British TV, Newspapers Call In the Country’s Army of Military Experts : Media: Retired officers, armchair strategists are suddenly in great demand. Some are critical of ‘the Khafji incident.’

From the moment the Persian Gulf crisis erupted into a shooting war, British military experts became media celebrities here, the new luminaries of television.

Not since the Falklands War have so many retired generals and admirals and military strategists been in such demand, enlisted for special TV broadcasts and called up as armchair strategists for the newspapers.

Most of these experts have tended to agree with the allied strategy of proceeding step by step against Iraq and the on-scene commanders’ refusal to be rushed into premature ground action.

But some of the more outspoken of them have criticized the allies’ response to the Iraqis’ cross-border attack at the Saudi Arabian town of Khafji last week, and they suggest that top allied officers, in their accounts of that action, may be trying to cover up battlefield deficiencies.

Retired Maj. Gen. Ken Perkins, a highly decorated, Arabic-speaking analyst who contributes to the best-selling Sun newspaper, declared in an interview: “The battle clearly did not go according to the script. We were caught flat-footed, and I don’t think the Saudis did very well. It shouldn’t have taken them 36 hours to retake the town.

“Why don’t we just admit it was a cock-up and that it won’t happen again? That would actually be more reassuring to people than to pretend nothing went wrong.”

And John Keegan, the distinguished historian and military editor of the Daily Telegraph, added: “The battle of Khafji should not have been allowed to happen. The truth of the matter is the allied high command has been careless, an impression it should have taken pains not to give at this sensitive state of the war.”

Both commentators agreed, however, that the fighting at Khafji would not have a major effect on the war.

Another leading expert, retired Field Marshal Lord Brammall, was less critical of the allies. “Saddam Hussein’s decision to launch an attack is, on the whole, a good thing for allied commanders,” he said, “because his troops will be much more vulnerable.”

The outbreak of the war comes as a shot in the arm to Britain’s strategic studies experts, and London is home to perhaps the world’s greatest concentration of such expertise.

Prof. Lawrence Freedman, who is writing for the Independent newspaper, heads the department of war studies at King’s College, London University. Not long ago, he says, some of his colleagues seriously urged him to change the department’s title to “peace studies.”

Similarly, with the end of the Cold War, London organizations such as the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Royal Institute of International Affairs--also known as Chatham House--and the Royal United Service Institute all had been thinking about moving into less martial fields of study.

But now, “We are busier than we’ve ever been,” Freedman said. “We had 95 calls before noon the other day.”

Col. Michael Dewar, deputy director of the Strategic Studies Institute, says his organization has about 10 associates making themselves available to the media, since such exposure is good for the prestige of the institute--and its fund raising.

As for the conduct of the war, Dewar said: “Contrary to some speculation in the media, the war is proceeding according to plan. Earlier, the public was thinking of the length of the war in terms of days and weeks, but the military has always been thinking in terms of weeks or months.”

The phones at Chatham House have also been ringing these days, with callers in search of experts such as retired Adm. James Eberle, until recently director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, who jokingly defines an expert as “any man from out of town.”

The conflict so far, Eberle said, “proves once again that the only certainty in war is uncertainty and surprise.”

The admiral indicated that he believes the allies were taken by surprise at Khafji and would have preferred it the other way around--that is, for the coalition forces to have initiated an early surprise move against Iraqi land forces.

Eberle also believes that the allies should be more conscious of the political aspects of the war, and he maintains that they seemed “rather slow” in getting across their version of events, as compared to the Iraqis.

Or as Keegan says: “The Iraqis may not have held Khafji for long, but the damage was done. (Iraqi President) Saddam (Hussein) got his headlines--banner ones in the Islamic world--and the allies got into a stew. The counterattack was messy. It was an episode the allies could have done without.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Julian Thompson, who commanded the Royal Marine commandos in Britain’s victorious 1982 Falklands campaign against Argentina, says he also believes that the allies were surprised and less than impressive in that first skirmish.

“The Khafji incident,” he said, “viewed from an armchair, seems an example of military idleness. Militarily speaking, this scrap may have been beneficial. There is no substitute for the real thing to expose weaknesses in commanders at all levels and their staffs. There is time to make the necessary changes, and the staffs . . . should be better next time.”

Another respected pundit, John Akehurst, former deputy supreme commander of NATO forces, at first avoided becoming “one of those elderly generals wheeled out on television.” But he changed his mind, he said, because: “It’s important that someone who knows what is sensitive should comment. I can help inform the public, but I know when to stop.”

Akehurst believes in stopping short of predicting what might come next. For an observer with military expertise to do so, he maintains, might parallel just what the battlefield commanders are thinking and might thus aid the enemy.

Indeed, not every retired field marshal or admiral chooses to share his opinions publicly. Lord Carver, a distinguished retired field marshal and military historian who once commanded the 4th Armored Brigade, which is now deployed in the Persian Gulf region, says:

“I deplore the media tendency to insist on public comment on an hourly basis about military operations. It is not helpful to those who have to conduct them, or have to give higher political direction, or to the anxious relatives and friends of servicemen in the Gulf.

“I would not have welcomed being asked immediately after an operation what my feelings were, and having them broadcast all over the world. I am not convinced the general public really want it, and I suspect the principal motive is competition within the media.”

To a man, the military experts believe that the result of the war will be a victory for the allies. What they don’t know, they say, is how long it will take to defeat Hussein and what the casualties will be.

The military men take a tougher, more realistic view of some factors that worry the general public--such as Scud missiles and chemicals weapons--and try to place them in perspective.

“Hyperbole has added to the confusion,” says retired Gen. Anthony Farrar-Hockley, a veteran paratrooper and NATO commander. “Take, for example, the reports of ‘devastation’ caused by the detonation of a 200-pound warhead in Israel--devastating to the stricken families, no doubt, but not at all, as it has proved, in the reaction of the Israeli people or government.”

And Nigel Bagnall, a former field marshal, says of the threat of chemical warfare: “Any delay caused (by Iraq’s use of chemical weapons) would be temporary, however, and certainly insufficient to alter the outcome of the battle. Saddam places much reliance on the use of terror which, against well-trained and equipped troops, is little more than an irritant.”

Whatever their views, the experts generally agree that the firm British military and popular support of the Gulf War has brought the nation closer to the Americans.