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Hussein, in Rallying His Military, Also Shows Iraqis a Defiant Face
President Saddam Hussein, cigar in hand, is addressing a small auditorium filled with commanders from the Republican Guard, belittling the deployment of American aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf. He reels off statistics about how each is nine stories high and serves 20,000 meals a day. "But in the end, does this aircraft carrier have wheels that enable it to come to Baghdad?" he says to the commanders, led by his son Qusay, a younger, stockier version of himself, seated in the front row. "The decisive factor in battle will be a soldier marching on his feet and tanks and mobile or fixed artillery," says Mr. Hussein, speaking from behind a long dais with an Iraqi flag off to his right. "All this talk about what America has is nonsense."
| The man's obviously a military genius. Of course, he proved that last time, didn't he? |
Such scenes have been unrolling almost nightly for the past week at 9 o'clock on Iraqi television. The first hour, at least, of the news is taken up by coverage of Mr. Hussein's latest meeting with successive groups of military commanders. The broadcasts serve several purposes. They are partly to reassure an increasingly edgy nation of 22 million that they will not be overrun in what would be their third major conflict under Mr. Hussein's rule.
The speeches are also meant to mobilize and rally the military, the president's most common theme being that the bristling array of high-tech American weaponry can be overcome by the determination of Iraqi soldiers defending their own homes.
| Which statement shows he has no concept of warfare... |
Perhaps most important, they show a calm, assured leader exhibiting a certain easy camaraderie with his military commanders, the very men the Bush administration has been trying to encourage to stage a coup d'état. The president has not been seen in person by the Iraqi public since a January 2001 military parade, and until these talks started intermittently in January he had not appeared much on Iraq's state-controlled television. Mr. Hussein, usually dressed in a three-piece suit, plays a variety of roles during his pep talks. He is part defiant commander-in-chief, part common soldier, part uncle, part folksy farm boy and part preacher.
His themes vary widely. They include the mundane, like telling the officers to make sure the soldiers bathe often, are well tucked in at night and read books. They include myriad historical and religious references. Advice on military tactics is rife. "We should plan on the basis that the battlefields should be everywhere, the battlefields should be wherever there are people," he advised one group.
| Makes it kinda hard to concentrate your forces that way, though... |
The meetings have a certain ritualistic quality. Mr. Hussein enters the room to a standing, cheering ovation by the officers, who occasionally erupt into poems or songs of praise. He then calls on them one by one to brief him on the state of readiness of their troops. Almost all of the commanders exhibit a stiff, not to say nervous, reverence, saluting when they reach the podium and then rattling off what they have done. Most of the time Mr. Hussein discharges them with a gruff "Afiyah," meaning "Well done," and asking them to pass along his salutations to particular tribal leaders in their area. Sometimes he voices criticism.
| They must love taking guff from a guy who's spent most of his life in uniform and never been a soldier... |
In January a special forces commander told him that his men could march 30 miles in 10 hours. "This should be improved," Mr. Hussein said. "When you want to march toward a certain area and hit and run in the same night, then you do not have enough time."
| His feet don't hurt, so what the hell? |
He tells the commanders that even divisions that take heavy losses should continue fighting and should remain vigilant about their vulnerability to American weapons launched over great distances.
Much of his rhetoric and imagery is drawn from his upbringing in a rural, tribal culture. "I don't need to say that Iraq is attached to your moustache, because after all it is your country," he told one group, using a local expression that means something has been entrusted to you.
| "Curse your moustache, you monkey!" |
The anticipated fight for Baghdad is a common topic. One officer in tonight's broadcast told the president that his soldiers had been concentrating on urban warfare, including ambushes and mopping-up operations. "Baghdad will never fall like it fell before," Mr. Hussein predicted, referring to the city's sacking in the 13th century by Mongol invaders.
| "It'll fall in an entirely different manner..." |
They say that the only place Mr. Hussein feels vaguely safe is Baghdad, where his security apparatus has ensured that the coups and the countercoups of the 1960's will not be repeated.
Diplomats report that Mr. Hussein is so scrupulous about his security that he is believed not to have used the telephone since the Gulf War lest the location of the calls be monitored, and visitors are never quite sure which palace he will use to greet them. During the Gulf War, Mr. Hussein was reported using a simple car with either himself or an officer as the driver, shifting safe houses daily. Diplomats here expect a repeat performance. Given that Baghdad is a city of some 4.5 million people, larger than all American metropolitan areas except New York and Los Angeles, he has plenty of places to hide.
| But when you're hiding, you're not leading, are you? |
No one can predict accurately to what extent Iraqis might take up arms against invaders, although most vow to.
In his speeches Mr. Hussein mocks the Americans for considering Iraq another Afghanistan and ridicules certain American tactics, like distributing leaflets in the southern half of the country telling people to not fight because the United States is only after the president. "Are they still harboring the illusion that they are capable of toppling Iraq with their leaflets?" he said, adding that his bond with the Iraqi people was much stronger than, say, the love of the Americans for their president. "This love has been going on for 35 years of my being in power," he said.
| They loved Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, too... |
Posted by: ISHMAIL 2003-03-07 |
