So what do we think? Terrorist attack against US interests? More car-bombing, etc.? Is the Baghdad airport (with those “underground facilities”) that we just captured wired with explosives so that they can bring it down on the heads of the occupying troops?
As an aside, I have to give Sahaf credit for this statement:
I thought for sure the Iraqi govt. wouldn’t be able to explain that one away.
Surrender?
I sure wouldn’t be expecting it. . .
I copied this link, came here looking for a thread, and as usual, someone has a perfect thread. Blowing up expectant mothers.
I’m rarely speechless. 
Here’s a WAG:
Using the million plus civilians bypassed in Basra as hostages. Threaten to kill tens of thousands of civilians unless the coalition forces withdraw from Iraq.
Just a WAG.
My first guess would be some sort of massed car/truck-bomb operation, at the airport or elsewhere. It is highly unlikely that the airport facilities have been booby-trapped, or that if they are, that US forces would not know about them.
Other reports I’ve quote the the Information Minister as saying that the operation would be “beautiful”, whatever that means; maybe they’ve decided to greet the invaders with flowers after all.
I would say the current footage (very fake, IMHO) of Saddam walking the streets of Baghdad with ecstatic supporters following along is a likely ploy being refered to by the Iraqi IM. The idea behind this, I am guessing, is to try and stir the population out of their homes and into the streets believing there is a ‘movement’ of support.
Mass crowds have a way of building their own momentum and I can see them trying to build, then direct them to the airport.
Even CNN is outright questioning the validity of what they are seeing by the way.
“Other reports I’ve seen…”
That would be a great (evil) move–march hundreds of unarmed Iraqi civilians ahead of/among the advancing Republican Guard units, so that US troops would be forced to massacre innocents in order to stop the troops that were firing on them.
Or strapping bomb-belts to hospital patients, for when US troops come in to “liberate” them?
Wow. I feel dizzy now.
Wow. That’d be so brilliant tactically. Strategically, it’d be a tremendous mistake for Iraq: this is one of the few things that would increase the world’s opinion of this war and the U.S.
Not discounting it all, but please note the date on the “child soldier story” - it’s from before the war started.
After reading this thread a couple times I’m reminded of the reasons that the regime should be destroyed. The strategies employed by the regime will tend to steel the resolve of the combatants and supporters of the war, IMO. I think, aside from the obvious pathological cruelty, the tactics won’t work.
However, I fear for the mental (not to mention physical) health of the Iraqi populace, in addition to our soldiers. This whole thing has become surrcruel–to coin a word.
And your point would be…
So are the reports of WMD’s; are we to discount them for the same reason?
Uh, didn’t I just say I wasn’t discounting it?
The link made it appear as “news”, when really, it is “olds”.
So although I wasn’t discounting it then, I will now. If this were a real liklihood, we would have probably already seen it.
“Civilians” surrendering with a load of dynamite around their belly.
Brick bats at forty paces…
I don’t think so. According to the story, of the 12,000 children in the Ashbal Saddam, 8,000 are in Baghdad. That leaves 4,000 spread around the rest of the country, without any central control (after all the lines of communication have been cut). Coalition commanders should consider how they will respond in the possible, even if not likely event of attacks by brigades of children. The alternative is to make it up as we go along, and risk coalition lives who may hesitate to fire on children. Or we could just mow 'em down, world opinion be damned. Is it worth considering, even if the story is a few days old?
I dont remember the Iraqis fighting conventionally since the war started. There was never any concerted organized action against the coalition forces. All they did was defend the area where they were. So far what theyve done are
*Suicide bombers at checkpoints
*Use human shields to check Coalition positions
*Use a whole town as a shield
*Uses schools, mosques, hospitals as barracks and ordinance storage areas
*Place explosives under bridges without blowing them up
*Use the information monkey to lie about what is really going on just 10 miles from where he was transmitting.
*Call the Saudi Foreign minister a Loser.
*Use the Fedayeen to recruit unwilling men to be canon fodder
*Prevent regular army units at gunpoint from surrendering
*Call for a Jihad (even tho no one in the regime are Mullahs)
*Show pictures of iraqi civilians beinf wounded when its quite probable that the regime inflicted the wounds themselves.
these have all been as effective as catching a cluster bomb with a baseball glove. After all of that, I wouldnt be (too) suprised that a large group of children with explosives strapped on them to be standing in front of the US Marines.
What if they parade a whole group of trucks in the middle of downtown Baghdad that look like mobile chemical laboratories and say they will release their contents if the US Army and Marines do not leave the city. Only the civilians would get killed because both sides have B&C protection gear. If the coalition does move back, the regime could just say they were only bluffing but they made the almighty USA cower back.
This thread has a surprisingly regional outlook with regard to this war.
Non-conventional? Martyrdom? Beautiful?
I’d say the Iraqi response is coming to a shopping mall near you.