Saddam readied guerrilla war

pv vivekanand

CLEAR signs have emerged that Saddam Hussein had known he would be toppled and he and his supporters planned for a guerrilla war for nearly one year before the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in March and April this year, according to Western and Arab intelligence sources.
The finding is rather startling, the sources admitted, given Saddam's rhetorics and defiance of the US in the run-up to the war and the way Iraqi defences collapsed under a deal American intelligence made with senior Iraqi miltiary officers.
"We're sure American intelligence has also come across the information that Saddam had been planning the intense guerrilla war that is taking place today in post-war Iraq," said a Western intelligence source. "They (American intelligence) are not disclosing the information, and European intelligence agencies don't feel obliged to share their fingings with the Americans either," added the source.
Arab intelligence sources also confirmed that they had found out that Saddam had ordered a close-knit group of supporters — who were and are not known even to his top aides — to prepare for "the war of resistance" against the US sometime in the second quarter of 2002.
"There was a steady diversion of arms and ammunition from the stores of the Iraqi miltiary to unknown destinations and those who questioned it were told it was being done under the direct orders of Saddam himself," said an Arab source.
"All indications are that Saddam was fully aware that he stood no chance against the US military might and that he would be ousted from power," said the source. "Saddam was not known to be a military strategist - a weak one at that if any thing - and his option was to make it as costly as possilble for the Americans to maintain their control of post-war Iraq."
The revelations are surprising since they confound all theories forward so far to explain the mounting intensity of resistance attacks against American and allied forces that constitute the coalition forces occupying Iraq.
According to the Arab intelligence source, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam had no organised links prior to or after the Sept.11, 2001, when Bin Laden's Al Qaeda activists slammed three hijacked airplanes to New York's World Trade Center towes and Washington's Pentagon.
"Saddam had invited Bin Laden to take shelter in Iraq following the August 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania but Bin Laden turned down the invitation since he had nothing but contempt for Saddam and his polices," said the source.
According to the source, Al Qaeda fighters and sympathisers — Sudanese, Yemenis, Egyptians, Algerians and others  — drifted into Iraq before and after the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq this year, but "they are not there as an organised group under a central command."
"They are in small groups but have contacts with the underground resistance that is supplying them with arms and ammunition to wage surprise attacks on the Americans in Iraq," said the Arab source.
This account was confrmed by the European intelligence source.
"What we are seeing in Iraq today are un-coordinated but effective attacks against the occupation forces," said the source. "It had surprised us to see that there was a steady source of supply of rockets, mortars and short-range projectiles as well as RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) that were being used in the attacks," the source said. "But soon it became apparent that there are weapons and ammunition stored in strategic locations in the country although it is difficult to pinpoint the storage areas," added the source.
According to the source, the Americans are being "more lucky than being efficient" in locating the hidden weapons. In the last six months, the US military has announced the seizure of major hauls of weapons in less than a dozen sites.
"That is only a scratch on the surface, according to information available to us," said the European source.

Another Vietnam in Iraq?

By PV Vivekanand

Has the US found its second Vietnam in Iraq?Although some experts already see a Vietnam-like scenario emerging in Iraq, others think the situation has not reached that point but that it is definitely a possibility. General consensus is that it would take a few more attacks claiming casualties in double digits to drive home the reality that the US has failed to "pacify" Iraqis, and this would intensify the war of attrition.
Is it possible that the US might decide to withdraw from Iraq? Hardly likely, given that the strategic objectives of the invasion and occupation of Iraq do not leave any room for such thoughts in Washington.
Is it possible for the US to shift strategy and hope to win over the people of Iraq to its side as a benevolent occupier?It seems difficult, given that the US military is in a vengeful mode and treats Iraqis will brutality, contempt and hostility.
The US military does not seem to accept that it has a responsibility to bring about normal life for Iraqis in an atmosphere of safety and security if only because the chaos that prevail in the country today is the direct result of American actions, Saddam Hussein or no Saddam.
American soldiers storm houses without discrimination, haul away people without justification and subject even women to humiliating bodysearches, reports from Baghdad say.
They are unable to check revenge killings, thefts and lootings and left the task of ensuring law and order to redrafted members of Saddam's police force whose motives are suspect at best.
Women are too scared to go out fearing rape and harassment and are thus denied the role they should be playing in the society.
The growing hostility towards Americans among Iraq was perhaps summarised in the words of Abdullah Oman, 18, carried by the Associated Press this week.
"They are watching us die and laughing. They humiliate us. They handcuffed me and arrested me in front of my parents late one night because I stood on my house porch after curfew."
Oman, like hundreds of other Iraqi boys, will willingly join the resistance and fight the Americans since he does not believe the US military occupying his country has his interests in mind.


