Saddam's Secrets Page 19

  How are such things possible? Because Saddam was so full of hatred, jealousy, and the lust for revenge against a nation that had only helped him— giving him money, access to a deep-water port, and so much more. Saddam set out from the first to make the Iraqi soldiers hate the Kuwaitis, and he had even told them that Kuwaiti soldiers were saying they could buy the favors of any Iraqi woman for five dinars. He said this because he knew such insults would incite the men to greater acts of violence.

  It was not a clean war. It was not a war to reclaim territory or to settle an old dispute. It was a war to punish, pillage, and destroy—all to satisfy Saddam’s evil desires. I wasn’t called back to active duty until after the invasion had begun, so I wasn’t aware of any of this at the time. But when I began to review action reports and human intelligence about what had actually happened during the rape of Kuwait, I felt angry, and I also felt guilty for my country. There’s no question our army made mistakes—strategically, tactically, and every other way you can think of. But, worst of all, they were not performing like the professional soldiers they once had been.

  And the stupidest thing of all from a military standpoint was that Saddam and his commanders concentrated the entire Iraqi Army, the entire reserve, and the entire popular army on the Kuwaiti border, on the farthest southern border of the country more than 350 miles from the capital. By doing that, he left the entire nation undefended. So I asked, “What happens if somebody decides to attack us from Syria or Jordan?” And the answers I got were disturbing.

  Within forty-eight hours we were no longer fighting only in Kuwait; we were fighting the entire world. And it was escalating rapidly. The United Nations immediately condemned what Saddam had done, and the world’s only superpower, America, condemned the invasion as well. Great Britain and other European countries were threatening that if our army didn’t leave Kuwait immediately, there would be war on a much bigger scale. If any of them had decided to send troops at that time, all of Iraq would have been entirely undefended.

  Saddam was not a stupid man. As I’ve said many times, he was a genius at doing evil. But how do you explain such a strategic blunder, concentrating all of our manpower and material in one place at one time? The only answer that makes any sense is that Saddam was convinced that Ambassador April Glaspie had given him carte blanche to invade Kuwait and do whatever he pleased. If your aim was to punish, pillage, and destroy a nation, and you believed there was no one to stop you, then there was no need to keep even one soldier in reserve.

  Everyone I spoke to, every commander and every soldier in the field, was convinced they had nothing to worry about. They said, “Georges, please don’t worry! It’s all prepared. Nobody will come and ask for Kuwait, and nobody will attack Iraq.” And this was their belief right up to January 17, 1991, when the American attack began. No one had ever considered withdrawing even a small part of our army to defend the rest of the country. And that was perhaps the biggest blunder of all.

  A Rude Awakening

  When I made my presentation to the generals on January 12, as I described earlier, I had told them the capabilities of American warships, aircraft carriers, and related weapons. They asked me, “So, Georges, what’s the solution?” and I told them, “Get out of Kuwait. That’s the only solution.” But they didn’t listen. So when I arrived at the command center on January 16, which was the day after the United Nations’ mandate expired, I was still anticipating an attack of some kind. Consequently, I planned to stay and monitor communications as long as I was needed, and I would try to sleep a few hours here and there on a couch or a cot in one of the offices.

  When the air force commander, Gen. Muzahim, saw what I was planning to do, he said, “Georges, I want you to have my apartment.” A few years earlier, when he was still a pilot, I had been Muzahim’s commanding officer. By the time I came back to active duty, however, he was my superior officer. But he remembered that I was senior to him and treated me with respect. His apartment in the command center was small, but it had a sitting room, a bedroom with a small bed, and a bathroom and shower. It was modest but comfortable, and it was ideal for someone involved in long planning sessions in the operations center.

  I thought this gesture, offering me the apartment, was a sign of respect, but I said, “Sir, this is your apartment and you should have it.” But Muzahim interrupted me and said, “Georges, no. I would be very happy if you would just use the apartment. You deserve it and, besides, I would be glad if you stayed near the operations center so you can monitor communications and stay on top of what’s happening in the field.”

  I said, “Okay, sir, I understand,” and I agreed to sleep there and continue my work in the operations center. After that conversation, I went back to the communications room, and worked there for the rest of the night until well past midnight. I finally rolled into bed at 1:30 on the morning of the seventeenth, without bothering to take off my uniform. I went right to sleep, but at precisely 2:30 I woke up from a sound sleep. I looked at my watch and thought, I ought to go and check on Col. Bahnam in the communications room and see what’s happening down there.

  Col. Bahnam was a good man, and he happened to be a fellow Christian. I thought it would be a good idea to speak to him and find out if anything was showing up on the radar, or on the radio from the bases in the south. So I got up and walked quickly down the corridor to the communications center to find out the news. I didn’t anticipate that there would be anything special to report, but, for some reason I just felt I ought to go down there and check it out.

  Our radar had been tracking movement around the clock, and there was always a chance the duty officer would know something from Kuwait, from the Gulf, or elsewhere on the Iraqi borders. But at the exact moment I entered the communications room, the earth began shaking under my feet. There was a series of muffled explosions—boom, boom, boom—at least three of them in rapid succession, followed by violent aftershocks, like an earthquake on the surface above us.

