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| Axis of Evil |
| Sammy briefs his generals |
| 2003-01-30 |
| Iraq's leader has warned those who attack the country that they will face successive lines of trenches before they are "crushed totally". President Saddam Hussein said the Americans were making a mistake if they thought Iraq would respond in a disorganised and untargeted way to any attack. He was speaking at a meeting with army commanders - with the reported focus on training and preparations for a potential war. A little late for that, isn't it? One commander said his unit had trained walking fully equipped and had succeeded in covering nearly 50 miles in only 17 hours with two hours rest. The Iraqi president said this was not enough. Hmmm... He's right... They would have to increase their speed because they could be asked to infiltrate enemy lines on foot at a specific place and would need to return the same night. "In the daytime," he was quoted as saying, "all eyes discover you." They will at night, too... He also spoke of training being given to all Iraqis - from "shepherds in the desert" to farmers - in dealing with any soldiers who were airdropped on Iraqi territory. "I am not afraid of announcing all our plans on TV," the president said. "My aim is to rid ourselves of the horrors of their evil intentions." Ummm... You could leave, you know... But if the Americans are not unnerved and do lead an attack on Iraq at some stage, the warning the Iraqi leader is giving them at his heavily publicised sessions with military and party leaders is that "Iraq is not Afghanistan". Last time around, he said it wasn't Grenada. I don't think it's Norway, either... He has dismissed the idea that the Americans and their allies would be able to engage in battle in Iraq without, he claims, meeting the stiffest of resistance and suffering significant casualties. He has a funny definition of "significant." At the latest meeting, he added another ingredient. He said that during the Gulf War in 1991 the US-led coalition had destroyed factories and bridges and other buildings but "they failed to destroy the Iraqi will, their faith and their brains". Everything had been rebuilt. Now it'll have to be rebuilt again... And he maintained that American influence was weaker now than it was at the time of the Gulf War. He said Americans used to walk freely in the world - and now they could not do so. That's why we're going to attack Iraq, isn't it? Leave us alone and we don't bother anybody... And in public, the Iraqi people tend to take their cue from such speeches and suggest similarly that an American-led attack could get bloodily bogged down. Today in Saddam City, a sprawling poorer district on the eastern outskirts of Baghdad, one retired resident thumped the air with his fist as he said he had asked the authorities for extra weapons for himself and his sons in case there was a war. "So that we can properly defend our houses and our country," he said. Yeah, they did that, last time around, too... I asked him whether they were following the news of the crisis closely. "We listen to the good news but not the bad," he said. "My eyes are closed. You can't see me." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |