Posted on 03/31/2003 2:53:36 AM PST by kattracks
Three Iraqi Soldiers Desert the Army
By BORZOU DARAGAHI .c The Associated Press
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) - Hungry, poorly equipped and watched constantly, the three young friends from Basra made a pact: if they saw a chance to escape from the Iraqi Army, they would do it together.
Eight days ago, while the security men who enforce military discipline in their unit enjoyed a meal, Bassam Salah Madlool, Mushriq Ahmad Hashem and Abbas Fahid Mushin saw their chance.
They raced past minefields, evading radar and gunfire, and fled for 12 hours across hills, valleys and mountains until they reached Kifrey, in Kurdish-run northern Iraq.
``I feel like I've been born a second time,'' said Madlool, 28, a nine-year army veteran who deserted his post at the 436th battalion of the 15th division of the Farooq Army, just south of Kirkuk. ``For the first time in my life I feel free.''
Madlool and his friends said a security cordon of minefields and radar detectors around the barracks restrain potential deserters. But the biggest danger, they say, comes from recently formed execution units, created by members of the ruling Baath Party, military security officers and the Iraqi intelligence service.
Many defections have been reported since the United States and Britain launched a campaign to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from office, but they have not hastened the demise of his regime as allied forces had hoped.
Barham Salih, prime minister of the Kurdish government in northern Iraq that is allied with the Americans, said there has been a slight increase in defections since the U.S. bombing started March 20. He said two defecting low-level commanders were recently taken in by his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which controls the eastern half of the Kurdish autonomous area of northern Iraq.
He said a 12-mile retreat by Iraqi forces from the front lines surrounding the oil city of Kirkuk was meant to tighten positions and prevent an increase in desertions.
``The Iraqi military establishment has suffered a serious blow,'' Salih said. ``There is no real fighting being conducted ... The Iraqi military is caught in a difficult situation, between allied bombardment on the one hand and Saddam's death squads on the other.''
Madlool, with the clean-cut look of a college student, described the life of a typical Iraqi soldier as one of backbreaking work, ``intolerable'' living conditions and constant scrutiny by security forces.
``It's months since we've seen our families,'' he said. ``The weapons are of low quality. The food is bad. And there's endless work from the early morning to late at night.''
Soldiers are subject to regular religious and ideological indoctrination classes run by officials of Saddam's ruling Baath Party.
The Baghdad government attempted to boost morale and prepare troops for the U.S. offensive, the deserters said. Just before the war began, Baghdad raised the salary of soldiers from $3 a month to $12. They also were trained in guerrilla warfare and hand-to-hand combat.
But many ordinary soldiers feel they are little more than cannon fodder under the thumb of the Republican Guard units, they said.
``The regular army is just a victim of the regime,'' said Hashem, 20. ``The Republican Guards have all the power. They have the best supplies and the best weapons.''
Once the U.S. bombing raids began hitting positions near their barracks south of Kirkuk, the three men said an increasing number of their comrades tried to desert. In the two days before Madlool, Hashem, and 21-year-old Mushin escaped, they said the execution units killed 10 fellow soldiers who tried to escape.
The three deserters saw their chance while the officers enjoyed a midnight snack. In civilian clothes they had worn beneath their uniforms, they sneaked past the minefields. Then motion detectors went off, and they had to run for their lives as officers in the execution unit shot at them.
``We were too far by the time they realized we were gone,'' Madlool said.
The three walked and ran for nearly 12 hours until they reached an outpost manned by Kurdish Peshmerga militiamen outside the city of Kifrey, on the long front that separates Kurdish and Baghdad-controlled sections of Iraq.
They waved the white flag of surrender. The Peshmergas welcomed them with tea and food.
In Sulaymaniyah, the three deserters are being kept at an undisclosed hotel, where they've been watching television news, eating junk food and dreaming of peace.
``When the war is over, maybe I'll pursue my dreams: getting married, buying a car and traveling,'' Madlool said.
03/31/03 05:16 EST
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