The Sum of All fears- Why they resist?
I think this is a very informative article explaining the conflicting emotions of Iraqis as the Allies come to liberate their cities.
Why They Resist
Iraqis aren't yet confident Saddam's a goner.
BY BRENDAN MINITER (Wall Street Journal)
Tuesday, March 25, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
The allies were cheered Friday when they rolled into Sawfan, Iraq, a small town on the Kuwaiti border, and began tearing down larger-than-life Saddam portraits. "Americans very good," Ali Khemy told an Associated Press reporter. "Iraq wants to be free." U.S. Marine Maj. David "Bull" Gurfein returned the goodwill by yelling "Iraqis! Iraqis! Iraqis!" while pumping his fist in the air.
But the moment was bittersweet. Premature jubilation had cost many Sawfan residents their lives in 1991. They'd cheered American forces during the first Gulf War and, confident that Saddam was about to be ousted, some residents tore down Saddam portraits. After the U.S. halted its advance, Norman Schwarzkopf came to Sawfan, but only to work out cease-fire terms with Iraqi generals.
It didn't take long after that meeting for Saddam's minions to round up, torture and kill many of the "disloyal" Sawfan residents.
So on Friday a woman shrouded in black cut her celebrating short when her companion reminded her of Saddam's ruthlessness by "sliding his finger across his throat," according to the AP.
This history is lost on some reporters. Reuters correspondent Michael Georgy, who went to Sawfan two days after the AP (and after allied forces started to meet stiffer resistance ****her north), seemed to find only Iraqis who hated America. "I swear it was better when Saddam was here," Jamal Kathim told Mr. Georgy. But nonetheless America has a history of leaving many Iraqis open to Saddam's reprisals, and it is this history we must now remember in seeking to explain why some Iraqis are willing to fight on against an overwhelming military force that is there to free them.
The power of fear should not be underestimated. Saddam is a survivor. He's still in power despite multiple assassination attempts, internal uprisings and even the onslaught of American military might a decade ago. Some Iraqis are understandably hesitant to gamble that this time Saddam--and his evil lieutenants--will be gone after this war. If they lose the bet, the stakes are horrifying to contemplate. Saddam has managed to cling to power for decades by disregarding all standards of human decency. Rape and other unspeakable forms of torture await anyone who is perceived to have slighted him.
In Iraq, parents have to police their every word, every thought, out of fear their children will let something slip at school. In Saddam's Iraq, chemical and biological weapons aren't just to use against foreign armies, but are stockpiled to keep the people in fear too.
Captured Iraqis admit they will fear Saddam until he is dead. Old fears die hard, especially for those who've been fed nothing but Saddam's propaganda for more than a generation and who still have family under Saddam's control.
Despite all this, there have been mass surrenders. At the same time, some Iraqi units have feigned capitulation, while waiting for an opportune time to strike at allied forces. Others simply melt away as soldiers desert--possibly to return home to make sure nothing happens to their families. Others can be seen along the road to Baghdad in civilian clothes, pretending to be farmers in a part of the desert that has no farms. They remember that Iraqi soldiers who surrendered in 1991 were later severely punished, tortured or killed; they're probably hedging their bets.
In one instance, two Iraqi officers surrendered while carrying a duffel bag of cash. The officers claimed it was payday for their troops--men whose gaunt, unfed frames reveal how little their officers care for their wellbeing. It's more likely that the cash was to be spent fleeing Saddam's police state.
Saddam, long schooled in the value of fear, also knows the allure of cash. That's why his regime is now offering $14,000 rewards to any Iraqi who kills an American soldier and $28,000 to those who capture one. It's blood money, aimed at allaying enough fear of the regime to garner more support without--of course--letting up on the oppressive tactics that keep Iraqis from rebelling.
American soldiers have found makeshift shelters made by guerrilla fighters and other irregular troops. In one shown to reporters, a fighter had fled, leaving behind almost all of his belongings--a thin, raggedy blanket (to stave off the cold desert nights), pictures of his two children, and a plastic bag full of raw meat.
