The Iraq War

Operation Iraqi Freedom 2003–2011

Anthony Tucker-Jones

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781473834675
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Modern History
• Index: History

The Iraq War is a visual record of the American-led Operation Iraqi Freedom of 2003, which resulted in the dramatic overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein. In a striking sequence of photographs Anthony Tucker-Jones shows how this was achieved by the American and British armed forces in a lightning campaign of just two weeks. But the photographs also show the disastrous aftermath when the swift victory was undermined by the outbreak of the Iraqi insurgency - in the Shia south, in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle, and in Fallujah where two ferocious battles were fought. The author, who is an expert on the Iraqi armed forces and has written extensively on the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War, gives a fascinating insight into the Iraqi army and air force and into the multitude of weapons systems Saddam purchased from around the world. He also looks at the failures on the American and British side - the flaws in the tactics that were used, the poor performance of some of the armoured fighting vehicles and at the reformed Iraqi armed forces who have now taken responsibility for security in the country. The Iraq War is a vivid photographic introduction to a conflict that has only just passed into history.

Chapter One

Babylon Lion

Regardless of what the intelligence agencies thought, on the basis of data collected by the UN alone the case for war against Iraq in 2003 seemed irrefutable. The Iraqis had not inconsiderable stocks of chemical and biological munitions that they themselves could not account for and the CIA for a long time estimated that Baghdad had up to 300 Scud ballistic missiles stashed away. On the basis of this Britain and America opted for the conspiracy theory rather than the bugger’s muddle theory – i.e. Saddam was deliberately hiding something that constituted a threat.

The Iranians and Kurds had been on the receiving end of his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the past and it is widely believed that the only reason Saddam did not use them in 1991 was because America threatened to go ‘nuclear’. After the UN inspectors departed Iraq in 1998, Saddam gave the impression he was up to his old tricks. It was a bluff that was to cost him dearly in early 2003.

The Iraqi regular army was believed to consist of about seventeen divisions (each with about 10,000 men) with a total of about 2,200 tanks, 3,800 armoured personnel carriers and 2,000 artillery pieces. In reality these formations were understrength in terms of equipment, firepower and tactical ability. Even Iraq’s elite Republican Guards were no match for Britain and America’s modern mechanized forces.

Iraqi Army deployment January 2003

Kirkuk area 1st Corps: 5th Mechanized Division, 2nd, 8th and 38th Infantry Divisions.

Diyala area 2nd Corps: 3rd Armoured Fivision, 15th and 34th Infantry Divisions.

An Nasiriyah area 3rd Corps: 6th Armoured Division, the 51st Mechanized Division and 11th Infantry Division.

Amarah area 4th Corps: included the 10th Armoured Division, 14th and 18th Infantry Divisions.

Mosul area 5th Corps: 1 st Mechanized Division, and the 4th, 7th, and 16th Infantry Divisions.

Western Desert: Armoured Infantry Division and other units in western Iraq.

To defeat Saddam Hussein it was necessary for the Coalition to capture his seat of power, namely the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. It was anticipated that the toughest nut to crack would be the six divisions of his 50,000-strong Republican Guard and their 400-700 tanks. As well as the Guard, the 10,000 Special Republican Guard (SRG) was also regarded as a highly trained and equipped force. Notably, half the Republican Guard Division were deployed in an outer ring around Baghdad as the first line of defence.

Iraqi Elite Forces

Republican Guard	Special Republican Guard
50,000 men	10,000 men
6 divisions (3 armoured, 2 infantry 1 mechanized)	4 brigades
400-700 tanks	100 tanks

Republican Guard Division deployment January 2003

Unit	Location
Nebuchadnezzar	North of Baghdad
Hammurabi	South-west of Baghdad
Al Nida	South-east of Baghdad
Medina-Karbala	Karbala
Baghdad	Al Kut
Adnan	Tikrit

In 1990 Saddam was estimated to have 5,500 tanks, 8,100 armoured personnel carriers (APCs), 500 self-propelled guns and 3,200 pieces of artillery and multiple rocket launchers. Whilst it is impossible to account for all these, visible deliveries of Iraqi armoured vehicle imports from 1953-90 number at least 3,500 main battle tanks (MBTs) and 5,200 armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs). In the aftermath of desert Storm in 1991, Saddam Hussein still had some 250,000 men remaining under arms equipped with 1,700 tanks, 6,700 APCs and almost 800 pieces of artillery.

