Secret War: How the CIA Defeated Saddam Hussein
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Monday, April 21, 2003
The unprecedented collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, quashed with dizzying speed and negligible casualties, was not the result of good luck or overwhelming force of arms. It was largely due to cell phones manned by CIA psy-ops agents conducting a telemarketing campaign selling surrender to the enemy’s top commanders.
Amazingly, as part of the operation, some of those "human shields" who went to Iraq were really CIA agents sent to deal with Iraqi generals thinking of defecting as well as to identify the military targets where Saddam put them.
According to a credible account in a Lebanese newspaper it says was based on information confided by top U.S. sources, the campaign resulted in the defection of the top ranks of the Republican Guard and the Iraqi army, who defected en masse, leaving their troops to melt away as U.S. forces advanced on Baghdad, saving the lives of thousands of coalition forces.
It was no secret that U.S. military intelligence agencies were making phone calls to Iraqi generals urging them to surrender once the invasion began. As far back as February, the media were reporting details of the top-secret operation. On Feb. 25, the Chicago Tribune wrote of the operation under the headline "US Targets Iraqis' Resolve with Psychological Warfare."
On March 24, USA Today went even further by reporting that U.S. intelligence officials were contacting "Iraq's generals and leaders of Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath Party with promises of safety, asylum and a role in Iraq's new government if they defect, mount a coup or agree not to use biological or chemical weapons."
Moreover, according to the newspaper, the CIA operation had begun three months earlier, in late December.
"Initially, U.S. officials were so confident that they could persuade Iraqi leaders to surrender that they delayed the start of the war," USA Today reported. "And although those early efforts were largely unsuccessful, the communications have resumed even as U.S. forces carry out air and ground assaults inside Iraq, according to three intelligence and two military officials directly involved in the communications efforts …
"U.S. intelligence officials say they recently recruited a senior member of Saddam's inner circle who is secretly providing them with valuable information on the movements and actions of Iraqi leaders. The same Iraqi official is trying to persuade other members of Saddam's leadership to surrender."
Even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke about the operation in late March. "Is there contact between coalition forces and Iraqi forces? The answer is, most certainly. There has been over the past period of weeks, and those discussions have intensified."
According to press reports at the time, U.S. military and intelligence personnel had established remarkably close contact with Iraq's top military leaders. Said USA Today, "The Americans don't just know these generals' home and office telephone numbers; the CIA, it's been reported, has a robust Rolodex of e-mail addresses, cellphone numbers and other high-tech means to contact both the warriors and their family members."
The Deal
Here, according to an exclusive report in the Lebanese newspaper Sawt al-`Urouba, are the details of what their correspondent Walid Rabbah called "The Deal."
Noting Rumsfeld’s admission that the phone calls were taking place, the paper recalled that three days later the U.S. media played an audiotape on which recorded voices could be heard speaking in Arabic guiding American forces to important bombing targets.
The telemarketing operations increased in intensity after the Republican Guard faced its first encounter with U.S. around Baghdad, after much of their equipment was destroyed. Said the report, U.S. military leaders realized they were facing a force with high military preparedness, one that was well trained and capable of inflicting tremendous casualties on American forces attempting to enter Baghdad.
Thanks to "the Plan," those horrendous casualties were avoided.
Here, according to the paper, are the details of the offer, approved by Rumsfeld, that were made to both the Republican Guard and Saddam's Fedayeen.
In return for ceasing all opposition and laying down their arms, the U.S. was prepared to provide:
Transportation for the Republican Guard's top echelon to secure locations outside Iraq.
Transportation of second-rank Republican Guard leaders to "liberated" places inside Iraq that the coalition forces already controlled.
Money Makes the World Go 'Round
Huge sums of money to the top echelon of the Republican Guard. Second-ranking officers were offered lower, but still sizeable, amounts of cash.
Amnesty to some of the top leaders of the Republican Guard.
Official roles in "liberated" Iraq after the end of the war, to those who had not committed "war crimes," under Saddam’s regime.
U.S. citizenship and residency in the United States to the top commanders and their families, if they so desired.
Creating a "balance" between the Iraqi opposition that will have a limited role in the administration of Iraq on the one hand, and Republican Guard commanders who did not fight the American forces, on the other.
To assure the targets of the operation that the U.S. was serious, the U.S. identified some of its "human shield" assets who were guiding American forces to bombing targets and places where Saddam Hussein and the top Iraqi leadership could be found.
A 'Human Shield' Who Actually Did Some Good
A brief meeting was held between one of the agents serving as a "human shield" and members of the Republican Guard, during which the latter were handed official written documents addressed to the first echelon of the Republican Guard. These reassured Iraqi commanders that the assurances were reliable.
According to these documents:
After the occupation of Saddam International Airport, top Republican Guard officers were to come to the airport to be flown out. If that could not be arranged, an alternate site could be chosen where an Apache helicopter or two could land near Baghdad to take them elsewhere.
Some second-rank commanders would go to Iraqi Republican Palace near the airport. U.S. forces would fire shells at it to announce that they had taken it, then would take the Iraqis to the airport to be transported elsewhere.
These Republican Guard officers would be ordered not to resist and to lay down their weapons, together with promises of their safety, and that of their families, and they would be transported to secure locations. In turn they were to issue orders to those of lower rank in their commands not to put up resistance.
