- Eric Mueller comments:
-
- Evidently, this newspaper, "Sawt al-`Urouba",
has no internet website. The report clearly originates from an American
source. As one translates it, it "feels" as though it was once
written in English.
-
- It also has the typical boastful "Americans never
make mistkakes" "Americans always outsmart everybody" tone
that has become so nauseatingly predominant in coverage of the Anglo-American
aggression againt Iraq, and it makes no mention of certain things that
might be embarrassing for the US and which are now leaking out elsewhere
in Arabic.
-
- Nevertheless, it does bring out a number of interesting
details and is the longest report on the Great Betrayal that I have seen
so far. There have been other reports in the Arabic press that in broad
outlines have told the same tale.
-
- Arabist Eric Mueller is this website's expert on Middle
Eastern affairs.
-
-
- The Deal
- By Walid Rabbah
- Exclusive to Sawt al-`Urouba
- April 14, 2003
-
- LEBANON -- One day after
the start of the war against Iraq American Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld appeared on American television screens to say something that
the press interpreted as some sort of American propaganda. In reality,
though, it was the basis for what was later to take place.
-
- Rumsfeld said that there had been communications between
the Americans and leaders in the Republican Guard in Iraq. He said that
the details could not be disclosed now, but urged listeners to wait for
coming days.
-
- Three days later the American media played an audio tape
on which recorded voices could be heard speaking in Arabic guiding American
forces to important bombing targets. The voices were translated immediately
in the headquarters of the American forces so that orders could be issued
accordingly.
-
- In fact, Rumsfeld was not just talking at random. There
had been communications that took place in total secrecy between the leaders
of the Republican Guard and the Commanders of Saddam's Fedayeen, unbeknownst
to the Iraqi leader and his son who was in charge of a huge military organization
that could have made life hell for the American forces had they joined
the battle.
-
- The communications grew in intensity after the Republican
Guard entered its first battle against the American forces in the environs
of Baghdad, and after much of its equipment was destroyed. The Americans
could see that they were facing a force with high military preparedness,
one that was well trained and could inflict tremendous losses on the American
forces whenever they tried to enter Baghdad.
-
- The offer proposed by the American command in Iraq to
the Republican Guard and Saddam's Fedayeen was generous. The offers were
run past Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who okayed them immediately. The
provided for:
-
- 1. In return for not opposing American forces and for
laying down their weapons, the United States will give the following:
-
- Transportation for the Republican Guards top echelon
to secure locations outside of Iraq,
-
- Transportation of the Republican Guards leaders of the
second echelon to "liberated" places of which the Anglo-American
forces had control inside Iraq,
-
- Granting to the top echelon of the Republican Guards
large sums of money, with lesser sums going to the second echelon,
-
- Granting some of the leaders of the top echelon of the
Republican Guard, and to those who had not committed "war crimes"
official roles in "liberated" Iraq after the end of the war,
-
- Granting American citizenship and residency in the United
States to some of the first echelon commanders and their families, depending
on their wishes,
-
- Establishing a balance between the Iraqi Opposition that
will have a limited role in the administration of Iraq on the one hand,
and Republican Guard commanders who did not fight the American forces,
on the other.
-
- 2. As a guarantee of this (which the commanders of the
Republican Guard did not completely trust), the United States disclosed
some of its agents whom it had planted among the "human shields"
who were guiding the American military to positions to be bombed and where
President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership could be found. A brief
meeting was held between one of the agents serving as a "human shield"
and some members of the Republican Guard during which the latter were handed
official written documents addressed to the first echelon of the Republican
Guard. These reassured the Republican Guard commanders that the assurances
were reliable. The documents provided for:
-
- After the occupation of Saddam International Airport,
Republican Guards of the top echelon should arrive at the airport so that
they could be transported away. If that proved impossible, a place should
be agreed upon where an Apache helicopter or two could land somewhere near
Baghdad in order to transport them away.
-
- Some commanders of the second echelon should secure themselves
within the Iraqi Republican Palace adjacent to the Airport. American forces
would fire some shells at it in order to announce that they had taken it,
then American forces would transfer them to the airport.
