Courier Mail March 13, 2003
US wants Saddam's soldiers to surrender
By Tom Infield
THE US was in secret contact with elements of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's military and was pressing them to step aside or surrender in the event of a US-led attack, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday.
His comments, at a Pentagon news conference broadcast into Iraq, marked the first official indication from the US military that some Iraqi soldiers are co-operating in undermining Saddam.
"They are being communicated with privately at the present time," Mr Rumsfeld said.
"They are being -- will be -- communicated with, in a more public way. And they will receive instructions so that they can behave in a way that will be seen and understood as being non-threatening. And they will not be considered combatants, and they will be handled in a way that they are no longer part of the problem."
The disclosure, together with the testing of a terrifying new American bomb yesterday at an Air Force installation in Florida, seemed aimed at sparking fear in the Iraqi military.
A senior defence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the intent of the psychological warfare campaign was to convince Iraqi soldiers that it might be safer to run into the arms of the Americans than to trust their own comrades or face US weapons.
"If we're going to move up into Iraq, then troops that surrender will be taken care of," the official told reporters.
"The first group that tries to resist will be obliterated, both as an example and because we need to move ahead. We will devastate the military units that decide to fight."
Defence officials had said previously that special operations forces were already in Iraq trying to make contact with anti-Saddam elements among Shi'ite Muslims, Kurds and disaffected groups.
The Pentagon also had let it be known that its planes were dropping hundreds of thousands of leaflets over Iraq, especially in the southern no-fly zone, that say resistance would be futile.
Saddam's military is divided into segments -- a "popular army" of some 280,000 to 350,000 soldiers organised into 17 divisions, plus an elite Republican Guard organised into seven divisions.
GlobalSecurity.org, a respected Washington-based public policy group that monitors declassified intelligence assessments of Iraqi strength, reports that the main function of the Republican Guard, besides protecting Baghdad, is to "protect the regime from the army".
The regular-army troops are the ones on the front lines, who will have the first choice of standing aside or giving up.
The US and its allies, principally Britain and Australia, now have 225,000 troops -- a combination of air, sea and land forces -- in the potential combat zone, said General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Copyright © 2003, Nationwide News Pty Limited
