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Iraqi Officials Emerge, Bolstered By U.S. Setbacks
After days of preparing Baghdad to brace for a last stand, President Saddam Hussein's government emerged emboldened today and asserted that its carefully laid plans to create a quagmire for U.S. forces were succeeding. In a day of spectacles that officials seemed to savor, the government repeatedly broadcast footage of what it said were American prisoners of war and at least four soldiers killed near the southern town of Nasiriyah. Hundreds of people gathered on a bridge to gawk at a search for a U.S. or British pilot rumored to have been downed over Baghdad. And, in a sign that residents are increasingly setting aside fears of war to reclaim elements of a normal life, Iraqis gathered in the streets to cheer as a cruise missile appeared to be struck by antiaircraft fire.
Someone got lucky.
For the first time in a week, senior officials made public appearances, some of them seemingly startled by reports of resistance in the predominantly Shiite Muslim south, which many in Baghdad had expected to fall almost immediately. "We have drawn them into a swamp and they will never get out of it," Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf declared, referring to U.S.-led forces.
How far away are we from Baghdad, Saeed?
The official optimism was tempered by the bleak landscape that greeted residents at daybreak. Across the horizon, billowing black smoke cast a shroud over the city as at least 20 oil pits, set alight by Iraqi forces, burned for a second day in an attempt to conceal Baghdad from air strikes. The acrid haze blotted out the sun, as the thunder of bombs rolled over the city day and night. In their most delusional clearest terms yet, Iraqi officials outlined their war strategy, exuding a boastfulness confidence that only a day earlier seemed to wane. In a series of appearances, government leaders said they expected to draw U.S. and British forces into bloody urban battles in southern Iraq, with the most aggressive defense planned for Baghdad. They appeared cheered by televised reports of resistance in the port of Umm Qasr, a small southern town that the U.S. military claimed to have taken in the early hours of the war. They also predicted that U.S. forces would experience setbacks similar to the one delivered in Nasiriyah as they neared other cities. "They will have to come to cities if they want to achieve their victory," said Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed. "They only depend on their weaponry and they try to fire from far away. If they plan to take Baghdad, they will have to pay a high cost."
Far away or up close, however you want it.
Added Vice Thug President Taha Yassin Ramadan, the most senior official to appear in public since the war began: "They are roaming in the desert, and in fact, we have had no choice but to allowed them to roam the desert. I tell you, we wish and beg that they come to Baghdad so that we will teach a lesson to this evil administration and all who cooperate with it."
We're coming, don't worry.
While regularly predicting victory, even the most delusional optimistic Iraqi officials hesitate to say their military can defeat U.S. forces, and the government appears in appropriate awe of their foes' technological prowess. They seem to envision a prolonged and bloody war of attrition, hoping to exhaust the U.S. will to fight and to rally public outrage over civilian casualties to force a negotiated solution. In an hour-long news conference, Ramadan bitterly criticized U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan for withdrawing U.N. inspectors and ending the oil-for-food program that provides Iraq its scarce revenue. He contended that Annan had bowed to the wishes of the United States and Britain, looking ahead to a post-Hussein Iraq. He made an explicit bleat call to the United Nations to intervene and halt the fighting, the first time an Iraqi official has done so since the war began. "We believe the time is now right if the Security Council wants to prove its existence. To be a significant tool and instrument, it must condemn this aggression and call for a halt in this aggression," he said.
Prove its existence? Finally one of these thugs says something we can't disagree with!
Ramadan appealed to Arab governments to press for useless diplomacy. He and other officials appeared to take heart from footage of eye-rolling protests across the Arab world, and screamed at chastised Arab leaders for blocking silly chest thumping antiwar demonstrations. "Every Arab and Muslim should be a bullet in the chest of the aggressors until they leave the land of Arabs and Islam," he said.
| That diplomatic pressure is most of what they're relying on. They've got to realize that their military is getting waxed, and that the casualties we're taking are mostly from unconventional warfare and ruses — a lot of stuff that only works once. |
Sahhaf, the information minister, said 77 civilians had been killed in the southern city of Basra. Although there was no way to verify the number, the pan-Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera broadcast gruesome footage of corpses that was seen across the Arab world. Sahhaf said 366 were wounded in Basra, along with 147 in three other cities in Iraq — Baghdad, Diyala to the east and Samarra to the northwest.
Someone needs to point out that given the intensity of the fighting, these numbers are low, not high.
Posted by: Steve White 2003-03-24 |
