IRAQ: WHERE'S SADDAM?

Rense: How Guard And Fedayeen Made A Deal With Rumsfeld
Eric Mueller comments:

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.

It also has the typical boastful "Americans never make mistkakes" "Americans always outsmart everybody" tone that has become so nauseatingly predominant in coverage of the Anglo-American aggression againt 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.

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.

Arabist Eric Mueller is this website's expert on Middle Eastern affairs.


The Deal
By Walid Rabbah
Exclusive to Sawt al-`Urouba
April 14, 2003

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

1. In return for not opposing American forces and for laying down their weapons, the United States will give the following:

Transportation for the Republican Guards top echelon to secure locations outside of Iraq,

Transportation of the Republican Guards leaders of the second echelon to "liberated" places of which the Anglo-American forces had control inside Iraq,

Granting to the top echelon of the Republican Guards large sums of money, with lesser sums going to the second echelon,

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,

Granting American citizenship and residency in the United States to some of the first echelon commanders and their families, depending on their wishes,

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Human Shields

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

The orders given to the American soldiers who advanced to secure a bridgehead for the rest of their forces were as follows:

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.


Teheran Times: Dictator's Collusion In The Iraq 'War'

Note - This is the first story to point in the direction of possible/probable answers to a number of key questions about the US-UK zionist subjugation of Iraq. When the Iraqis failed to blow a single bridge - a classic and mandatory defensive military strategy - suspicions arose immediately. Aside from a handful of oil well-head fires in the South, there was no effort to torch Iraq's oil assets by Saddam. The repeated deployment of the regular Iraqi army and the Guard into exposed areas in the desert - and certain death by total US and UK airpower and carpet bombing - is also equally bizarre in a military sense. What happened to the deadly Russian Kornet wire-guided antitank missiles which surprised the 'Coalition' in the South? And now the 'obliteration' of Saddam and sons can only be 'confirmed' by 'dna' on the word of possibly a single person in a lab somewhere...how potentially convenient. And then there is the remarkably and surprising ease with which Baghdad was taken. There are many things to ponder in the weeks ahead, and high-level collusion is certainly at the top of list. This article begins the search for possible answers. Nothing much is as it seems. -ed


Almost 10 days ago, there was a halt in U.S.-British operations in Iraq. However, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the chief of the U.S. Central Command, General Tommy Franks, in their interviews with the media never elaborated on the issue, but instead tried to mislead world public opinion in order to hide a greater secret decision from them.

The Balochistan Post: Did US Allow Saddam To Flee?
Was The Surrender A Result Of Conspiracy?
People Of Iraq Are Asking Questions

BAGHDAD -- Did US intentionally allow Saddam Hussein to flee from Iraq to Syria for a final destination in Russia after a last minute bargain with Moscow to capture the capital of Iraq without fighting? Is the question that thousands of the people in the World are asking as they fail to understand that how come the defences of the Baghdad collapsed within hours.

According to rumours and unconfirmed reports President Saddam Hussein was traveling with the caravan of Russian diplomats that was attacked by the US troops despite the fact that the US had given approval for Saddam's covert removal from Baghdad in a deal for the surrender of the capital without resistance.

These unconfirmed reports suggest that the deal was reached between the Russian and US governments after talks between US national security advisor Condoleeza Rice and Russian officials just before US attack on Baghdad