  I knew what it was: we were being hit. But then, all of a sudden, the very next explosion struck the command center where I was standing. It was such a tremendous explosion it rocked the whole building and knocked out the power instantly. I was knocked off my feet, but when the emergency generators came on, all I could see was sparks flying in every direction. Electrical wires had been ripped out of the walls, and there was fire and smoke shooting in every direction.

  I got to my feet and ran back down the hall toward the apartment where I’d been sleeping just moments before. Water was spraying out of the pipes like geysers, and electricity was arcing overhead between the severed power lines. Suddenly the air was full of dust and debris and smoke, and I knew it was time to get out of there while I still could. It was a nightmare, like a scene from hell. We were still able to move around, as we tried to find out the condition of our equipment. But there was total chaos and confusion in the bunker.

  Someone told me later that ABC news anchor Peter Jennings was conducting an interview with a correspondent in Baghdad when the rockets hit. Looking out the window of his room at the Al Rashid Hotel, the reporter told Jennings he saw flashes of light coming from the Al Mansour district, and he said, “It’s like fireworks on the Fourth of July, multiplied by a hundred!” It must have been an awesome sight, but whatever the viewers were seeing on TV in America from the safety of their homes thousands of miles away, I can assure you, it paled in comparison to what we were seeing inside that bunker in the middle of the attack.

  Seventeen Seconds to Eternity

  The moment the bombs hit, I knew what was happening, and I also knew I hadn’t been wrong after all. I had only been wrong about the date. Ironically, one of the first missiles to strike Baghdad had come close enough to kill me and everyone else in the command center. It was only by the grace of God that I’m alive to tell this story.

  When I surveyed the damage, I realized that the first missile had hit right in the middle of that little apartment where I’d been sleeping. To be mor
e precise, it hit my bed. One of the first bombs to fall on Baghdad went right through the place where I’d been lying just seconds earlier. It came through the building, penetrated the concrete reinforcements, and exploded in the very spot where I would have been lying if I hadn’t woken up in time.

  If I had been in that bed, I would never have known what hit me. Slabs of concrete were thrown around like toys, and one of them was lying on top of the crumpled bed frame. No one could have survived such a hit. But, thank God, I woke up and decided to go to the radio room to see what was going on. I know now that this was no accident: I’m convinced that God woke me up and sent me to safety. That’s the only thing that could have saved my life.

  Ironically, my first thought when I heard the explosions was, Aha, I was right after all! The Americans did attack. But then I immediately thought, Oh my God! My country is being destroyed. And the sense of vindication that I felt for the briefest of moments was quickly replaced by concern for my fellow Iraqis who would be killed and whose homes would be destroyed that night.

  When I made my way back down the corridor to see where the bomb had exploded, I checked my watch to see how long it took to walk from the apartment to the communications center—I wanted to see how soon after I’d left the room the bombs actually struck. It was precisely seventeen seconds from the bedroom to the radar room where I was standing when the explosion occurred. That’s how close I had come to death that night—seventeen seconds.

  As I began looking for the others, I said aloud, “Thank you, Jesus, for saving my life.” Seconds later I heard someone yelling my name from down the corridor. They were saying, “Where’s General Sada? Where’s General Sada?” I walked toward the sound and I yelled, “Who’s calling me? What do you want?” A young officer came running toward me and said, “Sir, the air chief wants to see you immediately.”

  I went with him down the hall to where the air force commander was standing, and he was clearly shaken. He said, “Georges, are you all right?” And I said, “Yes, sir. I’m okay.” He said, “I heard that the apartment where you were sleeping was hit.” And I said, “Yes, sir, that’s right. It was destroyed by the bomb.” He said, “But you weren’t there?” And I said, “That’s right. Something told me to go check on Col. Bahnam.” He said, “And the apartment was destroyed?” I said, “Yes, sir. Everything. Totally destroyed.”

  As I spoke those words, we both realized how accurate the intelligence of the American pilots had been. They placed a laser-guided missile precisely in the place where the air force commander should have been sleeping. Later, of course, some of our pilots teased me about that, saying that Gen. Muzahim knew the Americans were going to hit his apartment, and that’s why he gave it to me. Well, I don’t know if the thought actually entered his mind, but he had been one of the loudest opponents of my report, boasting that we’d never be hit. So maybe there was some truth to that after all.

  A Fateful Decision

  The accuracy of the strike wasn’t lost on anyone. And there was another explosion just as sobering immediately after the first one. At the far end of the bunker, there were two small closets that were each less than one meter square, and this was the place where all the cables for military communications were connected. They went from there to the telephone exchange, which was located in a bunker across the street, below ground. The same strike that destroyed the commander’s apartment on one end of the building included two more rockets that hit those two cubicles, immediately knocking out all military communications.

  And to make sure there would be no command and control coming from that place, the pilots placed, very precisely, three more bombs on the telephone exchange—one in the bunker below, and two more in the center of the building where the cables and junctions came together. At that point we had to go to our emergency backup systems, and they were old and unreliable. So in reality we had only makeshift communications after the first hour of the war.

