BAGHDAD, 24 March 2003 — Iraq stunned the Americans and British last night by broadcasting video film of captured and dead American troops — the nightmare of both President Bush and Tony Blair. The body of one American soldier was seen with a great red gash on the side of his neck while two US prisoners appeared on screen, one of them saying that he was “only following orders.”
The soldier, who appeared to be from Kansas, said he had “nothing against the Iraqi people” although his colleague refused to talk. They were both interviewed by Iraqi television reporters, apparently at the scene of their ambush near the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriyah. All day the Iraqis had been boasting of capturing US troops — though no one had believed them.
Last night, thousands of Iraqis also lined the banks of the Tigris River as Iraqi security men hunted for two US pilots said to have parachuted into the river after their aircraft had been shot down over Baghdad. Civilians lined the railings of the river bridges and the banks as frogmen searched the waters for corpses.
The film will increase internal support for Saddam Hussein since it will be regarded as proof of Iraq’s claims in the war — that the American-British forces will be beaten and that Saddam’s regime will survive.
President Saddam Hussein had only hours earlier insisted that prisoners of war would be treated according to the Geneva Convention — a remark regarded as a formality until last night’s astonishing film which was broadcast repeatedly on Iraqi state television.
All day, Baghdad felt like Kuwait in 1991, after the Iraqis had set fire to the oil wells. The berms torched by the Iraqi Army around Baghdad on Saturday are now ablaze. And whether they really hinder the incoming American cruise missiles, they have placed this city under a sinister, dark canopy.
The skyline is black, the sky gray. Only by looking directly upward can you catch sight of the sun. The Tigris moves sluggish under a dun-colored mist. If the people of Baghdad could pretend, a few days ago, that the war did not exist, yesterday they were living in its shadow.
All day, you could hear the explosions. An echoing blast from the suburbs, the sound of supersonic jets and then another explosion and then — for war is like this — the gentle roar of traffic and the sight of a red double-decker bus making its routine journey across the river bridge to Qadamiya.
To grasp the realities — at least the strategic realities according to the Iraqis — you had to venture down to the villa where Gen. Hazim Al-Rawi of the Iraqi Army was giving his morning press briefing, a la Gen. Tommy Franks.
In fact, Gen. Al-Rawi is promising us more press briefings than US Commander Gen. Franks, a practice that will presumably continue until Gen. Franks takes the surrender of Gen. Al-Rawi or — less likely perhaps — until Gen. Al-Rawi takes the surrender of Gen. Franks.
The port of Umm Qasr was still holding out, the Iraqi general told us.
“Iraq will become a quagmire for the Americans. I would also like to tell you that before I came to this press conference, I made a telephone call to our 51st Division in southern Iraq. It is called the ‘Sariat Al-Jebel’ (the Fast Mountain Division). Our officers declared to me that their commander and their deputy commander had been captured. It is not true what your agencies have been saying that thousands of troops had surrendered.”
Thus did the Iraqi general try to rubbish the BBC’s reports on Saturday of the taking of up to 6,000 prisoners from the division. “Your reporters in Basra,” the general went on, “they can make live interviews with the commander of our forces and learn the truth. Our 51st Division continues to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy troops. This lie about our forces is part of psychological warfare.”
There then came a familiar part of every Arab war: The claims of planes shot down. “Our brave and heroic forces have shot down up to (sic) five fighters and two helicopters. One fighter was shot down near Baghdad, another near Mosul, a third at Akhtar Rashid, a fourth in the Taji district, another in Basra. A helicopter was shot down at Mosul, another in the Samara area.”
As reporters like to say, there was no “independent confirmation” of these claims. The Iraqi information minister was full of scorn for the week-old war.
“They call it ‘shock and awe’,” Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf declared. “It seems it is they who are suffering from shock and awe. Let’s use their terminology — though I prefer not to.” There followed a long statement from the vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, much of which included a demand for the support of the “Arab masses” — that fickle bunch who never will show unity when Iraq or anyone else wants it — but it was fearfully old-fashioned rhetoric.
Whatever Arab leaders did, it was for the “masses” to stand “in the one trench against the aggressor.” And what should they do there? “Every Arab citizen and Muslim should be a bullet aimed at the chest of the aggressor — until he leaves the land of the Arabs and the land of Islam.”
There was cocky stuff, too, for the claims of Anglo-American advances on the ground. “They say they...have covered 160 or 180 kilometers. I would like to tell them to go 300 km. But if they have any contact with any town or village, they will face the same fate as they are now facing at Umm Qasr. You will see on the television the destruction of their tanks at Suq Ash-Shuyukh.”
Vice President Ramadan said the Americans would be welcome to try to come to Baghdad for they would meet a similar fate. Last night’s film will be taken by Iraqis to support his contention.
