Given all the months of planning for — and talking about — the war in Iraq, it appeared that every possible contingency had been accounted for, if not by the military itself, then by the platoon of retired officers that seems to populate television news.

But as with everything else, there is no substitute for hindsight. The Week in Review asked several prominent experts on war and on Iraq to explain what has surprised them, or not, about the war thus far.

This Militia Can Fight

The most surprising development of the war so far is the performance of Saddam Fedayeen, the militiamen. Despite their mediocre training, clearly inferior to Saddam Hussein's professional commando forces, they have managed to harass the coalition soldiers along the route to Baghdad. It is not clear whether they are the only ones who do it, but it seems that they are a part of it.

Performing their hit-and-run operations takes no great proficiency. Certainly no proficiency is needed to dress in civilian clothes and then kill an allied soldier, or to pretend to be prisoners of war and then turn on their captors and kill them, or to use real civilians as live shields. Still, their audacity is surprising, given the general character of this unit, consisting to a large extent of young men from the fringe of Iraqi society.

Perhaps their audacity stems from fear of their chief, Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, as well as their fear of the consequences of the regime's collapse. Uday and his father are fully aware that if their regime collapses, they are doomed. They have little choice, then, but to make every imaginable effort to force the allied soldiers from Iraq. Uday introduced extremely harsh, violent discipline on the militia when it was established. If the militiamen don't contribute, they can expect harsh, violent punishment. The fedayeen militiamen also know that their fate is tied with that of the regime. If it collapses, they will be killed immediately by the citizens they have been terrorizing, or they will have to stand trial for their crimes. Their only route of escape, thus, seems to be forward.

Amatzia Baram, an expert on Iraq and professor of Middle East history at the University of Haifa.

Tight-Fisted Control in the South

One surprise has been the degree of government control in the south, particularly in Shiite towns like Nasiriya. This area has been a source of constant opposition to the government over the past decade — including hit-and-run attacks on government buildings. The resistance to our forces from the area indicates he has done a good job in reorganizing security and Baath Party forces, as well as mobilizing irregular militia forces like the fedayeen.

Saddam Hussein has also been busy indoctrinating the population, preparing his citizens for urban warfare. In addition to the fedayeen, he has also been recruiting a new militia, al Quds.

Students from intermediate school to college are encouraged to join Baath-led paramilitary formations. Textbooks, even at the sixth-grade level, extol military virtues, instill a virulent nationalism and define patriotism as being ready to defend the homeland against foreign enemies, specifically the Persians, the Zionists and the United States.

All this indicates that we face a war of public diplomacy as well as a military conflict. While virtually all Iraqis deplore the regime and want to be rid of it, they also want independence and are anti-imperialist.

Our entry into the country was also somewhat easier than expected. The oil wells did not go up in flames (although a few were ignited); there was no use of chemical weapons and no frontal attack to protect valuable real estate — oil fields, industries, ports. This may be a good indication of Saddam Hussein's strategy. He hopes and expects to survive by slowing us down, inflicting casualties and hoping opposition at home and abroad will compel us to negotiate. He will also draw us into urban warfare, for which he has been preparing.

Phebe Marr, author of "The Modern History of Iraq" and a retired senior fellow at the National Defense University.

The Battle, as Planned

Anyone who thinks the United States military leaders are surprised by the Iraqis needs to read the transcript of Gen. Tommy R. Franks's briefing on March 23.

The pundits may have thought we were using "shock and awe" designed to scare the Iraqis into a quick surrender. But American military commanders planned — from the beginning — an operation combining bombing, ground operations and Special Forces. The military campaign is, to use Mr. Franks's description, "unlike any we have seen before." It combines precision strikes and an ability to change plans quickly with a level of communications and integration between the services never seen before.

The Iraqis, meanwhile, have been using their own version of these tactics. Unlike 1991, when they relied upon fixed fortifications (which decimated Iranian forces in their war with Iraq), this time Iraq is using guerrilla-like strikes and ambushes.

About the only surprise has been the fact that Iraqi militia have not broken ranks with their leaders sooner. But this just stresses the most important fact of all: the war is just a little more than a week old.

Bruce Berkowitz, a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation and author of "The New Face of War."

A Northern Success

The surprise in the north is that Turkey has not intervened and now may not do so. The Bush administration feared a Turkish intervention because it risked pitting a NATO ally against the Iraqi Kurds, whose experiment in democratic self-government is seen as a model for Iraq.

After Turkey refused to permit United States troops to open a northern front, the Bush administration moved to solidify its alliance with the Kurds. Mr. Bush publicly supported Kurdish plans for self-government, saying that a post-war Iraq should be an ethnically based federation of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. Last Sunday, he warned Turkey to stay out of Iraqi Kurdistan.

For now, it appears that the United States, Turkey and the Kurds have dodged a bullet. The United States is no longer in the morally awkward position of sacrificing Kurdish self-government, and escapes the practical problems of keeping the peace between the Kurds and Turkey. The Bush administration now has leverage with the Kurds to stop the very act Turkey most fears — a unilateral Kurdish takeover of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. The Bush administration appears to have skillfully threaded its way through a political minefield in the north.

Peter W. Galbraith, a professor at the National War College.

Iraqi Soldiers, Out of Baghdad

One surprise was that Saddam Hussein did not hold all his reliable units in Baghdad, but sent some to raid allied supply lines. No one should have expected the Iraqis to collapse as rapidly as in 1991, but they might have been expected to concede the open areas in the south and concentrate everything for the final defense of the capital.

With hindsight, it should not be surprising that Saddam Hussein saw a benefit from limited harassment in the south. It shakes confidence of many Americans who wanted bloodless victory, it feeds the propaganda image of heroic guerrilla resistance and it buys time by making allied commanders wait for additional forces before the final assault on Baghdad.

Richard Betts, director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.

No Retaliation at Home

Regarding the war itself, the biggest surprise for me was how the media bought into the whole "shock and awe" proposition, which, in my mind, was more a psychological operation against Saddam's inner circle ("You ain't seen nothing yet! Surrender now!") than any serious intention on our part.

The Bush administration's commitment to rebuilding Iraq after the war effectively precludes that sort of truly devastating strike campaign. Once you accept that reality, the non-surprises accumulate with rapidity: there has been no sudden collapse of the regime, and there is resistance and reluctance by the general population to shift sides until Saddam Hussein's demise appears more imminent. None of this should be surprising because of the restrictions we've placed on ourselves in fighting this war. But these are necessary restrictions because it's all about winning the peace that comes later.

Regarding the home front, I remain cautiously surprised by the lack of terrorist strikes against the U.S. — either here or against any of our embassies or military outposts around the world. Those who argue that the terrorist threat is so much greater than we realize (think Gary Hart) will naturally say that "we ain't seen nothing yet!" But since we scheduled this war so far in advance, there was plenty of time for such groups to plan and execute some dramatic attacks designed to weaken popular support for the war. Certainly, attacks will come in the future, but that was a huge opportunity lost for the Qaeda network, suggesting that the U.S-led global war on terrorism is fairly successful in reducing their global operational capacity.

Thomas P. M. Barnett, a professor of warfare analysis at the Naval War College, Newport R.I.