  As we were standing there in near darkness, Gen. Muzahim put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Thank God you’re safe.” But then he asked me in all seriousness, “Georges, what will we do now?”

  It was all I could do to keep a straight face. “I’m sorry,” I said, “there’s nothing you can do now. It’s too late. Surely you remember that I told you at the meeting on the twelfth that this was going to happen. Well, now it has happened. From this point on, there’s nothing we can do. You can only listen to the reports coming in from all our installations around the country, and you’ll discover that they’re being knocked out, one by one.

  “I’m sure,” I continued, “that every single one of our command centers, in all five military sectors, will soon be reporting that they’ve been hit just as hard as we’ve been hit.” It was about 2:33 a.m. at that time, just minutes after the first strike on our command bunker, but I knew that if the Americans had been able to target the communications center with such pinpoint accuracy, then they would know how to hit all the others as well.

  Gen. Muzahim looked at me and said, “Okay, then we’ll scramble the fighters!” I shook my head and said, “No, sir, don’t do that. If you do, you’ll lose them, I promise you. Either you’ll lose them on the runway or you’ll lose them in the air, because there’s no radar and no communications for the pilots.”

  He said, “How do you know that, Georges?” I said, “Because the minute you turn on the radar, the HARM missiles will track down our radar stations and take them out. As soon as their sensors detect a live radar signal, they’ll lock on and release the missiles that will destroy it. That’s just what they’re waiting for.” Suddenly, Gen. Muzahim became very angry with me, and he yelled, “Georges, I won’t accept that answer! How can you tell me not to do anything when the Americans are attacking us at this very minute? We’ve got to send up the fighters!”

  So I said, “Sir, please listen to me. You’re talking about sending up your best pilots, without radar support, in the middle of the night, with no plan of action. How many pilots do you have who are trained for that? In case you’ve forgotten, it’s January, and the weather may be very bad up there. How many pilots do you have who know how to fly under these conditions, without radar, and in bad weather? And most of all, please remember who they’ll be flying against. They’ll be up against the best pilots, the best planes, the best AWACS Sentry aircraft overhead, and the best rockets. Plus, the Americans have the advantage of being out there already, just waiting for our pilots to show up. If you’re smart, General, you won’t do it!”

  But he shook his head and said, “No. I won’t accept that, Georges. We’ll scramble our pilots.” A few minutes later Gen. Muzahim gave the order to scramble the fighters, and they sent up eighteen of our best fighters. Most of them, I’m sad to say, were destroyed on the runway before they ever took off, and several were shot down as soon as they were in the air. Only one of our pilots, Capt. Zuhair, who was flying a MiG-25, flew a successful mission. Zuhair was the Iraqi pilot who shot down Navy Commander Scott Speicher.

  Avoiding a Disaster

  Saddam arrived at operations headquarters at 5:00 a.m., and he was fit to be tied. But I was really surprised he showed up so late. The first strike had come at 2:30 in the morning, and all of the general staff went immediately to the operations room to decide how to respond. It was essential that Saddam be there, since he was the one making all the decisions. But he didn’t show up until two and a half hours after the bombardment began, by which time hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of key targets had already been hit.

  It’s possible, of course, that Saddam didn’t really understand how quickly and how hard they were going to hit us, so he didn’t feel the need to hurry. But, more likely it was because the missiles and rockets were so overwhelming that he didn’t want to take the risk of coming across the city by car. By the time he arrived at the operations center, our hands were tied and there wasn’t a lot we could do to defend ourselves.

  Saddam called all the senior officers together, as he alw
ays did whenever he was involved in a critical operation. If you’ve seen films of those meetings on television, then you’ve seen the setup: Saddam in the middle with five generals around him. I was seated on his right, and on the left were the commander of the air force, the director of operations, the deputy air force commander for operations, and the training commander.

  So there we were. We had been hit by cruise missiles and rockets, and it was obvious that the first strike had been incredibly precise. Even Saddam realized that the level of American intelligence was astonishing. They knocked out our primary radar and radio communications, and in a matter of minutes they managed to destroy some of the most sensitive targets in the country. He couldn’t miss the significance of all that. But the first thing he did was to tell the air force commander to call off the attack on Israel. “It’s too late now,” he said, “and we have many other things to think about.”

  But then he turned to the air force commander and said, “Gen. Muzahim, tell me how it’s possible that we were struck so hard without warnings of any kind. The air raid sirens didn’t even go off! How could this happen?” When I looked over at Muzahim, I could see that he didn’t know how to answer the question. He looked at me, and I knew he was pleading for me to answer for him. So I motioned to Saddam and said, “Sir, if I may, the sirens didn’t sound because we weren’t hit by aircraft. The first attacks were all by cruise missiles, and those weapons don’t show up on our radar like an aircraft. The main characteristic of those missiles is that they present such a small radar image that it’s almost impossible for defensive radar like ours to pick them up in time. In most cases we won’t even see them until they hit us.”