Why Baghdad was taken so easily

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...25/MN284029.DTL

 

Behind Baghdad's fall

Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer

 

Baghdad -- In the final days before Baghdad fell, Saddam Hussein's son Qusai issued a series of military orders that sent thousands of elite Republican Guard troops to their certain death in the open countryside.

 

According to accounts provided to The Chronicle by more than a dozen Iraqi military officials -- some of them still hiding from American forces -- the orders exposed the core of the Iraqi military to devastating U.S. air attacks and left the capital's defenses markedly weakened.

 

Several officers said the increasing irrationality of these orders, which were widely believed to carry the approval of Saddam Hussein himself, baffled high-ranking officers and helped enable the Americans to enter Baghdad virtually unchallenged.

 

These accounts seem to shed light on one of the war's greatest mysteries -- why Baghdad fell so rapidly and with so little of the anticipated urban warfare -- and for the first time provide a glimpse into the chaos that engulfed the Iraqi regime in the war's final days.

 

The whereabouts of Saddam Hussein and his family -- even whether any of them are still alive -- remain unknown.

 

Many of the Iraqi military officials interviewed by The Chronicle, ranging in rank from captain to general, still seemed shell-shocked and unsure of the exact dates and sequence of battlefield events.

 

"I'm sorry, but I just can't remember which day it was," one Republican Guard colonel said. "We didn't sleep for days on end. We were constantly moving. There were constant attacks. It still seems crazy to me."

 

According to the officers, the disastrous decision to deploy the Republican Guard troops to the countryside was by no means the only irrational decision made by the Iraqi regime:

 

-- The Iraqi leaders failed to follow through on prewar plans to mount a comprehensive urban guerrilla defense for Baghdad.

 

Despite Iraqis' frequent pronouncements before the war that they would fall back into Baghdad and fight house to house, they did nothing of the sort. Instead, they stuck to a largely conventional defense comprised of three concentric rings, extending as far as 30 miles outside of Baghdad.

 

Gen. Alaa Abdelkadeer, a Republican Guard commander in Baghdad, said that prewar plans had also included such tactics as mining streets and bridges. "There was even a plan to mine the airport, to blow it sky high if the Americans took it," he said. "But none of this was carried out."

 

When asked why, he shrugged. "Because we thought Baghdad was very safe. We never thought the Americans would be able to enter the city."

 

An officer in the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "(Baghdad) was like a castle. The Americans could never come close -- we were sure of it."

 

-- Despite being aware for months of the Americans' intent to invade, Iraqis were making last-minute moves right up to the start of the war, in some cases with disastrous consequences.

 

For example, Capt. Haider Ahmed, who was in charge of 250 soldiers in Fao, a port on the Persian Gulf, said that six 40mm surface-to-surface missiles were sent to him 20 days before the war.

 

"We had never seen these missiles before," he said, "yet they expected us to use them. What were we to do? This is not our weapon.

 

"We sent soldiers to Basra to try to learn, but they never could, and we couldn't use the missiles. It was a huge waste."

 

-- Despite ample evidence of American technological advances -- readily available for anyone who reads U.S. newspapers, watches CNN or does any research online -- the Iraqis failed to adapt their anti-aircraft missiles or their artillery batteries.

 

"Why? Seeing is believing," said Col. Khalid Altaee, who was in charge of a Baghdad factory making anti-aircraft missiles. "We didn't want to believe that the United States had these weapons."

 

Lt. Gen. Muhammed Abdelkadim, who was second in command for air defense in the nation's southern half, said his units were forced to disable their radar systems, which meant that they were firing only on visual contact only during the day.

 

"The Americans have sophisticated arms, and we don't have an air defense," he said. "Our weapons are worthless. Otherwise, we could have won the war. If fought man to man, I promise we would have won."

 

-- The Iraqis relied upon a communications system that depended mainly on foot messengers.

 

One army colonel who fought the war in Kut, 100 miles southwest of Baghdad, said that all communications with the high command went down a week before Baghdad fell. And even communication with a local Republican Guard unit or the local Baath Party or Fedayeen Saddam was impossible.

