U.S. Could Win, But at a Bloody Price, Analyst Says : Computer simulation: A Washington think tank estimates an offensive would take a month to succeed and would cost the U.S. several armored divisions.

The United States and Saudi Arabia can expect to lose five or six armored divisions if they launch an attack against Iraq, a Brookings Institution military analyst warned Wednesday.

A preliminary computer simulation by researchers at Brookings, a Washington think tank, also estimated that an offensive against Saddam Hussein’s forces could break the Iraqi army in about a month.

“Yes, we will win,” Joshua Epstein, a military analyst at Brookings, told a press conference Wednesday. “But it will be very bloody and very expensive.”

Epstein’s model is based on a methodology that does not easily translate into casualty figures, and he declined to specify how many soldiers could die in such a campaign.

But government analysts said that a U.S. division generally is composed of about 16,000 troops and that such a unit would become inoperable after suffering personnel losses of 40% to 60%.

Therefore, they said, Epstein’s model implies that American and Saudi forces would suffer casualties of 32,000 to 48,000 troops.

The computer simulation did not estimate potential civilian casualties.

“It is going to become increasingly tempting to go on the offensive,” Epstein said, “but I think we have to take a very good look at this before we get carried away.”

Epstein emphasized that U.S. forces are better trained and have equipment superior to that of their Iraqi opponents. American assets include advanced surveillance systems like AWACS radar surveillance planes, other electronic warfare technologies and night-fighting capabilities.

The Iraqi army does have large numbers of ground troops and tanks, but the latter are inferior to the U.S. M-1 tanks, he said.

Epstein’s model shows that losses would be significantly lower should the United States and its allies defend against an Iraqi attack. Historically, Epstein noted, attackers lose more troops than defenders.

He estimated that in an Iraqi attack, U.S. and allied forces could expect to kill almost twice as many Iraqi troops as they would lose.

But even so, U.S. losses would not be minimal. “And you won’t be able to say that they died for democracy,” Epstein said, “or even that they died to keep the price of oil at $25 per barrel, since we have no guarantee that the Saudis won’t raise the price after we leave.”

Epstein said that the most likely scenario is that the United States and Iraq would fight a massive ground war. Government analysts concurred, noting that naval forces are too distant from potential targets to make a significant contribution and that strategic bombers, if deployed, would be best used to destroy backup forces in the Iraqi interior.

“The main thing is that we need to come to grips with the likely price tag of a war,” the Brookings analyst declared.