- "Many of Saddam's predictions about the Americans'
conduct were spot on."
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- 4-21-3
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- BAGHDAD -- If all had gone
according to plan, Saddam Hussain's military leaders would have fought
a guerrilla-style urban war in Iraq's towns and cities to defend his regime.
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- "Every Iraqi house will be a place for fighting,"
he said in a speech that was recorded in a report entitled 'Notes' from
a meeting with the President - but, in the event, was almost entirely ignored
by his generals in the heat of battle.
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- According to a cache of Iraqi intelligence documents
recovered by The Sunday Telegraph, Saddam issued precise instructions on
how to resist America's superior military strength during a meeting of
his most senior aides shortly before the war began.
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- Iraqi soldiers must not "chase the enemy with large
numbers of troops when they are far away from us," Saddam instructed.
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- Instead, they should wait for the Americans to reach
highly populated areas and use "simple, clever" methods - a reference
to suicide attacks and other guerrilla-style tactics, according to military
analysts.
-
- But the generals, it seems, listened more keenly to another
part of his address in which Saddam seemingly prepared them to flee rather
than fight. They should, he urged, keep fit, and learn new skills such
as horseriding and motorcycling.
-
- The report is undated, but Saddam refers to the failure
of the United Nations to pass a resolution for war on February 14 - just
over a month before the war began.
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- Many of Saddam's predictions about the Americans' conduct
were spot on. He told the inner circle of military and intelligence officers
that American warplanes would target "leadership centres", and
instructed senior aides to move out of their headquarters. They should
disperse instead "all over Baghdad, even on farms and under palm trees".
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- He cited the UN Security Council's failure to back the
war and the anti-war prote-sts as evidence that Iraq was winning the "war
of principle", and would go on to win the military and political war.
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- America might be the most powerful country but it was
not the most able. God was with the Iraqis because they were fighting for
higher principles. "The milk of our mothers is purer than theirs,"
he concluded.
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- © The Telegraph Group Limited London, 2003
- http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=84955
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