Iraq Thought Unlikely to Risk Attack to Expel Iranians

U.S. military analysts have concluded that Iraq must commit large numbers of troops--and risk high casualties--if it is going to push invading Iranian soldiers back across the Shatt al Arab waterway and out of the Iraqi city of Al Faw at the northern edge of the Persian Gulf.

But a Defense Department official, describing the Iraqis as “very timid,” said that Iraq appears unlikely to take such a step. And the brutal fighting, likened to the trench warfare of World War I, shows no sign of abating.

On Monday night, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the two nations to end the war, but Iran rejected the resolution Tuesday and said it had begun a new offensive.

Villages Captured

It said its troops had captured 37 Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. Iraqi war communiques made no mention of the offensive.

In Tehran late Tuesday, Prime Minister Hussein Moussavi said Iranian forces had advanced to within 16 miles of Sulaymaniyah, the Kurdish provincial capital.

The Pentagon official, who asked not to be identified, said that Iraqi air operations, although effective in the daytime, fall off at night, easing the pressure on Iran as it tries to keep its forces supplied. With the Iraqi pilots apparently unwilling to fly in darkness and hampered by sandstorms that limit visibility, Iran is able to resupply its troops by means of small boats and pontoon bridges without fear of attack, the official said.

Surprise Assault

Iran’s forces appear to be stalled about six miles beyond Al Faw, the main oil-shipping terminal in Iraq before the war began in 1980. Iran took Al Faw in a surprise amphibious attack on Feb. 9, and fierce ground combat brought the Iranian forces to their present position.

The U.S. official said that the continuing presence of Iranian troops on Iraqi soil may cause political problems for the regime of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Yet, he said, fear of political unrest may sap the willingness of the Iraqi government to accept the large number of deaths and injuries that could result from a major campaign to push the Iranian troops out of Iraqi territory.

In the view of military analysts, he said, Iraq “could punch them back out if they wanted to commit the men.”

However, retired Rear Adm. Robert J. Hanks, a senior military analyst at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Washington, said that “the Iranian bridgehead, by now, is well dug-in, I’m sure.”

Iraqis Lack Confidence

Another source, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Iraqi leadership is not as sure of itself “as it has a right to be” and may be unnecessarily withholding troops from the battle.

Iraq, he said, may also be concerned about redeploying troops from points farther north in the marshlands above the gulf coast out of fear that Iran would then send its “human waves” of troops--some said to be no more than 13 years old--across the border at a point where defenses have been suddenly depleted.

And, although the presence of Iranian troops in Al Faw may be troublesome politically to Iraq, it poses no long-range military threat, the Pentagon official said. He pointed out that, while Iraq appears to be unable to push the Iranians out of Al Faw, air strikes and artillery barrages are sufficient to contain the invading troops to that one region.

He said that Iraq’s Soviet-supplied air force is superior to Iran’s, which is flying aircraft supplied by the United States to pre-revolutionary Iran.

Iran’s success in crossing the Shatt al Arab and holding Al Faw and the surrounding area has also caused some uneasiness in Kuwait, according to the Pentagon official.

Frederick W. Axelgard, a fellow in Middle East studies at Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it is “perhaps quite significant” that Kuwait is complaining about Iranian aircraft harassing ships in Kuwaiti waters of the northern Persian Gulf.

He said that, if the complaints are valid, they could reflect a willingness by Iran to carry out threats against nations in the region that have supported Iraq.

“I don’t know that the United States would intervene, but it would get the United States’ and perhaps the Soviets’ hackles up quite a bit if Iran threatened a neutral country,” he said.

For years, Iraq has sought access to two Kuwaiti islands--Bubiyan and Warda--and permission to use them would amount to an outflanking maneuver by Iraq, Axelgard said. Iran, he said, has told Kuwait to refuse to give Iraq such access.