Fear of Saddam may stop troops surrendering

Iraqi troops may be too scared of Saddam Hussein to abandon him and surrender to advancing American and British forces.

After all, their commander in chief has jailed or killed anyone he even suspected of challenging him.

The Iraqi leader tightened controls over his top military officers even before US President George Bush went public with a call for them not to “fight for a dying regime”.

Earlier this week, possibly to head off defections, Saddam put his son Qusai and three other key officers in command of Iraq’s defences and gave himself sole authority to order the use of aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles.

Military leaders like General Iyad Futiyeh al-Rawi, head of the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary force, or Defence Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed, a former deputy chief of staff, have survived by showing unquestioning loyalty to Saddam.

But while Saddam may be able to keep the top brass in line, the rank and file may decide they have little to lose.

During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi soldiers abandoned their posts en masse, allowing the US-led coalition to liberate Kuwait almost without fighting.

That conflict, and Iraq’s devastating 1980-88 war with Iran, have left much of the Iraqi army poorly equipped and demoralised, military experts said.

Ali Abdel Amir, an Iraqi journalist who watches Iraqi affairs from neighbouring Jordan, said he expects more mass desertions if the US attacks again.

“The have no loyalty to Saddam – they only fear him – and once they see that he is drowning they will leave him,” he said.

In his speech on Monday night giving Saddam a 48 hour deadline to quit, Bush also warned Iraqi troops not to fight “for a dying regime that is not worth your own life,” and not to destroy oil wells or use weapons of mass destruction.

Top officers with access to satellite TV may have seen Bush speak. Lower-ranking officers may have heard him on foreign radio stations. In addition, millions of leaflets have been dropped by US war planes urging Iraqi troops to desert if war starts.

Iraqi soldiers must weigh US words against Saddam’s deeds.

Since taking office in 1979, Saddam has ordered several generals executed on suspicion of disloyalty, and has sought to ensure that his top men are implicated in the regime’s worst crimes, such as the gassing of Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds.

Saddam also has stacked his military command with close relatives and members of his clan.

Saddam’s first cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali”, commands the southern sector facing US and British troops in Kuwait.

He has also been called the “butcher of the Kurds” for leading a 1988 campaign against rebels in northern Iraq in which thousands of Kurds were killed.

Despite the risks, Iraqi dissidents abroad say many top officers have approached Kurdish opposition leaders pledging to join a revolt against Saddam if war starts.

US reports have suggested the US military is trying to negotiate “capitulation agreements” with Iraqi commanders under which Iraqi troops would turn over most of their weapons and return to their barracks with their men, leaving the US forces to advance on Baghdad.

Meanwhile, an exiled Iraqi general who has been rumoured as a possible successor to Saddam has disappeared from his home in Denmark.

Iraq watchers speculate that General Nizar al-Khazraji, Saddam’s former chief-of-staff, could re-emerge in the Middle East to give legitimacy to any army rebellion against Saddam.

His son, however, asserts that he has been abducted by Iraqi agents.

Al-Khazraji had been under house arrest as Danish prosecutors investigate accusations that he ordered chemical weapons attacks that killed more than 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in 1988.

Al-Khazraji, 64, has repeatedly denied involvement. He earlier had tried to go to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, apparently to rally anti-Saddam forces.