Iraq prepares Baghdad defences - report

Iraqi military forces are setting up a two-layer defence ring around Baghdad in preparation for any US military assault, it was reported today.

Planning for the defence perimeters has been under way since November, US officials told The Washington Times, and involves units from the regular Iraqi army and the Republican Guard in an outer ring around the city.

A closer defence ring is being set up using troops and forces from the Special Republican Guard – Saddam Hussein’s elite force.

The Iraqi military believes US and allied forces will break through the first ring but be held back by the inner ring’s better trained and better equipped troops, the officials told the newspaper.

Baghdad’s deployments indicate that a key element of the Iraqi war strategy is to draw US and allied forces towards the capital, where urban fighting could prove difficult and lead to high military and civilian casualties, the officials said.

Disclosure of the Iraqi defence preparations coincided with Saddam’s Army Day speech in which he declared that his country was prepared for war and said UN arms inspectors are US spies.

“The enemy will be defeated disgracefully,” he said in a taped speech broadcast on Iraqi television. “When the enemy comes as an aggressor, the victory will go to the people of right when they are inside their homeland.”

President Bush responded by saying that it does not look like Saddam wants to comply with the UN Security Council’s demand to surrender any weapons of mass destruction, “but he has got time”.

The UN inspectors’ first report is due on January 27. Administration officials have said Bush will review the report before deciding whether to pursue war with Iraq.