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Axis of Evil
Republican Guard deployed around Bagdad
2002-03-17
  • Republican Guard troops have been deployed around Baghdad. An officer from Saddam Hussein’s Special Security has been assigned to liaise between each unit of the force and the general command headed by the President and his younger son Qusai. The Republican Guards have four heavy and light armoured divisions of about 40,000 troops, led mainly by members of Saddam's al-Tikriti clan and elements known for their unwavering loyalty. Intensive training under Russian and Iraqi experts was under way at Khan Bani Saad, where some Republican Guard formations are deployed.

    But it is not clear whether the guards will put up a fight for Saddam if the United States makes clear its intention to remove his regime. The force consists mainly of conscripts who will probably not be willing to fight since most of the privileges the guards have go to commanding officers, mostly Saddam's relatives.
    Oooh! Excellent idea! Put all your reliable troops in a big ring around Bagdad and double-dare anybody to come in. I can see a "war" in which the rest of the country is taken over in jig time and Bagdad is simply quarantined, eventually starving to death while Mary Robinson wrings her hands. Even Sammy's gotta be smarter than that.
    As is obvious from any map showing where the oil is Iraq, Baghdad is not what you want to hold if you want to control the only important thing the Iraqi regime possesses today. Take Irbid, Mosul, and Basra and the rest of the country withers on the vine.
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/17/2002 4:03:08 PM
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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