May 31, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 28, 1424

BAGHDAD: Why did Saddam Hussein’s regime collapse in the manner it did? What factors were at play in the days preceding his downfall? And what happened to his much-touted Republican Guards?

In an interview, a former Iraqi army officer with close ties to Saddam Hussein’s elite Republican Guards explained why he thought the regime was doomed from the outset.

The officer, who introduced himself only as Abu Ahmed, said three factors were mainly responsible for the swift victory achieved by the United States-led coalition in Iraq and particularly in Baghdad.

He cited the coalition forces’ military superiority and aggressive intelligence activities in the country, especially in northern Iraq, but more importantly, the recruitment of “traitors” from within the upper echelons of the military brass.

The Iraqi army, said Abu Ahmed, completed its war preparations months before US President George W. Bush launched “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. Soldiers were deployed at various locations up and down the country, where they dug trenches and hunkered down in protected defensive positions.

Days before the war, hundreds of mainly Iraqi opposition military personnel trained by the US entered the country disguised as many things, from taxi drivers to shepherds, according to Abu Ahmed. Their mission: To identify potential targets and military movements and relay their coordinates.

Saddam Hussein realized early on that it would be detrimental for the military to use conventional means of communication, as this would give away their positions, so it was decided that communication between units would be through other means.

“Men in civilian clothes rode around on motorcycles carrying messages and relaying orders,” Abu Ahmed explained. But soon, the spies found out and when the war began, these messengers were targeted, along with the trucks bringing supplies to the entrenched soldiers.

“Then strange things began to happen,” said Abu Ahmed. Army units were ordered to leave their well-protected positions and redeploy elsewhere, often to less secure locations. Some met their fate halfway on the road.

This was the case with the Republican Guards’ al-Medina division, who were ordered in early April to attack a group of US soldiers on the highway between Baghdad and Hilla in broad daylight and without air support.

“They lost about 20 tanks in less than one hour,” Abu Ahmed said. Worse still, the division was ordered to proceed on in the direction of al-Suwera, 35 kms south of Baghdad on the Basra highway.

They later found themselves sandwiched between US soldiers and only a few made it to al-Suwera, a Republican Guard base and institute. “It was very strange,” said Abu Ahmed.

Junior Iraqi military officers in the north were also having a difficult time understanding the actions of their senior commanders, including Brigadier Salem Hafez, a regime loyalist and General Emad al-Douri, a relative of Ezzat Ibrahim al-Douri, vice president of the Revolutionary Command Council.

In one case, a commander ordered an artillery unit outside Arbil not to shell the advancing Kurdish Peshmerga forces, according to an officer in the unit.

Other strange things also happened. Commanders would vanish for hours, in some cases more than twice in one day.

Arab volunteers, especially those in the Tikrit area, suffered the worst fate. In addition to light weapons, each of them was given four shoulder missile launchers, three of which were faulty. The only one that fired gave away their positions.

A sympathetic cleric later found the dead and buried them near a mosque in Samara north of Baghdad.

General Sufian al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein’s cousin and a close associate of Saddam’s son, Uday, acted the strangest in Baghdad. He and Uday were responsible for the special security forces protecting the president. Some of these forces were stationed at the airport.

The general reportedly pulled these forces from their positions shortly before US forces entered the city, facilitating US access to the main republican palace in downtown Baghdad.

According to Abu Ahmed, the military’s top brass, including those who were actively collaborating with the coalition forces, bailed out of the theatre much earlier than suggested. Soldiers stationed in the north, unaware that Baghdad had fallen, continued to resist the invading forces.

“When we found out what happened, we simply dropped our weapons, changed into civilian clothes and melted away,” said Abu Ahmed. “We were convinced Baghdad would fall, but not in the fashion it did.”—dpa