God of War Will Force Withdrawal as Hussein Sidesteps Other Options : Strategy: History offers dim prospects for armies in Iraq’s position.

President Bush’s ultimatum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was clear: Begin the withdrawal of Iraq’s military forces from Kuwait by noon EST Saturday, and have it over with in one week, or face a brutal ground war. Hussein’s immediate answer was to fire a Scud missile at Israel scant minutes before the deadline.

Word spread quickly that President Bush had already given Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. military commander in the Gulf, the go-ahead for the ground campaign.

If the military played it by the book, Bush gave Schwarzkopf a “Letter of Instruction” or LOI.

The most famous such LOI was the one issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in World War II. It began, “You will invade the continent of Europe. . .” and gave Eisenhower broad guidance on how to conduct his campaign to defeat Nazi Germany.

During the Vietnam War, Gen. Fred Weyand asked Gen. Creighton Abrams, whom he was replacing as COMUSMACV (commander in chief U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam), for his LOI.

Abrams laughed and said he had been looking for it for years--and never could find it. When Weyand asked what he was to do, Abrams answered, “Do the best you can.”

You can be assured that Schwarzkopf has much more definitive guidance. As we have seen with the air campaign in the Gulf, the ground action will not be an ad-hoc operation. And as happened with Eisenhower on the eve of D-Day in 1944 (even though he, too, had his LOI from the commander in chief), Schwarzkopf was obliged to wait for the President to make the final decision on exactly when the ground campaign was to begin.

With the start of the ground campaign, Hussein will regret that he passed up the chance to withdraw his military forces under the terms laid out by Bush, for the Iraqi leader, ultimately, will be forced to withdraw on terms imposed by the God of War. In the history of warfare, these terms have usually been harsh and unforgiving.

“Withdrawal” in military terms has a specific meaning. It is one of the three battlefield options available to the commander: attack, defend or withdraw. Withdrawal itself can be accomplished in two ways--in contact with the enemy, and without enemy contact.

The last time the United States had to exercise such operations was during the Korean War.

In November, 1950, the Chinese Communist forces intervened in the war, catching the U.N. Command by surprise. Thinking the war practically over with the earlier collapse of the North Korean Army, Gen. Douglas MacArthur had divided his forces, with the 8th U.S. Army driving up the west coast toward the Manchurian border and X Corps (the Army’s 3rd and 7th Infantry Divisions and the 1st Marine Division) driving up the east coast and around the Chosin Reservoir.

When the Chinese forces struck, the Marines and elements of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division made a heroic, fighting withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir, bringing most of their men and equipment with them. As then-Col. Chesty Puller said, “Retreat hell, we’re just advancing in another direction.”

On the other coast, however, it was a near disaster. Leaving the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division to fight the rear-guard action and keep the Chinese forces at bay, the 8th Army withdrew its I Corps and IX Corps back through the enemy capital of Pyongyang into new defensive positions south of the 38th Parallel, then the dividing line between North and South Korea.

Anything that could not be moved was destroyed, including the supply depots at Chinnampo, which held most of the Army’s winter clothing, and new British and American tanks that ran out of gas and had to be abandoned. Only strong leadership kept this withdrawal from turning into a rout, an “every man for himself” retreat that could have spelled the defeat of the entire force. As it was, the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division was chewed up by the advancing Chinese and had to be almost completely reconstituted.

Hussein faces an even more dismal prospect than the U.S. military in Korea did in winter, 1950. Not only does he have to contend with a superior military force, he also has to withdraw in the face of total allied air superiority.

The coalition air force has already destroyed about 1,685 of his tanks (39% of his total force), 925 of his armored personnel carriers (32% of the total) and 1,485 of his artillery pieces (48% of the total) and has killed and wounded untold numbers of his soldiers.

All this has been done with the Iraqi forces dug in, protected and concealed in revetted positions. When his forces come out of those fortifications to withdraw, they will be exposed to the full fury of the allied air attack.

They also will have to contend with the massive artillery fire of the advancing allied ground attack and run the risk of being cut off and surrounded by coalition armor columns driving deep into their rear areas and getting astride of their lines of retreat.

In the best of circumstances, a withdrawal is the most difficult of all military operations to accomplish. And Hussein’s forces in the field have not the best, but the worst of circumstances. There is a very real possibility that their withdrawal will turn into a rout. As Gen. Thomas W. Kelly, the Joint Chiefs director of operations, noted in his Pentagon briefing on Friday, the allies already have the capability to house 100,000 enemy prisoners of war. They may well need that capacity and more.

The Gulf crisis has been marked by a series of gross miscalculations by Iraq’s dictator. The latest such miscalculations--the notion that he could dictate the terms of his withdrawal and ignore Bush’s ultimatum--may prove fatal.

Although he would have had to abandon many of his tanks and other heavy equipment to comply with Bush’s terms, he could have survived to fight another day.

But a withdrawal under allied military pressure will spell the end of the Iraqi armed forces, and possibly of Hussein himself.