Growing anti-US feelings

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) underlined the dilemma the US faces in a recent report that warns of growing popular support for the forces challenging the US occupation of Iraq and says efforts to rebuild the country could collapse without immediate corrective action.
The CIA analysis reportedly suggests that the escalation of the US military campaign against guerrillas could cause new civilian casualties and drive more Iraqis to the side of the insurgents. It also says that the inability of US forces to crush the guerrillas is convincing growing numbers of Iraqis that the occupation can be defeated.
The report is said to warn that none of the postwar Iraqi political institutions and leaders has shown an ability to govern the country or even make progress on drafting a constitution or holding an election.
The American strategists and decision makers might need a CIA report like that to understand, if they wish to, the realities on the ground in Iraq. But people in the region do not have to read such reports to draw up a clear picture of the situation in Iraq and realise what is going wrong where for the Americans, starting with the very decision that seems to have been made years ago to invade and occupy Iraq citing whatever reasons and justifications they could cite.

Invalid reasons

It is essential to note here that none of the reasons that the US cited as having left Washington with no choice but to wage war on Iraq has been proved true.
It is surprising that US President George W Bush and his senior aides continue to insist that the reasons they cited for the war were very valid. There are a few questions that many are desperate to ask them without any trimmings and demand clear-cut, non-evasive and truthful answers. They include:
-- You had said Iraq possessed and was continuing to produce massive stocks of weapons of mass destruction which was a threat to American security and indeed the world. Now, six months after securing absolute military control of the country, where are those weapons of mass destruction?
-- You had said Iraq was linked to Al Qaeda and was somehow involved in the Sept.11 attacks and the invasion of that country was part of the US-led war against terrorism. Where is the proof?
-- Your argument today is that the ouster of Saddam meant liberation for the people of Iraq. Aren't today the people of Iraq subjected to brutal occupation that seems like a leaf taken from the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians?
— You argue that the Iraqi Governing Council is in charge of things in Iraq. But, as members of the council have affirmed, they are forced to take orders from the US overseer in Iraq, Paul Bremer, who retains absolute authority over anything and everything concerning the council's purported mission. How could you blame the council for the slow pace in work towards a constitution and general elections?
In the meantime, the ground reality in Iraq is a vicious circle. As American soldiers seeth with fury and hit back at suspected Iraqis with a vengeance after every resistance attack, they are making it all the more difficult for moves to convince the Iraqis that the US means "well" for them. If anything, the US military is making more enemies in Iraq every day.

'Foreign fighters'

Who is behind the mounting attacks against US and other coalition forces in Iraq?
It is difficult to say. No doubt, Saddam loyalists have a role in the operations but it would be a gross exaggeration to conclude that the ousted president is running the war of resistance. He might want to do that and might even think he is doing it, but his circle of influence is relatively limited but is indeed effective in inflicting casualties among the American forces.
An American commander recently declared that "foreign" fighters were behind the increasing anti-US attacks in Iraq. One would have thought that the American commander was as much an Iraqi as a descendant of Haroun Al Rasheed and had a national duty to protect Iraq from non-Iraqis.
It is certain that non-Iraqi Arabs play a prominent role the attacks, but it is unclear whether Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda is the leading force among them.
US officials and members of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) have said foreign volunteers, including some from Al Qaeda, have slipped across the borders into Iraq to take part in a "holy war" against the US-led occupation.
"We're seeing Yemenis, we're seeing Sudanese, we're seeing Syrians and Egyptians, to name a few," according to a senior US commander.
Sources in Ammans said Jordanians and Palestinians were also among those fighting the Americans in Iraq.
What the Americans fail to realise and accept is that it does not need Bin Laden or Al Qaeda to fuel anti-US sentiments or orchestrate attacks. There are millions who see the American approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict and Muslims in general as totally biased and thus consider Washington as part of the problem at par with Israel.
If anything, the US, by maintaining the presence of over 15,000 soldiers in Iraq, has offered a perfect target for attacks. It might not be an exaggeration to say that some of the guerrillas in Iraq are more concerned with inflicting as much damage to the US military than worrying about the US occupation of the country. For many of them, dying while staging an attack against the US is only performing their duty in defence of the Arab and Muslim causes.

