For years, the story of the Republican Guard has been told as an epic in waiting, the story of an elite, well-equipped, motivated force, loyal to Saddam Hussein, outgunned by the US, no doubt, but ready to force America to fight and slog and shed blood if it tried to take Baghdad.
In the cold light of yesterday morning, in a furrowed field by a shelled school building not far from the capital, the reality could be seen and heard.
Three members of the Republican Guard’s feared Medina Division sat hunched and miserable among a larger group of prisoners; their uniforms were newer, they seemed marginally more aware of what was going on around them, but otherwise they were every bit as beaten and pitiable as the thousands of regular army soldiers captured by the US Marines in their rapid march from invasion to Baghdad.
”God only knows what I’ll do now,” said one of the guardsmen, a corporal, Dawi Hussein Mohamed. ”I wish I was a bird and I could fly to my family.”
The apparent collapse of the Republican Guard was matched yesterday by the visible collapse of popular Iraqi belief in the possibility of Saddam’s survival.
As the marines’ 1st Division poured towards Baghdad along the Highway 7 dual carriageway yesterday, preceded by a rolling storm of artillery shells, cluster bombs and missiles, Iraqis by the road — predominantly young men — cheered, waved and gave the thumbs-up sign.
Until yesterday, their enthusiasm for the invaders could have been interpreted as caution in the face of an unknown occupier. Yesterday there was no doubt: they knew Saddam was finished, and they were glad. For the first time, Iraqis could be seen mocking the images of President Saddam which hang at key points along the dusty roadside — Saddam the suited statesman, Saddam the Bedouin, Saddam the general. One youth picked up a stone and hurled it at a mural of the dictator. A larger than life statue of Saddam stood partly destroyed, only two legs and half the body still standing.
The marines had put entire days into their invasion timeline for taking the Republican Guard to pieces on the way to Baghdad. Instead, they ended yesterday at the edge of Saddam City, the mainly Shia neighbourhood at the east of the capital. The guard had atomised.
The three prisoners admitted they were guardsmen only after an Arabic translator working for the marines noticed that they had torn off the shoulder patches which identified their units. From one soldier’s shoulder red threads protruded where he had ripped the badge off in a hurry.
It has been widely assumed that the guards have been subjected to nightly bombing raids, but Mohammed said it had taken just two hours of air attacks on Thursday morning on his unit, the 10th Brigade of the Medina Division, to rip it apart physically and psychologically.
The brigade had been stationed close to civilian areas in the town of Dorrah, south of Baghdad, trying to use its trees as cover for armoured vehicles, Mohamed said. ”The Americans started bombing at 9am. They destroyed tanks and other armoured vehicles and a bridge was bombed. The bombing came as a surprise. People were in their houses when the attack happened and they fled into the streets. People were driving cars with their families and mostly the planes were dropping cluster bombs. It shook the people very hard.
”With these cluster bombs they hit buses and cars. When the bombs started people went in their cars, fleeing, and the cluster bombs hit their cars. Some people went under the bridge, then they came and blew up the bridge too.”
Another one of the prisoners, a private, Muslim Mahdi, interrupted. ”No, they hit military people,” he said. ”They were targeting military cars.” Mohamed continued: ”I went to a trench when the bombs started. I was in the trench and over me was death.” Twenty five tanks were destroyed and two fuel tankers, he said.
Mohamed, a driver, jumped into his truck and fled with his two comrades. They went through Baghdad and were heading south to where their families were when they were captured. ”The 10th all ran away to Baghdad,” said Mohamed.
Mahdi said he had heard that US forces would treat Republican Guards harshly, so he tore off his shoulder patches.
They were still in uniform, but were already making their transition to civilian life. ”It’s a relief,” said Mahdi, of his capture, of the collapse of the guard, of the end of the regime. ”It’s like a weight off my chest.”
Yet Mohamed spoke of how difficult it would be for Iraqis of his generation — they are all in their early 20s — to think themselves out of the tyranny inside their heads. Asked what he thought about Saddam, he said: ”He’s my father, he’s my president. We didn’t understand him properly. We grew up with him around so we don’t know anyone else but him.”
By late last night, the marines, including the unit with which the Guardian was travelling, were arrayed around the eastern and northern fringes of the capital, controlling movement in and out.
The road to Baghdad was thick with smoke, some from fires the Iraqis started to try to confuse US sensors, many from burned out military vehicles, mostly trucks and artillery pieces, struck from the air.
Conspicuous by their absence, despite the apparent collapse of the guard, were their most modern tanks, the T-72s. Even if the regime has managed to squirrel them away somewhere, however, it seems too late to use them to make a difference — just as much of Saddam’s air force was flown to Iran during the 1991 Gulf war, which preserved it but rendered it militarily useless.
Signs of a new irregular enemy, or the perception of one, were to be seen yesterday afternoon at a position held by the marine’s 5th regiment as they waited for the order to go forward. Troops captured a man alleged to be a Sudanese ”jihadist” — one who had come to Iraq to fight against the US on religious grounds.
The man, looking frightened and with his hands bound behind his back, was driven away for interrogation on the bonnet of a Humvee. Marines on the scene gave few details but said he was one of two ”jihadists” they had captured.
Any overlap of the invasion of Iraq and America’s proclaimed war on terror would be a disturbing development, whether it was real or in the minds of the invaders.
Shortly after the Sudanese man was taken away, there was an incident at the position when sentries challenged a group of men in an approaching car. The marines shouted at the men in English and the men, confused and alarmed, got out of the car and ran away. A few minutes later, the marines destroyed the car with .5 calibre machine gun fire. It burst into flames. They had not searched it. They did not speak each other’s language. – Guardian Unlimited Â