-
- Orders should be issued to the commanders of the Second
Echelon of the Republican Guard not to resist and to lay down their weapons,
together with promises of their safety, and that of their families, and
they would be transported to secure locations. In turn they were to issue
orders to those of lower rank in their commands not to put up resistance.
The Republican Guard's first echelon used a deception to get lower ranks
to accept such an order by telling them that the resistance would be carried
on secretly in accordance with a plan prepared by the Iraqi leadership
to protract the war and catch the American forces in a trap that had been
laid for them. This trick was used on the lower ranking commanders of the
Republican Guard.
-
- First and Second echelon commanders of the Republican
Guard would be given sums of money in dollars as a down payment to guarantee
the implementation of the agreement.
-
- Human Shields
-
- From the beginning, the heads of the American Central
Intelligence Agency followed a plan to use the work of agents posing as
"human shields." The CIA chiefs used peace activists in America
carefully and systematically. They sent three groups of peace activists
to the region, and in particular into Baghdad on the basis that that would
be the place where the decisive battle would be fought.
-
- The deception worked with the Iraqi leaders who placed
different groups of human shields in important places such as: factories
and manufactories that had great importance for the population. Storehouses
of weapons belonging to the Republican Guard were located inside those
factories and manufactories, and this fact was openly acknowledged. But
inside, hidden under ground, there were huge stockpiles of weapons sufficient
for waging a resistance struggle for years. These were ostensibly civilian
installations but on the inside were military. These included centers where
rockets were gathered for destruction under the UN supervised program,
while some of them were stored in underground military storehouses.
-
- The Iraqi measures, whereby they distributed the human
shields to vital locations, was in fact a trap set for the Iraqis, for
the human shields carried difficult-to-detect delicate communication devices
for communicating with the American forces during the bombing. It later
became clear that these devices played an outstanding role in pinpointing
the positions of Saddam and his leaders, as well as places where weapons
were being stored.
-
- Occupation of the Airport The occupation of Saddam International
Airport was a turning point inasmuch as it enabled the American forces
to carry out their entire plan as it had been detailed in the documents
that they had been given and as they had been promised. The commanders
of the Republican Guard were reassured, in particular those of the first
echelon, that what the American forces had promised them was the truth.
The Republican Guard commanders then provided complete information about
the various military positions around the airport and inside of it. They
also gave complete information about the tunnels that extended from the
Republican Palace to inside the airport, tunnels that had been built especially
so that the Iraqi president could use them should he ever be in danger.
American forces occupied these tunnels, unknown to any but the first echelon
of the Republican Guard.
-
- On the second day after the occupation of the airport
Muhammad Sa`id as-Sahhaf assured the world that Saddam International Airport
was still in the hands of the Iraqi forces. He based his assurances on
a promise of an "innovative and unusual" sort of response, as
he put it, when Iraqi fighters and Republican Guards would sweep from the
palace through the tunnels and on towards the airport in a surprise attack
on the American forces occupying the airport. He did not know even as he
spoke that American forces had discovered the location of those secure
tunnels and that they would confront the small numbers of Iraqis who were
sent there, under the leadership of third echelon commanders of the Republican
Guard, and who would find the Americans waiting for them.
-
- Time at that difficult juncture was golden. The American
forces saw that the road had opened up to Baghdad, so they carried out
two essential operations simultaneously:
-
- The first operation: to introduce tanks to the approaches
of Baghdad from where they would penetrate to the area of the Palestine
Hotel, on condition that they would not cross the bridge to the opposite
bank. This occurred after they were sure that orders had been issued to
the Republican Guard to disappear in accordance with the "secret plan"
to which the first echelon commanders had already alerted their junior
officers.
-
- The second operation: to prepare a military transport
plane of at least 200 seats to transport the first echelon commanders of
the Republican Guard and some members of the second echelon to secure locations.
-
- The orders given to the American soldiers who advanced
to secure a bridgehead for the rest of their forces were as follows:
-
- First: attempt to silence the media that were transmitting
pictures of the places where the breakthrough was occurring (this is what
took place when the offices of al-Jazeera TV, and the Abu Dhabi TV station,
were shelled) and to try to herd the journalists into a place from which
they could not move, except by order of the coalition forces, or, to be
precise, the US Marines. Second: To cut communications and electricity
off from the area and to attempt to shell the little electricity generators
in the area in order to completely knock out any means for transmission
once and for all.
