Can Weaker Countries Break War Rules?

April 11, 2003 — -- U.S. Army Spc. 4th Class Jim Doyle never saw a single conventional battle during his year in uniform in Vietnam, but rather a nerve-wracking succession of sneak attacks, trip wires, land mines and a never-ending field of combat where "the unexpected is the rule."

"You never knew who the enemy was because they all wore civilian clothes," Doyle says. "The guy who cut your hair during the day might be setting the booby trap at night."

But though it was "somewhat frustrating" when "one side is playing by the rules and the other side isn't," he understands why the enemy did it.

"In some cases, the only way to fight back … is with guerrilla tactics," says Doyle, now public affairs chairman for the Vietnam Veterans of America. "I can see how that is a very effective method of warfare when you're faced with the overwhelming numbers and equipment that the Iraqis are, at this point."

Clearly, rules of war that bind both the United States and Iraq forbid tactics such as sneak attacks by civilian-clad fighters melting into crowds, or attacks from the cover of civilian centers like mosques, schools or hospitals. U.S. officials plan to prosecute as war criminals Iraqis who have been attacking American soldiers in such ways, or who ordered the attacks.

Fighters violating the rules can legally be denied rights afforded to conventional prisoners of war, and possibly even face execution, some argue.

But despite the clear-cut legal conventions, in weaker countries, under certain circumstances, some can see ambiguity.

"The question does arise as to whether the U.S. can claim that combatants cannot use the only means of warfare that offer them any chance of success," says Anthony Cordesman, ABCNEWS' senior military analyst.

David and Goliath

Many Arabs see the U.S.-led war in Iraq as a David and Goliath struggle, waged without proper international approval, with high-tech bombs that can kill civilians, and which therefore might allow for the bending of traditional rules of war, says ABCNEWS analyst Fawaz Gerges, chairman of Middle Eastern studies and international affairs at Sarah Lawrence College.

"From an Arab and Muslim point of view, they are fighting in a highly disadvantageous position," says Gerges. "Here you have the greatest military power in history fighting a poor, besieged and bleeding third-world country like Iraq.

"Suicide bombings and other forms of guerrilla warfare are seen to be the tools of the poor," he says.

It's not just an Arab or Muslim thing, Gerges and others say. Although suicide and plainclothes attacks may have a high profile in the Arab world because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they have been used throughout history and around the world.

"Very different opponents like China and North Korea have a highly sophisticated literature and doctrine calling for such asymmetric [guerrilla] warfare," Cordesman says. "Maoist tactics emphasize the use of guerrillas exploiting civilian dress and civilian shields, and North Korean special forces emphasize the use of civilian infiltrators, and combat methods that are 'terrorism' by Western standards."

Despite occasional overlap, guerrillas generally are different from terrorists, says Anthony James Joes, author of America and Guerrilla Warfare, and a visiting professor of international relations at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.

"Guerrillas have the ability and have the intention to fight against regular armed forces," he says. "Terrorists go after civilian targets."

Double Standard?

Though U.S. officials are threatening to prosecute Iraqis who attack U.S. forces using guerrilla tactics, U.S. forces long ago used them in the Revolutionary and Civil wars, before modern-war conventions were codified, historians note.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, Americans have cheered guerrilla fighters in films such as The Patriot and real-life underground campaigns during World War II — in occupied France, China and the Philippines. In recent decades, the United States has supported anti-communist guerrilla uprisings in Nicaragua and Afghanistan.

Some critics have even raised questions about the United States' strict adherence to war conventions in Iraq, saying allowing surrendering, bound or stripped Iraqi prisoners to be photographed could be considered a violation — though many say an Iraqi state broadcast showing dead U.S. soldiers and American POWs being questioned was more egregious.

Critics also charge that the United States used plainclothes special operations soldiers in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, though U.S. officials deny it, arguing the circumstances and methods were different. Indeed, experts on guerrilla warfare say the methods of special operations and guerrilla fighters usually differ.

W. Hays Parks, special assistant for law of war matters to the U.S. Army's judge advocate general, told reporters that American forces in Afghanistan "carried their arms openly" and wore identifying garments — perhaps hats, scarves, armbands or American flags — though he did not specify which.

In contrast, Parks said, the plainclothes Iraqi fighters have been "purposely concealing their combatant status, concealing their weapons, wearing no part of a uniform, wearing no distinctive device, in order to engage in acts of treachery" against uniformed U.S. and British troops.

However, ABCNEWS' John McWethy, who was with CIA operatives and 52 U.S. Special Operations soldiers at Tora Bora, Afghanistan, does not recall them wearing any distinguishing scarves, hats or other items that would openly establish them as American soldiers, and reported that they wore local Afghan clothes and beards. Upon close examination, it was clear they were not Afghans, partly because of physical characteristics, boots and fancy weaponry, he says.

Kevin Henry, advocacy director for the humanitarian group CARE, believes "certainly" there were armed U.S. fighters or CIA operatives in civilian garb in Afghanistan, and that Afghans would approach aid workers in markets seeking to sell weapons, apparently mistaking them for American operatives.

"We criticized that, and the military resisted any change in that policy for quite some time, arguing that it was necessary for the safety of their own soldiers," Henry says. "But then slowly they sort of conceded all of the soldiers should be in uniform."

Civilian Jeopardy

CARE objects to U.S. soldiers in civilian garb on the grounds that it can blur the distinction between nongovernmental, unarmed aid workers and armed soldiers representing a country, possibly making targets of the aid workers.

To avoid similar confusion, CARE and other aid groups are calling upon the U.S. military to yield all humanitarian relief responsibilities in Iraq to them as soon as the situation is safe enough.

Despite such debates, U.S. officials and others say guerrilla-style Iraqi attackers — and "death squads" that allegedly threatened ordinary Iraqi civilians to get them to resist the U.S.-led invasion — are most responsible for illegally endangering civilians and U.S. soldiers, and must pay the price.

James Turner Johnson, author of Morality and Contemporary Warfare and co-editor of the Journal of Military Ethics, believes there are never excuses "to do evil so that good may come from it," or for fighting in a way that endangers civilians. In the case of Iraqi fedayeen guerrillas, he considers a self-defense justification weaker still.

"It's not that they're trying to protect Iraq," says Johnson, a professor of religion at Rutgers University. "It's that they're trying to protect their own skin and the Saddam Hussein regime."

U.S. officials are offering to help Iraqis prosecute those who victimized local citizens, and say U.S. justice can take care of those who attacked American soldiers.

"As President Bush has stated, war criminals will be prosecuted," Pierre-Richard Prosper, U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues, told reporters this week. "The day of Iraq's liberation will also be a day of justice."