Posted on 04/03/2003 12:10:10 AM PST by Happy2BMe
WASHINGTON The Bush administration has embarked on a campaign — using radio broadcasts and other communications with Iraqi military leaders — to sow doubts about whether Saddam Hussein is still alive and in control of the country, senior administration and military officials said.
American officials say they have still reached no conclusions about whether Saddam survived an attack two weeks ago. But they are trying to turn that uncertainty to battlefield advantage, attempting to raise questions in the minds of Iraqi military commanders defending Baghdad about whether they should stand and fight for a leader who may have been killed or incapacitated. ‘‘From what our intelligence is picking up, some of the Iraqi commanders themselves have not heard from him,’’ said one senior official. ‘‘And we don’t know ourselves. So you could call this psychological warfare, or you could call it exploitation of the biggest mystery out there.’’
The administration’s effort to raise doubts about Saddam comes after American military officials have reported that the majority of the Iraqi people encountered by American forces believe that Saddam is still alive, although there is no hard evidence either way. President George W. Bush himself has discussed the issue in at least one meeting this week and is ‘‘deeply intrigued’’ about Saddam’s fate, according to a participant. ‘‘The consensus was that the mystery about Saddam is growing, and that could be useful to us as we head into Baghdad,’’ said one participant in the meeting.
If Saddam is alive, officials said, the administration’s decision to publicly question why he has not appeared in public may help flush him out — and perhaps give clues to his whereabouts. In briefings here in Washington, officials ranging from the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have repeatedly noted that Saddam has not appeared in public since before the start of the war two weeks ago. They have questioned whether tapes of Saddam, shown on Iraqi television, were prerecorded.
Now those briefings, translated into Arabic, are being broadcast through Commando Solo, airborne radio broadcasts beamed into Iraq by American forces on a number of different frequencies. The same doubts are being raised in private cell phone and e-mail traffic. One senior administration official said Wednesday night that ‘‘a big morale blow’’ to the Iraqi troops has been the rumor that Saddam’s family is flee ing, and that Saddam himself, if alive, may not be far behind. Some captured Iraqi POWs have told American forces that such rumors are spreading fast — and the Untied States is doing everything it can to encourage them.
Other American officials, however, have expressed concern that until recent days many ordinary Iraqis have had little reason to question whether Saddam re mains in power. Until a few days ago, the regional Ba‘ath Party offices remained largely untouched. Both the Fedayeen Saddam and the Special Security Organization have conducted a reign of terror against Iraqi civilians, leaving many convinced that his government is still intact, U.S. intelligence officials said. Now, the American bombing campaign is beginning to target the destruction of offices and other facilities used by the Ba‘ath Party in cities across the south. Local Ba‘ath Party headquarters buildings are often seen by the Iraqi public as the most important symbols of the regime, and the fact that they survived the first days of the war was a powerful sign of Saddam’s continued control.
One official noted, for instance, that when local Shia Muslims rose up against the regime in Basra at the end of the first Gulf War, one of their first targets was the Ba‘ath Party headquarters there. ‘‘It has only been recently that we have been targeting party apparatus,’’ one intelligence official said. ‘‘If we underestimated anything, it was Saddam’s ability to project the perception that he is still in charge,’’ the intelligence official said. ‘‘We haven’t seen a massive uprising, and we think that is because most of the people are still convinced he is alive.’’ American intelligence officials said Wednesday that they were still uncertain about Saddam’s fate and had not yet heard Saddam or either of his two sons issuing orders since the initial raid on his bunker. U.S. intelligence is convinced that he was in the bunker at the time of the raid, but they say they have not yet obtained intelligence about whether he survived. The United States has also not been able to identify by name any other members of Saddam’s inner circle who are trying to coordinate Iraqi military forces in the field.
The ability of the Iraqi leadership to communicate with the forces has been damaged, but not completely destroyed, officials said. While the National Security Agency has intercepted some orders from Bagdhad to forces in the field, the United States is not yet certain who is in overall command of military forces. The questions about why no one has heard directly from Saddam since before the start of the war were fueled again Wednesday when the Iraqi government issued another statement in Saddam’s name.
But U.S. intelligence officials said that was not proof that Saddam is dead.
They cautioned that while Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arab news network, had said that Saddam was supposed to appear on television, it is not clear that Iraqi state television ever made that claim. The Iraqi leader has also been seen on Iraqi television since the war’s start, but the broadcasts have not shown clear evidence of when the taped messages were made. Nor have any of them referred to Saddam’s whereabouts or status. So far, American intelligence officials have received a number of conflicting reports about Saddam, but no definitive information.
American analysts remain convinced that several people were killed and wounded in the raid, but they have not been able to assemble an authoritative list of casualties. Saddam’s absence is not a complete surprise. During the 1991 Gulf War, he dropped from sight, and it is possible that a leader who has long been preoccupied with his personal security could be reverting to a survival strategy that worked then. Some officials said that they have detected a continuing drop in the pattern of communications traffic from the Baghdad leadership to the country’s four regional military commands.
Neverthess, they believe that some form of central control remains intact, even if Mr. Hussein has been wounded or is dead.
If he survived the attack, Mr. Hussein may have decided to isolate himself from his ruling circle, some analysts said, fearing that some of his lieutenants may be considering defecting as coalition forces thurst closer to the Iraqi capital.
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Check is in the mail.
In other words, the "no-show" story was hokum, for the US domestic audience. Saddam is just being Saddam. The Iraqis have no expectation that he will be giving live interviews or heartwarming fireside chats (they also know perfectly well that he doesn't use doubles for TV speeches). They've been through the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf War with this guy. They know how he operates and what to expect. They know what he's banking on, too.
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