Pentagon in Secret Talks for Republican Guard to Surrender

[AR182]

This explains why there isn't any shock & awe bombing raids as we were led to believe.


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OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM
Report: Secret talks
for troop surrender
Pentagon said to conduct stealth negotiation with Republican Guard to eliminate Saddam

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Posted: March 20, 2003
9:40 p.m. Eastern



? 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Less than 24 hours after the attack on Iraq began, the Pentagon was reportedly in secret surrender discussions with Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard.

NBC News reports that U.S. forces have actually held back on launching the major "shock and awe" campaign which military planners had vowed to unleash in recent weeks as the negotiations continue.

Pentagon officials say the meetings were prompted by serious cracks in the Iraqi regime.

"There are significant indications that the Iraqi military is breaking from within," a Defense official told Fox News. "So far, so very good."


F/A-18E Super Hornet on USS Abraham Lincoln

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld revealed the United States is talking directly to Iraqi military leaders, even those in the Special Republican Guard. He said the Iraqis are being told they could avoid all-out war if they took out Saddam themselves.

"The Iraqi soldiers and officers must ask themselves whether they want to die fighting for a doomed regime or do they want to survive," Rumsfeld said.

"We still hope that it is possible that they will not be there without the full force and fury of a war. There are communications in every conceivable mode and method, public and private."

He added there was "broad and deep evidence that suggests that there are people going through that decision-making process throughout that country today."

Military analyst William Arkin told NBC the on-again, off-again attacks may be used to demoralize and confuse the Iraqis.

"It looks like ... it's gonna be a psychological drip, drip, drip, on the Iraqi regime," Arkin said.

Meanwhile, CBS News reports "a senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said military intelligence was picking up signs and 'circumstantial evidence' that Saddam and his senior leadership were either incapacitated or out of communication with battlefield commanders."

There was no confirmation if they had been wounded or killed.

"We are seeing no coordinated response to our first attack," the official told CBS. "It's little things here and there. Some individual commanders are hunkering down while others are launching small attacks and setting fires."

Military officials "believe it is significant that there is a lack of coordination and significant resistance to what we did," the official added.

The ground campaign is now underway, and reports are that there is little strong resistance.

"It is so clear that the Iraqi defenses are so soft," said CBS correspondent David Martin.

 

[Snake Plissken]

This is GREAT NEWS

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

1st AR let me say I enjoy reading your posts and I like to throw my 2cents in on this and its is totally speculation on my part but this is what I am gathering from common sense approach. Time will tell if I am correct.
1st I think this has all the possibilties of being a war ending in the least amount of casualties from either side. It is tactically brillant and will leave the left stuttering when over.
I think they are banking on the enemy soilders being unwilling participants. I think there will be massive surrenders by days end--if not, within 2 days at most. The key to when, depends on the special quard soilders that set outside of Bagdads city limits (1 to 3 miles).
Once the tanks arrive at destination just beyond them we will use firepower from them for more persuation,if we receive return fire and appears we might take casualties we will pull back --and then you will see the "Shock and Awe" as last resort,but outside city limits BUT with hearing and view of city limits. After the dust and smoke settles there "will" be a total surrender and I am not sure if the most casualties will come from result of barrage or those getting trampled in effort to surrender 1st.
When all is said and done it will be obvious to all(except hard wing left)that every effort was made to spare casualties of each side.--and I don't think we will get to see the "shock an awe display'don't believe it will take that.

 

[THE KOD]

I hope they do surrender. It would be just like Saddam however to lure us close to Baghdad and then use chemical and bio shells on us. Could be a sucker punch.


Scott King of Dogs

 

[StevieD]

I pray the reports are true.
As for this being brilliant tactics is a bit of a joke. This "war" is kind of like the Tampa Bay Buc's against a small town high school team whose head cheerleader is the biggest person on their side of the ball. The only thing amazing is that any Iraq Soldier would fight or even think they have a chance to win.
The real test of the "war" will be after the hostilities end.

 

[AR182]

Dogs That Bark,

Thanks apreciate the compliment. I like to read as much as I can on this war, & know there are some posters don't have the time, for whatever reason, to surf the net & if I come across something that I find interesting I don't mind posting it here.


I heard on MSNBC, that the US is starting to lose patience with these iraqi soldiers. They think they might be stalling. The network "experts" think the shock & awe campaign will start shortly.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Yes I noticed that you read foreign papers as well which is great reading to get others views.

