Posted on 07/28/2002 4:37:57 AM PDT by kattracks
July 28— By Alistair Lyon, Middle East Diplomatic Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein is convinced that a U.S. attack on Iraq is inevitable, whether or not he readmits United Nations arms inspectors, Arab and Western analysts say.
The Iraqi leader knows he is in America's gunsights and is seeking to put off the onslaught in the hope that an unforeseen event throws President Bush's plans off course.
"Saddam has concluded that an American attack is coming and that he can only delay it or try to make it harder," London-based Iraqi analyst Mustafa Alani told Reuters.
For now, the man who has ruled Iraq with a rod of iron for more than three decades can sleep relatively soundly, perhaps lulled by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's latest assertion that no decision to go to war has yet been taken.
"It is not imminent, we are not at the point of decision yet," Blair told reporters on Thursday.
Earlier in the week U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had ruled out more talks on arms inspectors unless Baghdad showed willingness to allow them back. Iraq said this could only happen if the United States halted its threats of "regime change."
It also wants any agreement to include a route toward lifting sanctions, imposed for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and an end to the U.S.-British no-fly zones over parts of Iraq.
The U.N. monitors left Iraq in 1998 ahead of a U.S.-British bombing campaign designed to punish Baghdad for failing to cooperate with them. They have not returned.
Queasy Arabs and Europeans had hoped Saddam would let the inspectors resume work and thereby make it harder for the United States to justify a full-scale invasion, which they fear would destabilize the region and fuel anti-Western extremism.
NO INCENTIVE TO PLAY BALL
But Bush's belligerent rhetoric appears to have deprived Saddam of any reason to cooperate with the United Nations and an inspections regime that he has always despised.
"Baghdad suspects the inspections will merely be used to provide additional intelligence for Washington regarding Iraq's non-conventional weapons capabilities, thereby robbing Baghdad of any deterrent capabilities it has left," observed a recent paper by the Washington-based Petroleum Finance Corporation.
Bush, who earlier lumped Iraq, Iran and North Korea into an "axis of evil" that could put doomsday weapons in the hands of terrorists, vowed this month to use "all tools" to oust Saddam.
Such threats weaken any incentive for the Iraqi ruler to refrain from using any weapons of mass destruction still at his disposal against invading U.S.-led forces or regional foes such as Israel -- though some analysts question whether his non-conventional arsenal retains any credibility.
Saddam has begun to gear up the Iraqi population for the war he believes is coming, according to Mustafa Hamarneh, director of Jordan University's Center for Strategic Studies.
"He takes the U.S. threats very seriously and he is trying to prepare himself domestically and regionally," Hamarneh said. "If you watch Iraqi television or listen to the radio, there is a very serious process of mobilization going on."
Toby Dodge, a researcher at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs, said Saddam was likely to respond to any U.S. military build-up with counter-measures designed to hinder an advance on Baghdad and raise the costs of any invasion.
He said Saddam had taken steps in March and April, when he feared that an intense U.S. air campaign was imminent, to improve the survival chances of his ruling apparatus.
The plans included garrisoning every town with weapons and food stocks and decentralizing control to trusted commanders. Martial law was to be declared. Civilians were to be moved off the streets and replaced with the military. Elite units would be kept in Baghdad to hold the Americans at the capital's gates.
He played diplomatic cards in the spring by initiating the now-stalled talks on arms inspections with the United Nations and canvassing support in European and Arab capitals.
ARABS OPPOSE WAR ON IRAQ
Hamarneh said the Iraqis were happy with the hostility voiced by the Arab world to any U.S. invasion, and declarations by some countries like Saudi Arabia and Jordan that they would not let their territory be used to launch such an assault.
Arab perceptions that Bush unstintingly supports Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's repression of the Palestinians play heavily in Saddam's favor, the Jordanian analyst said.
"Iraq knows it is very difficult for the Americans to muster a Gulf War-type coalition," he said of the multinational effort that evicted Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991. "It is testimony to the bankruptcy of U.S. policy in the Middle East."
With his survival at stake, Saddam has taken extra care to avoid any action that could undermine Arab support or give Washington an easy pretext for unleashing an attack.
He has nurtured tentative moves toward reconciliation with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait begun at an Arab summit in Beirut in March, halting media attacks against his Gulf War foes.
Iraq has also bolstered its regional position by promoting trade with Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iran.
Alani said Saddam now appeared to have no appetite to provoke the United States by, for example, downing an American plane patrolling northern or southern Iraq. "He is not seriously challenging the no-fly zones. Iraqi air defense activity has reduced remarkably in the last four months," he said.
Copyright 2002 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved.
Or, perhaps, to act as his personal bodyguard until he can change clothes and attempt to escape....
Hunker down, my butt - Saddam is planning his escape. I'm sure we'll end up finding him in Pakistan or Morocco or Brazil or Cuba...
Unless we can cover up the buildup, Saddam'll bail as soon as an attack looks imminent. He'll leave his son in charge, and make sure he's nice and cozy -- and where WE can't get him.
Not the "dreaded" elite units!
What's this Alistair Lyon, Middle East Diplomatic Correspondent, trying to do?
Change definitions in the English language?
NO INCENTIVE TO PLAY BALLI think we're all tired of playing ball with Saddam Hussein.
President Widmark: [reading] "Declaration of War... the short form."--from "The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension"
Sounds like the threats are having exactly the desired effect. As long as Saddam behaves himself, there's no reason to invade Iraq.
Nothing pacifies an aggressor more quickly than "looking down the barrel of a gun".
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