Nature May Be Iraq Ally if War Stalls

If allied forces are unable to drive Iraqi troops from Kuwait before the end of next month, the forces of nature could weigh into the conflict on the side of Saddam Hussein by bogging down the war with blinding seasonal sandstorms and soaring desert temperatures.

Independent military analysts predict that the onset of spring and summer sandstorms--caused by hot, dry winds known as shamals-- and gradually rising temperatures could complicate combat in the Arabian Desert and give Hussein an unexpected boost by dragging out the conflict.

The storms and heat are expected to reduce the advantages of the high-tech U.S. arsenal and exhaust ground troops on both sides, particularly if they must wear bulky equipment as protection against chemical weapons. Military officials have warned that ground and air assaults on Iraqi troops could grind to a halt for hours--possibly days--at a time.

“It will slow down the war considerably,” said Lt. Gen. Richard D. Lawrence, a retired Army officer with extensive service in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.

Anatoly E. Yegorin, a senior researcher at the Oriental Studies Institute, a Moscow think tank for policy on the Middle East and Muslim world, believes that sandstorms and blistering heat will make military operations so difficult that the war will last at least through December.

Although both coalition forces and the Iraqis would be impaired by the changing climate, the U.S. Central Command has been especially watchful of the calendar because of American hopes to end the war quickly. Weather becomes one factor in a complex equation of potential delays, which also includes religious and political concerns, such as Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca that begin in June.

Joshua M. Epstein, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, said any delays in the U.S. battle plan--weather-related or otherwise--work against the allies by giving Iraq and opponents of the war time to unravel the international coalition, possibly by luring Israel into the conflict or by sponsoring peace initiatives unpalatable to Washington.

“This is one of the big problems in wars: How do you terminate them?” Epstein said. “War goals change in the course of a war. We are still at the tip of the iceberg with this one.”

Climatic conditions are not expected to play a decisive role in determining the war’s outcome, but the changing weather makes life substantially more difficult for military strategists attempting to choreograph a U.S.-led offensive into Kuwait.

Visibility during storms caused by shamals, for instance, can be reduced to the length of a football field, making it difficult for pilots to separate friend from foe in ground warfare. The fierce sandstorms, which typically begin in April and continue through the summer, have been known to create walls of flying sand up to 14,000 feet high over areas larger than Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“The weather provides some advantages for those in defense as opposed to those in offense,” said retired Gen. Edward C. Meyer, who served as Army chief of staff in the early 1980s. “If you had some of the winds and sandstorms in a period of offensive operations, it would be more difficult to coordinate those operations and would give the advantage to somebody in the defense. Since the Iraqis will be principally in the defense, it will be to their advantage.”

Eleven years ago, Americans got their first taste of the debilitating desert sandstorms when President Jimmy Carter, under the code name Desert One, attempted a secret military operation to free American hostages held by Tehran. The April 24 mission was aborted--eventually leading to the death of eight participants--after navigation and flight instruments on one helicopter failed in a large dust cloud over the Iranian desert.

A report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff blamed the failed mission on unexpected helicopter failure and low-visibility flight conditions caused by the dust cloud, which was described in one account as 200 miles wide and rising 6,000 feet. Authors of the report concluded that better knowledge of the dust phenomenon might have prevented the debacle.

“They are hellish things,” said George Friedman, a political science professor at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania who conducts computer war games on the Middle East. “A lot of the arguments about the superiority of American troops depends on technology. Bad weather negates American technological superiority. Even if it doesn’t do it 100% of the time, imagine being on an offensive and having two bad days like that.”

The allies’ armory of sophisticated weaponry--particularly missiles that rely on lasers, television monitors and heat sensors--would be hardest hit by the sandstorms and, later in the summer, by extreme heat.

Laser-guided missiles, which are used by ground forces and carried by Apache attack helicopters, can lose their effectiveness when swirling sand particles block the beam used to target the enemy. Similarly, poor visibility impairs the performance of television-guided weaponry--such as the AGM-65 Maverick missile and the GBU-15 glide bomb--by making it difficult for air crews to guide them on monitors.

