Monday, April 07, 2003

Saddam's options...

by pv vivekanand

LIVING UP TO his own promise, Saddam Hussein has brought in American soldiers into urban warfare in Baghdad, who were on Monday facing stiff resistance from his Republican Guards, Feyadeen militia and Baathist party loyalists, but his options remained unclear except that his strategy appeared to be eventually engaging the allied forces in guerrilla warfare.
It is subject to speculation where he could be based in guiding the guerrilla warfare if the ongoing urban warfare fails to result in massive American casualties that Saddam obviously hopes might prompt his nemesis George W Bush to stop in his tracks and reconsider his course. An unlikely scenario indeed, given the way the war has unfolded itself.
Reports from the southern city of Basra that one of his closest aides and cousins, Ali Hassan Al Majid, a former defence minister, had died in a British attack on his home there might have dealt Saddam a blow. But then, the president could not have but known that he was sending Majid to certain death when he assigned the former defence minister to defend the Basra area, one of the four military zones that he carved out before the war started.
Despite reports in the British press that the president had fled the capital to the north, all indications were that he remained very much in Baghdad. That is the kind of person that Saddam is, judging from his track record. He is not the type to cut and run and go down in history as a man who engaged only in rhetoric and let himself down in the final moment.
A man who wanted to etch himself in the history of his country by engraving his name in every brick of many buildings in Baghdad, Saddam would want to be known as a man who fought to his last and went down fighting and not cowering before invaders.
Saddam, 66, is a proud man and it is highly unlikely that he would abandon Baghdad and thus signal defeat to his people since his very bet to counter the US forces is his people.
Sources close to Saddam have always maintained that he had reserved "the last bullet for himself" if capture became inevitable. Repeated hints and suggestions by US officers, and backed by the media, that he was killed or wounded have been proved wrong by his public appearance and television messages.
The hypothesis that he had moved to Mosul in the north does not hold much water since tens of thousands of Kurdish fighters backed by American airpower and a small US contingent are pushing towards that town from the north. At the same time, there is also a school of thought that says he could opt to make his "last stand" in Mosul instead of Baghdad.
That thought is based on the loose argument that if the Iraqi Kurds led the march on Mosul and Kirkuk, the major oil centre in the north, then Turkey might intervene to block them for considerations of its own.
But then, the US could opt to block the Kurds from taking over Mosul and Kirkuk by inserting its own forces on the front-line and thus pacify the Turks.
From the very outset of the war that began on March 20, Saddam and his close aides, including his deputy Taha Yassin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and Information Minister Mohammed Saed Al Sahhaf, have maintained the invading forces would meet their graves in Baghdad.
On Monday, several hours into an assault launched by the American forces, Iraqi fighters were bunkered down to fighting the invaders in several parts of the capital while US officers claimed advances. They said they had taken two presidential palaces and were closing in on the information ministry and the famous Al Rasheed Hotel.
As those claims were made, Sahhaf made a dramatic appearance at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, where most foreign journalists are located, and categorically rejected all American assertions. He said Iraqi defenders had taught a "lesson" to the "mercenaries" and had massacred many American soldiers.
The US leaders in Washington have sent their soldiers on "suicide missions" to Baghdad, he declared.
"As our leader Saddam Hussein said, God is grilling their stomachs in hell," said Sahhaf. "Fighting is continuing in the main battlefields. Baghdad is secured and fortified and Baghdadis are heroes."
That was like giving the Americans a triple dose of their own medicine, given that US spokesman had made tall claims in the initial days of the conflict and these claims were proved to be half-truths and propaganda strategies later on.
It remains to be seen how far Sahhaf and others like him could continue to send such messages to the outside world since their options are getting narrowed even in terms of physical space as the Americans fought their way into the heart of the capital.
As for Saddam himself, it seemed likely that he remained tucked away in secret at some place known only to those immediately around him. It could be anywhere.
Saddam learnt one lesson from the 1991 war when foreigners who built secret bunkers for him during the 80s provided the details and diagrams of those structures to the allied forces. As such, it is highly like that his own most trusted people have built new structures about which even members of his inner circle might not know about.
There have been "mysterious" disappearances of engineers and technicians over the past years in Iraq, and speculation is that they were eliminated once they accomplished the task of building secret bunkers for the president.
It was speculated that Saddam would cross the border to Syria and regroup there to wage a war of attrition against entrenched American forces in Iraq. Indeed, Syria is about all the only place he could opt for.
At the same time, Syria, mindful of American warnings and fearful of getting dragged into direct confrontation with the US, is unlikely to offer refuge to Saddam.
In view of the 1980-88 war he waged on Iran, a sanctuary endorsed by the Iranians is all but ruled out. His other neighbours are Jordan and Turkey, both in the American camp although not as combatants, and Saudi Arabia, which had secretly offered him refuge before the war began.
One thing is certain: He would not accept a refuge anywhere where he would not have the freedom of mounting resistance against the Americans in his country, and that leaves out opting for Bahrain, which said it would shelter the Iraqi leader if he were to abdicate in order to save his people the agony of war.
There was talk in Baghdad last week that Saddam was in touch with Russian leaders with a view to seeking refuge in Russia. Informed sources said the idea had surfaced in the Egyptian media, which is known for shots in the dark in the past.
As the day dragged on in Baghdad, the urban warfare that Saddam promised the invaders unfolded itself.
The main bridges that cross the Tigris River appear to be under the control of forces loyal to Saddam.
Two of the bridges across the Tigris which bisects the capital were destroyed on Sunday, denying the invaders their use. Other bridges were said to be under Iraqi control and it seemed almost certain that these would also be blown by the defenders when the going gets tough.
Again, that does not answer the key question among the Arabs at large today: Where and how exactly does Saddam plan to stage his promised slaughter of the invaders? Or was it just tough talk?