Iraqi soldiers already surrendering -- oops.

[mrmitchell]

Really, though, I feel sorry for those guys when they have to go back home. They're going to get hell (probably literally! ) from their leaders.

[Pekka]

mrmitchell, I'm more than sure of this. They'd be in lots of trouble in any country pulling stunt like this. They want to make examples out of them, and they will not live through it. I feel for this guys, they didn't want to fight at all and had no choices. I just hope they realize it and don't go back to their own, rather stay near the border and try again.

[DuncanK]

Saddam's plan is to make two defensive rings around Bagdhad. The inside ring will be Republican Guard. The outside ring will be regulars. The regulars will be told that if they try to surrender they will be killed by the Republican Guard. Inside the city will be the most loyal troops to Saddam, the ones that know they could never survive in Iraq without Saddam in power because they are so hated by the Iraqi people.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Pekka
Couldn't they be considered as illegal combatants? Surely they where carrying guns? And then give them some slack..

If you are wearing a military uniform then you are by definition a legal combatant.

[GePap]

Sadly, no high level commanders, members of the republican guard, or members of the internal security forces were involved, and all talk about an internal coup against Saddam seems to have ended..the people that everyone thinks might fight are not the ones giving up.

Also, I am not surprised soldiers in Southern Iraq think the war has started, given the increased number of atatcks against targets in the Southern No flight Zone.

[Pekka]

Oerdin, well if they crossed the borders, then how about spies? Intelligence? Something like that. It's all technical mumbo jumbo

[curtsibling]

The Iraqi military is not dumb.

And neither have the rank and file any real reason to love Saddam or offer him any loyalty.

For more than twenty years he has massacred the once-proud Iraqi army.
Against Iran and the Allied Coalition in the Gulf War I.

The Iraqi Officer Corps know even after a regime change, Iraq will still need a security force.

I suspect certain elements in the command chain will welcome Saddam's death and even assist the Allies if possible. To speed the dictator's fall.

Iraq will need an army after Gulf War II, there is no point dying for a lost cause and a hated leader.

[Ted Striker]

Damn, couldn't we have helped these guys out and stashed them somewhere? I hope they aren't tortured when they get back.

Also, what curt said.

[GePap]

No one thinks the regular army will do much beyond clog roads as they surrender..the question is how hard the internal security forces, the Republican guards, and other pro-Saddam paramilitary forces will fight. I remember how, about a month ago, all these stories kept circulating, about machinations near the top, and reports that members of Saddam's inner council were gettign jitters. All those stories have vanished: few think a coup will happen before the war starts. What happened to all the "enthusiasm" for giving up?

[Agathon]

Remember that it was an American official who said, not long before Pearl Harbour, that the Japanese wouldn't be able to engage in air combat because their "slitty eyes" wouldn't be able to line up the sights properly.

This is just another in a long history of the underestimation of military opponents. Let's wait and see....

[Ted Striker]

GePap,

The truth is we don't know how the core is going to react. Could go either way. Though I suspect once the CIA is on the ground and starts offereing some cash money...

[Lancer]

Poor fellas. Tired and hungry, at the very least they don't support Saddam...yet they can't get away from the attack. They will either be killed going back, or likely bombed in the opening phase, when all they want to do is surrender.

The first day should be just leaflets, 'the war has started, surrender now'. Maybe the killing could be partially avoided.

[Ted Striker]

I hope so Lancer.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
GePap,

The truth is we don't know how the core is going to react. Could go either way. Though I suspect once the CIA is on the ground and starts offereing some cash money...

these aren't some hicks inAfghanistan who want a new pickup. many of these guys, specially the internal security elements, which nymber in the thousands, are par and parcel of the Saddam regime: their future in a new Iraq is cloudy. All the money we have spent in Afghanistan and we didn't even get anyone to give us Mullah Omar.

The safe and prudent bet is that they (the core) will fight.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Lancer
Poor fellas. Tired and hungry, at the very least they don't support Saddam...yet they can't get away from the attack. They will either be killed going back, or likely bombed in the opening phase, when all they want to do is surrender.

The first day should be just leaflets, 'the war has started, surrender now'. Maybe the killing could be partially avoided.

I was in Psyops for six years and that is exactly the type of things they do. During the last Gulf war one of the most effective Psyop campaigns was to drop a bunch of leflets on an Iraqi base saying "This base will be bombed tommorrow; surrender or flee if you want to live", then the next day the base was bombed and the cycle continues until almost everyone had deserted or surrendered.