Posted on 03/20/2003 10:04:30 AM PST by kattracks
WASHINGTON, Mar 20, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- U.S. intelligence picked up early signs the Iraqi leadership might be incapacitated or out of communication with military field commanders who failed to muster a coordinated response after a dawn Thursday strike on a suspected Saddam Hussein hideout, government officials said.The officials, who spoke to The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity, said it was too early to determine whether Saddam and his sons were caught in the dawn attack, but there was growing optimism the strike had left the Iraqi leadership in disarray.
Early intelligence reports suggested Iraq's leadership was not organizing any coordinated response to the U.S attack, suggesting the Iraqi regime might be in chaos or cut off from the military.
There was no coordination in security and military efforts around Baghdad and the rest of the country, the officials said.
Military officials "believe it is significant that there is a lack of coordination and significant resistance to what we did," one official said.
"It's little things here and there. Some individual commanders are hunking down while others are launching small attacks and setting fires," the official said.
At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said military planners had good reason to believe Iraqi leaders were at the site of the bombing.
"We are in communication with still more people who are officials of the military at various levels - the regular army, the Republican Guard, the Special Republican Guard - who are increasingly aware that it's going to happen, he's going to be gone," Rumsfeld said.
The sources said U.S. intelligence suspected Saddam's sons, Qusai and Odai, may have been with him during the strike on a complex where Iraqi leaders were suspected of sleeping.
Even if Saddam and his sons weren't killed, U.S. officials hoped the surprise attack would leave them distrustful of their inner circle, suspecting betrayal by one of their advisers.
Officials said the surprise attack was the product of a complex operation that benefited from human intelligence, electronic spying, special military operations and changes in technology that permitted military chiefs to quickly reconfigure the cruise missiles for a special, pinpointed attack.
The officials said the attack began with about three dozen cruise missiles that leveled the aboveground structures and which were followed up quickly by Air Force F-117 precision bunker-busting bombs that could penetrate deep into the leadership compound.
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AP writer John Solomon contributed to this story.
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN Associated Press Writer
Uhhh, when was this guy ever in touch with his military? Guy never was a soldier and values loyalty more than compitence in his officers. I daresay the army is better off with Saddam's phone line cut.
Yep. You cut off the head, and the body dies...
Although he survived, his C&C facilties did not, which is why they had to make a cheesy camcorder tape of him for television. A runner had to take the tape from the bunker to a surviving TV station for airing.
A great question is why we are permitting Iraqi Bagdad TV to stay on the air. Obviously, we could turn it off or take it over as easily as we did with their radio.
So we must be hoping to use Saddam's taste for going on TV as bait to track him.
Also: even alive, to the Iraqi people his image is now shattered. Saddam always appears on posters and on TV as a vital studly vigorous take-charge man of about 50.
Now for the first time, the Iraqis have seen him as a tired, old, beaten nobody counting his final hours. Even alive, this is great psyops against him.
Better bring a big roll of paper towels. I think we might have got him last night.
Probably the same reason we're not taking out the bridges this time...we plan on using them.
And if that dude with the chipmunk cheeks was a double, he's surely been shot for incompetence. ;-)
I guess you could put it that way. Body parts all over the place. "A certain young lady named Alice / Used a dynamite stick for a phallus..."
There is no canvas large enough. Anyway I hope your right.
I think he's too delusial for that. He may end up crouched in a corner of his bunker, sucking his thumb. At that point Uday would shoot him.
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