The Republican Guard's top officers employed a ruse to get lower ranks to accept such an order by telling them that the resistance would be carried on secretly in accordance with a plan prepared by the Iraqi leadership to protract the war and catch the American forces in a trap that had been laid for them.
Thanks, Appeasement Activists
In the "human shield's" deception the CIA used appeasement activists in America carefully and systematically. They sent three groups of appeasement activists to the region, and in particular into Baghdad, on the belief that it would be the place where the decisive battle would be fought.
Iraqi leaders placed "human shields" in important places such as factories and other locations of great importance to the people of Baghdad. Storehouses of weapons belonging to the Republican Guard had been located inside those places. But inside, hidden underground, there were huge stockpiles of weapons sufficient for waging a resistance for years.
These were ostensibly civilian installations but on the inside were military. These included centers where rockets were gathered for destruction under the U.N.-supervised program while most of the weapons were stored in underground military storehouses.
Thus the use of the "human shields" at vital locations became a trap set for the Iraqis. Those "human shields" were equipped with hard-to-detect delicate communication devices used to communicate with U.S. forces during the bombing.
Moreover, it later became clear that these devices played an outstanding role in pinpointing the positions of Saddam and his leaders, as well as places where weapons were being stored.
The capture of the airport allowed U.S. forces to carry out the entire plan outlined in the documents given to the Republican Guard defectors, who now knew the U.S. assurances were trustworthy. As a result, they then provided complete information about the military positions around the airport and inside of it.
They also gave complete information about the tunnels that ran from the Republican Palace to inside the airport, tunnels that had been built especially so that Saddam could use them should he ever be in danger. American forces occupied these tunnels, unknown to any but the first echelon of the Republican Guard.
Minister of Disinformation
On the second day after the occupation of the airport, Muhammad Sa`id as-Sahhaf – Baghdad Bob - assured the world that Saddam International Airport was still in the hands of the Iraqi forces. He based his assurances on the coming of an "innovative and unusual" response that mystified the media.
The Iraqi "information" minister mistakenly believed that Iraqi fighters and Republican Guardsmen would sweep from the palace through the tunnels to the airport in a surprise attack on the American forces occupying the airport. He was unaware that U.S. forces had discovered the location of those secure tunnels and would confront the small numbers of Iraqis who were sent there, under the leadership of third-echelon commanders of the Republican Guard, and who would find the Americans waiting for them.
Now, with the road open to Baghdad, U.S. Forces carried out two essential operations simultaneously:
To send tanks to the approaches of Baghdad, from where they would penetrate to the area of Palestine Hotel, on condition that they would not cross the bridge to the opposite bank. This occurred after they were sure that orders had been issued to the Republican Guard to disappear in accordance with the "secret plan" to which the top commanders had already alerted their junior officers.
To prepare a military transport plane of at least 200 seats to transport the first-echelon commanders of the Republican Guard and some members of the second echelon to secure locations.
Muting the Media
Those U.S. forces who advanced to secure a bridgehead for the rest of their forces were ordered to attempt to silence the media that were transmitting pictures of the places where the breakthrough was occurring (this is what took place when the offices of al-Jazeera TV, and the Abu Dhabi TV station, were shelled) and to try to herd the journalists into a place from which they could not move, except by order of the coalition forces, or, to be precise, the U.S. Marines.
They were also to cut communications and electricity off from the area and to attempt to shell the little electricity generators in the area to knock out any means for transmission.
Finally they were to deal with the limited resistance in the area of the bridge with small arms rather than with artillery bombardment because some of the second echelon of the Republican Guard were too late to reach the appointed meeting places in time and might possibly have to reach the coalition forces by crossing the Sanak Bridge.
Among the top Republican Guard officers gathered at what was now Baghdad International Airport was the top commander of Saddam's Fedayeen, a man who took his orders directly from Saddam Hussein's son. This convinced U.S. forces that Saddam's Fedayeen was out of action along with the Republican Guard.
The American military aircraft took off from the international airport at 8 p.m. on the third day of the occupation of the airport. Some sources in the American command maintain that the plane flew directly to the United States, via Germany. Others say that it took them by way of Kuwait. What is certain is that they left for the United States. At the same time two helicopters were whisking the second-echelon commanders of the Republican Guard to Basra, where British forces met them.
Saddam's Last Meeting?
It was at the airport where the top defectors gave the U.S. the location of Saddam and his leadership in what was to be their last meeting in al-Mansour. As a result the American forces were able to pin point the site and pulverize it with guided missiles. It is believed that Saddam, his two sons and his top officials were killed in the bombardment.
Alone among the leadership to survive was Baghdad Bob, who was out of the area at the time of the attack, which came shortly after he delivered a statement in front of Palestine Hotel that day.
The Lebanese paper notes that one question remains: "Where did those mountains of weapons go? Where did the forces who ‘melted away’ into the angry Iraqi population go? The Marines did discover vast storehouses of weapons that could have been used by the Republican Guard - though they were in fact never used – heavy weapons, light weapons in a huge store room in Baghdad. American forces are keeping that quiet - which is a further indication of the proof of what we have said."
It should be noted that the first information about the Iran-Contra scandal appeared in a Lebanese publication