the underground to take a walkabout in two Baghdad neighborhoods. He seemed awkward but animated, surrounded by adoring citizens, even kissing a baby. As with every Saddam sighting, this one--plus a videotaped speech broadcast earlier that day in which he urged citizens to rise up against the Americans--triggered endless speculation about body doubles and other cinematic tricks. But intelligence analysts in the U.S. and elsewhere mostly concurred that this was truly Saddam. For supporters at home and abroad, his steely words and smiling visage seemed an attempt, however desperate, to convey this message: All is well. We will prevail.

A day later, the Americans decided to communicate a message of their own. Shortly after sunrise, more than 50 U.S. Army vehicles, led by M-1 tanks and Bradleys, suddenly powered into the center of Baghdad. Cruising at 25 m.p.h., the patrol shredded the enemy--killing perhaps more than 1,000 Iraqis--who dared take it on. Timid Iraqis waved cautiously from side streets, only to watch the invading forces rumble back out of the city. This was a mission not to take territory or wipe out an army but to make a point: Our tanks can penetrate your defenses at will, in broad daylight. "We drove through downtown Baghdad today," says a senior U.S. military official, "to show that we could."

Winning control of Baghdad may well turn out to be the bloodiest part of Gulf War II. But as the end game starts playing out, the fiercest fighting is being waged over some of the subtler aspects of war: symbols, perceptions, world opinion.

For the U.S., last week's race toward Baghdad silenced criticism that the military effort was bogging down. The 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force moved the big guns north, knocking off with relative ease what resistance they encountered. The body counts along the way were dramatically lopsided. In a battle for a bridge across the Euphrates, Lieut. Cclonel Rock Marcone of the 3rd Battalion 69th Armor Regiment said his men had killed 800 of the Republican Guard Medina Division; not a single American died. The U.S. notched tangible victories--roads secured, armies routed. But no less important were the symbolic gains. U.S. warplanes attacked the home of Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam's cousin and a member of his inner circle, widely known as Chemical Ali because of allegations that he ordered the gassing that killed some 5,000 Kurds in 1988. No battle was complete, it seemed, until American forces had torn down a Saddam poster or toppled a statue of his likeness. When Saddam International Airport, an emblem of the regime's ambitions 10 miles from the capital, fell to the 3rd Infantry's front line, the Americans promptly renamed it Baghdad International Airport. As the Americans rushed toward Baghdad, the Iraqi dictator was already being squeezed, his circle of supporters shrinking.

Iraqi officials continued to present an alternative reality. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf denied that the Americans had taken the airport, calling images to the contrary a "Hollywood trick." Earlier he asserted that the Americans "are nowhere" or "not near Baghdad"--claims that surely rang hollow even to loyalists. Just witness the flood of Iraqis crammed into buses, cars, taxis and trucks fleeing the capital.

It seems safe to say that Iraq's armed forces are overmatched, at least in conventional terms. But Saddam's last stand, if that's what we're seeing, could be messy. As U.S. forces began to encircle the capital, President Bush declared that Washington would accept "nothing less than complete and total victory." The U.S. would be thrilled if its resolve, coupled with the buildup outside Baghdad, triggers the hoped-for tipping point, at which Iraqis realize that Saddam is finished and abandon the fight, sparing the city a bloody denouement. But his continued shows of defiance--indeed, his very survival after repeated attempts to bomb him, his homes and his headquarters--suggest fierce battles may lie ahead. As Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary, told TIME late last week, "We're making progress, but there's still a lot of dangerous stuff ahead of us." Countering the palpable surge in optimism welling up in the Pentagon, he added, "Mood swings are dangerous." Here's a look at how the end game might play out:

--WHAT'S THE BAGHDAD PLAN?

Few outside the top military command had expected U.S. forces to breach Baghdad's perimeter quite as fast as they did. But war chief General Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, reportedly told planners that "speed kills the enemy," and he used speed last week to dramatic effect. Conquering Baghdad, however, presents an immensely complex challenge wholly different from the war's tests so far. Haste is not necessarily an asset for U.S. forces in subduing a city. Instead, "patience," said Air Force General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "is one element of the current plan." Nor is a grand assault in the cards for now. Said Army Major General Stanley McChrystal, a top Pentagon operations officer: "We are not expecting to drive into Baghdad suddenly and seize it in a coup de main." Although the Pentagon's battle plan is constantly evolving, the latest idea is for troops to take their time, seizing opportunities but not risking much to create them.

The change in strategy reflects not just a new type but a new scale of challenge. Already allied forces have destroyed most of Iraq's 2,500 tanks, according to U.S. officials. The Pentagon says two of Iraq's Republican Guard divisions have been "destroyed" and the remaining four "significantly degraded." The 3rd Infantry Division alone took as many as 2,500 Republican Guard prisoners. But officials note that it is possible that many of the surviving troops have fallen back into Baghdad's sheltering streets. "They're hightailing it into Baghdad," says a senior U.S. military official. Those inclined to keep struggling could join up with the two units that Saddam has counted on to defend the city, the 15,000-strong Special Republican Guard, the best equipped of Iraq's military forces, and the 5,000-member Special Security Organization, considered the most loyal of Saddam's fighters.

