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Posted on 04/09/2003 5:33:58 PM PDT by Axion
Where Did All the Soldiers Go? Summary
Apr 09, 2003 - 2300 GMT
Baghdad supposedly was packed with members of the Special Republican Guard and Fedayeen, as well as remnants of Republican Guard units from the south and regular army reinforcements from the north. They largely turned up missing when U.S. troops arrived. The question is: Did U.S. troops meet the rear guard, or the last remnants of a shattered regime in Baghdad?
Analysis
An Al Jazeera reporter told CNN on April 9 "we never saw" members of the Special Republican Guard, Republican Guard or Fedayeen in Baghdad. He said reporters in the city heard explosions where they assumed the Iraqi defenders must have been, and noted that the coalition played up their role a lot, but said he and his colleagues never saw anything to indicate that there was a substantial ground force defending Baghdad.
A critical question remains in Iraq. Where did the Iraqi military go? In particular, where did Iraq's elite units go?
U.S. forces that advanced on Baghdad were slowed by resistance from small units, but never met large Iraqi troop concentrations in battle. In the north and south, U.S. troops frequently arrived on the battlefield to find Iraqi positions abandoned, with weapons and uniforms left behind. They found command and control facilities that apparently had been evacuated before the war began.
Though U.S. troops found destroyed armor following the bombardment of supposed Iraqi troop concentrations, there have been no reports of large numbers of dead Iraqi soldiers. Iraqi casualties have been in line with small unit engagements. Moreover, very few Iraqi soldiers have been taken prisoner. The total number of Iraqi prisoners reportedly in coalition custody has remained at between 6,000 and 8,000 since the first days of the war. Reports of individual skirmishes indicated that only a handful of prisoners were taken in each case.
Soldiers do not simply vanish. Iraq, like the former Soviet Union and China, intentionally assigned soldiers to units away from their homes. This reduced the chances for units to develop local sympathies in opposition to the regime, and reduced barriers to employing units to suppress civil unrest. If soldiers simply abandoned their positions and went home, as some have speculated, there would be columns of thousands of men wandering from one end of Iraq to another. Alternatively, there would be rampant looting across the country as soldiers sought food, treasure, and transportation on their way home.
More significantly, the elite units closest to the regime and thus with the most to lose from its collapse apparently have vanished without a fight. They even apparently abandoned Baghdad, where the dense urban setting would have allowed them to inflict heavy casualties on coalition forces -- heavy enough perhaps to cause Washington to accept a negotiated settlement. These were not incompetent soldiers, according to sources familiar with their training, and there was no reason to believe their position was hopeless. U.S. bombing of Baghdad focused on well-known government targets, and Iraqi defenders easily could have avoided destruction in residential areas.
So where did everyone go? A routed military would have left more bodies on the battlefield, both alive and dead.
One guess is the Iraqi military systematically abandoned the fight before it began. This would be in line with pre-war claims that negotiations were under way to secure the surrender of entire Iraqi divisions. The only ones willing to fight were a few hundred hardcore supporters of the regime and foreign volunteers.
A more convoluted interpretation was offered by Russian sources, who said that the Iraqi military not only intentionally withdrew from the battlefield, but they did so as part of a secret deal. The deal, allegedly negotiated by former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov before the war, involved Saddam Hussein and Washington agreeing to a "show war" that would give the United States a quick and relatively painless victory in return for sparing the Republican Guard and the lives of the exiled Iraqi leadership. This appears to be a fanciful interpretation spun in hindsight around events.
Both of these interpretations would bode well for coalition forces. But a third possibility remains. Iraqi forces continue to control the mountainous region around Mosul and Kirkuk. It is possible that many of the forces believed to be in the south are actually entrenched in a redoubt in the north, and those left behind served only as a rear guard to delay U.S. advances and give the impression of a larger army.
We have found no solid evidence to support this possibility. We have no evidence to refute it. But until U.S. forces are in place to probe Iraqi defenses in the north, it may yet be premature to declare victory over the Iraqi military.
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This makes no sense. To what end would the bulk of the Iraqi army attempt to fight the U.S. in terrain more suitable for the U.S.? Also, if there is a huge northern Iraq army, how is it to be re-supplied?
If the Republican Guard pulled back, I would not expect them to be able to stand against us in the North, either.
Just to be safe, we should use the Ivy Division and a MOAB or two.
The ELITE Republican guard troops were just brainwashed pawns of the regime. The above mentioned people were the regime.
All to often we are agreeable to 'just move on'. It is time to hold people accountable for their actions.
Also, the people who were against removing this regime, including the Pope, need to admit to the world that they were wrong............
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Isn't that 5,000 a day and where are the injured. What is the rato of wounded to dead in battle...2 to1, 3 to 1, 4 to 1, 5 t0 1 ?
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