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TRAIL OF TERROR
'How
Guard And Fedayeen Made A Deal With Rumsfeld'
- Eric Mueller comments:
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- Evidently, this newspaper, "Sawt al-`Urouba",
has no internet website. The report clearly originates from an American
source. As one translates it, it "feels" as though it was once
written in English.
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- It also has the typical boastful "Americans never
make mistakes" "Americans always outsmart everybody" tone
that has become so nauseatingly predominant in coverage of the
Anglo-American aggression against Iraq, and it makes no mention of
certain things that might be embarrassing for the US and which are now
leaking out elsewhere in Arabic.
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- Nevertheless, it does bring out a number of
interesting details and is the longest report on the Great Betrayal that
I have seen so far. There have been other reports in the Arabic press
that in broad outlines have told the same tale.
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- Arabist Eric Mueller is this website's expert on
Middle Eastern affairs.
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- The Deal
- By Walid Rabbah
- Exclusive to Sawt al-`Urouba
- April 14, 2003
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- LEBANON -- One day after
the start of the war against Iraq American Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld appeared on American television screens to say something that
the press interpreted as some sort of American propaganda. In reality,
though, it was the basis for what was later to take place.
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- Rumsfeld said that there had been communications
between the Americans and leaders in the Republican Guard in Iraq. He
said that the details could not be disclosed now, but urged listeners to
wait for coming days.
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- Three days later the American media played an audio
tape on which recorded voices could be heard speaking in Arabic guiding
American forces to important bombing targets. The voices were translated
immediately in the headquarters of the American forces so that orders
could be issued accordingly.
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- In fact, Rumsfeld was not just talking at random.
There had been communications that took place in total secrecy between
the leaders of the Republican Guard and the Commanders of Saddam's
Fedayeen, unbeknownst to the Iraqi leader and his son who was in charge
of a huge military organization that could have made life hell for the
American forces had they joined the battle.
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- The communications grew in intensity after the
Republican Guard entered its first battle against the American forces in
the environs of Baghdad, and after much of its equipment was destroyed.
The Americans could see that they were facing a force with high military
preparedness, one that was well trained and could inflict tremendous
losses on the American forces whenever they tried to enter Baghdad.
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- The offer proposed by the American command in Iraq to
the Republican Guard and Saddam's Fedayeen was generous. The offers were
run past Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who okayed them immediately. The
provided for:
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- 1. In return for not opposing American forces and for
laying down their weapons, the United States will give the following:
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- Transportation for the Republican Guards top echelon
to secure locations outside of Iraq,
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- Transportation of the Republican Guards leaders of the
second echelon to "liberated" places of which the
Anglo-American forces had control inside Iraq,
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- Granting to the top echelon of the Republican Guards
large sums of money, with lesser sums going to the second echelon,
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- Granting some of the leaders of the top echelon of the
Republican Guard, and to those who had not committed "war
crimes" official roles in "liberated" Iraq after the end
of the war,
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- Granting American citizenship and residency in the
United States to some of the first echelon commanders and their
families, depending on their wishes,
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- Establishing a balance between the Iraqi Opposition
that will have a limited role in the administration of Iraq on the one
hand, and Republican Guard commanders who did not fight the American
forces, on the other.
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- 2. As a guarantee of this (which the commanders of the
Republican Guard did not completely trust), the United States disclosed
some of its agents whom it had planted among the "human
shields" who were guiding the American military to positions to be
bombed and where President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership could
be found. A brief meeting was held between one of the agents serving as
a "human shield" and some members of the Republican Guard
during which the latter were handed official written documents addressed
to the first echelon of the Republican Guard. These reassured the
Republican Guard commanders that the assurances were reliable. The
documents provided for:
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- After the occupation of Saddam International Airport,
Republican Guards of the top echelon should arrive at the airport so
that they could be transported away. If that proved impossible, a place
should be agreed upon where an Apache helicopter or two could land
somewhere near Baghdad in order to transport them away.
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- Some commanders of the second echelon should secure
themselves within the Iraqi Republican Palace adjacent to the Airport.
American forces would fire some shells at it in order to announce that
they had taken it, then American forces would transfer them to the
airport.