This isn't a force equipped to fight the allies, but it's also not a force that's prepared to openly oppose a madman who's exercised totalitarian control for decades. The Iraqis know that America is strong, but few among them know how resolute or even how moral the U.S. military is in this fight. There is no free press in Iraq, except for the broadcasts beamed in with the backing of the West. The "Ministry of Information" filters everything else. Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, was even spewing propaganda here in America on Sunday during an interview with MSNBC. Dow Jones Newswires summed up his remarks this way: "He said Iraqi defiance shown in Nasariyah, Basra and other major cities is intensifying, and is coming, he said, from a people who want to defend their independence."
Fear of Saddam doesn't fully account for Iraqi resistance, of course. Many of the guerrilla fighters and militiamen as well as the irregular recruits Saddam enticed from other Arab countries (who are strikingly similar to al Qaeda recruits) are committed to propping up the regime. The fabled Republican Guard is also more loyal to Saddam than is the rest of Iraq's military.
Saddam sits atop a police state so vast in its oppression that its operation requires the support of a great many thugs. Air Force Secretary James Roche stopped into The Wall Street Journal's offices last week before the invasion started and indicated why these thugs will remain loyal to the dictatorship. Iraqi civilians are arming themselves, he told us, with weapons discarded by deserting soldiers. These weapons, he said, are likely to be used in reprisal attacks against Saddam's lackeys--payback for having raped or murdered their family members. There are more than a few evil men who have a lot to lose in a free Iraq.
Thankfully there are a lot more people who have a lot to gain in a liberated and democratic Iraq, and that's why so few refugees have fled into neighboring countries. And the allies are getting a lot of support on the ground. In the south, Iraqi officers are talking to Americans soldiers and may soon lead them to chemical-weapons factories and other illegal sites. In the north there's even more support. "We're not going to say no to anything the Americans want," Mohammad Haji Mahmoud, leader of the Kurdistan Social Democratic Party, told the AP.
And what do the Americans want? Well, as reported in the New York Times, that's something that Lt. j.g. Jake Heller told his men before launching a raid on Thursday. "We're going to change the world tonight," the 26-year-old Harvard graduate and Navy SEAL told his crew. "Let's do it right."
Latest Update on Basra's uprising
Carnage predicted after uprising (The Mercury - Australia)
26mar03
BRITISH forces have predicted carnage as Iraqi troops fire on their own people to quell a rebellion in Basra.
Troops stationed outside the city said a violent uprising against Saddam Hussein's regime had erupted today, and that Iraqi troops opened fire to put down the revolt.
"There has been a civilian uprising in the north of Basra. We have seen a large crowd on the streets," said one British officer.
"The Iraqis are firing their own artillery at their own people. There will be carnage."
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf denied the report in a statement to Al-Jazeera television.
But British intelligence reports said thousands of people were rampaging through parts of the city known to be populated by loyal supporters of Saddam's regime. They said Iraqi artillery opened fire on the rebels.
Dozens of buildings were said to be in flames in the city, a centre of Shiite Muslims long repressed by Saddam's ruling Sunni Muslim Baath Party.
"I categorically deny these provocative lies the Americans are trying to spread through CNN," Sahhaf told Al-Jazeera.
"These are lies issued by the US administration and British government ... with the aim of demoralising (the Iraqi population)."
US and British commanders have been looking for Iraqis to rise up against the regime as their troops push their way into the country in a bid to topple Saddam and his inner circle from power.
Undercover British intelligence offers were said to have been working inside the city of 1.5 million people for weeks in a bid to engineer the unrest.
British tanks were massed outside the city and preparing to move in. British troops described the Iraqi artillery fire as "horrific".
The main Shiite Iraqi opposition group, based in Iran, also said the revolt was under way.
"A revolt is taking place in Basra," Mohammad Hadi, spokesman of the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq said in Tehran. "We have no more details for the moment."