Missing, Presumed Dead The Fate Of Many People - On Both Sides Of The Conflict - Is Unclear

Independent (UK) ^ | 4-13-2003

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Missing, presumed dead The fate of many people - on both sides of the conflict - is still unclear

13 April 2003

The soldiers

"I didn't receive any order from the beginning." An Iraqi colonel with the elite Republican Guard, who commanded a force of about 600 men, has revealed that his demoralised men fled from their units, without fear of punishment, as Allied bombs crashed on to their positions.

The colonel, who joined other comrades changing back into civilian clothes to catch the bus home about a week before Baghdad was taken, said he had initially been ordered to "hide from the bombs". But once the fighting started, he was completely out of touch with Iraq's senior military leaders.

The desertions began once the bombing started, he told the BBC. "Every day, one, two, three. Every day one, two, three. Everyone wanted to go, to leave his gun and go away."

The colonel said the military leadership had agreed to fight the war only because they feared execution if they refused.

But his men were badly affected by the force of the bombing raids by the Allies, who have controlled the skies of Iraq since the 1991 war. "From the beginning, I think that the balance of the air power is not equal. Something hit us. The aircraft destroyed our tanks and equipment."

The US Pows

The sudden collapse of the regime means that the Red Cross does not even know where the seven US prisoners of war – five members of a US supply convoy and two crew members of an Apache helicopter – are being held. "The people we were talking to before can no longer be found," said a Red Cross spokesman.

Five were seized in an ambush three weeks ago near Nasiriyah. US forces rescued one of the captives, 19-year-old Pte Jessica Lynch, from a Nasiriyah hospital in a dramatic raid on 1 April. She was flown back to the US last night. Her comrades have been shown on Iraqi television, but there has been no recent news of them.

The two others were captured by Iraqi troops on 24 March when their Apache crashed.

The Pentagon believes all seven are still alive, and President Bush has vowed to "use every resource" to track them down. US intelligence is monitoring Iraqi communications, and civilians are being enlisted for the search. One clue to their possible whereabouts may be bloodied American uniforms found during a search of a Baghdad military base.

On the Iraqi side, American forces are holding at least 7,300 Iraqi prisoners of war, while Britain has 6,500.

The journalists

Two journalists – ITN cameraman Fred Nerac, 43, and Lebanese translator Hussein Osman, 28 – are still missing after disappearing during the same ambush that killed ITN correspondent Terry Lloyd on 22 March.

One of their colleagues who escaped with injuries, Daniel Demoustier, said their vehicle was attacked by "friendly fire" as they were following an American military convoy on the way to Basra. Fred Nerac's wife Fabienne wrote to the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, to ensure that everything possible is being done to locate her husband.

The BBC reported yesterday that four journalists had been recovered by US Marines from a hospital in Baghdad, but their identities were not given. One of the journalists was dead, one was unhurt and two were taken to a field hospital for treatment for injuries suffered at the Palestine Hotel, which was hit by a US tank during the advance into central Baghdad on Tuesday. About 130 journalists are based at the hotel. At least 11 media workers have been killed since the conflict began, including journalists from Spain, Poland, France, Germany, Jordan, Australia, Iran, Iraq and the United States.

The dissidents

Iraqis desperate for news of their relatives imprisoned at the central military intelligence prison in Baghdad crowded behind US troops, who blasted their way through the warren of underground cells. Hundreds of political prisoners are believed to be still held in the basement, despite a mass amnesty last year.

Relatives opened up drains with their bare hands, shouting down drainpipes, as the search by the Americans yielded nothing. Still others rushed into the river in case there were secret entrances into the compound. Many in the crowd, whose relatives disappeared two decades ago, are poor members of the Shia population, ruthlessly put down by Saddam Hussein's regime after an uprising in the aftermath of the Gulf war. Other prisoners are said to be Kuwaitis abducted 12 years ago.

The relatives had told the Americans of hearing the voices of trapped loved ones through windows, and stuffing food through pipes to feed the prisoners. Other political prisoners could still be held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, where the Iraqi leadership is believed to have carried out biological warfare experiments on detainees. Before the amnesty, more than 75,000 prisoners had been held there.

The leadership

Although the Americans would dearly love to confirm the death of Saddam Hussein, so far there has been no identification of his body in the ruins of a restaurant obliterated by a US bombing strike in Baghdad's Mansur district.

US intelligence agencies say that tapped telephone conversations among former leadership members – but not from within Saddam's inner circle – indicate that the Iraqis themselves believe their leader is dead.

The US military has issued a deck of cards with the names of 55 "most wanted" Iraqis, starting with the "ace of spades" Saddam Hussein, and including his sons Uday and Qusay. In a coup for the Americans, a top weapons scientist and Saddam aide on the "most wanted" list, Lieutenant-General Amer al-Saadi, surrendered yesterday. But Saddam's younger son, Qusay, has reportedly been seen since the Mansur bombing and there is no confirmation of the death of Saddam's half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, targeted by a bombing raid on Friday.

The rest of the leadership vanished – including the unintentionally comical Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf – and Washington has suspicions that some family members may have been spirited away to Syria.