Saddam knows he is in US gunsight

Saddam knows he is in U.S. gunsights

London |Gulf News | 29-07-2002

Saddam Hussein is convinced that a U.S. attack on Iraq is inevitable, whether or not he readmits United Nations arms inspectors, Arab and Western analysts say.

The Iraqi leader knows he is in America's gunsights and is seeking to put off the onslaught in the hope that an unforeseen event throws President George W. Bush's plans off course.

"Saddam has concluded that an American attack is coming and that he can only delay it or try to make it harder," London-based Iraqi analyst Mustafa Alani said.

For now, the man who has ruled Iraq with a rod of iron for more than three decades can sleep relatively soundly, perhaps lulled by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's latest assertion that no decision to go to war has yet been taken.

Saddam has begun to gear up the Iraqi population for the war he believes is coming, according to Mustafa Hamarneh, director of Jordan University's Centre for Strategic Studies.

"He takes the U.S. threats very seriously and he is trying to prepare himself domestically and regionally," Hamarneh said. "If you watch Iraqi television or listen to the radio, there is a very serious process of mobilisation going on."

Toby Dodge, a researcher at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs, said Saddam was likely to respond to any U.S. military build-up with counter-measures designed to hinder an advance on Baghdad and raise the costs of any invasion.

He said Saddam had taken steps in March and April, when he feared that an intense U.S. air campaign was imminent, to improve the survival chances of his ruling apparatus.

The plans included garrisoning every town with weapons and food stocks and decentralising control to trusted commanders. Martial law was to be declared. Civilians were to be moved off the streets and replaced with the military. Elite units would be kept in Baghdad to hold the Americans at the capital's gates.

Hamarneh said the Iraqis were happy with the hostility voiced by the Arab world to any U.S. invasion, and declarations by some countries like Saudi Arabia and Jordan that they would not let their territory be used to launch such an assault.

"Iraq knows it is very difficult for the Americans to muster a Gulf War-type coalition," he said. "It is testimony to the bankruptcy of U.S. policy in the Middle East."