By July and August, when daytime desert temperatures can top 120 degrees, the extreme heat distorts targets, sometimes making them appear in double. The distortion will further complicate the use of television-guided weapons, and make it more difficult to accurately fire guns and artillery that rely on the human eye for targeting.

“The hot air serves as a lens to deaden the light,” Friedman said. “When the pilots come in to do their attack, it is going to be awfully hard to (pinpoint) the enemy with that distortion. . . . When the military says the desert is perfect because we can see forever, they don’t take into account seeing forever at 110 degrees.”

Heat-seeking missiles, which use homing devices that detect so-called heat signatures from enemy tanks, would also become less effective in the hot summer months when all vehicles--intended targets or not--give off similar heat signals.

Most analysts, however, expect the diminished capability of the U.S. arsenal to be more of an annoyance than a crucial factor in combat. The arsenal is large enough and diverse enough to allow strategists to use other weapons, such as radar-guided missiles, that would be less affected by adverse weather conditions.

“Sure, stories will emerge saying the Apache will not be able to use its missile because of a sandstorm on this day, but then the next day, when the wind is not blowing, it will work fine,” said Gregory Grant of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “You are talking about a war. It isn’t some special operations mission resting on the success of one system. The core commander has so many assets at his disposal, it is not a catastrophe if one system doesn’t work.”

The shamals also could play to the advantage of the allies in at least one potentially volatile part of combat: chemical warfare. Military analysts said the swirling sand and winds--up to 45 m.p.h.--reduce the persistence of deadly chemicals and make it more difficult for the Iraqis to hit precise targets. As such, the toll of chemical weapons would be more psychological than physical.

Even so, the burden of wearing heavy protective clothing for chemical warfare--for short or long periods--will wear down troops on both sides of the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, the analysts said. Soldiers will be able to withstand the hot suits for a matter of minutes, not hours, they said.

Even without the suits, hot summer temperatures could have a major impact on ground operations by complicating resupply efforts. The average summertime high in Dhahran is 107 degrees and in Kuwait city 103, causing foodstuffs to spoil more quickly and heat-related medical problems--such as heatstroke--to increase.

“People are going to work at one-half or one-quarter effectiveness, depending on how hot it is,” said Meyer, the former Army chief of staff. “It is going to be a water war at that stage. The whole concept (of U.S. strategy) is that we will be able to cut off their supplies. So we will have more water.”

Analysts agree that the coalition will ultimately prevail in desert combat regardless of the weather, but they said it will be an easier--and less costly--victory if it comes before the arrival of shamals and summer heat.

“The problem is our guys just aren’t used to it, “ said Friedman of Dickinson College. “Imagine the Iraqis fighting in a New England winter.”

KUWAIT: WEATHER FACTS

It is winter in Kuwait, a notoriously short season in the Middle East. As warmer weather comes, allied forces will be facing a desert climate that will be hard both on the troops and their high-tech machines. Here is what they can expect: * WINTER TEMPERATURES: Winter temperatures average 55 degrees during the day. Nighttime lows can slip below freezing.

* SUMMER TEMPERATURES: The daily average summer temperature is 95 degrees, and days of 122 degrees are not unusual. Hottest temperatures are found inland.

* HUMIDITY: On average, relative humidity is about 45%, but for a few weeks during August and September it can soar to an uncomfortable 70% to 90%, especially near the coast.

* RAIN AND CLOUDS: The “rainy season,” such as it is, lasts from November to April and provides an average of about 4 inches a year. Most of the rainfall occurs during sudden squalls. In summer, there are few clouds to relieve the blistering sun.

* WINDS: The region from southern Iraq to Saudi Arabia is exposed to sometimes devastating seasonal winds. The shamal, as the prevailing northwesterly wind is called, can whip up blinding dust storms that can halt operations for hours or days at a time. It is fiercest during the summer months.

Source: Persian Gulf States