Saddam's War: An Iraqi Mililtary Perspective of the Iran-Iraq War

WOODS, MURRAY, and Holaday

KEVIN M. WOODS, W I L L I A M S O N M U R R A Y, a n d T H O M A S H O L A DAY with MOUNIR ELKHAMRI

About the Authors

NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY President: LtGen Frances C. Wilson, USMC Vice President: Ambassador Richard A. Roth

Kevin M. Woods is a member of the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) and since 2003 has been the task leader of the Iraqi Perspectives Project. Recent publications include The Iraqi Perspectives Report: Saddam’s Senior Leadership on Operation Iraqi Freedom, and The Mother of all Battles: Saddam Hussein’s Strategic Plan for the Persian Gulf War.

Williamson Murray is professor emeritus at The Ohio State University and senior fellow at IDA. He is the author of numerous books and articles. His recent works include The Iraq War: A Military History, The Past is Prologue (ed.), and A War To Be Won: Fighting the Second World War.

Thomas Holaday has a degree in Philosophy and a minor in Arabic from Georgetown University. Since joining IDA, he has researched the militarystrategic history of Iraq while working on the Iraqi Perspectives Project.

INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES Director: Dr. Patrick M. Cronin Research Director: Dr. James A. Schear

NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY PRESS Director and Editor, JFQ: Col David H. Gurney, USMC (Ret.) Executive Editor: Dr. Jeffrey D. Smotherman Managing Editor, NDU Press: LTC Robert E. Henstrand, USA

Mounir Elkhamri is a Middle East military analyst and linguist for the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office. His articles include “Dealing with the Iraqi populace: an Arab-American soldier’s perspective” (Military Review ) and “Iran’s Contribution to the Civil War in Iraq” (Jamestown Foundation). Laila Sabara is senior linguist for both the Terrorism Perspectives Project and the Iraqi Perspectives Project at IDA. Previously, she worked as an Arab linguist supporting the U.S. Senate and the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice. ■ ■ ■ ■

The National Defense University (NDU) educates military and civilian leaders through teaching, research, and outreach in national security strategy, national military strategy, and national resource strategy; joint and multinational operations; information strategies, operations, and resource management; acquisition; and regional defense and security studies. The Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) is a policy research and strategic gaming organization within NDU serving the Department of Defense, its components, and interagency partners. Established in 1984, the institute provides senior decisionmakers with timely, objective analysis and gaming events and supports NDU educational programs in the areas of international security affairs and defense strategy and policy. Through an active outreach program, including conferences and publications, INSS seeks to promote understanding of emerging strategic challenges and policy options. The National Defense University Press publishes books, monographs, reports, and occasional papers on national and international security affairs, defense policy, and military strategy, primarily the output of university research and academic programs. In addition, it produces Joint Force Quarterly, a professional military and security studies journal published for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Cover: A view from Wasit Province, Iraq, across the border into Iran (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tiffany Dusterhoft)

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Kevin M. Woods, Williamson Murray, and Thomas Holaday with Mounir Elkhamri

Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University Washington, D.C. 2009

The opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense or any other agency of the Federal Government. This publication is cleared for public release; distribution unlimited. Except for the maps on pages 47, 51, 52, and 68, portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, provided that a standard source credit line is included. NDU Press would appreciate a courtesy copy of reprints or reviews.

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Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Summary and Analysis. .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

General Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Arab-Israeli Wars and the Rise of the Ba’ath Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Between the 1973 War and the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Thoughts on the Iran-Iraq “Cold-War” in the 1990s . . . . . . . 17 Comments on Saddam Hussein as Political and Military Leader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

iii

The Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Discussion One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Arab-Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973 • Military Transition under Ba’athist Rule

Discussion Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Iraqi Military and Political Transition through the 1970s • Prologue to IranIraq War • Transition of Iranian Leadership and Military • Decision to Invade • Saddam’s Aspirations • Earliest Phase of the War • Political and Professional Soldiers • Disorganized Command and Control of Iranian Operations

Discussion Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Early Use of Air Power • SIGINT [Signals Intelligence] • Winter 1980–1981 Iraqi Command Changes • Saddam’s Response to Failure and Executions • 1980–1982 Losses and Army Expansions • Developments of Iranian and Iraqi Forces

Discussion Four . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Saddam’s Psychology and Personality Development • January 1981 Armor Battle • Iranian Human Wave Tactics and Iraqi Minefields • Khomeini’s Spiritual Influence • Battles of Abadan and Khorramshahr • Loss of Special Forces • End of Initial Iraqi Offensives in May 1981

Discussion Five . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

1981–1982 Turbulence in Tehran • Iranian Infiltration Tactics • 1982 Attacks around Basra • 1984–1988 Marsh Infiltrations and Iraqi Engineering Efforts • International Support to Iran • Chemical Weapons Usage • Iranian Response to Weapons of Mass Destruction • Postwar Preparations with WMD • 1982–1983 Reorganization and Recruiting for Republican Guard • Psychological Support of Saddam to Troops • Postwar Republican Guard Reorganization

Discussion Six . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Summer 1983 Iranian Offensive into Haj Umran • Northern Mountain Operations and Kurdish Support • A 1,000-kilometer Front • Threats to the Dams and Baghdad • Unpredictable Iranian Strategy and Tactics • February 1984 Iraqi 6th Armored Division Losses • Iranian Marsh Operations • Intelligence Development and Satellite Support in March 1985

Discussion Seven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

1986 Al-Fao Campaign and Baghdad’s Misinterpretation of Iranian Strategy • Traitors in the Iraqi Leadership • Prisoners of War • Operation Dawn • Iraqi Casualty Competition and the “Bedouin Mentality”

Discussion Eight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Republican Guard Expansion and the Response to Al-Fao • Hussein Kamel • General Hamdani’s Command Obstacles • 1987 Iranian Attack on Basra and Casualty Inflation • Shalamjah: The Somme of the Iran-Iraq War • Hamdani’s Venture through the Front and the Battlefield Conditions

Discussion Nine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

July 1987 Republican Guard Command Changes • Battlefield Missiles • Halabjah • Factors of Post-1987 Shift in “Correlation of Forces” toward Iraq— Planning Effort for Al-Fao Offensive • Use of Helicopters • Front of 1988 • July 1988 Iraqi Incursion through to Ahvaz and the Mujahideen-e-Khalq

Discussion Ten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Foundations of the Iraqi Military and Saddam’s Detrimental Influence • Hamdani’s Effort to Improve Iraqi Military Culture • Questioning Military Orders and Planning • Lessons Learned from the Iran-Iraq War • Fight to Follow the War and Saddam’s Perception of Victory and Warfare

Discussion Eleven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Stories of War Heroes, 1973 to Operation Iraqi Freedom • Saddam’s Misunderstanding of Warfare • Hamdani’s Recognition of U.S. Strategy in 2003 • Understanding One’s Enemy

Discussion Twelve. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

1990s Military Planning against Iran • Historical Explanation of Iran-Iraq Conflict • Religious and Ethnic Elements • Economic and Regional Aspects (Persian Gulf) • Shatt al-Arab • Ideology, Ba’athism, and Khomeini • Present Conflict and Iranian and al Qaeda Influence

Discussion Thirteen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Planning for an Iranian Adversary • Iranian Structure • 2003 and Iranian Strategy • Ayatollah as Executive • Iranian Military Development and Capabilities • Missiles • Iranian Threat to Iraq and Infiltration • Internal Agents •

Iraqi Counterinfiltration • Iranian Militias • Iraqi Military Developments since 1991 • Cooptation of Tribes

Discussion Fourteen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Role of Religion in Iran-Iraq Conflict • Hypothetical Iraqi Offensive Against Iran and Phases of Preparations • Iranian Influence in Iraq • Arabistan • Baluchs and Kurds • Air and Missile Strikes and Military-Industrial Complex • Younger Iranian Generation • Smart Weapons and Satellites • Terrain • Operational Objectives • Iranian Lessons Learned • Iranian Missile Deterrent

