By
Khaled Schmitt, IOL Correspondent
BONN,
March 29 (IslamOnline.net) - Military German experts ruled out it was
impossible for the U.S.-British invasion forces to occupy and secure
Baghdad as long as the current “unity and determination” - between
the Iraqi regime and people - goes on, expecting “a bitter defeat”
should the invasion forces opted for attacking the Iraqi capital.
Participants
in an emergency research session to assess the current invasion,
organized by the Unit of Military studies and analyses - affiliated to
Hamburg University - (AKUF), noted that “the history of world wars
never recorded one case of an invading army that managed to occupy and
control a heavily-populated city - such as Baghdad”.
According
to German Magazine Tagesspiegel Friday, March 28, the German experts
unanimously believed that the invasion forces had only two options to
occupy and secure Baghdad or Basra; either to flatten them completely
or besiege them tell hunger played its toll on the people inside.
Pioneer
of German military experts, Dr. Manfred Messer Schmidt, expected the
U.S.-British invasion forces would lose the war as long as the Iraqi
President, Saddam Hussein, remained in control of the country.
The
prominent German expert considered it impossible for the invasion
forces to control a city of million peoples unless they (invading
forces) decided to “flatten it and bring every and each building
upside down”.
Schmidt
stressed that “destroying Baghdad” would hamper tanks and armored
vehicles moving in the streets, leading to the inevitability of
“street fighting”. This, he added, means unimaginable losses
inflicted on the invading armies.
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Bombing
and attacks intensified, resulting in heavy civilian casualties
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“If
they extremely lucky, they (invading forces) may manage to occupy some
suburbs,” Schmidt added, citing the bitter German experience of
attacking and besieging Russian Leningrad for 900 days during WW II.
“Entering
Leningrad led to its complete destruction and severe human casualties
on both sides, due to fierce street fighting,” he stressed.
Schmidt,
who up till 1995, was the head of the Central German Office for
Military Studies in Freeburg, likened the situation of the invasion
forces in Iraq to that of the German forces that invaded Russia during
WW II, seen as the beginning of the defeat.
For
his part, Dr. Gerd Krumeich, Head of the Military Studies Unit in
Dosledurf University, played down the technological superiority of the
invasion forces, arguing that “it will not do them any good once
street fighting erupts”.
“The
U.S.-British military planners miscalculated the whole situation when
they assumed the Iraqis would welcome them with roses. Definitely, the
current unity and integrity between the leadership and citizens in
Iraq was not taken into consideration,” Krumeich said.
He
expected the “harmony and closeness” in Iraq would grow as the
bombing and attacks of the invading forces intensified.
The
AKUF is the most prominent and respectable center in analyzing and
studying regional and international wars and conflicts in all
continents.
