Baghdad would probably become a
bloodbath in a war that could drag on for months, an Australian
National University academic warned today.
President Saddam Hussein considered everyone of the Iraqi
capital's five million residents expendable except himself, said
Professor of Political Science Amin Saikal of ANU's Centre for Arab
and Islamic Studies.
"My feeling is that there is a good chance that Baghdad will be
turned into a bloodbath," Prof Saikal told reporters.
"The coalition forces will have no choice but to go for more
massive bombardment and that is what Saddam Hussein wants.
"He will not really hesitate to escalate the fighting inside the
city of Baghdad even if it means massive casualties for Iraq."
The Iraqi president intended to use the mounting casualties in
his propaganda strategy in a war that he could not win militarily,
but could prevent the United States from winning politically.
"I don't believe that this war is going to be short, swift and
clean as we've been promised," Prof Saikal said.
"This war is likely to last for weeks, if not months, and it's
likely to have a dramatic impact on the civilian population of
Baghdad.
"My feeling, at this point, is that we're likely to see a much
bigger humanitarian crisis looming right across Iraq."
The survival of the elite Republican Guard troops and Fedayeen
militia depended on the Hussein regime and they would fight to the
end.
The fanatical Fedayeen were trained in suicide operations as
well as guerilla warfare.
"Saddam Hussein will be relying very heavily in the 30,000
Fedayeen to carry out a number of suicide missions if necessary,"
Prof Saikal said.
Prof Saikal's grim prediction came as Baghdad's residents
increasingly armed themselves against coalition armoured divisions
that are only 60km from their city.
ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre director Dr Alan Dupont
said Baghdad would not be a repeat of the street by street battle
that claimed one million lives in the Russian city of Stalingrad
during World War II.
But he agreed that the coalition forces would probably have to
take the war into Baghdad.
And they could resort to indiscriminate fire power.
"I don't think they're going to go in and carpet bomb the city
and then try and take the whole city," Dr Dupont said.
"They'll have to actually selectively identify sectors of the
city that they believe are crucial to its defence, start to erode
the defences and take out the decision-makers - it's a big ask."