Discussion Fifteen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Armor Operations • Bravery and the Warrior Mentality • Saddam’s Misunderstanding of Military Technology • Integration of Helicopter and Tank Capabilities • Lessons Learned on Artillery, Iraq, and Iran • Changes in Iranian Command and Control • Iranian Tactical and Operational Developments

Discussion Sixteen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Recommendations for U.S. Actions in Iraq from May 2007

Endnotes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Index to Themes in the Discussions . . . . . . . . . . 144

Figures Figure 1. Franz Halder, former chief of the General Staff of the German Army in World War II. . . . . xiii Figure 2. General Ra’ad Hamdani (left), former Iraqi Republican Guard Corps commander, explains details of the 1986 Iranian capture of Al-Fao to members of the Project 1946 research team . . . xiv Figure 3. The initial Iraqi invasion of Iran, September 1980. . 29 Figure 4. The southern sector of the war (region of Khorramshahr) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Figure 5. Southern war sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Figure 6. General Hamdani’s sketch of Iranian infiltration tactics, 1982. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Figure 7. Iranian Dawn offensives—northern sector, 1983–1986 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Figure 8. Iranian Dawn offensives—central and southern sectors, 1983–1986 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Figure 9. Bubyan and Shatt al-Arab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Figure 10. Map of the Kut-Sulaimaniyah border with General Hamdani’s markings . . . . . . . . . 117

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Foreword When lessons learned from the major combat operations phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom were briefed to the Nation’s top leaders, the question was asked: “How did events leading to the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime look from the Iraqi perspective?” That question was posed to the Joint Advanced Warfighting Program at the Institute for Defense Analyses, triggering the Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP), a research effort sponsored by the U.S. Joint Forces Command that has delivered several volumes of analysis and supporting materials, with more in production. The IPP is reminiscent of an effort begun in 1946, when a team of U.S. Army historians and intelligence officers established a relationship with former members of the German General Staff to develop an understanding of familiar events from an unfamiliar point of view. This volume marks the extension of that same methodology under a different sponsor, the National Intelligence Council, to encompass a broader spectrum of Middle Eastern military history from the perspective of Lieutenant General Ra’ad Hamdani, who during Operation Iraqi Freedom commanded Saddam Hussein’s II Republican Guard Corps. Interviewed over a number of days by project leader Kevin Woods and historian Williamson “Wick” Murray, General Hamdani shared his knowledge about a wide range of subjects, with particular emphasis on his experiences in Iraq’s long war against Iran. The project,s objective was to produce a series of personal, organizational, and campaign histories of contemporary Iraq. This volume is the first in that series, provided with the hope that it will improve our understanding of Middle Eastern military thought, the new Iraqi military, neighboring countries, and the dynamics of a region of the world that is vital to U.S. interests.

Karl Lowe, Director Joint Advanced Warfighting Division Institute for Defense Analyses

Preface

his paper was prepared under the task order Study on Military History (Project 1946) for the National Intelligence Council. It helps address the task order objectives of:

n developing a series of personal, organizational, and campaign histories of contemporary Iraq n

improving and expanding our understanding of Iraq and its region

n providing national security organizations with historical background material, political and personality profiles of the region, and data for long-term studies and analysis n illuminating the effects and utility of U.S. capabilities as seen by an adversary for doctrine and force developers n supporting strategic and operational planning by improving U.S. understanding of Arab military thought, the new Iraqi military, neighboring countries, and regional dynamics.

The Joint Advanced Warfighting Program (JAWP) was established at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) and as part of the Joint Advanced Warfighting Division to serve as a catalyst for stimulating innovation and breakthrough change. It is cosponsored by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics; the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM). JAWP includes military personnel on joint assignments from each Service and civilian specialists from IDA. The program is located in Alexandria, Virginia, and includes an office in Norfolk, Virginia, to facilitate coordination with USJFCOM. This paper does not necessarily reflect the views of IDA or the sponsors of JAWP. Our intent is to stimulate ideas, discussion, and, ultimately, the discovery and innovation that must fuel successful transformation.

Introduction

n 1946, a team of U.S. Army historians and intelligence officers established a long-term exchange with a select group of former members of the German General Staff. This program supported the development of personal, organizational, and campaign histories of the German military, dramatically increasing the U.S. military’s understanding of World War II. In addition to providing an invaluable look at American military capabilities through the eyes of its most recent adversary, these former German officers constituted a special kind of red team to help the Army think through the challenges of force and doctrine development on a potential “new Eastern Front.” Who better to describe what it was like to fight the Soviet Army, outnumbered, defensively, in Europe than the recently defeated Germans? The program’s diverse and long-lasting impacts are evident in such projects as the acclaimed official U.S. Army in World War II history series (the “Green Books”), development of early Cold War military doctrines, and the campaign monographs that informed U.S. operations into the late 1990s in the Balkans. Figure 1. Franz Halder, former Chief of the General Staff of the German Army in World War II

xiii

Sixty years later, the U.S. Government has another rare chance to examine doctrine, intelligence, operations, and strategy through the lens of a recent military opponent. The Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) demonstrated the potential of combining interviews of former Iraqi senior leaders with captured Iraqi documents, augmented by detailed knowledge of American operations on the ground and in the air.1 This “quick look” history and its accompanying operational analysis represent an attempt to understand a substantial part of contemporary history in the Middle East. By leveraging the concept first used with German officers following World War II, the IPP has expanded to encompass an additional sponsor, to address more topics, and to answer a wider range of operational questions. Named “Project 1946,” this expanded effort can help develop a deeper understanding of the region’s future by examining its recent past. An exchange with former senior Iraqi military leaders opens up a wealth of knowledge of operational experience in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, campaigns against the Kurds, the Iran-Iraq War, Figure 2. General Ra’ad Hamdani (left), former Iraqi Republican Guard Corps commander, explains details of the 1986 Iranian capture of Al-Fao to members of the Project 1946 research team

xiv

Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 uprisings, military operations and adaptations under sanctions, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Moreover, such new knowledge can provide valuable insights into the political, strategic, military, and cultural dynamics of the Middle East. The task for Project 1946 is to develop a series of personal, organizational, and campaign histories of contemporary Iraq’s military. Broadly speaking, these histories, when augmented by archival and open source research, will greatly expand the understanding of Iraq and the surrounding region. Moreover, such professional exchanges can fill gaps in the historical record, develop a richer set of political and personality profiles in the region, and provide data for other long-term studies and analyses. In a narrower vein, Project 1946 can illuminate, for doctrine and force developers, the effects and utility of certain U.S. capabilities as seen by an adversary. Finally, material derived from this study can support strategic and operational planning by improving the general understanding of Arab military thought, military capabilities, selected countries, and regional dynamics. Future Project 1946 deliverables are expected to include a series of monographs and oral histories taken from interviews of former Iraqi military personnel, periodic summaries of Iraqi monographs and oral histories, and a database for additional research.

This McNair Paper is divided into two parts. Part One is a summary of the major insights as interpreted by the authors based on their interviews of General Hamdani. Part Two presents the detailed, edited transcriptions of the 16 interview sessions. The interviews are presented in the order in which they occurred and generally follow the historical course of events. To help the reader, the major themes of each discussion are listed at the beginning of each interview session and are indexed alphabetically after the last discussion. A short bibliography is also included.