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- Orders should be issued to the commanders of the
Second Echelon of the Republican Guard not to resist and to lay down
their weapons, together with promises of their safety, and that of their
families, and they would be transported to secure locations. In turn
they were to issue orders to those of lower rank in their commands not
to put up resistance. The Republican Guard's first echelon used a
deception to get lower ranks to accept such an order by telling them
that the resistance would be carried on secretly in accordance with a
plan prepared by the Iraqi leadership to protract the war and catch the
American forces in a trap that had been laid for them. This trick was
used on the lower ranking commanders of the Republican Guard.
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- First and Second echelon commanders of the Republican
Guard would be given sums of money in dollars as a down payment to
guarantee the implementation of the agreement.
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- Human Shields
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- From the beginning, the heads of the American Central
Intelligence Agency followed a plan to use the work of agents posing as
"human shields." The CIA chiefs used peace activists in
America carefully and systematically. They sent three groups of peace
activists to the region, and in particular into Baghdad on the basis
that that would be the place where the decisive battle would be fought.
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- The deception worked with the Iraqi leaders who placed
different groups of human shields in important places such as: factories
and manufactories that had great importance for the population.
Storehouses of weapons belonging to the Republican Guard were located
inside those factories and manufactories, and this fact was openly
acknowledged. But inside, hidden under ground, there were huge
stockpiles of weapons sufficient for waging a resistance struggle for
years. These were ostensibly civilian installations but on the inside
were military. These included centers where rockets were gathered for
destruction under the UN supervised program, while some of them were
stored in underground military storehouses.
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- The Iraqi measures, whereby they distributed the human
shields to vital locations, was in fact a trap set for the Iraqis, for
the human shields carried difficult-to-detect delicate communication
devices for communicating with the American forces during the bombing.
It later became clear that these devices played an outstanding role in
pinpointing the positions of Saddam and his leaders, as well as places
where weapons were being stored.
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- Occupation of the Airport The occupation of Saddam
International Airport was a turning point inasmuch as it enabled the
American forces to carry out their entire plan as it had been detailed
in the documents that they had been given and as they had been promised.
The commanders of the Republican Guard were reassured, in particular
those of the first echelon, that what the American forces had promised
them was the truth. The Republican Guard commanders then provided
complete information about the various military positions around the
airport and inside of it. They also gave complete information about the
tunnels that extended from the Republican Palace to inside the airport,
tunnels that had been built especially so that the Iraqi president could
use them should he ever be in danger. American forces occupied these
tunnels, unknown to any but the first echelon of the Republican Guard.
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- On the second day after the occupation of the airport
Muhammad Sa`id as-Sahhaf assured the world that Saddam International
Airport was still in the hands of the Iraqi forces. He based his
assurances on a promise of an "innovative and unusual" sort of
response, as he put it, when Iraqi fighters and Republican Guards would
sweep from the palace through the tunnels and on towards the airport in
a surprise attack on the American forces occupying the airport. He did
not know even as he spoke that American forces had discovered the
location of those secure tunnels and that they would confront the small
numbers of Iraqis who were sent there, under the leadership of third
echelon commanders of the Republican Guard, and who would find the
Americans waiting for them.
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- Time at that difficult juncture was golden. The
American forces saw that the road had opened up to Baghdad, so they
carried out two essential operations simultaneously:
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- The first operation: to introduce tanks to the
approaches of Baghdad from where they would penetrate to the area of the
Palestine Hotel, on condition that they would not cross the bridge to
the opposite bank. This occurred after they were sure that orders had
been issued to the Republican Guard to disappear in accordance with the
"secret plan" to which the first echelon commanders had
already alerted their junior officers.
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- The second operation: to prepare a military transport
plane of at least 200 seats to transport the first echelon commanders of
the Republican Guard and some members of the second echelon to secure
locations.