Some Pentagon officials argue that the retreat of the regular Republican Guard could be a plus. As demoralized troops find themselves fighting for their lives in the capital, conditions could ripen for a coup. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld all but called for one, saying Iraqi forces "must now decide whether they want to share the fate of Saddam Hussein or whether they will turn on that condemned dictator and help the forces of Iraq's liberation." But Pentagon officials concede that the surprising resistance shown by the most loyal of Iraq's forces means that Washington cannot count on an uprising. Nor does the easy run to Baghdad predict how hard Saddam's men may fight inside the capital. Administration officials still hope Saddam's government will implode under the tightening pressure. But as U.S. forces encircled the city, Rumsfeld cautioned that the regime "may prove to be more lethal in the final moments."

Saddam has aimed all along to draw coalition forces deep into Baghdad's back streets and cinder-block neighborhoods, where his forces could neutralize American technological superiority with guerrilla tactics that put civilians in the middle. He saw how faithful defenders hidden in Iraq's southern cities scored surprising success holding out. The U.S. desperately wants to sidestep that kind of bloody door-to-door fighting, which could drag out the war and rack up unacceptable body counts among American troops and innocent Iraqis.

Rather than fight on Saddam's terms, Pentagon officials say, they intend to squeeze the city gradually until his power is choked off. If the regime should appear to be crumbling, U.S. forces would probably move into the capital in force. Otherwise, the plan calls for them to continue encircling Baghdad. At week's end, only 25,000 or so U.S. troops were in the vicinity of the capital, but that number will steadily rise. The U.S. plans to communicate to Baghdad residents through leaflets and radio and TV broadcasts that Saddam's rule is all but finished. Civilians would be allowed to leave the city, but officials say they would not encourage an exodus, for fear of the chaos and displacement that would create. "We want them to stay at home; we want them to help us," a Pentagon official says.

The U.S. plans to send quick-reaction forces from both land and air into the city to deliver rapid-fire punches at new targets as they are identified by fresh intelligence. Already A-10s and other warplanes, aided by AH-1 and AH-64 helicopter gunships, are hitting sites inside the city limits. Topping the list of appealing targets are locations where Saddam or members of his inner circle might be. Next are outposts of the Special Republican Guard.

Central Command planning cells are combing satellite images and blueprints of known tunnels and bunkers in Baghdad, drawing up target lists. The use of Global Hawk drones gives the U.S. military what commanders call persistence, a nonstop view of the battlefield, which has allowed them to track the movements of Republican Guard divisions in real time and call in air strikes as its troops try to move. The Global Hawk loiters safely out of reach of Iraqi guns for up to 24 hours at a time, transmitting live pictures of the battlefield. Still, the most critical targeting information, U.S. military officers hope, will come from Iraqis who turn against the regime, perhaps motivated by revenge for its abuses. "It's payback time," says an officer with the Pentagon's Joint Staff. "We want to be ready to take advantage of that."

As U.S. forces build up around the city, quick-reaction strikes could be supplanted by a more methodical combing of the area by U.S. ground troops. The city will be "sliced like a pizza," a Defense official says, into sectors that will be studied, cleared, probed and ultimately rid of Iraqi forces. The idea is that as U.S. units secure more and more territory, the regime's leaders would be pushed into an ever shrinking area. At the same time, the U.S. would seize control of city services like water, electricity and communications.

The strategy is inherently perilous. Troops penetrating the city would face attacks from street fighters, snipers and suicide bombers. Added to the mix are "volunteers" who have traveled to Iraq from other Arab countries, notably Syria and Lebanon, to help resist the allied forces. "There are a lot of them," says a senior U.S. military official. "They seem to have been here for a while." If U.S. forces don't take control of Baghdad quickly, the city could fall into chaos.

--WHAT'S SADDAM'S PLAN?

From the war's opening shot, fired directly at Iraq's leader, U.S. officials have hoped they could avoid a bloody battle for Baghdad by decapitating the regime. According to a U.S. intelligence official, Iraqi phone conversations monitored after the U.S. struck at Saddam the night of March 19 indicated that medical help was being requested for him. U.S. intelligence officials say that since then, they have not once picked up Saddam's voice issuing orders. Doubts about whether he survived seemed to lift last Friday, when he appeared on television reading a speech in which he praised the farmer who Iraqis say downed a U.S. Apache helicopter. The helicopter incident occurred March 24, indicating that the Iraqi leader lived at least that long.

The same day, Iraqi television delivered a surprise 12-minute segment of a smiling, relaxed Saddam in military uniform walking around Baghdad, cheered by citizens. In Washington, debate raged: Was it really him? Was the tape made after March 19? Skeptical commentators suggested we might be seeing one of the doubles Saddam has acknowledged using. But U.S. officials say the CIA has no information that he has ever used doubles for close-ups like that one. The agency believes he uses stand-ins in motorcades and long-distance appearances, just as a Secret Service agent who looks similar to a U.S. President might take a decoy car around Washington. But officials say there's no evidence that any Saddam double is identical enough to fool the camera.

