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Let's play Saddam.

Suppose you were Saddam --- commander in chief of the either soon to be eviscerated or the soon to be turn coat Iraqi army. What would you do? Assume surrender is not an option. Assume going into exile is not an option.

You KNOW the GW is serious. It's personal. It's strategic. It cannot be avoided, it can only be delayed, and only a little, at that. You know that however many casualties you cost the Americans -- which if Gulg War I was any indication won't be lot -- Bush will be undeterred. This is for keeps, for all the marbles.

What do you do, besides shit a brick?

This is what I would do.

(a) Try to reach a rapproachment with the Iranians. Foreswear any designs on Iranian territory hence forth, pledge cooperation in all fields -- from oil to nukes.

Iran just might bite. The mullahs must know their own days are numbered. Their people are restive and they are about to have 100k US troops parked on their doorsteps for a good long tme. What would they give to avoid that? Teaming up with a ready to bargin Saddam (in secret, of course) is the least they can do.

What does Saddam get. A potentially reinforcing ally. A clandestine source of supplies and possibly troops. A place from which scuds can be fired at the approaching Allied onslaught.

(b) Attack first and hard, but in a low profile sort of way.

By this I mean that I would not repeat the mistake of Iraq in Gulf War I. The American's army was for awhile a sitting duck, before the build up of forces in Saudi Arabia was complete. Iraq could have moved early, but feared provoking an attack that thought could either be deterred or ridden out.

They were wrong. The attack was not going to be deterred and they underestimated our ferocity.

I wouldn't do that again., if I can. But it's delicate. Iraq can't strike NOW. That would play into Bush's hands. Bring the whole world to our side. Plus troops on the move, in the open desert, with no air cover are sitting ducks, as Saddam knows by now.

What to do? You can't move masses of troops. But once Bush gives his final ultimatum, especially if the coalition of the willing consists just of us, the Brits and a few pygmy powers, if I were Saddam I would immediately launch every scud I have on the American Bases in Kuwait, armed with every poison I could muster. If I could get the Iranians to do the same, I would -- but that is dicier, since they are more likely to want to help in ways that show no footprints.

Simultaneously, I would unleash whatever I or my perhaps newfound partners in Al Quaeda can on the US mainland. If we have a dirty nuke or anthrax or whatever, use it now, before the first US shot is fired. It would be our own mini-version of "shock and awe." It would enabel me to take out the maximum number fo troop, since once the US moves, there will be no safe haven anywehre in Iraq for me or my ragtag army. I would also scare the bejesus out of the American populace, by killing tens of thousands if I could. Undermine their confidence that papa Bush is able to protect them, even a year and a half after 9/11.

It would be my own version of "shock and awe." Plus the attack on the US mainland would not necessarily even have my fingerprints on it. I could argue that the US ultimatum has already inflamed muslins everywhere. And that things are only going to get worse for the US.

(c) Of course, the US is still going to come, perhaps with more ferocity than they would otherwise have mustered. But I don't give them what they are looking for -- tank-to-tank battles and the like. I would disperse my forces, let the US advance basically unimpeded toward the cities. Even let them enter the cities w/out a real fight -- except perhaps I might throw an army of conscripts at them for good measure.

But then I would come at them from every manhole cover, every hovel and hamlet, every nook and cranny of every major city.

(d) I would probably torch my oil wells, and if I could slip in to Kuwait, Kuwaiti oil wells from the first moment of the war, perhaps before a shot is even fired. I would of course blame it on American sabatoge.

All this happens as soon as Bush lays down an ultimatum, before one cruise missle is fired.

What do you think about my plans?

How would you play it, if you had Saddam's weak hand?