PART ONE. SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

Part One. Summary and Analysis

he purpose of Project 1946 is to develop a deeper and broader understanding of Middle Eastern military art and science. This project, like the similar post–World War II projects that inspired it, aims at exploring recent military history and culture by examining the documentary record and interviewing participants from the “other side of the hill.” This perspective may or may not reflect events as they were or potentially will be. Nevertheless, just as the deliberate study of the German military experience 60 years ago positively affected early Cold War capabilities, Project 1946 (and similar efforts) can potentially improve ongoing and future analyses of the Middle East in the wake of Operation Iraqi Freedom.2 A small team of researchers from the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) and the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office traveled to Jordan and conducted 16 hours of formal interviews and 8 hours of informal discussions with Lieutenant General Ra’ad Hamdani (formerly a corps commander in Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard). General Hamdani’s long career as a professional soldier spanned Iraq’s participation in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and ended with his command of the II Republican Guard Corps during the defense of Baghdad in Operation Iraqi Freedom.3 The specific topical focus of this research effort was Iraq’s war with Iran (1980–1988) and the potential for war with Iran after 1988. The discussions with General Hamdani provided insights ranging from the nature of Saddam’s regime and its civil-military relations to the conduct of the Iran-Iraq War, and finally to the weaknesses within the Iranian approach to war both in the 1980s and beyond. Throughout the discussions, he displayed the strengths and weaknesses of his background, particularly the strengths. Hamdani is a Baghdad-born Sunni Arab who is comfortable with and committed to a secular state. In most respects, he is a consummate professional with a solid grasp of the day-to-day details of competent military leadership, as well as a considerable mastery of the intellectual framework that military professionalism demands.

SADDAM'S WAR

Beyond the immediate aspects of the discussions, Hamdani displayed a lively sense of humor, a cosmopolitan attitude, and a clear understanding of the military events that extended well beyond his immediate level of experience and the sometimes bizarre nature of Saddam’s regime. It was clear in the interviews that while Hamdani did not speak English with any fluency, he could read English with considerable comprehension.4 The entire research team found it a pleasure to talk honestly with an individual who has thought long and hard about his military experiences in the wars in which he participated and which have had such a catastrophic impact on his nation. Topics of the discussions themselves ranged from the immediate tactical outcomes of particular actions in the Iran-Iraq War, to the interplay between the requirements of tyrannies (religious as well as secular) to control their political future, to the demands of military organizations for professionally competent officers who understand tactics and operations and who are able and willing to provide honest judgments of what is happening or might happen on the battlefield. In that respect, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Iran and Saddam’s Iraq exhibited considerable similarities, although Saddam at times proved a faster learner—at least over the course of his war against Iran. On the opposite side, Khomeini and his fellow religious leaders appear to have clung, right through to the conflict’s end, to their belief that religious fanaticism and revolutionary spirit would triumph over all. General Hamdani on several occasions commented on how much the American military had impressed him in both 1990 and 2003. Particularly interesting was his view that the U.S. Army was far superior to any he had seen in the Middle East—including the Israel Defense Forces. What particularly impressed him in 1990 was the sight of U.S. Soldiers along the Saudi-Kuwaiti border in full body armor and Kevlar helmets during the early period of Operation Desert Shield, despite the fact that the temperature was over 100 degrees and that hostilities had yet to begin. He claimed to have noted to one of his subordinates at the time that the American appearance alone underlined “a real sense of discipline.” The formal discussions documented in Part Two took place over a 4-day period in May 2007. Kevin Woods and Williamson Murray did most of the questioning, while Tom Holaday entered the discussions freely—sometimes in Arabic, sometimes in English. The relaxed nature under which the discussions took place allowed for maximum exchange of ideas and for follow-on questions to elucidate the matters under discussion. Some of the most interesting and insightful discussions began with an examination of Hamdani’s early military career before the Ba’ath party assumed full control of Iraq and its military organizations. General Hamdani entered the Iraqi

AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE

army immediately after the 1967 Six-Day War had seen the Israeli ground and air forces completely shatter the military forces of Syria, Egypt, and Jordan in a blitzkrieg campaign that lasted less than a week. He suggested that the humiliation of 1967 helped create not only the revolutionary political situation in Iraq (and other Arab nations) that brought the Ba’ath to power, but also a seriousness, purposefulness, and professionalism in the Iraqi army that had not existed before. That increased level of professionalism helps explain improvements in the fighting abilities those armies displayed in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.5 Arab armies, including Iraq’s, took hard, realistic training far more seriously than they did before the Six-Day War. They also studied their Israeli enemy much more carefully. Thus, by the fall of 1973, the Iraqi army was tactically and logistically ready to deploy directly from Baghdad to fight on the Golan in the last battles of the war with surprising effectiveness. Concerning his knowledge of the enemy, Hamdani commented that even as a first lieutenant, he and many of his fellow junior officers knew the names and reputations of nearly every prominent Israeli general officer. General Hamdani participated in the 1973 fighting on the Golan as a young company grade officer. The Iraqis, he claimed, were able to play an important role in the conflict by attacking the flank of the Israelis’ two-division drive on Damascus. Whether the Israelis actually were going that far is another matter. Histories of the war suggest that the Iraqi attack persuaded the Israelis to halt their advance and move to reinforce the war’s southern front, where the Egyptians were about to attempt their breakout from positions on the east bank of the Suez Canal. What was particularly interesting about Hamdani’s comments was his contention that the 1973 war represented a significant high point of Iraqi military professionalism. The logistical movement from Iraq to the Golan, followed by the almost immediate conduct of operations by the Iraqis after they arrived at the battlefront during the heaviest fighting on the Golan Heights, became a standard to study and emulate in the Iraqi army.

In the immediate aftermath of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the Iraqis continued their efforts to improve the army’s overall level of professionalism and preparedness. General Hamdani claimed that the Iraqi army, still not overwhelmed by Ba’ath party “political correctness,” carried out a careful analysis of the lessons from the Arab-Israeli War. A number of items still stuck in his mind from that effort. One lesson was that the Arab armies suffered from a considerable deficiency in technological knowledge—a direct result of the deficiencies in the educational systems of the Arab world—in comparison to their Israeli counterparts. It was also clear to Hamdani that the Arab armies had largely modeled themselves—not surprisingly, given their origins in the colonial period—on the

SADDAM'S WAR

slow and methodical approach to war taken by the British Army. In contrast, the Israelis had modeled themselves on the Wehrmacht with its emphasis on speed, maneuver, decentralized leadership, and risk taking. The results of these educational and cultural differences showed clearly in the fighting on the Golan, where the Israelis reacted faster and adapted more quickly at the lower tactical levels than did their Arab opponents. These cultural and educational weaknesses would have little impact in the war with Iran, but they certainly influenced Iraqi performance in the two wars against U.S.-led coalitions. General Hamdani admitted there were serious problems with the level of professionalism of his fellow officers in the Iraqi army (and other Arab armies, for that matter). Most displayed considerable disinterest in military history or how other military organizations (non-Arab) might operate. This dichotomy between Hamdani’s ideal of what military professionalism should be and the reality of the Iraqi army only grew as the influence of Saddam and the Ba’ath party expanded during the course of Hamdani’s military career. Following the 1973 war, the Ba’ath began to make inroads into the army’s professionalism. The party’s leaders and senior military increasingly emphasized political loyalty and ideology as important elements in judging an officer’s fitness for promotion. Saddam’s seizure of power in 1979 further accelerated the politicization of the army. Whereas the saying in the early part of the Ba’ath rule had been “better a good soldier than a good Ba’athist,” it changed to “better a good Ba’athist than a good soldier.” The emphasis was now on political reliability and unquestioned obedience to orders rather than on serious military professionalism. Moreover, once firmly in charge, Saddam acted to promote a number of lieutenant colonels to major general, and subsequently to the command of divisions, without requiring them to hold any of the traditional staff or intermediate level command positions. Not surprisingly, this had a serious impact on the army’s overall military effectiveness in a war with a much larger neighbor. Not all of these officers were political puppets of the political elite; some were competent, serious officers. But Saddam had promoted them solely based on what he regarded as their political loyalty. Most crucially, from Hamdani’s point of view, they had not commanded either battalions or brigades to provide a solid basis of military experience. Many had not even studied the profession of arms through attendance at the staff college, which might have at least equipped them intellectually to handle larger commands. In other words, they were not ready for either division or corps command. Despite Ba’ath interference, however, the efforts made to improve the professionalism of the Iraqi army in the aftermath of the 1967 and 1973 defeats did play a significant role in the initial successes Iraq achieved against the Iranians in the early months of their conflict. But the larger problem that confronted the Iraqi

AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE

military was the fact that its political masters, as well as its senior leaders, had no clear strategic or operational goals in mind for the upcoming war.6

Neither the Iraqis nor the Iranians prepared their forces for the war their political masters were spoiling for. At the beginning of the conflict, the leaders of the opposing sides had no clear understanding of the requirements for military effectiveness, or the difficulties their states would confront. Their feeling was that any sufficiently loyal politician or religious leader was capable of exercising effective military command—a belief for which their armies would pay a heavy price in lives and treasure. As the war continued, the armed forces of Iraq and Iran found themselves involved in desperate efforts to learn and adapt under pressures that threatened, at times, to overwhelm them. Tragically, it seems that in both nations, the obdurate ignorance of the political leadership would substantially retard the effort of military professionals to learn and adapt to the realities of the battlefield. Both national leaders (Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini) significantly underestimated their opponent for similar reasons: both had little understanding of the limitations of their military institutions and even less understanding of their opponent. Saddam believed that military effectiveness was a matter of the “warrior”—much as in medieval terms—and the spirit and morale of soldiers, not necessarily of training, organization, or discipline. To him bravery on the battlefield, exemplified by his personal vision of the Arab fighter, was the only reasonable measure of military effectiveness. As Hamdani mentioned in reference to Saddam’s later confrontations with the Americans, the dictator could not grasp the significance of the scale and technological superiority of the American military. Khomeini, on the other hand, equated military effectiveness on the battlefield with religious fanaticism. One of the measures of effectiveness both the Ayatollah and Saddam used to judge the effectiveness of their battlefield commanders was the relative number of casualties their troops suffered in battle—very much a World War I approach.7 Early in the war, use of this metric was particularly true in the Iraqi case, as applied to division and corps commanders. From Saddam’s point of view, the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and the political chaos engendered by Khomeini’s religious revolution provided a perfect opportunity for him to act against Iran. Moreover, a number of Iraq’s senior officers (some, but not all, recently appointed to their senior positions by Saddam) believed that the apparent collapse of the Shah’s army meant there would be easy pickings to the east. What was not clear at the time, at least at Hamdani’s level, was what exactly Saddam hoped to gain from a war against Iran, except perhaps the prestige of a “victory against the Persians.” 8

SADDAM'S WAR

In hindsight, there appear to have been two political motives for Saddam’s decision to go to war: first, to overturn the unfavorable 1975 treaty Iraq had signed with the Shah that dealt with the shared waterway to the Persian Gulf; second, and more important, to achieve victory over the Persians—at a cheap price—therefore legitimizing Iraq’s claim that it deserved to replace Egypt as the head of the pan-Arab movement. This second motivation followed the “traitorous act” of Anwar Sadat, who, in signing the Camp David accords with Israel, had taken Egypt out of the so-called rejectionist camp. In other words, Saddam was aiming to assume Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nassir’s mantle from the disgraced Sadat. According to Hamdani, the Iraqis had no real military campaign plan in terms of operational objectives, or even coordinated tactical ones. Saddam appears to have believed that the invasion would quickly lead to Khomeini’s fall and replacement by a regime that would surrender much of southwestern Iran to the Iraqis. Thus, the initial Iraqi operation was a thrust into southwestern Iran, which militarily achieved little except for the gaining of indefensible territory. The major problem, however, lay in the fact that Saddam’s leadership style had so politicized the army’s senior levels that few, if any, generals were able, much less willing, to provide the dictator with honest assessments of the actual situation. Early in the conflict, “yes men” so dominated the Ba’athist regime’s military decisionmaking processes at every level that only major defeats were going to alter the picture. Deployed into the territory seized from the Iranians, the Iraqi army was unprepared for the initial onslaught of the Iranians. Many of these attacks depended on religious fanaticism alone for success. Meanwhile, given the optimistic reports he was receiving from senior commanders, Saddam remained ignorant of the tactical vulnerabilities of his forces. As Hamdani made clear, the only sensible operational approach that Saddam could have followed would have been to seize and then defend the passes leading out of Iran toward Iraq (predominantly in the central and northern sectors), as well as those in the Zagros Mountains through which Iranian forces would have had to deploy from the center of the country. This would have complicated Iranian efforts to launch and support their military forces against the Iraqis. But such a decision would have had to rest on Saddam’s recognizing that a conflict with Iran was likely to be a long one—something he never foresaw. Consequently, the geographic positioning of the Iraqi army on key and defensible terrain was never seriously considered. Such an approach was not in the cards for a regime that consistently based its decisions on the dictator’s ill-founded assumptions and hopes. Much as he would throughout his reign, Saddam tended to believe his own propaganda—war against Khomeini’s Islamic Republic would prove an easy matter and would result in a glorious and quick victory.

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On the other side of the hill, the chaos of the revolution meant that there were no coherent decisionmaking processes at all. Khomeini seemed to regard the conflict with Iraq as a God-given opportunity to solidify the revolution and defeat his political opponents in Tehran. Moreover, it also represented an opportunity to gain revenge for what he regarded as the ill treatment he had received at the hands of Saddam’s government when, at the Shah’s behest, it forced him in the mid-1970s to flee Iraq for Paris. It appears that Khomeini and his inner circle had even less understanding of military realities than Saddam. According to Hamdani, undergirding Khomeini’s passion for the war was a belief that religious fanaticism, reinforced by Persian nationalism, could overwhelm everything in its path. As a result, and almost until the bitter end, Khomeini would prove unwilling to make peace with Iraq short of complete victory. Iran would not back down, no matter how costly the war might become, at least until the point where its forces suffered a catastrophic series of military defeats—an unlikely event for a considerable time, given the preparation of Iraq’s military for a major conflict. Thus, while Saddam was looking for a cheap, easy victory, the Persians were looking to accomplish the complete overthrow of Saddam’s regime and its replacement by a Shia puppet regime.9 The Iranian military had a number of serious problems. Foremost was the fact that the revolution caused deep fractures within Iranian society—fractures that represented contending political and religious factions, as well as the divided nature of opposition to the Shah’s regime. Iran’s military already had been purged of those loyal to the Shah or those whom the new regime did not trust. Even after the purges, the Iranian military had little standing with those in the political realm. Military professionalism was simply not in the vocabulary of Khomeini’s regime. The alternative to the professional military in Iran was a number of revolutionary militias. None of these militias had any serious military training, nor, as Hamdani would describe, did they possess leaders with even the slightest understanding of tactics. The militias—in some cases no more than small groups swearing fealty to a local imam or ayatollah with political ambitions—often acted independently, obeying no instructions and initiating combat actions without orders to do so. Local Iranian commanders appeared to have had almost complete freedom of action, whatever the strategic or operational consequences might be. This may well explain the fact that some Iranian units began shelling Iraqi towns and military positions in a rampageous fashion before the Iraqi invasion began and before the initiation of large-scale military operations. Thus, one can hardly speak of coherent Iranian military operations, much less a strategic conception, throughout the first 4 years of the conflict. While the militias were important in the dangerous game of politics swirling around Tehran, they had no military training and remained disjointed, answering to different clerics and factions among Khomeini’s supporters and

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exhibiting little interest in repairing their military deficiencies. Not surprisingly, their attitudes reflected those of their leaders, and they showed little or no willingness to learn from, much less cooperate in military operations with, the regular army. All of this derived from their belief that religious fervor was the key to victory on the battlefield. Thus, Iranian tactics remained unimaginative and militarily incompetent throughout the war. More often than not, human wave attacks were all the Iranian militias could launch. The result was a catastrophic casualty tally reminiscent of the fighting in World War I. Unlike in Baghdad, where Saddam attempted to control everything, the exact opposite military command model was in effect in Tehran. Various factional leaders, imams, and others launched attacks or raids in an effort to curry favor with the religious and political leaders, who were in turn jockeying for position around Khomeini. Early in the war, few if any of Iran’s attacks appeared to have coherence or clear objectives, nor did they fit into a larger strategic conception of the war. Most battles thus contributed to the growing casualties while achieving little of tactical, much less operational, value. This situation reflected the general lack of military understanding among the religious and political leaders in Tehran, who were supposedly running the show.