Suspect neighbours

The first suspects in the American mind are Iraq's neighbours.
The Iranian role, if any at all, in anti-occupation attacks in Iraq is at best murky. It is highly unlikely that the Iranian government would involve itself in such actions, particularly given that Tehran is acutely aware that it is being targeted for "regime change" and anything and everything it does could be used in the US-led campaign against it.
At the same time, Tehran would not sit idle if Iranian interests among the 15 million and plus Shiites of Iraq -- 60 per cent of the population by some accounts —  are undermined. It would like to use its influence through the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and ensure that its interests are protected. So far, there is no evidence that SCIRI has undertaken any anti-US attack in Iraq and it is clear the group wants a major share of power in post-war Iraq through a peaceful transition. The group is confident that it would be able to secure a major slice of power in Iraq if democratic elections were to be held.
There are indeed hardline groups within Iran with enough influence and financial clout to support anti-US attacks across the border in Iraq. Again, no evidence has emerged of such activities yet.
Tehran would also like to eliminate the main Iranian opposition group, Mujahedeen e-Khalq, which had upto 30,000 members in camps in Iraq with the blessing of the Saddam regime. The group has been disarmed by the US, but Washington is not ready to accept the Iranian demand that its members be handed over to Tehran. It remains a serious sore point in the already tense relationship between Washington and Tehran.
Syria has rejected American charges that it is allowing anti-US guerrillas to enter Iraq along its borders; so has Saudi Arabia. It is highly unlikely that either of them would allow such infiltration, but it is a possibility that the porous desert frontier is being used by guerrillas to enter Iraq. The same applies to Jordan, which has always found it difficult to patrol its border with Iraq against drug and weapon smugglers.
Turkey has its own interests to protect in northern Iraq and the Ankara government could be expected to check infiltration across the border to Iraq. However, there are militant anti-US groups in Turkey and it cannot be ruled out that some of them are active in Iraq. Furthermore, it is seen natural that Turkish agents are present in Iraq to pursue Ankara's interests in preventing the Iraqi Kurds from setting up an independent state in the north of the country.
Kuwait recently imposed controls over access to areas near its border with Iraq, apparently after intelligence reports indicated guerrilla infiltration.