-
- Third: To shell the satellite dishes on the roof of the
Palestine Hotel. It was here where the al-Jazeera journalist Tariq Ayyoub
was martyred.
-
- Fourth: To deal with the limited resistance in the area
of the bridge with small arms rather than with artillery bombardment because
some of the second echelon the Republican Guard were too late to reach
the appointed meeting places in time and might possibly have to reach the
coalition forces by crossing the Sanak Bridge.
-
- Military Aircraft Many first-echelon commanders of the
Republican Guard gathered at Saddam International Airport. They had to
wait eight more hours before the rest of the commanders showed up. The
American command found to their surprise that the first echelon commanders
of Republican Guard forces had brought along with them the top commander
of Saddam's Fedayeen, a man who took his orders directly from Saddam Hussein's
son. This convinced the American forces that they had put Saddam's Fedayeen
out of action along with the Republican Guard. After that commander informed
them that had been attracted by the agreement reached with the Republican
Guard, and requested that he be accorded the same terms that had been granted
to the Republican Guard, consent was granted immediately.
-
- The American military aircraft took off from Saddam International
airport at 8:00 p.m. on the third day of the occupation of the airport.
Some sources in the American command maintain that the plane flew directly
to the United States, via Germany. Others say that it took them by way
of Kuwait. What is certain, however, is the fact that they left for the
United States. At the same time two helicopters were whisking the second
echelon commanders of the Republican Guard to Basra where they were met
by British forces.
-
- The Fate of Saddam Hussein
-
- Some American political sources maintain that those secret
communications between Republican Guard commanders and the Americans took
place according to American instructions that were issued to the Republican
Guard leaders so as to prevent their being detected. The most modern technology
was used, including tiny transmitter-receiver devices that had been given
to the Republican Guard Commanders in their first meeting with the Human
Shields. This is the secret of how they kept Saddam Hussein in the dark
about their contacts.
-
- The final task of the Republican Guard Commanders gathered
at the airport was to give the important information about the location
of the Iraqi president and his leadership in what was to be their last
meeting in al-Mansour. This information enabled the American forces to
aim at the place where the meeting was being held and strike it with guided
missiles. Most probably the Iraqi President and his leadership, including
his two sons, were killed in the bombardment. None of the leadership was
saved from that attack except Muhammad Sa`id as-Sahhaf, the Information
Minister, whose whereabouts are still unknown. He alone among the members
of the leadership was out of the area at the time of the attack, which
came shortly after he delivered a press statement in front of the Palestine
Hotel that day.
-
- Saddam's Family
-
- The American Authorities have kept quiet about the whereabouts
of Saddam's family, in particular the women and children among them, although
they know where they are, and whether they are living or dead. There are
some reports that they are in Syria. Others have said that they slipped
away to Tikrit. In fact, however, the American forces bombed the location
where the family was staying and were able to catch the whole family together
after they slipped away to the place where the President's half-brother
Barzan at-Tikriti was staying. When his house near Baghdad was bombed the
family was wiped out.
-
- A Final Word: This information was leaked by American
sources. Nevertheless, it should be more than 75 percent true because it
originated with political and not military personnel.
-
- One question remains: Where did those mountains of weapons
go? Where did the forces who "melted away" into the angry Iraqi
population go?
-
- The Marines did discover vast storehouses of weapons
that could have been used by the Republican Guard -- though they were in
fact never used -- heavy weapons, light weapons in a huge store room in
Baghdad. American forces are keeping that quiet -- which is a further indication
of the proof of what we have said.
-
- But one major question remains open. If they did not
find the bodies of Saddam, his leaders and his two sons, the matter remains
a source of embarrassment. Coming weeks will no doubt provide us much more
information.
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- The above news item is translated and reproduced without
editing other than typographical
-
- © Focal Point 2003
- http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/03/04/Mueller150403.html
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