Saddam called for urban war/ entirely ignored by his generals in the heat of battle/gulf-news/April 21

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=84955

Dubai:Monday, April 21, 2003

Saddam called for urban war

Baghdad |By David Harrison | 21-04-2003

If all had gone according to plan, Saddam Hussain's military leaders would have fought a guerrilla-style urban war in Iraq's towns and cities to defend his regime.

"Every Iraqi house will be a place for fighting," he said in a speech that was recorded in a report entitled 'Notes' from a meeting with the President - but, in the event, was almost entirely ignored by his generals in the heat of battle.

According to a cache of Iraqi intelligence documents recovered by The Sunday Telegraph, Saddam issued precise instructions on how to resist America's superior military strength during a meeting of his most senior aides shortly before the war began.

Iraqi soldiers must not "chase the enemy with large numbers of troops when they are far away from us," Saddam instructed.
Instead, they should wait for the Americans to reach highly populated areas and use "simple, clever" methods - a reference to suicide attacks and other guerrilla-style tactics, according to military analysts.
But the generals, it seems, listened more keenly to another part of his address in which Saddam seemingly prepared them to flee rather than fight.
They should, he urged, keep fit, and learn new skills such as horseriding and motorcycling.
The report is undated, but Saddam refers to the failure of the United Nations to pass a resolution for war on February 14 - just over a month before the war began.
Many of Saddam's predictions about the Americans' conduct were spot on.
He told the inner circle of military and intelligence officers that American warplanes would target "leadership centres", and instructed senior aides to move out of their headquarters.
They should disperse instead "all over Baghdad, even on farms and under palm trees".
He cited the UN Security Council's failure to back the war and the anti-war prote-sts as evidence that Iraq was winning the "war of principle", and would go on to win the military and political war.
America might be the most powerful country but it was not the most able.
God was with the Iraqis because they were fighting for higher principles.
"The milk of our mothers is purer than theirs," he concluded.