The Hindu : Saddam regime hanging on to illusions, says U.S.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 07, 2003

International

International

Saddam regime hanging on to illusions, says U.S.

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON APRIL 6. The Pentagon is scoffing at an Iraqi travel "ban" in the city of Baghdad, which restricts the movement of vehicles and persons on the streets.

"We will go wherever and whenever we want. It will have no impact on coalition military operations," a spokesman has been quoted in an agency report.

Military analysts here are also ridiculing some of the statements made by senior Iraqi officials such as from the Ministry of Information that suggested of the Iraqi forces engaged in a serious battle with coalition troops or that the Saddam Hussein International Airport was still in the hands of Iraqi forces. It is a part of the "continuing illusion," one analyst maintained.

Officials here are saying that coalition forces, primarily from different American units, are moving in and out of proper Baghdad and there was reason why the American-led forces are adopting such a strategy — to send a message to the holdouts in the Saddam Hussein regime that much or all of the resistance of the Iraqi Republican Guards, including the elite units, — has just about folded. Further, it is intended to have a psychological impact on the civilian population. The Marines, Special Forces and elite Commandos are said to be involved in a careful search of the Baghdad city proper, looking not just for the remnants of the regime but also for weapons of mass destruction or documentation that could point in that direction. The forces are also entering abandoned buildings with a degree of caution. Reports reaching here are also saying that thousands of Iraqis have started fleeing the capital and are heading the way of Syria and Jordan. Members of the Saddam regime are said to be in this convoy of civilians; and one report had it that many were fleeing with suitcases loaded with cash. But there is still no official word here on the whereabouts of either Mr. Hussein or his inner circle that includes his two sons.

New regime for Iraq?

There is speculation that Washington will install a new regime in Iraq early next week even before coalition forces are in control over many parts of the country, including the Capital. The civilian administration will be run by the former Lt. Gen. Jay Garner of the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. Gen. Garner will be answering to the Pentagon, it is said.

The rationale to establish a quick civilian administration is to entrench authority in areas under American control; and before the clamour for the primacy of the United Nations gets louder. There are many in the Bush administration who have little to no use for the role of the world body.

And the Republican administration has made it very clear that while the United Nations will play a major role in humanitarian assistance, Washington will be the lead player in political and reconstruction efforts in post conflict Iraq.

The former President, Bill Clinton, has said that the United Nations should have the leading role in Iraq after the conflict. "I think we ought to let the United Nations decide the future," Mr. Clinton is said to have remarked at a banquet sponsored by the Caribbean Council for Global Studies.

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