According to Hamdani, the first 3 years of the conflict reflected the miscalculations of the opposing sides. Once embarked upon, the war absorbed the attention of those fighting, while desperate attempts to mobilize larger forces sapped the ability to adapt and change in a coherent fashion. Saddam’s top-down interference and lack of understanding of military realities led the Iraqi army to carry out a series of ill-conceived movements that, despite leading to the capture of Khorramshahr, were without clear objectives.10 The war itself began with bombardments on both sides that reflected the war of words surging between Tehran and Baghdad. While Iranian troops fought with considerable fanaticism at the local level, they displayed no coherent or effective response to the initial Iraqi moves. The battle of Khorramshahr (October 6–24, 1980) proved to be a violent and bloody affair in which each side suffered around 7,000 casualties. Eventually Iraqi firepower and tactical superiority took the remains of what had once been a city. In analyzing Iranian military operations in the first months of the conflict, Hamdani suggested that no one appeared to be in charge on the Iranian side. Instead, local regular army and militia commanders, supported by mullahs on the scene (who played an analogous role to that of commissars in the Red Army during World War II), responded to Iraqi moves as they saw fit, with little or no coordination with each other or the national authorities. Many in Tehran seemed

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content simply to beat the drum of fanatical religious propaganda. Others provided irrelevant advice, based on their misconceptions and faulty assumptions. New units arriving at the front had little coherent or sensible training, nor for a considerable period did there appear to be any kind of lessons-learned process among the units of Iran’s various military forces. Thus, little combat learning took place among Iranian forces over the first several years of the war. Khomeini responded to initial Iraqi incursions with a massive mobilization of Iran, which provided huge numbers of men for the militias—and fewer for the army—who were willing to die as martyrs. Iran, with its far larger population, enjoyed a significant advantage over Iraq in this regard. Nevertheless, Khomeini never seems to have understood the need for military professionalism. Throughout the war with Iraq, Iran’s senior leaders harbored suspicion of those officers from the Shah’s army who survived the early purges. Hamdani recalled that according to captured Iranian officers, the evaluation of military competence largely rested on a judgment as to how religious a commander was or was not. Moreover, the heads of the various militias displayed little or no interest in exploiting the expertise of the regular officers for the training of their units. Ironically, with the massive mobilization, the threat that Khomeini represented to the stability of the oil regions of the Middle East made it difficult for the Iranians to acquire the heavy weapons such as tanks or new aircraft that played a key part in the fighting on the ground. It also led to a situation where the Iraqis—with access to modern Soviet and Western weapons—were able to increase their technological capabilities slowly but steadily. According to Hamdani, the result of Iran’s lack of access to sophisticated modern weapons was that, as they depleted the stock of heavy weapons and spares acquired by the Shah, they had to field a light infantry force supported by diminishing amounts of armor and artillery. This was not necessarily a disadvantage in swampy areas like the Fao Peninsula or the mountains to the northeast of Baghdad, but it put the Iranians at a distinct disadvantage in areas of flat desert terrain and at the approaches to Basra, where much of the heavy fighting occurred. After the initial advance into Iran, many of the Iraqi generals deployed at the front failed to meet the challenge of complex operations. Moreover, in Hamdani’s opinion, their lack of experience led to inferiority complexes and made them unwilling to take advice from their subordinates. The result was a series of stunning defeats, beginning in 1981, that drove the Iraqis back to and then beyond the starting point of their invasion.11 These defeats forced Saddam to move gradually away from his emphasis on political reliability for his generals toward greater willingness to reward and promote those who displayed some level of military competence. Still, as Hamdani emphasized during our conversations, Saddam never let go of his deep suspicion of his generals and his belief that they represented the only potentially serious threat to his dictatorship.

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By mid-1982, the Iraqis managed to stabilize the military situation back on their own territory. Hamdani indicated that special operations forces, combined with armored support, played a major role in bringing this about. However, Iraq’s special forces proved a wasting asset and by the end of 1982 had been almost completely exhausted by the heavy losses suffered through continuous use. Despite its success, there would be few attempts to rebuild Iraqi special forces over the remainder of the conflict. The high casualty rates of junior officers at the front and the expansion of the Iraqi army meant that both the quantity and quality of officers qualified for special operations duty dropped as the war spun out of control.

The military and strategic situation forced Saddam in 1982 to begin the mass mobilization of the Iraqi nation. By that point, he realized he had involved Iraq in a long war and that no easy or quick solutions would bring peace. In that year, he created the Republican Guard to provide his commanders with greater flexibility in responding to the constant series of Iranian offensives. The Republican Guard was to form a counterattack force against the major Iranian offensives, which marked much of the fighting throughout this period. Those Iranian offensives, beginning in the summer of 1982, swept like an arc around Basra from north to south as the Iranians groped for weaknesses in the Iraqi defenses. The Iranian efforts in the south—their main emphasis throughout the entire war—reflected their hope that the Shia of the region would respond to their coreligionists from Iran (which they did not).12 Nevertheless, these Iranian offensive operations put immense pressure on the Iraqi forces. The fact that Khomeini’s military forces, both the regular army and the militia, were increasingly becoming an all-infantry army that relied almost entirely on human wave attacks had a considerable effect on the fighting. The lack of armor and artillery limited the pressure Iranians could put on the Iraqis on the northern front, because while the mountainous terrain on the border favored infantry operations, the more open terrain lying beyond provided Iraqi armor with an enormous advantage, of which it made full use. Similar factors held in the south, where swamps and waterlogged terrain helped the Iranians to the east of Basra, but the more open and urban terrain around Basra and to the west favored the Iraqis. By this point in the war, the heavy losses in the initial fighting had severely depleted the Iraqi officer corps, which never fully recovered despite Saddam’s mobilization efforts. Still, the Iraqis were able to mobilize sufficient forces to halt the Iranians and begin a dogged defense of the territory—and oil wells—near Basra and the mountainous approaches to the east of Baghdad. Throughout this period, the opposing sides had to resort to a war of attrition. The Iranians consistently used human wave attacks aimed at overwhelming