Although the Iraqis were left with well over 8,400 armoured vehicles intact, by 2003, after twelve years of sanctions, not all of these were serviceable. In fact, many lay rotting in various Iraqi service depots. In December 2002, a spokesman of the US Army 5th Corps commenting on Saddam’s 1991 junkyard at Al-Udairy in Kuwait said, ‘I think the strongest message we could send to Mr Hussein right now is to take pictures of this and drop them on Iraq.’

The bulk of Saddam’s remaining armoured forces were equipped with Russian-supplied T-54/55, Chinese T-59/T-69, Russian T-62 and some T-72 as well as Russian BMP-1/2 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). Only the T-72, known as the Babylon Lion, constituted any kind of real threat to Coalition armour, of which they may have had a few hundred in running order Iraq commenced the Iran-Iraq War in 1980 with just fifty Soviet-built T-72 tanks. By the end of the war, eight years later, it had managed to acquire approximately 200-500. Reportedly, the Iraqis fielded three variants of the T-72: the Soviet T-72M 1 and the T-72B, built at Nizhniy Tagil in what is now Russia, and the T-72G (T-72G/M), built in former Czechoslovakia and Poland. The T-72M 1 was a modernized T-72M, which was the export version of the T-72A accepted into Soviet service in 1979. The newer T-72B variant appeared in 1986.

The T-72G was also an export version of the T-72A, built by Poland and Czechoslovakia under the designation T-72M. If it is the case that the Iraqis had T-72Gs then the Czechs and/or Poles may have supplied some of them. Former Czechoslovakia built the T-72 under licence from 1979-93 for both domestic and export markets. Similarly, Poland also manufactured the T-72 under licence until the early 1990s. However, Czechoslovakia was only reported as supplying Baghdad with armoured infantry fighting vehicles and APCs, not tanks. Poland or East Germany are believed to have supplied Iraq with 100 T-55 MBTs in the early 1980s, and 70-100 Polish T-72M 1 are known to have been supplied to Iran in the mid-1990s, but not to Iraq.

In the late 1980s, Iraq claimed to be assembling the T-72M1, known locally as the Assad Babyle or Babylon Lion. Iraqi defence industries were producing the ordnance, breech mechanism, ammunition and some of the electronics; the rest was presumably provided as knock-down kits by Russia. Local assembly of the T-72MI in Iraq is believed to have come to a rapid halt after the 1990-91 Gulf War, due to a lack of parts.

It was only after Saddam’s downfall that it became evident what a used car lot Iraq’s armoured forces were. The sheer range of suppliers and vehicle types were a logistical and training nightmare that was probably never fully resolved. It transpires the Iraqis also bought armoured fighting vehicles from such diverse countries as Bulgaria, Italy, Hungary, Poland and former Yugoslavia on top of the nine countries previously identified – Austria, Brazil, China, former Czechoslovakia, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Spain.

Among the more unusual vehicles supplied to Baghdad during the 1980s was the Hungarian 4x4 PSZH-IV, which apparently was not very mechanically reliable. In comparison to the other East European former Warsaw Pact members ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface: Modern Warfare Series
• Introduction: Saddam Betrayed
• Chapter One: Babylon Lion
• Chapter Two: Coalition of the Willing
• Chapter Three: Marines Storm Basra
• Chapter Four: Sixteen Days to Baghdad
• Chapter Five: Where’s Saddam’s Air Force?
• Chapter Six: The Fate of Saddam’s Navy
• Chapter Seven: A Tarnished Reputation
• Chapter Eight: Zarqawi’s Storm
• Chapter Nine: The Battle for Fallujah
• Chapter Ten: Phoenix from the Ashes
• Chapter Eleven: Where did it all go Wrong?
• Chapter Twelve: What Happened to Saddam’s WMD?
• Epilogue
• Suggested Further Reading