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- The orders given to the American soldiers who advanced
to secure a bridgehead for the rest of their forces were as follows:
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- First: attempt to silence the media that were
transmitting pictures of the places where the breakthrough was occurring
(this is what took place when the offices of al-Jazeera TV, and the Abu
Dhabi TV station, were shelled) and to try to herd the journalists into
a place from which they could not move, except by order of the coalition
forces, or, to be precise, the US Marines. Second: To cut communications
and electricity off from the area and to attempt to shell the little
electricity generators in the area in order to completely knock out any
means for transmission once and for all.
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- Third: To shell the satellite dishes on the roof of
the Palestine Hotel. It was here where the al-Jazeera journalist Tariq
Ayyoub was martyred.
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- Fourth: To deal with the limited resistance in the
area of the bridge with small arms rather than with artillery
bombardment because some of the second echelon the Republican Guard were
too late to reach the appointed meeting places in time and might
possibly have to reach the coalition forces by crossing the Sanak
Bridge.
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- Military Aircraft Many first-echelon commanders of the
Republican Guard gathered at Saddam International Airport. They had to
wait eight more hours before the rest of the commanders showed up. The
American command found to their surprise that the first echelon
commanders of Republican Guard forces had brought along with them the
top commander of Saddam's Fedayeen, a man who took his orders directly
from Saddam Hussein's son. This convinced the American forces that they
had put Saddam's Fedayeen out of action along with the Republican Guard.
After that commander informed them that had been attracted by the
agreement reached with the Republican Guard, and requested that he be
accorded the same terms that had been granted to the Republican Guard,
consent was granted immediately.
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- The American military aircraft took off from Saddam
International airport at 8:00 p.m. on the third day of the occupation of
the airport. Some sources in the American command maintain that the
plane flew directly to the United States, via Germany. Others say that
it took them by way of Kuwait. What is certain, however, is the fact
that they left for the United States. At the same time two helicopters
were whisking the second echelon commanders of the Republican Guard to
Basra where they were met by British forces.
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- The Fate of Saddam Hussein
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- Some American political sources maintain that those
secret communications between Republican Guard commanders and the
Americans took place according to American instructions that were issued
to the Republican Guard leaders so as to prevent their being detected.
The most modern technology was used, including tiny transmitter-receiver
devices that had been given to the Republican Guard Commanders in their
first meeting with the Human Shields. This is the secret of how they
kept Saddam Hussein in the dark about their contacts.
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- The final task of the Republican Guard Commanders
gathered at the airport was to give the important information about the
location of the Iraqi president and his leadership in what was to be
their last meeting in al-Mansour. This information enabled the American
forces to aim at the place where the meeting was being held and strike
it with guided missiles. Most probably the Iraqi President and his
leadership, including his two sons, were killed in the bombardment. None
of the leadership was saved from that attack except Muhammad Sa`id as-Sahhaf,
the Information Minister, whose whereabouts are still unknown. He alone
among the members of the leadership was out of the area at the time of
the attack, which came shortly after he delivered a press statement in
front of the Palestine Hotel that day.
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- Saddam's Family
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- The American Authorities have kept quiet about the
whereabouts of Saddam's family, in particular the women and children
among them, although they know where they are, and whether they are
living or dead. There are some reports that they are in Syria. Others
have said that they slipped away to Tikrit. In fact, however, the
American forces bombed the location where the family was staying and
were able to catch the whole family together after they slipped away to
the place where the President's half-brother Barzan at-Tikriti was
staying. When his house near Baghdad was bombed the family was wiped
out.
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- A Final Word: This information was leaked by American
sources. Nevertheless, it should be more than 75 percent true because it
originated with political and not military personnel.
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- One question remains: Where did those mountains of
weapons go? Where did the forces who "melted away" into the
angry Iraqi population go?
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- The Marines did discover vast storehouses of weapons
that could have been used by the Republican Guard -- though they were in
fact never used -- heavy weapons, light weapons in a huge store room in
Baghdad. American forces are keeping that quiet -- which is a further
indication of the proof of what we have said.
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- But one major question remains open. If they did not
find the bodies of Saddam, his leaders and his two sons, the matter
remains a source of embarrassment. Coming weeks will no doubt provide us
much more information.
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- The above news item is translated and reproduced
without editing other than typographical
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- © Focal Point 2003
- http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/03/04/Mueller150403.html
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