Modern military history will record Saddam Hussein uniquely. In the 1990-91 Gulf War, he cynically inverted the conventional concepts of tactical and strategic thinking. Saddam never planned on defeating US-led coalition forces…
It is one thing to fight and lose. It is another to lose and win. The former involves miscalculating your chances. The latter involves accepting your losses up front. The latter is the cynic’s move. Saddam Hussein sacrificed tens of thousands of largely inexperienced Iraqi troops in the Gulf War, while saving both tactical firepower…
After several days in a prison near Baghdad in 1991, I was told “they” wanted to see me. Blindfolded, I was led into a room where, judging from the voices, there were at least half a dozen men. For days, I had heard and sometimes watched as guards beat and tortured Iraqi prisoners. The translator asked what my “real job”…
Somewhere just outside of Baghdad, I was blindfolded and led down a corridor into a room where, to judge by the sound of the voices, there were at least half a dozen men. The possibility of being beaten or tortured was on my mind. I was ordered to sit, and waited in the darkness. The interrogator asked me what was my “real job.”
NEAR THE BORDERS OF SYRIA, TURKEY AND IRAQ -Small waves broke over the sides of the creaky raft that our Kurdish contacts had lashed together from old inner tubes and scraps of plywood. Though it was only about as wide as a city avenue, the river was high with the spring melt, and the water was the color of coffee…
Frank Smyth crossed into Iraq with Kurdish guerillas in March 1991, when their uprising against Saddam Hussein was going well. He was, however, captured by Saddam’s army and held in an Iraqi prison. This is a diary account of his imprisonment.
Beirut — While Secretary of State James A. Baker III made his official visit to the Middle East, the broadest spectrum ever of Iraqi opposition forces met in the…