Was pretty close on my speculation how things would go in above thread with exception of they did bomb Baghdad but they have came far since my days of military. It is totally unconceivable
that they can now pinpoint via satelite the accuracy of destroying military objectives completely while even the lighting in adjacent bldg is not effected. The world has never witnessed a war exerted with so much emphasis on not harming civilians. Their sources of power were meticulously spared to save their elecricity for food ,lighting,hospitals ect. You can bet your ass there will be little mention of this in muslin countries or from the left.
However a wrench has been thrown in the process. The Republican quard has retreated from outskirts of city to inner city to use civilians as shields,their only defense and only option.
I think that the issue that fail to take into consideration is they will not be aided by the population once they are convinced we are there to "the finish" THIS time.--and once over the world will see (unless they close their eyes) rejoicing and dancing in the street that will truely reflect the atrocities they have lived thru and how the propoganda of Hussein ran TV,publications ect has truely duped the illiterate in past years. The left will be seen with such egg on their face they will never recover.
This has been a tactical war of unbelievable brilliace.Considering 250,000 troops down and only 2 casualties to enemy fire in three days!!!That is far less than fatalities in auto accidents in cities of comparable size. Operating machinery under the cover of night has proved to be the most dangerous aspect of this war to date.
It is mindboggeling-especially when compared to the total incompentcy in Somolia.
---and I wonder what has become of these human shields with exception of looking for new underwear

 

[loophole]

just thinking, while i have seen precise counts of all american casualties, i have not heard a word about iraqi casualties. this strikes me as very unusual. in every past conflict that i can recall, body counts were usually the first order of business for the military to get out. that was certainly the case in desert storm, and also recently in afganistan. the brass was obsessive about enemy body counts during the vietnam war. yet, even though there have been several land encounters and firefights, i haven't heard a word about iraqi kills. in fact, i haven't even heard anyone comment on the absence of iraqi casualy counts. what's up with that?

 

[THE KOD]

just thinking, while i have seen precise counts of all american casualties, i have not heard a word about iraqi casualties. this strikes me as very unusual. in every past conflict that i can recall, body counts were usually the first order of business for the military to get out. that was certainly the case in desert storm, and also recently in afganistan. the brass was obsessive about enemy body counts during the vietnam war. yet, even though there have been several land encounters and firefights, i haven't heard a word about iraqi kills. in fact, i haven't even heard anyone comment on the absence of iraqi casualy counts. what's up with that?

loopy

death count not good for business right now. The war business that is.

How many dead Iraquis in Desert Storm do you know ?



Scott King of Dogs

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Whats up Loop. I think it is without a doubt a little press regulating from the right.As Scott made note this is one skirmish they do not want to publizize body counts.With that being said I think enemy dody counts have been at a minimum solely due to more accurate bombing and unwillingness of enemy to engage.
It is pitiful to see all the "friendly" casualties but can be expected with most air missions at night. I can see a point in time ( a couple days )where they should knock out most anti aircraft positions and open things up in the daylight but the smoke from burning oil was pretty shrewd move by Iraqis I must admit.
The crucial part will be when troops arrive and settle in outside Baghdad. If the airshow does not dampen their spirits and they pull back inside Baghdad to make a stand it will take some time to finish this if they want to keep casualties to a minimum.
One of the interesting thing on this war is how different countries are portraying the war. In many Asian and Middle East publications you'd swear we have indiscriminately leveled the city of Baghdad.

 

[rebel]

This is what i found Scott

How many Iraqis died?

Independent analysts generally agree the Iraqi death toll was well below initial post-war estimates. In the immediate aftermath of the war, these estimates ranged as high as 100,000 Iraqi troops killed and 300,000 wounded.

According to "Gulf War Air Power Survey" by Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, (a report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force; 1993-ISBN 0-16-041950-6), there were an estimated 10-12,000 Iraqi combat deaths in the air campaign and as many as 10,000 casualties in the ground war. This analysis is based on enemy prisoner of war reports.

The Iraqi government says 2,300 civilians died during the air campaign.

One infamous incident during the war highlighted the question of large-scale Iraqi combat deaths. This was the `bulldozer assault' in which two brigades from the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized)--The Big Red One--used plows mounted on tanks and combat earthmovers to bury Iraqi soldiers defending the fortified "Saddam Line."

While approximately 2,000 of the troops surrendered, escaping burial, one newspaper story reported that the U.S. commanders estimated thousands of Iraqi soldiers had been buried alive during the two-day assault February 24-25, 1991.

However, like all other troop estimates made during the war, the estimated 8,000 Iraqi defenders was probably greatly inflated. While one commander thought the numbers might have been in the thousands, another reported his brigade buried between 80 and 250 Iraqis. After the war, the Iraqi government found 44 bodies.

Link to article

 

[rebel]

Iraqis, too, learned lessons from Gulf War

Iraqis, too, learned lessons from Gulf War

March 12, 2003

By Jim Michaels
USA Today


KUWAIT CITY ? Iraqi ground forces are not setting up trench lines at the Kuwaiti border to defend against a U.S.-led attack, as they did in 1991. Instead, experts say, they will rely on military ?strong points? along the main routes to Baghdad to slow advancing U.S. forces and draw them into urban battles.
Independent military analysts say Iraq?s military learned from its mistakes during the Gulf War in 1991. Iraqi commanders dug miles of elaborate trenches in the desert on the Kuwait-Saudi border that were manned by thousands of soldiers. The open trenches were vulnerable to air attack, and U.S. commanders sent the bulk of their forces westward, bypassing the fortified positions.

U.S. military officials decline to discuss how Iraqi forces might respond to a U.S.-led attack. They are reluctant to reveal how much they know about Iraqi troop locations and tactics. But analysts say this time, most U.S. forces would enter southern Iraq unopposed, possibly traveling for dozens of miles before encountering any resistance.

FUll article from militarycity.com