Indeed, the man on the tape looked like Saddam, with his trademark mole and the small bump on his left cheek. He spoke with Saddam's characteristic enunciation, which includes a slight slurring of his words. When he visited a checkpoint at an intersection, smoky black clouds could be seen above the horizon, which could have come from the oil fires Iraqis have set around Baghdad to hinder U.S. pilots. It was 90 in Baghdad the day the tape was shown, and some of the men in the swarming crowds wore sweaters or leather jackets. But the temperature had been in the 60s the week before. In the end, U.S. intelligence analysts seemed to agree that Saddam was alive. Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV, which aired the tape across the Middle East, called the appearance a brave move by Saddam to lift Iraqi morale.

U.S. officials still insisted, however, that Saddam was losing command and control of the country. "There is no coherent defense anywhere," said a senior military official on Saturday. But commanders preparing to take Baghdad warned that Saddam's government could still hold powerful sway inside the capital.

Saddam has four options, according to a military officer working on U.S. war plans. One, he could hunker down in some well-stocked hideout and wait it out. Two, he could make a run for it. One possible avenue of escape is the system of intricate tunnels that U.S. officials believe lie beneath Baghdad. Three, Saddam could choose the Samson option, the most frightening of all: once he realized he was finished, he could try to take with him as many enemies as possible. His loyalist forces might launch suicide attacks and fight from schools and mosques to force the Americans to destroy much of the city and kill many civilians. At the 11th hour, he could use his weapons of mass destruction--if he has them--against U.S. troops.

Finally, Saddam could attempt to negotiate his departure. In this scenario, he would go through the motions of preparing for a horrible final battle, then leave the door open at the last minute for a deal: all the mayhem could be avoided, he would let it be known, if he were allowed to leave. "He shows every sign he's prepared to unleash the apocalypse to make us believe it's better to let him go than for us to go get him," says the military officer. Such an outcome could give Saddam bragging rights in the Arab world for facing down the Americans. "The question is," says the officer, "would the President let him go?" Rumsfeld said last week it was too late for the exile option.

--WHEN CAN THE U.S. DECLARE VICTORY?

For many people, the answer is clear: when Saddam is dead or captured. Then Iraqis would stop resisting U.S. forces, the country would be pacified, and rebuilding would begin. But the Bush team seems to be preparing for the possibility that Saddam won't be found. Despite a year of making the case that Iraq's leader was too terrible to tolerate, the White House does not want victory to hinge on his confirmed demise. President Bush's unfulfilled promise to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" is a haunting reminder of how hard it might be to get Saddam. Administration officials have taken to saying, as Central Command spokesman Jim Wilkinson said Friday, that "our campaign is much larger than any one single personality." But it's doubtful that much of the world would judge the war a success while Saddam's fate was unresolved.

There's another task to be achieved for the enterprise to be deemed successful: the U.S. needs to locate the weapons of mass destruction that the Administration claimed were cause for the war. None have been found yet. The Administration has said they are not likely to be discovered until the fighting stops and Iraqi informers can reveal where they are. But if they aren't found, that would lead many to question the war.

Late last week reporters at the White House asked how Americans would know the U.S had won. "Victory is when the President announces it," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer replied. According to some officials, that could happen even before Saddam is gone. U.S. forces would penetrate to the heart of the city and claim success while diehards continued to fight. Once American troops grabbed critical levers of power, from power plants and TV stations to government ministries and social institutions, they would effectively render the regime "irrelevant." The key is to convince the Iraqis that the old regime is over and American forces are decisively in control. Then Saddam's minions, says General Myers, "would not be in charge of anything except their own defense." Some in the Pentagon wanted to set up an interim Iraqi government straight away. The White House said no.

Even if the U.S. manages to kill or imprison Saddam and neutralize his henchmen, including sons Uday and Qusay, the allied forces will still face a tough task: uprooting the rest of the regime. "What worries me is that we leave Iraq in a situation in which the Baath Party can be revived," says a senior military official. "If we allow it to resurface, we will have failed." The official believes the job is daunting. "The strength and resiliency of the regime is impressive," he says. "It's ruthless." Ruthlessness is what has kept Saddam Hussein in power for 24 years. But the job of those who espoused forcible regime change is to make sure that without him, the evils attached to his rule will go too. --Reported by Sally B. Donnelly/Doha; Jim Lacey with the 3rd Infantry Division; Michael Duffy, Elaine Shannon, Mark Thompson and Douglas Waller/Washington; and Scott MacLeod/Cairo

With reporting by Sally B. Donnelly/Doha; Jim Lacey with the 3rd Infantry Division; Michael Duffy, Elaine Shannon, Mark Thompson and Douglas Waller/Washington; and Scott MacLeod/Cairo