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Iraqi positions and imposing heavy casualties on the defenders. On the Iraqi side, there was little thought given to major counterattacks, except where important positions had fallen. Rather, the goal was to inflict as many casualties as possible on the attackers. The Iraqis (particularly Saddam) saw hope in the situation, believing that in view of their terrible losses, the Iranians would eventually overthrow Khomeini and agree to a ceasefire. In 1983, having had little success in their attacks against Basra’s defenses, the Iranians opened a major offensive against the approaches to Baghdad through the mountains northeast of the capital. Their aim, according to Hamdani, was to establish a second front against the Iraqis in an area where they could gain substantial aid from the locals.13 In this case, the Kurds—to Saddam’s fury—broke the truce they had agreed to and cooperated with the Iranian attacks.14 It also appears that Khomeini was putting substantial pressure on his military commanders to achieve a major success similar to that of the 1981 counterattack against Saddam. The Iranian offensive foundered for two reasons. First was the Iranians’ inability to move beyond the tactical mode and articulate a level of operational capability to exploit tactical successes when they occurred. The cause of this failure was a general lack of professionalism at the higher levels of Iranian military forces—not surprising when ayatollahs appeared to play as much of a (if not the dominant) role as senior Iranian officers in decisionmaking. The second reason pertained to the fact that the Iraqis, possessing what to all intents and purposes were interior lines, could shuffle divisions quickly from the south, where they had concentrated most of their strength to meet the Iranian offensives, to the north. Moreover, the Iraqis at the highest levels were beginning to exhibit some awareness of how to operate at the operational level of war. As their losses mounted at the lower tactical level, the Iranians became increasingly proficient at infiltration and small unit tactics. In this arena, they were clearly superior to their opponents. Thus, in mountainous terrain east of Baghdad, in the north, and in the swampy terrain characterizing the areas to the northeast and southeast of Basra, they enjoyed considerable advantage. But elsewhere, where the ground lay open and thus amenable to the use of armor, Iraq’s superior armored forces, backed by dug-in infantry and artillery, halted enemy attacks and inflicted disproportionate casualties on the attacking Iranians. As a result, the war took on the guise of World War I attrition, as the two sides’ military forces, equipped and trained in different patterns, inflicted heavy casualties on each other without being able to gain a decisive advantage. By 1984, however, the Iraqis began to use chemical weapons, which did provide them an important advantage, given the failure of the Iranians to prepare for such a threat. The use of these weapons would continue for the remainder of the war.15

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It was during this portion of the war that Hamdani received his most dangerous assignment. At the time, he was a battalion commander, having reached that rank largely on the basis of his military competence and the incompetence of others, rather than his penchant for suggesting new ideas to his superiors. He received Saddam’s two sons—as well as Tariq Aziz’s son—to serve as officers in his battalion. Saddam’s propaganda message was that even his sons were serving in combat, so all of Iraq’s people must participate in the war for what was clearly the survival of the Ba’ath regime. However, Saddam provided Hamdani with more nuanced instructions: he was to ensure that neither son fell into Iranian hands or, by implication, died in battle. General Hamdani suggested that his success in this task could be one of the only reasons he remains alive today. The close relation he established with Qusay, Saddam’s heir apparent, probably kept him out of prison in the mid-1990s and saved his career after he dared to offer military suggestions that contradicted Saddam’s views.

The Iranians did display some ability to learn. In 1986, they launched an offensive against the Fao Peninsula southeast of Basra. Catching the Iraqis off guard, they seized the peninsula with a joint amphibious assault heavily supported by artillery. The Iraqi defenders, coordinated from Baghdad, expected an attack on Basra from the northeast and were completely unprepared for the Iranian strike at Fao. Moreover, they failed to react quickly, which magnified the Iranian success. In the marshes and canals of the Fao Peninsula, Iraqi tanks proved vulnerable because of their lack of maneuverability. Not surprisingly, the Iraqi counterattacks were a complete failure. In the Fao campaign, for the first time since the war began, Iranians displayed a significant degree of military professionalism. They made every effort to play to their strengths while minimizing those of the Iraqis. They launched major forces against the swampy terrain that makes up most of the peninsula. For the attack, they trained a large force of infantry for an amphibious assault and prepared large numbers of small boats and landing craft. The infantry infiltration tactics they had developed on the central sector played to the geographic realities of the swamps on the peninsula. According to Hamdani, the North Koreans provided sophisticated combat engineering advice and support to Khomeini’s forces. Perhaps most significantly, the Iranians managed to achieve a modicum of cooperation between the remnants of the regular army and the various militias. This allowed them to plan the operation over the winter of 1985/1986 with considerable precision. Iraqi overconfidence, together with the unwillingness of those in Baghdad to recognize what was happening, served to magnify the initial Iranian successes. The commanders on the spot showed a distinct bravado that they could halt any Iranian attack, while commanders at higher levels in the Basra area displayed a lack

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of imagination in analyzing what the Iranians were up to. Extensive radio deception by the Iranians played a role in convincing the Iraqis by reinforcing their prejudices and assumptions. When the Iraqi generals in the area finally realized that something major was occurring on the peninsula, senior military and political leaders in Baghdad further delayed in sending reinforcements, because they concluded that the Iranians were staging a deception operation and that their main attack would come against Basra. Not until Iraqi forces—approximately of division strength— had been crushed and had lost most of the Fao Peninsula did commanders in Basra and Baghdad awaken to the danger. By then it was too late. The hesitation to reinforce those units defending the peninsula, particularly the 26th Division, which were under enormous pressure and on the brink of collapse, appears to have stemmed from fear that the Iranians would launch a major offensive against Baghdad, the loss of which would mean the end of Saddam’s regime. Hurried reinforcements arrived into a chaotic situation. The Iraqi army responded with counterattacks by heavy armored units. In the bogs and swamps of the Fao Peninsula, this poorly coordinated approach of armored forces made no sense; it played into the hands of the Iranian forces’ strengths and resulted only in heavy losses of men and equipment without regaining any significant territory. It was a sobering experience for all involved. It is now apparent that the Iranian strike against the Fao Peninsula was the opening move of a major offensive to seize Basra and deal the Ba’athist regime an immense military and political blow. The initial Basra attacks failed, but the commanders of the III and VII Corps, close associates of Saddam, were political generals and consistently overstated the losses their troops were inflicting on the Iranians.16 Thus, when a further wave of even larger Iranian attacks hit Iraqi positions, the Iraqis were clearly in danger of losing Basra and the oil wells to the west. They held on, but largely due to Iranian mistakes and the enemy’s inability to exploit any of the gains and breakthroughs its attacking forces had made. The situation around Basra was desperate and remained so for much of the rest of the year. General Hamdani described the fighting as another “Battle of the Somme,” in which both sides suffered extraordinarily heavy losses. The number of Iraqis killed in action approached 50,000; Iran’s losses were two to three times higher—at least by Hamdani’s estimate. In the end, the Iraqis held back the Iranian tide. Chemical weapons played a major role, as did the failure of the Iranians to prepare their forces to deal with such weapons. The fighting around Basra did prove a sobering experience for Saddam, who finally, at least in this conflict, placed more trust in military professionals. Certainly, the difficulties the Iraqis encountered in defending Basra after the

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defeat on the Fao Peninsula were considerable impetus for the increased interest in professionalism for the short term. In fact, throughout 1986, the Iraqis carried out a number of reforms at all levels that were to have a substantial impact not only on the defensive battles of 1987, but also the devastating counterattacks they launched in 1988, which finally broke the back of Iran’s—and Khomeini’s—willingness to continue the conflict. The most important reform in Iraq came in July 1986. Saddam made the decision to pull the Republican Guard units out of the front line and begin a wholesale reequipping and retraining effort from squad level all the way to division and corps command. This involved the arrival of the most modern Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers called BMPs (boyevaya mashina pekhoty, or infantry fighting vehicle) as well as heavy artillery. Saddam seems to have recognized that he needed to make a major effort to improve Iraq’s military capabilities or face defeat. Thus, there was a greater willingness at the top to pay serious attention to the recommendations of the more professional officers to build up the Republican Guard’s capabilities. In addition, Saddam authorized major recruiting drives among those who had largely avoided military service thus far in the conflict. Targeted were students, the sons of tribal leaders, and many of the wealthier classes. In particular, the recruiting effort targeted Anbar Province, one of the strongholds of Sunni and Ba’athist support for Saddam, which was to gain the distinction of being the only province in Iraq not to revolt during the troubles in 1991. This effort to improve the combat effectiveness of the Republican Guard involved more extensive training at all levels to improve tactical and battlefield proficiency of officers commanding Republican Guard units. Initially, the aim was to create a force that could dominate the battlefield by counterattacking Iranian infantry penetrations of Iraqi defensive positions. Saddam initially hoped to create 10 divisions for this purpose, but the Iraqis were ultimately able to create only 5. One constraint was the inability to fill the critical officer positions owing to the loss of so many competent junior officers during the war’s first 6 years. Saddam’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, was in charge of the overall effort to improve the Republican Guard.17 Perhaps as a result of his limited military qualifications, Kamel proved willing to listen to the more competent Republican Guard staff officers and commanders, the most important of whom was Ayad Al-Rawi. The problem remained that a substantial number of Republican Guard commanders were brave but professionally unprepared and often incompetent in the positions they held. Overall, however, by 1987, the Iraqis were able to field a number of relatively effective Republican Guard units—at least in comparison to the Iraqi and Iranian units that had fought the war thus far. These Republican Guards were to play a crucial role in the last 2 years of the conflict.

