A pox on FOX,Rupert Moloch needs (mercy) killing,anyway his wife is tired
of watching old age creeping up on her.
But the sheer amount of military and statistical detail coming from the
Iraqi authorities is beginning to make the US Centcom information boys look
like chumps. On Sunday, the Iraqi Minister of Defence, General Sultan
Hashim, gave a remarkable briefing on the war, naming the units involved in
front-line fighting – the 3rd Battalion of the Iraqi army's 27th Brigade
was still holding out at Suq ash-Shuyukh south of Nasariyah, the 3rd
Battalion of the Third Iraqi Army was holding Basra. And I remembered how
these generals gave identical briefings during the terrible 1980-88 war
against Iran. When we set off to check their stories then, they almost
always turned out to be true.
Does the same apply now? General Hashem repeatedly insisted that his men
were destroying US tanks and armour and helicopters.
This was easy to dismiss – until videotape of two burning US armoured
personnel carriers popped up on the television screen. Vice-President Taha
Yassin Ramadan has been obliging enough to explain the Iraqi army's
tactics. It was Iraqi policy to let the Anglo-American armies "roam around"
in the desert as long as they want, and attack them when they tried to
enter the cities. Which seems to be pretty much what they are doing.
In Baghdad, it's easy to see not just how badly the Americans and British
have miscalculated, but it's also possible to imagine just how long
President Saddam and his army and Baath party militias can endure, a
sobering thought for those of us sitting in the Iraqi capital and only too
well aware that the Stalingrad symbolism might turn out to be real.
Saddam's tactics are clearly those of Stalin. Every day that passes is a
day of further pain for Washington and London.
You could observe this cockiness when Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the
Information Minister, spoke. Of Tony Blair, he said jovially yesterday: "I
think the British nation has never been faced with a tragedy like this
fellow." Mr Sahaf then presented a casualty list, which, however
imaginative it might turn out to be, was credible to the average Iraqi, and
perhaps to anyone. Civilian wounded and dead respectively: in Baghdad, 194
wounded (13 less than estimated); in Ninevah, eight wounded; in Karbala 32
wounded and 10 killed; in Salahuddin, 22 wounded and 2 killed. In Najaf,
the figures were 36 and 2; in Qadissiyah, 13 and 4; in Basra, 122 and 14.
In Babylon, the Iraqi government claims 63 wounded and 30 killed.
Sixty-two dead civilians – if the statistics are correct – is not a
massacre. But there's nothing surprising about such a figure. It looks as
if the Americans and British are bleeding to "liberate" a people who are
not all that keen to be liberated by the Americans and British. A moral
problem, of course. But not so big a moral problem as it would be if all
this Iraqi suffering at the hands of the Americans and British turned out
to be about oil.
Alive and well?
Saddam Hussein's appearance on television yesterday failed to convince
British and American intelligence that the Iraqi leader was either alive or
well. But those who have met him most recently believe the TV footage shows
him to be in robust health.
"One hundred per cent it is Saddam Hussein," a Lebanese political activist,
who met the President last month, said. "This is his accent, these are his
words, this is his speech and his style. This is his way. This is him,
without hesitation."
Toby Dodge, an expert on Iraq at Warwick University, said Allied scepticism
was part of psychological warfare. He said: "The whole American strategic
plan is based on triggering a coup so they don't have to fight in Baghdad.
He's alive and as well as you and me." The makeshift surroundings in
yesterday's broadcast lent it credibility, Mr Dodge said.
