Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 3, 1991 TAG: 9103030110
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: KUWAIT CITY LENGTH: Medium
"All I want to do is surrender," he said Saturday. "That is all I think about."
So he and three friends threw down their rifles and deserted two days later. He was shot twice in the left leg but managed to hide for seven months with a Syrian living here. He finally gave up to the first Kuwaiti soldier he saw Tuesday.
"I do not want to fight," he said. "Nobody does. For what? Kuwait is not our enemy."
Similar interviews with 20 Iraqi prisoners of war here help provide an answer to why Saddam Hussein's long-promised "mother of all battles" was instead the astonishing mother of all surrenders.
The interviews also show that many POWs are deathly afraid they will be returned to Saddam's grim police state in an exchange of prisoners. That exchange will be a top priority when Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of U.S. forces in the gulf, meets Iraqi military leaders on the Kuwaiti border Sunday to discuss terms for a permanent cease-fire.
"I want to stay in Kuwait," said Abas A., a 30-year-old army mechanic. "My father . . . Saddam executed him because he refused to join the people's army. I do not want to go home. He will kill me, too."
"I don't like to go with Saddam there," agreed Khalid D., 21, a wounded navy conscript. "He will force me in the military again and invade another country."
Some POWs were half starved, too weak to walk when captured. Others spoke of the terror in the trenches as allied bombers rained death from above. One conscript is 60 years old; a few others, a U.S. officer swears, are only 13.
Some are farmers and mechanics, pressed to the front after the air war started on Jan. 17. Others are Iraqi-Americans, another U.S. officer said, forced into the army while home, visiting relatives. Still others are professional soldiers, disgusted at the torture and looting that marked the bloody Iraqi occupation.
Four infantrymen were shot in the back as they ran to give up. Others had their white T-shirts confiscated - so they had no white flags to wave - and then watched their officers flee in stolen cars, leaving them to fend off the allied might.
Most important, perhaps, all are furious that Saddam sacrificed the world's fourth-largest army, and brought devastation and humiliation to his country.
"He destroy all Iraq and the army," said Ahmad M., a wounded infantryman. "Inshallah, God will crush him."
"From Aug. 2, I thought this war would be the same result as happened - a disaster," said Mahadi M., a 43-year-old Iraqi warrant officer. "Saddam, he is a crazy man. A lunatic."
Overweight, balding and badly needing a shave, Mahadi stared mournfully at the ground. His filthy army jacket was torn, his hands and face black with dirt. His police captors had taken his shoes and socks.
"I am a soldier for 25 years," he said, "but here, there is no just cause to fight for. All of us have been dragged here. We do not want to come. Why should we fight?"
The POWs were interviewed at the Mubarak Hospital, where 35 were being treated for wounds, and at the Qadesiya police station in Kuwait City. All said they were being treated well.
The POWs say Iraq's army was so demoralized that 50 percent of some units, including the supposedly elite Republican Guard, had deserted by the time the ground war began.
"I don't think there is a big difference between the Republican Guard and the army," said Wesam, the tank driver. "We get 30 dinars more and a patch on the arm. It means nothing."
by CNB