But what happens when the cameras are switched off? Here is what a journalist from Arab News, Saudi Arabia's English daily, discovered when he took aside a young Iraqi man who had been chanting "With our blood, with our souls, we will die for you, Saddam" to television crews filming a Red Cross handout of food in an area under allied control. The young man later explained in private:
"There are people from Baath here reporting everything that goes on. There are cameras here recording our faces. If the Americans were to withdraw and everything were to return to the way it was before, we want to make sure that we survive the massacre that would follow. ... In public we always pledge our allegiance to Saddam, but in our hearts we feel something else."
Iraqi "resistance" can be similarly explained. Iraq's regular forces are stiffened by the special security forces, in reality licensed thugs, that Saddam has recruited to sustain his regime against both popular discontent and military mutiny. Ordinary soldiers, not excluding officers, are forced into battle either with a gun at their backs or by threats to their family at home if they should fail to fight. In these circumstances surrendering may require more courage than advancing against a militarily superior enemy.
As the Arab News reporter concluded: "the people of Iraq are terrified of Saddam Hussein." And that includes the ordinary Iraqi soldier.
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