Long-term strategy

What are the prospects for an American decision to quit Iraq?
Very little at this point in time.
Reports in the mainstream American media have exposed that hardliners in the Bush administration had planned the invasion and occupation of Iraq as part of an American strategy aimed at gaining control of the international oil market, maintaining a strong American military presence in the Arabian Gulf as a deterrent, and removing Iraq as a potential threat to Israel, Washington's "strategic ally" in the Middle East.
Having accomplished the three objectives through the war against Iraq, Washington has just set out to implement other actions that would entrench the US in the region. Against that reality, entertaining any thought of withdrawal from Iraq is out of question no matter what cost Washington has to pay in American soldiers' lives.
That is definitely the impression one gets from reading between the lines of the affirmations of President Bush and his aides that the US would not be forced into "prematurely" leaving Iraq.
For all technical purposes, the "maturity" will be accomplished when "democracy" is established in Iraq and Iraqis assume control of their country. For practical purposes, in the view of many Arabs, the "maturity" that the US seeks would be a stage where whoever is in power in Iraq would take orders from Washington without raising any question whatsoever and allow the country and its people be used as a weapon from within the Arab heartland to undermine Arab interests.
As such, for those Arabs and a majority of Iraqis, and indeed many others in the world, there is little sincerity in American promises. They view any American move in the Middle East as aimed solely at serving American and Israeli interests.
US President George W Bush has asserted that those behind the attacks against US and allied forces in Iraq are extremists trying to install a Taliban-style regime in Afghanistan.
Well, whoever was behind that advise to the US president knows little about the history of Iraq and its people. Religious hardline sentiments were never a dominant factor among Iraqis, and there has been little sign of any strong Iraqi group advocating a Taliban-style regime there.
Documentary evidence have appeared in the American press showing that grabbing control of Middle Eastern oil wells as a strategic weapon was being planned as far back as 1975. Against that revelations, it would take much more than words from Washington to convince the Arabs that Bush and his aides mean it when they affirm their resolve to "rebuild" Iraq. For the sceptics, the lofty declarations from Washington only mean that the American administration is using "rebuilding" Iraq as a pretext to maintain and expand the American presence in the region and achieve absolute US domination of the world.
For the world at large, it is a matter of the sole superpower of the world challenging anyone and everyone. "We are the United States of America and we intend to accomplish whatever we wish. Dare us at your peril" -- this is message they are seeing in American actions around the globe.
What does this all mean for the hapless majority in Iraq? When would their suffering end?
Turned into pawns in a wider gameplan, they have little say in the rules of the game.
But, will a suspension of guerrilla attacks lead to an improvement in the daily life of an Iraqi family. Perhaps yes, but not as long as Americans remain in absolute control and consider Iraq as its backyard.

No Saddam negotiation

PV VIVEKANAND

A REPORT on Sunday that Saddam Hussein is in secret negotiations with US forces in Iraq has been summarily dismissed as unfounded by highly informed intelligence sources and diplomats in the region.
"There is little evidence on the ground to support the report," said a senior source who is in a position to know what is going on in Iraq round-the-clock.
The source was referring to a report in London's Sunday Mirror repor that Saddam was demanding safe passage to the former Soviet republic of Belarus in exchange for information on weapons of mass destruction and his bank accounts.
"It is at best laughable since someone has misled the paper's correspondent, " said the source. "The fact is that the coalition forces occupying Iraq have no clue whatsover at this point as to where Saddam could be, who his supporters are and how he manages to keep himself away from getting caught," said the source.
"It is highly unlikely that Saddam would bargain with the US and flee the country," said a senior Arab diplomat in the region. "It is not in Saddam to do so."
If anything, said the Arab diplomat, "the continuing attacks that inflict daily casualties on the forces occupying Iraq should be seen as a major morale booster for Saddam, regardless of whether it is his loyalists or others who are staging the attacks."
According to the Sunday Mirror report, the purported negotiations with Saddam are conducted with the knowledge of US President George W. Bush, who is being kept up to date on the talks by his national security adviser Condoleeza Rice who is coordinating negotiations led by US general Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq.
"A representative of Saddam in Western-style civilian clothes came to coalition people at Tikrit at sunset on September 12. He led them to a house where the security official was waiting," said a senior Iraqi quoted in the Sunday Mirror.
"The discussions are now going on under the direct authority of Sanchez," the source said, according to the newspaper.
The source, a man, maintained that Saddam had decided to seek a deal " because he is desperate, trapped and finding fewer and fewer people willing to give him shelter," the report said.
Even in the hypothesis that there is any substance to the report, Saddam "should be aware that the US would rather have him dead rather than taking him alive," said a senior European source. "It might be a big boost for Bush to get Saddam alive, given that the US has failed so far to get Osama Bin Laden.
"However, then the US would be burdened with the obligation to unveil the whereabouts the weapons of mass destruction that it alleges were stockpiled by Saddam since they would have Saddam himself to question."
"The fact is," said the European source, "there was never any weapons of mass destruction of the size and nature that the Americans and British cited as the reason for going to war."
"If Saddam is caught and still Bush is unable to unearth the alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, said it would seal Bush's political future for good," said another observer. "Don't forget, Bush has been forced to retract his implict claims earlier that Saddam was also linked to the Sept.11 attacks.""Americans might be lethargic, but they are not stupid to be taken by the argument that the president never said Saddam was behind the attack," added the observer. "Bush never explicitly said so, but he certainly gave a convincing impression to his people that Saddam was indeed responsible for Sept.11."