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In the fighting that occurred in 1987—almost all of it around Basra—the newly refurbished and expanded Republican Guard divisions proved to be the decisive force Saddam had been in search of since 1980. The Iranians continued their major attacks aimed at taking Basra, during which they again showed little willingness to learn from previous experiences. Moreover, much of the religious fanaticism that had characterized their troops in the war thus far began to subside. Given the huge losses the forces had suffered without discernable gains, the Iranian leaders, political as well as military, were beginning to have difficulty motivating their soldiers. However, the major factor in the Iraqi ability to hold off the Iranian attacks lay in the skill and capabilities of the expanded and improved Republican Guard formations. In the heavy fighting throughout 1987 just to the east and northeast of Basra, Republican Guard units repeatedly hammered the Iranian breakthroughs and quickly retook the ground the Iranians seized. The continued success of these counterattacks had the effect of steadily lowering Iranian morale and setting the stage for the major Iraqi offensive of 1988. The Iraqi offensive for 1988 aimed to regain the territory lost to the Iranians on the Fao Peninsula. Planning began relatively early in 1988 and involved Saddam and six senior officers. Not until immediately before the offensive were the staffs brought into the planning processes. Beyond the six officers and Saddam, no one knew the extent of the coming offensive. The attack had major political as well as operational goals, because the loss of the Fao Peninsula, the one success the Iranians had enjoyed thus far in the war, would deal Khomeini’s regime a major blow. Deception operations covered the Iraqi preparations for the offensive. It is still not clear what happened on the other side, but Iranian intelligence appears to have missed the signs of the impending Iraqi attack. The Republican Guard’s offensive caught the Iranians flat-footed. Whatever improvements had occurred in their military forces—substantially less than those of Iraq—major rifts remained between the militias and the regular army and among the militias themselves. The Iranians reacted not at all at first, a fact that probably reflected the same overly optimistic reporting to Tehran by senior commanders at the front that had marked the Iraqi reporting about the Iranian attack on the Fao Peninsula in 1986. The slow reporting exacerbated the fact that Iranian forces possessed relatively little mobility and, hence, found it difficult to react effectively to a deteriorating situation. Once again, the Iraqi attack resembled a World War I offensive with its heavy emphasis on the use of artillery and gas against the Iranians. By catching Khomeini’s forces by surprise, the Iraqis were able to minimize their weakness in command and control (C2)—a weakness on both sides throughout the war—while maximizing the C2 difficulties on the other side.18 Most of the Iranians fought doggedly, but the surprise the Iraqis had gained, as well as careful planning and

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preparation for the battle, allowed the Republican Guard to dominate the battlefield even considering the difficulties of the terrain. Firepower, gas, and superior planning eventually resulted in a devastating defeat for the Iranians. Shortly thereafter, Khomeini agreed to an armistice with Saddam’s Ba’athist regime, and the dismal Iran-Iraq War came to an end. General Hamdani offered some interesting observations on what the Iraqis believed they confronted in terms of an Iranian threat in the 1990s. Historically, Iraq has been the borderland between the Arab and Persian worlds, with major Iranian invasions in 1626 and 1754 of the Mesopotamian valley, then held by the Ottoman empire. He emphasized the historical Iranian drive to the west in both military and cultural terms.19 Saddam’s initial response to the Iranian problem in the postwar period was to emphasize the naval and air components of a future conflict—clearly an indication that even he had been influenced by the cost of the ground fighting.20 Included in his analysis was an emphasis on mobile ballistic missiles, which had played a major role in what the Iraqis had termed “the Battle of the Cities.”21 From what the Iraqis could tell, the Iranians made major efforts throughout the period to bring their military forces up to the standards set by the Iraqis in the last year of the war. The shambles that the Americans had made of Iraq’s military in the 1991 Gulf War also played a role in these Iranian efforts. There did appear to be considerable efforts to bring the Pasdaran and Quds militias up to some semblance of professional standards. The events of 1990–1991 had a huge impact on the Iraqi military, while the continued confrontation with the United States during the 1990s made it difficult to focus on the Iranian threat. Still, Saddam and most officers believed that a renewed war with the Iranians was more likely than another major conflict with the United States. Given the experiences of 1980–1988, however, most felt such a conflict would not involve a similar conventional war, but rather Iranian efforts to infiltrate agents, arms, and small forces to support another major rebellion by the Shia.22

General Hamdani provided a detailed and nuanced view of Saddam as a military and political leader. He first noted that Saddam possessed a complex personality—“one could say that he possessed multiple personalities.” The dictator was highly intelligent and, when open-minded, which he was at times, quick to grasp essential points. On the military side, his openness largely depended on the difficulties Iraqi forces were confronting at the time. In the early days of the war with Iran, for example, he was quite open and flexible when adapting to difficult

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military situations. For the most part, however, he tended to confuse reality with what he wished to be true. Saddam was certainly not an easy person to explain. According to Hamdani, the dictator was a combination of Stalin, the ruthless ruler, and Hitler, the aspiring general. Interestingly, the first military uniform that Saddam put on was that of an Iraqi field marshal. Hamdani recalled that Saddam could in the blink of an eye switch between his various personalities: “In one moment…he might kill a member of his own family without a care; then the next moment he would be extremely sensitive, tears in his eyes over the injury of a cat.” To make matters especially difficult for those who worked in his immediate surroundings or had to brief him, one never knew from moment to moment which one of Saddam’s personalities was going to emerge. Saddam had little understanding of military issues or what made for effectiveness in military institutions. Not only did he not want to know about the extent of American military and technological superiority, he also largely dismissed such factors as irrelevant on the battlefield. What mattered to him was the ideal of the Arab “warrior,” an individual who, he believed, had consistently proved his superiority on the battlefields of history and who would do so again. Above all, Saddam had no understanding of strategy. The military defeats and the serious operational situation at the front brought an increasing sense of military realism to Saddam’s approach to the war with Iran. That was much less the case in 1990–1991 and no longer the case by 2003. The combat conditions of 1982–1984 forced him to give greater freedom to his subordinates and, for the most part, made him more receptive to their advice. Nevertheless, political loyalty to the Ba’ath regime and particularly to its president remained the foremost of his criteria for selecting senior officers. Up to the Kuwait adventure, Saddam’s focus was on being a strong leader. But after the disaster of Kuwait, there was a significant change in his personality. With the rebellion of March 1991, he lost his trust in the Iraqi people, and his paranoia deepened. From that point on, virtually every decision that he made appeared focused on maintaining his control over Iraq. Combined with his paranoia and lack of trust in nearly everybody, the result was an Iraq where practically no sensible decisions could be made. Moreover, everyone in his immediate circle, including his sons, was terrified to the point that few were willing to suggest anything that they thought might upset the dictator. In the mid-1990s, his persona significantly changed—again for the worse. The defection of his son-in-law, Kamel, to Jordan affected him deeply. From Saddam’s perspective, the worst had happened: a member of the Tikriti mafia—in fact, of his inner family—had betrayed him. As a result, he isolated himself from everyone. Rarely did he go out among the people. He no longer trusted his senior

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officers, and some of his senior ministers went up to 2 years without seeing him. Finally, he no longer visited or reviewed the Republican Guards. It was during this period that Saddam began the construction of great palaces all over Iraq, few of which he ever visited. During this period of isolation, Saddam spent much of his time writing stories, poems, and novels. In 1995, he called his senior commanders, including all the division commanders, together. At the time, Saddam was holding an extended soirée with a group of artists and writers. The generals were held in expectation of the emergency meeting with Saddam and then were told to go home without ever having discussed anything with him. This last stage, which culminated in his unwillingness to address the increasing threat from the United States in 2002, was marked throughout by Saddam’s thoroughly unrealistic expectations and his inability to connect reality with his own hopes and dreams.

