Doctors Might Be Treating Saddam In Bunker

KUWAIT CITY -- CIA operatives and Army commandos who are hunting for Saddam Hussein believe that the Iraqi leader could be in a Baghdad bunker receiving medical attention from military doctors, U.S. intelligence and military sources said Monday.

''We know we hit him. We know he was wounded'' Thursday in a missile and bomb attack on a compound south of Baghdad, said a U.S. intelligence official involved in tracking Saddam. ''We also believe he hasn't left Baghdad.''

The assessment came on a day in which Saddam gave his second address on Iraqi TV since that attack, which U.S. officials said was aimed at ''decapitating'' his regime in the opening hours of the war. Saddam appeared more robust than the pale, shaken figure who was shown a few hours after the attack. He taunted coalition forces in referring to battles in southern Iraq .

''Have you found what the devil that besets your soul promised you?'' he asked, imploring Iraqis to fight coalition forces. ''Cut their throats and even their fingers. . . . We will make it as painful as we can. . . . Victory is imminent.''

U.S. intelligence officials said they believe the person in the latest video was Saddam. Even so, they and the White House said the tape could have been recorded before the war began and didn't necessarily prove that he was in control of his army. On the tape, Saddam praises his army's 51st Division. But some troops in the 51st have surrendered in southern Iraq, U.S. military and Kuwaiti government sources said.

Publicly, U.S. officials say they aren't sure whether Saddam is alive. But air attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere continue to make Saddam's residences and command centers a priority, suggesting an assumption that he is alive.

Intelligence and military sources said intercepted communications, captured Iraqi generals, spy satellites and aircraft are being used to try to track Saddam's movements. It's a difficult task, the sources said, because he can move from bunker to bunker via underground tunnels in Baghdad.

But two intelligence gains have given U.S. officials more hope. Intelligence sources said Delta Force commandos in Baghdad have tapped Saddam's underground phone lines, and said the CIA has recruited an Iraqi official who knows where Saddam sleeps.

Some of the bunkers are 300 feet underground and are beneath mosques, hospitals and schools to keep coalition forces from bombing them, U.S. intelligence officials said.

Well, except for the history student part, I don't have your qualifications.

But it is clear to anyone who reads military history and current military events news that Operation Iraq Freedom (even in its name) is, among other things, a trial run for many, many concepts that have been incubating at the Pentagon for twenty years or more.

SecDef is clearly on the RMA, "light", mixed-use expeditionary side of these battles. This has provoked (bureaucratic) conflict between SecDef and (mostly) Army guys who want more heavy armor-sealift type forces. Of this there is no doubt.

It's unclear at present whether the SecDef-approved war plan is proceeding according to expectations, or not (I don't take the press herd seriously).

But if it should not proceed according to expectations, goody points are going to flow to the armor boys and their supporters, and the light-expeditionary advocates are going to have some 'splainin' to do.

The big picture, of course, is that both of these "sides" (and the air-power side, too) are advocating tactics to avoid refighting Gettysburg, for which we really should thank them.

The only potential problem I see with this is that Saddam's hero Stalin actually got his Red Army tactics to work, and that neither the "heavy" guys, the "light-expeditionary" guys, or the air power guys seek or have planned for a battle where we have to catch the bad guys by the hair and cut their hearts out with bayonets.

All American tactics (of whatever Pentagon "side") are in support of a strategy wherein the enemy collapses at some point under unbearable pressure.

If all Saddam has to do to "win" is not collapse, we will have made his task easier.

The theme of "Iraq Freedom" would be better applied after Operation Crush Your Enemies and See them Driven Before You-but we are not barbarians.

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