 

"We had no idea where the Republican Guards were," the colonel said. "We had no contact with them or with the local fighters."

 

-- The war was micromanaged to an extraordinary degree.

 

Qusai and Saddam Hussein, officers say, concerned themselves with matters as small as trench placement around Kut, a town 100 miles from Baghdad.

 

Although the exact details varied, every officer interviewed by The Chronicle agreed about the catastrophic mistake that hastened the regime's final defeat in the capital.

 

On about April 2, just days before Baghdad fell, Qusai Hussein, who had no military training but nonetheless had been appointed by his father as commander of the Republican Guard, ordered its crack Hammurabi Brigade to leave protected positions around the city.

 

Qusai dispatched the brigade in two prongs, one west across the Euphrates River and the other southwest to Karbala, in the belief that U.S. troops were massing in both places.

 

Both missions ended in disaster for the Iraqis. The American ground forces headed straight for the Baghdad airport, which was left nearly undefended and was quickly captured.

 

Meanwhile, the Iraqi forces, including dozens of tanks and hundreds of artillery pieces, became easy targets for U.S. warplanes and helicopters as the Iraqis traversed the open countryside in large convoys.

 

"Qusai had no justification for being in command," said Abdelkadeer. "He was unspecialized in war. He had never done military studies. He was not a military man.

 

"So he gave orders to go from Baghdad to Karbala, and half the troops were lost en route. As soon as they arrived, he ordered them to return to Baghdad, and they lost the other half en route.

 

"You can imagine, for the (rest of the) high command, this was a very serious loss, at least two entire battalions."

 

The Iraqi regime seemed to be getting more irrational. On Thursday, April 3,

 

Hussein and his son ordered the high command to announce to all the troops that the U.S. military had passed word to the Iraqis that it would use nuclear weapons against Baghdad.

 

At first, according to three sources, the high command refused to carry out the order. "We refused this, because it would have a high impact on morale, you can imagine," said Abdelkadeer.

 

"But Qusai insisted, and it was clear the order came from the president. So we had to do it. We gathered our officers . . . and read them the letter. But I don't think anyone read it to their troops, as they were supposed to do."

 

By then, the officer corps was roiling, these veterans said.

 

"Qusai didn't wear a military uniform, just suit and tie," said an army colonel who requested anonymity. "That made many officers angry, because it showed that he thought he didn't have to be a professional military man to give orders.

 

"When the war was going well, we overlooked it. But when he started making strange and crazy things, we started talking among each other."

 

Perhaps getting wind of the dissent, Qusai called a meeting of the high command.

 

"Qusai blamed them for losing the war," said Abdelkadeer, who said he was invited to the meeting but "avoided" it and sent his top aide instead. "One of the high command was crying, said, 'My best soldiers were killed.' So everybody hated (Qusai). But Qusai had a guard with him, and anybody who rejected what he said would have been killed."

 

"We were sick in our stomachs about what Qusai and Saddam had done," said Altaee. "We all talked and agreed, whoever wants to keep fighting, do it on their own, fight for the future of our children, fight for Iraq, but not for Qusai or Saddam. Or they can go to their homes. Most went home."

 

By all accounts, that meeting was the last time top military officers saw Qusai Hussein. None of the interviewed officers would hazard a guess over where his father and the rest of the Hussein family had gone.

 

On Saturday, April 5, and the following day, U.S. tank columns made lightning raids into Baghdad, and on Monday morning, April 7, the Americans captured Saddam Hussein's presidential palace in downtown Baghdad. The entire city was in American hands by April 10. The battle for Baghdad was over.

 

Sounds like Qusai is an idiot and too many military peoples were swallowing Mr. Al-Shahaf's KoolAid about how they could crush everything in sight.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Unless you wanna be executed, you'd better agree with Quasay.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Oh, but they must have been hiding all the WMD somewhere because remember that is why we were there.......

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Oh, but they must have been hiding all the WMD somewhere because remember that is why we were there.......

Ssh, don't tell anyone, but the citizens looted the WMD.