Hussein may mass his military in major cities

Washington -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has told regional government officials that he aims to thwart any U.S. invasion by avoiding open desert fighting and massing his military in major cities where civilian and American casualties would be highest, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said.

No one is willing to die for Saddam, but if we're going to do this, we should do it now. Waiting endlessly for him to deploy to the cities to maximize civillian casualties is idiotic.

If we do it now, overwhelming numbers of Iraqi troops will simply lay down their arms happily. (they've been conscripted under pain of death for them and their families)

"The end result is likely to be that Iraq would succeed in launching some (weapons of mass destruction) strikes against U.S. coalition forces, targets in neighboring states, and/or Israel," Anthony Cordesman, a military strategist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,

And how exactly do they plan to do that from an urban area without communications, fire and control centers, food and weapons warehouse and storage areas, support supplies?

Remember, you are talking about normally 5 million people plus his entire army and associated equipment.

There is no need to lay siege to anything.

The Republican Guard's choices are to hide in town, where they are irrelevant; to mass for an attack, where they are vulnerable to annihilation; or scatter and resort to small unit guerrilla tactics. In that case, also, they are fairly irrelevant, and manageable.

Assuming we get to choose the moment the war begins, it begins with airstrikes focused on the Republican Guard. The Iraqi Army would be leafleted, with the invitation to remain in their bases.

The attempt by Guard units to fall back to Baghdad makes them even more vulnerable to air strikes, with the exception of those soldiers already in Baghdad.

The seizure of the oilfields settles the question. They must come out to play, and they must come to us, which makes them, again, vulnerable to an aerial pounding.

This is imminently do-able.

The Iraqi hope of an alliance with Syria is a fool's hope. The moment Syria enters the fray, the IDF will cross the line headed toward the Damascus city limits.

Saddam's only hope militarily is to attack concentrations of US troops with whatever WMD he has on hand, and to do it now, before we are ready, and to hope that the body count is enough to change the political scene in Washington. It probably won't work, it will probably have the reverse effect, but with elections coming, it is his only chance.

A better plan would be to make a some significant payoffs to key politicians, through third parties, in order to make the required shift in the political landscape. It could be done through PR firms, or through bogus PAC's, but it has to be very deniable and well camoflaged, even from the politician himself. Iraq should also have their favorite PR firm digging for dirt on every hawk who is up for re-election.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.