Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 11, 1991 TAG: 9102110119
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Independent military analysts predict 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 Saddam 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 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 Lawrence, a retired Army officer with extensive service in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.
Anatoly Yegorin, a senior researcher at the Oriental Studies Institute, a Moscow think tank for policy on the Middle East and Muslim world, already 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 Epstein, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said that 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."
Climactic 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 huge areas.
Eleven years ago, Americans got their first taste of the debilitating desert sandstorms when President Carter attempted a secret military operation to free American hostages held by Tehran. The April 24 mission was aborted - leading to eight deaths - after navigation and flight instruments on one helicopter failed in a large dust cloud.
by CNB