INSIDE STORY: Hussein son's wild orders led to Iraq military collapse

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | May 25, 2003 | Robert Collier

[sarcasm]

Baghdad -- In the final days before Baghdad fell, Saddam Hussein's son Qusai issued a series of military orders that sent thousands of elite Republican Guard troops to their certain death in the open countryside.

According to accounts provided to The Chronicle by more than a dozen Iraqi military officials -- some of them still hiding from American forces -- the orders exposed the core of the Iraqi military to devastating U.S. air attacks and left the capital's defenses markedly weakened.

[SamAdams76]

Sounds like the article is trying to minimize the U.S. victory over there by making it seem like they (the Iraqis) never got a chance to put up a real fight.

[martin_fierro]

Saddam's quagmire.

[DPB101]

Capt. Haider Ahmed . . . said that six 40mm surface-to-surface missiles were sent to him 20 days before the war.

Only 40mm? Where did they come from? Crazy Pete's Fireworks Emporium? Or am I missing something here?

[MEG33]

Gee,the SFC wouldn't do that now would they? ;^ (

[Zipporah]

Hmm possibly.. but it does shed a lot of light on the lack of resistance. I think it does reveal a lot about the lack of leadership by Saddam.. it was loyality out of fear not out of love of the leadership. The reports of how wacked out Saddam and his sons were is apparently not far off course.

[2nd Bn, 11th Mar]

Seems to me that "Shock and Awe" worked pretty darn well.

Semper Fi,

[xm177e2]

Seems to me that "Shock and Awe" worked pretty darn well.

And rushing in as quickly as possible was the right choice. Going slower would not have helped.

[garyhope]

Isn't this a good example of a kind of political correctness. The idea that words are reality or a refusal to deal with empirical reality. To just say you can defeat the infidels by boasting. The cult of personality or a dicitorial leader, the cult of fear. The extreme isolation from reality and the insular culture cut off from the real world. Aren't North Korea and Cuba like this too?

Shows the advantage of risking "popularity" and having the courage of your convictions to stand up to tinpot dictators. When confronted with a real military, they collapse like a house of cards. Courage is good. Standing up for your beliefs is good. Passing over the bullsh*t is good. Not caving in to the polls is good. Knowing what real "peace" is, is good.

[TomB]

And now we see the genius of Robert Fisk. He obviously lulled the Iraqis into a false sense of security by writing constantly about now impregnible the Iraqi's Baghdad defenses were.

Fisk is obviously a CIA plant.

< /sarcasm >

[Batrachian]

They never did have a chance. Their military was a shadow of what it was in 1991, and they didn't have a chance then, either.

The Bush administration and the Pentagon knew this very well and where counting on it, but that does not minimize in any way the achievement of our forces, nor do I think this piece attempts to do so.

It does, however, paint a very pathetic picture of the Iraqis. If I didn't know that they where tools of oppression for Saddam I would feel sorry for them. I do feel sorry for the foot soldiers.

[MEG33]

Pass it on..Fisk is a CIA plant..psst (What a delicious rumor that would be!)

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

The funny thing is that, as inept and incompetent as they were in everything else, the Iraqis were diabolically capable of either completely destroying their huge stocks of nuclear, biologgical and chemical weapons or hiding them so well that no one will ever find them again.

And... you better believe it - they do expect you to believe it and they know that you will - because otherwise it may turn out that Bush, Powell and their subordinates lied to us on why we went to war in Iraq.

[FreePaul]

40mm surface to surface? Sounds like grenade launchers to me. They sent soldiers to Basra to learn how to operate them but they never could. That would seem to be the big problem with their whole army.

[Guillermo]

I remember reading a Fisk article which discussed Iraqi defensive positions in detail and location.

If Fisk had of wrote the same article describing American positions in such detail, he would have been (rightfully) kicked off the assignment.

[Jim Noble]

That and the fact that Arab armies always run away.

[ImpBill]

My thoughts exactly, but of course look at the source ... The San Francisco Chronicle. It is so nearly impossible for the leftist media in this country to give us (America) credit for anything right.

Our ability to adjust to the battle field conditions as they presented themselves, combined with up to date intell, aided by instant communications created the confusion in the minds of the Soviet trained leadership of the Iraquis.

The tactics we employed in this victory will be studied for years. The leadership combined with the execution by a highly trained and motivated soldier is the prime factor in this swift battlefield victory.

[arthurus]

With the differences in capabilities, if the Iraqis had fought more rationally, I think the difference would have been marginally more American casualties and another couple of days.

[razorbak]

Looks like we totally got inside and destroyed their OODA loop.

[arthurus]

I believe our side understood that the defense would be irrational. The Iraqis were organized on the old Soviet model of central control with no innitiative permitted below central level.When communications cease, effectiveeness ceases.