SADDAM'S BLOODY STRATEGY:

Hostage Crisis (David Warren, 3/19/2003)

[T]he war to come is likely to resemble the resolution of the largest hostage crisis in history. The task of the allies is to remove Saddam, and his fellow monsters, while sparing every possible innocent human life that he is holding for his protection. Saddam's strategy, for the battle ahead ... is to maximize the carnage and suffering, in the earnest expectation that the world's America-haters will blame it all on Washington, not Baghdad....

Saddam's complete distrust of his own generals, and non-interest in their professional advice, was broadcast with his decision Saturday to place the country under four "warlords", with his son, the psychopathic Qusay, in charge of the key, central sector, which encompasses Tikrit and Baghdad....

Perhaps his most subtle tactic is to array his IV Army Corps (the so-called "Saladin"), not in the obvious path of the allies, but with seeming irrelevance against the Iranian frontier. Their job is to seal it, so that refugees and deserters are unable to flee towards Iran, and a tide of some hundreds of thousands of them can be driven into the path of the advancing columns of U.S. and British armour, slowing these down....

It appears that most significant defences in the south are concentrated in Nasiriyah, not the large port city of Basra. A second such line is drawn through Karbala, another third of the way to Baghdad. In both of these Shia holy cities, as in Baghdad, obvious air targets have been deployed in mosques, and the courtyards of hospices, schools, and hospitals.

But not, apparently, in Basra, which is being offered as a baited trap, the target possibly of chemical or biological weaponry, once it has been occupied by allied troops....

By concentrating the whole national artillery in Baghdad, Saddam has improved the odds of chance hits against allied aircraft. Most of this flak will miss, however, causing random carnage as it comes back down to earth, and giving the appearance that it is part of the allied bombing.

Why so crazed a self-defence? Because Saddam's real strategy can not be to prevail over the invading forces, only to enmire them in a human catastrophe.

Let us hope that this is the worst of Saddam's plan; for of course it could include the release of biological agents, or the use of nuclear or radiological weapons, in Iraq or the West.

May God bless our troops, and America.

Posted by Paul Jaminet at March 18, 2003 8:21 PM