Posted on 03/28/2003 3:33:52 AM PST by kattracks
Saddam Hussein's death squads are forcing Iraqis to fight by holding their children hostage and threatening them with execution, allied forces said.From the front lines to Capitol Hill, U.S. officials expressed disgust that fanatical paramilitaries would kill their own people before letting them surrender.
"We witness the regime's forces becoming more and more desperate in their actions," Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said at a briefing in Doha, Qatar. "Their repressive acts against Iraqi citizens showing any signs of tolerance of the coalition are growing harsher."
Reports of Iraqis being ordered to fight at gunpoint were bolstered by grisly evidence: soldiers with bullet holes in the back of their heads.
"We heard a report that one Iraqi commander who tried to surrender or at least not fight was taken, executed," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "His head was chopped off and paraded around the city on a pole."
Near Najaf, allied troops reported that regime forces had seized children and told their families they must fight or face execution.
In Basra, regular army soldiers ready to surrender to the coalition instead were made to lead a tank convoy on a suicidal run out of the city, British commanders said.
Soldiers who did surrender were sent back home, only to be "pressed back into military action by the irregulars at the point of the gun," Brooks said.
"Anyone in this country that returns to their homes or stays in their homes while the regime is present is in mortal danger," he added. "That's happening all over the country."
Iraqi exiles said the regime's strategy has stunted any broad revolt by Shiite Muslims hostile to Saddam.
"The population is terrified, because they're persecuted, and they're very nervous about what the Americans are going to do," said Sharif Ali, head of the Monarchist Group, an umbrella for Iraqi opposition movements.
"Those fighting the regime have pulled back for the moment and aren't taking them on right now," he said.
Report of massacre
The BBC reported that Kurdish officials said 500 villagers who refused to take up arms were massacred by the Iraqi Army in Hawi Jah, near the city of Kirkuk. The report could not be independently confirmed.
The intimidation tactics led U.S. defense officials to begin describing the Fedayeen Saddam, run by Saddam's oldest son, and other militias as death squads.
Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations Committee how the militias had cut out the tongue of an Iraqi opposition member and let him bleed to death in the center of Baghdad.
Gen. Peter Pace, deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recounted an incident in which Saddam's thugs "hung a lady the other day because she had the temerity to wave at a passing convoy of coalition troops."
But the paramilitaries' brutal, desperate attempts to squelch rebellion also have given allied commanders a sense that Iraqi command and control is breaking down.
"The enemy's options are now limited," said British Capt. Al Lockwood. "It's a suicidal approach which is irrational, with no military logic to it. Military cohesion is sadly lacking."
Originally published on March 28, 2003
Grrrrr, I know it's not quite in accord with the Geneva Convention, but it would be quite a satisfying finale for us to parade Saddam's head around Baghdad on a pole when this is all over. Hey, to wear a Dubya mask and do this in effigy would make a pretty darn good FReep to liven up a peacenik demonstration.
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