The Gulf Now, the War of the Cities

By William E. Smith

After months of stalemate and relative inactivity, the 4 1/2-year-old war between Iran and Iraq was on again last week with an intensity not seen since last year's bloody land battles. This time the teeming capitals of the two countries, Tehran and Baghdad, were among the targets. Iraqi jets struck Tehran and at least a dozen other Iranian cities. While Iranian artillery zeroed in on the Iraqi port city of Basra and ground forces launched an offensive in the vast Huwaiza marshes of southern Iraq, aircraft raided Baghdad. When a huge explosion shattered part of the 13-story Baghdad headquarters of Iraq's Rafidain Bank, Tehran claimed that one of its surface- to-surface missiles had hit the building; the Iraqis insisted that the bombing had been an act of sabotage. Later in the week, another enormous blast sent earthquake-style tremors through Baghdad. The Iraqis said a car bomb was involved.

Tehran too was shaken by a bomb blast. As Iran's President Seyed Ali Khamene'i was delivering a speech at the University of Tehran, a terrorist detonated a homemade bomb strapped around his waist, killing himself and five other people. The President, who escaped unhurt, blamed the attack on Iran's own Mujahedin-e Khalq guerrillas, who are trying to overthrow the country's leader, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini.

As the fighting in the marshes continued, both sides claimed victory. Iran, saying its forces had killed or wounded at least 700 enemy soldiers, charged ^ that the defending Iraqi troops had again used poison gas; the accusation could not be confirmed independently. (Most authorities agree that Iraqi forces used chemical weapons early last year in an effort to halt an Iranian advance.) Baghdad broadcast TV footage showing hundreds of dead Iranian troops in the battle zone. Even so, the Iranians did not mount the human-wave assault the Iraqis had been expecting for months, possibly because the latest offensive had limited objectives: to strengthen Iranian positions in the marshlands and threaten Iraq's highway link between Baghdad and Basra.

Amid Iraqi broadcasts of martial music and boasts of "We will change the Huwaiza marshes into a floating graveyard," Baghdad brought up reinforcements and halted the Iranian drive. The broadcasts, in a notable departure, emphasized the roles of the Iraqi generals and other officers in the fighting. In the early days of the war, the only Iraqi singled out for praise was President Saddam Hussein, the man Ayatullah Khomeini is determined to destroy. Baghdad appeared to be trying to strengthen armed forces morale and emphasize the war's importance to the country as a whole.

Well before the ground fighting erupted last week, both sides had broken an agreement, arranged nine months ago by the United Nations, to refrain from hitting civilian targets. Iraq, desperate to break the prevailing stalemate, was first to violate the accord with air raids against Iranian cities and towns. The response was swift: sirens wailed in Baghdad as Iranian jets swooped in, hitting a huge housing development called Saddam City. In the various attacks on civilians, at least 500 people were killed on both sides.

But the city at the center of the storm was Basra, a once busy and prosperous port (pop. 1.2 million in 1980) on the Shatt al Arab waterway formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. After Iraq's invasion in September 1980, Iranian artillery frequently shelled the city; ever since, Basra has been in a state of decay, its population reduced to 1 million, its trade cut to almost nothing. Two weeks ago, Iranian artillery attacks against the town resumed and doctors at the Basra city hospital once again were working around the clock. Remaining residents stayed indoors, barricading themselves as best they could behind sandbags. The streets were deserted, except for a noisy wedding party that drove, incongruously, through the city one day singing raucously and thumping on drums. Every hour three or four shells came crashing in. "It's hard to sleep," complained one woman. "Last night I slept for only two hours. We just stayed up and talked."

Iraq's frustration lies in the realization that it is not strong enough militarily to force Iran to discuss peace. Khomeini, enraged that Saddam started the war, has vowed that he will accept nothing less than the overthrow of Iraq's President and its ruling Baath Party--and Saddam is not about to assent to his own downfall. In an effort to persuade Iran to negotiate by choking off its oil revenues, the Iraqis began attacking tanker traffic in the Persian Gulf last March. Since the start of the "tanker war," 44 oil carriers have been hit. The campaign has failed to cripple Iran, though reports from Tehran indicate that the country is suffering from shortages of almost every commodity except food, medicine and weaponry.

In the long run, the war of attrition no longer favors Iran, as it seemed to do in the beginning. That is cold comfort for the citizens of Basra, who remain on the firing line and have learned to be skeptical of good news. For a few hours last week, they were cheered when Iran suspended the shelling following an appeal by U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar to stop attacks on civilian targets. A day later the heavy guns began to rumble again.

With reporting by Barry Hillenbrand/Basra