Posted on 03/17/2003 8:19:29 PM PST by webber
By Tom Barrett 03/17/03
The Iraqis have surrendered. Well, at least some of them. On Sunday, March 9, 2003, the Sunday Mirror Newspaper of London reported that a dozen Iraqi soldiers crossed the border into Kuwait to surrender to British paratroopers. The Brits had to tell them it was too early to surrender, and ordered them back into Iraq.
Believe it or not, this actually happened. The British troops were testing their weapons in live fire exercises. The Iraqis thought the war had started, and found a way through the fortified border and approached the Coalition forces waving white flags. The stunned paratroopers from the 16th Air Assault Brigade told the Iraqis they were not firing at them and forced them to return to Iraq.
An eyewitness described the scene: "The Paras are a tough, battle-hardened lot but were moved by the plight of the Iraqis. There was nothing they could do other than send them back. They were a motley bunch and you could barely describe them as soldiers - they were poorly equipped and didn't even have proper boots. Their physical condition was dreadful and they had obviously not had a square meal for ages. No one has ever known a group of so-called soldiers surrender before a shot has been fired in anger."
History buffs will remember the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel, outnumbered twenty to one by the hostile Arabs that surrounded their tiny nation, soundly trounced and humiliated Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Israeli casualties were 759 killed and 3,000 wounded. Arab casualties topped 15,000.
Today many Pentagon officials are privately predicting a Seven Day War against Iraq. Incidents like the aborted surrender described above play into these predictions, but our forces have not just been preparing for hostilities. They have been busy with activities that make a very short war a very likely outcome.
Our psychological warfare people have been distributing leaflets and broadcasting information to the Iraqi people and soldiers about how to surrender. They have been promised that they will be treated well, and that they will receive food and medical care.
Our Special Forces have contacted Iraqi commanders about surrender as well. They have told these officers that if their men remain in their barracks they will not be shelled. Coalition forces will surround the barracks, and the Iraqi troops will be fed and treated humanely. Other factors play into the likelihood of a short war:
** Iraqi military commanders know that if they follow Saddam's orders and unleash weapons of mass destruction against Allied troops, the reaction will be swift and overwhelming. They will quickly find out if there really are seven virgins waiting for them in the afterlife.
** Saddam Hussein has spent billions on weapons of mass destruction and military preparedness. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are malnourished or starving. Saddam tries to blame this on UN sanctions, but his people know better.
** Before the Gulf War Saddam could lie to his people with impunity, because he controlled all mass communications. Following that war he claimed that he had won, that he had "forced the imperialist aggressors to turn tail and run."
There was only one small problem. Tens of thousands of Iraqi troops who were captured by the Coalition were released following the Gulf War. They know the truth.
They can't write articles about it or do TV interviews, but Saddam can't stop them from talking to their friends in their homes and coffee shops.
In 1991 US Military Police were overwhelmed by the more than 69,000 Iraqi troops who surrendered in just the first three days of the Gulf War. Master Sergeant Tony McGee of Florence, SC, was there. "They would put anything white on a stick to approach us," McGee, 34, said. "A lot of them were just looking for food and they knew we would take care of them."
Today Sergeant McGee is part of the US Military Police battalion that will guard Iraqi prisoners from Gulf War II.
This time we will be ready. Some Iraqis will be captured and brought to Sergeant McGee to supervise. But the great majority will gladly surrender to people who will treat them far better than their "President" ever did.
Saddam Hussein is the most hated man in Iraq. The people make a show of supporting him, because even the slightest hint of disloyalty means a bullet in the back of one's head under Saddam's brutal, repressive regime. But when Coalition forces come to town, the Iraqis will surrender even more quickly than the French did to the Germans in WWII.
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