Inside the Ring-Iraqi soldiers defecting

The Washington Times ^ | 28 February, 2003 | Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough

[Happy2BMe]

Morale is low in the Iraqi army and many soldiers are preparing white flags of surrender, we are told by someone in northern Iraq who recently interviewed two defectors from Saddam Hussein's army.

One was a captain who defected from the 5th Mechanized Division of the 1st Corps, based near the northern city of Kirkuk. The captain told our informant that the heavy division was only 35 percent combat-effective. The captain said morale was so low that younger soldiers are speaking openly about surrendering

[buffyt]

The French will joing the defectors who are surrendering? LOL

[buffyt]

Morale is low in the Iraqi army and many soldiers are preparing white flags of surrender, we are told by someone in northern Iraq who recently interviewed two defectors from Saddam Hussein's army.

The French already have their WHITE FLAGS made!

[zip]

He ate nothing but MREs....

MRE=Meals rejected by Ethiopia

[The Iguana]

His perceived enemies were not invited, including us and Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks. Most of the other regular Pentagon scribes attended the soiree, along with Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke, who set the invite list.

So what did Gertz and Scarborough do to tick Rummy off?

[The Iguana]

One of my favorite P.J. passages.

[Living Stone]

I have friend who was in Desert Storm. After his unit took the surrender of a rather large group of terrified Iraqi soldiers, one of the Iraquis made the comment that the worst thing for thier morale was the B-52 strikes.

My friend then asked him if his unit had been hit by B-52s, to which the Iraqi soldier replied:

"No, but the unit NEXT to us was."

[barker]

The other night one of my sons asked a question I didn't know the answer to. He wanted to know what happened to the Iraqi troops that surrendered after the first war was over.

Did they stay in Iraq and if they did what did Saddam do to them? I can't imagine Saddam letting all of them live. Seems to me he would have to make an example of some of them.

Does your step-dad know?

[KriegerGeist]

What? You mean the Orcs are abandoning Mordor?
What's up with the Fighting Uruk Hai?
Sauron is losing his grip

[mikhailovich]

Sir,

You have Ronald Reagan to thank for your country and military, considering his marathon race with USSR to the bitter end caused USSR to collapse financially, while the US survived and even thrived.

Now, for you or anyone to call the USSR military (before 1985) comparable to Iraq is the utmost lie and insult. If you only knew the truth my friend.

[expatpat]

Sheen claims Irish blood, but the Irish have always been fighters.

[Happy2BMe]

"I wonder how many wil surrencer to Dan Rather?"

CAP TIME - Dan Rather Begs For Crumbs At Saddam Hussein's Palace

[Happy2BMe]

"I wonder how many wil surrencer to Dan Rather?"

Caption THIS: Dan Rather Begging Crumbs At Saddam's Palace

[Happy2BMe]

"They were summarily hung for their crimes against humanity. Regrettably the knots where incorrectly tied and the distance of the drop was not sufficient to break their necks. They swung and kicked for almost thirty minutes before strangling to death."

History, sir, has now been FREEPED!

Amendments to the correct text will appear in the next publishing run - just around the time mass defections begin from Itacki army and the Dim-o-ratic National RatNest.

[Happy2BMe]

"What we had here was the My Lai of consumer goods."

A good buddie of mine was on the sweep team and did after action reports for CENTCOM.

His job was to archive it on 35mm. At that time, we were based out of Dharan, and didn't have film processing - so we took it to a Saudi lab.

Within a couple of hours, the Saudis had hundreds of 4x6 photo album sets of it being sold on the streets of Dharan.

They (the Saudis) loved going up to a green G.I., pulling an album out, and saying, "Hey - $20 you take this home show family how great warriors you are."

BTW: Those were some of the sickest pics I've ever seen - carnage was indescribable.

[KnutCase]

Hey, wait....the French were not in Iraq selling arms.....they were selling White Flags !

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[redhead]

That's "HANGED." "Hung" is er, well, ...something else...

[k2blader]

Bump!

[MeekOneGOP]

bumpity bumpity ...