Iraqi army starting to fall apart...
timesonline.co.uk
March 20, 2003
Iraqi deserters flee in final countdown
From David Sharrock in Northern Kuwait and Roland Watson in Washington
Air strikes prepare ground for invasion
MASS desertions of Iraqi troops and the defection of senior figures from President Saddam Hussein’s ruling family circle were gathering pace yesterday as the countdown to war reached its final hours.
Last night, allied combat aircraft were preparing the ground for invasion, hitting seven targets in southern Iraq, including air defences and anti-aircraft systems. The raids, inside the southern no-fly zone, destroyed at least ten Iraqi artillery pieces.
Military chiefs feared that the weaponry may have been positioned to fire chemical and biological warheads at British and US troops in Kuwait.
British and US troops in Kuwait moved into the demilitarised zone on the Iraq border, but President Bush’s 48-hour deadline for Saddam to leave Iraq passed at 4am local time, without any immediate start to all-out war, and with Baghdad calm under the light of the full moon. “The disarmament of the Iraqi regime will begin at a time of the president’s choosing,” the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said.
But even before the first bullet was fired, classified intelligence reports seen by The Times suggest that as many as three quarters of some Iraqi regiments in the area near the northern no-fly zone have fled. Nearly a quarter of Republican Guard, whose loyalty to Saddam has until now been unquestioned, were also said to have deserted.
In the mainly Shia Muslim south, 17 Iraqi soldiers gave themselves up to US-led forces in northern Kuwait, but border guards had to turn others back, telling them to wait for the attack to begin before they surrendered.
In another important development, one of Saddam’s half-brothers has fled to Syria. Sab’awi Ibrahim Hasan Al-Tikriti, regarded in America as a possible war criminal, has sought refuge in Damascus.
His flight from Baghdad suggests “fractures developing within the regime”, according to the intelligence reports, updated four times a day, which paint a picture of the dying hours of a 30-year regime. “We are looking at wholesale desertions in some areas,” one intelligence officer said. “In the southern area, where there are six Iraqi divisions, 50 per cent of their officers are planning to surrender once the campaign opens.
“There’s a lot of talk of waiting until the war starts, because of the danger to the officers’ families. It’s also been expressed that most want a sudden or surprise attack, so that they have an excuse for not putting up greater resistance.”
The intelligence reports could not be independently verified, but Vice-Admiral Lowell Jacoby, America’s most senior intelligence officer and director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, told the Washington Post that there was “a very real likelihood” that Iraq’s military could collapse “very quickly”.
In addition Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader in northern Iraq, told The Times that he had received a flurry of contacts from Iraqi troops, some of them high-ranking officers, saying that they planned to surrender when fighting began. “The numbers are great and the quality of people is significant,” he said.
US officials believe that the psychological warfare of recent months has severely weakened the resolve of Iraqi soldiers. Yesterday alone, American and British aircraft dropped another two million leaflets, urging Iraqi troops not to fight, over southeastern Iraq, bringing to more than 15 million to total delivered in recent weeks.
Several EC130 Hercules transport aircraft flying over the Iraqi border have been broadcasting anti-Saddam messages on radio frequencies that Baghdad has been unable to block. Radio Sawa, an Arabic language radio station funded by the US, has been broadcasting political messages to Iraqis interspersed with Arabic and Western music.
Yesterday it broadcast an interview with Richard Armitage, the US Deputy Secretary of State, saying that Iraq belonged to Iraqis. Mr Fleischer said there was “a lot of unease” inside Iraq. But rumours that Tariq Aziz, the Deputy Prime Minister, had defected, were proved untrue when he appeared, cigar in hand, before the television cameras.
So poor is morale in the Iraqi ranks that in some areas Saddam has ordered the deployment of special forces officers to prevent regular officers from deserting. The latest such report came within the past two days. Intelligence reports are compiled from information from British and American special forces already in Iraq and from aerial surveillance. From these reports it is estimated that 73 per cent of the regular army in the south have already made up their minds to surrender.
The reports note that one US “psy ops” — psychological operation — unit dropped leaflets on Iraq’s 51st Mechanised Division on March 9 and 10. Four days later, 20 per cent had deserted. “Many of those who have already gone are reporting that the rest are preparing to surrender,” an intelligence officer said.
In northern Iraq, between 43 and 75 per cent of regular soldiers have fled. Iraqi tribal leaders in the region have also defected to the Kurds in the northern no-fly zone. In Chamchamal, 30 miles from the border with Turkey, soldiers attempted to surrender to the Kurdish civilian population two days ago. The desertion rate is lower around Baghdad. |