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Part Two. The Interviews

he following transcripts are from a series of long conversations with General Ra’ad Hamdani on May 14–19, 2007, in Jordan. The conversations occurred predominantly in Arabic with a mix of simultaneous and parallel translation into English. Interview transcripts have been edited for clarity and readability. Project members (Kevin Woods, Williamson Murray, and Thomas Holaday) are identified by name in connection with the questions each asked.

Murray: Please allow me to frame my questions with a few guiding ideas. These questions derive from what American military historians have focused on for the last 20–30 years. First, we are beginning to understand that no matter how good an army is on the tactical and operational levels of war, if it doesn’t get the strategy and politics right also, it loses. The crucial area is how well the strategy and the policy at the ends and means are calculated. Second, we understand that military organizations always get the “next war” wrong to one extent or another. The issue is how well prepared they are to adapt to the actual conditions of the war that confronts them. Finally, and mixed in with the processes of adaptation in a long war where both sides adapt, both sides change and so the critical element is to maintain that adaptation process throughout the course of the war. That said, many of our questions will focus on how well the Iraqi and Iranian military commanders at different levels adapted to the war they fought. I’d like to begin by asking about your views on the 1973 Yom Kippur War, recognizing that you were a very junior officer at the time—my guess is that you understood a great deal of the things that happened then later on in your career. The Arab armies did substantially better in the 1973 war than they did in the 1967

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war. Can you explain your perceptions of how such an improvement took place over such a relatively short time—between 1967 and 1973? Hamdani: First of all, the loss in 1967 was a great disappointment for the Arab population because of the high expectations. It got to the point where people in most Arab countries rallied to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the results of the war and even to ask for a change in the military leadership, and actually the current government at that time. So because of the disappointment that reigned over the Arab community, Arab political and military leaders made an effort to study the 1967 war and find lessons to be learned. This had a tremendous impact on the 1973 war. Before 1967, the numbers of the military were very small, equipment was not up to date, and additionally, everyone in the community believed that just by having the Egyptian and the Syrian armies working together, they could actually get the job done against the Israelis. When that failed, the resulting shock led to a loss of confidence in the militaries and governments. Nassir’s resignation was a direct result.23 There were similar movements in Syria, and even in Iraq, where the Ba’ath party made requests for the resignation of Abd al-Rahman Arif, since his government was unpopular and incapable of facing the challenge from Israel or any other potential adversary.24 Then, the 1968 military coup took place in Iraq, partially justified on the setback caused by the defeat of 1967. One could see the effects in Egypt as well, where people started to despise the average Egyptian soldier and call him a “Deserter of Sinai.” You see, the shock experienced by the Arab people was equivalent to the shock of September 11, 2001, for Americans. You could multiply the dissatisfaction felt in America by 10 to understand the atmosphere in the Arab countries around Israel at the time. When the battle began, I was in my last year of high school taking the final exams, but the authorities canceled everything. Everyone was disappointed and crying because of the loss of 1967—it was the loss of an illusion about the strength of the Arab armies. So based on this, officers began to study Arab military capabilities—in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. They started to study the reasons for the Arab defeat and reassess the military capabilities of their own forces. Murray: The Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu says that one of the most important elements in war is to know one’s enemy. My sense is that in 1967, the Arab armies, both in terms of professional attitudes as well as popular attitudes, simply did not know or understand or even fear their enemy, whereas in 1973, there was a far more serious and professional understanding that they were up against very, very tough people.

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Hamdani: Part of the answer lies in a different area—the old Arab military leadership after 1967 reassessed and reorganized the structure of their forces. Moreover, they reconsidered the political ideology and objectives of the armies— by that, I mean all armies including the Iraqi army. They realized through the assessments that most of the Arab forces had rested on the British model, while the Israeli forces were similar to the German model of World War II. So we, as the Iraqi army, adopted a system called the “battle legion” that integrated infantry and armor. Before 1967, those two branches had trained to fight separately. After 1967, they merged to conduct combined arms operations for the infantry and the tanks. Furthermore, after that, the air forces were connected to the armored and infantry forces—thus, there was more cooperation. The air force’s task had previously remained limited to support operations, but its aircraft now became integrated with ground operations. Because of this integration between the ground and air, we came to realize the importance of ground-based air defense systems. In previous years, we had used only the air force against the enemy’s air force. Due to the reassessments and integration, we were able to create a form of joint air defense system. The air force realized that when it comes to air defense, it is not just the air force that has the job, but it must also come from the lower levels, from the infantrymen. We requested a lot of information from the Soviet Union at that time, and many officers attended military planning sessions there and had Soviet experts visit Iraq to exchange ideas and train and support our forces. The largest problem we encountered was the fact that the world was very advanced technologically, while the education level of the Arab soldier was at a very basic level. At that time, as young officers, we had a major responsibility, especially when we requested new equipment, mostly Soviet equipment. But even this new equipment was of lower quality than the equipment provided to the Israelis by the Americans. President [Lyndon B.] Johnson’s granting of considerable supplies of U.S. weapons and equipment to Israel, such as the F–4 Phantom II, represented a terrifying level of support for us. In 1964, I remember seeing a video with President [John F.] Kennedy in it, where the Americans displayed a demonstration or training exercise with the Phantom aircraft dropping its bombs and firing missiles. This had a psychological impact on Arab officers, especially Iraqi officers, because that’s the way they look at it—that’s whom we fight, that’s our enemy, and that’s their capability. Therefore, they all felt afraid of the Phantom, which we knew and had seen in 1964, and which in 1969 went to the Israeli military, because of the American contribution to Israel. So our expectations of the enemy’s capabilities were high. It was clear that [Iraq] needed modern weapons and technology from the Soviet Union in order to counter those of the Israelis. But the real problem was that even if we had the equipment, we did not have the scientific expertise and training

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to actually make good use of it. This was the objective after 1967, to get revenge and regain respect for the Arab countries. This was accomplished, first of all, by changing the objectives, the mentality of the military leaders, as well as the style of how we fought during the first war. I graduated from the military academy in 1967, in Jordan, and most of our topics of study, training, and combat exercises were about the geography and operational range of Israel. As a lieutenant, I had seven or eight books in my tent all about the Israeli training, preparations, and weapons, and the American weapons and so forth. Everybody was interested in learning about our enemy, learning about his capabilities, his ideology. Even from my tent I would watch and try to identify the different tanks and airplanes that I saw—seeing the French AMX–13 [tank], the Centurion [British tank], the Phantom [American fighter], the Sukhoi [Soviet fighter flown by Arab air forces], and the Mystère [French fighter]—this sort of thing to get more information and learn more about our enemy. I fully recognized that our competence is represented by how much we understand the enemy. In 1972, the 71st Brigade moved from Jordan to Iraq, along with the rest of the 3d Armored Division, which was the best division in the Iraqi army at that point. We adopted the same battle system as the Israeli army; we trained the same way, and we carried out several long maneuvers over months in the desert in southern Iraq, for any future involvement [in a confrontation with the Israelis]. We learned that one has to do rehearsals and exercises on a consistent and intense basis. So in the 1973 confrontation, we had a much better understanding of the capability of our enemy; we knew largely what to expect. We had mainly focused on having the Israelis as our opponent. In 1967, we had the audacity, after putting all the Arab forces together, to ask, “Who is this Israeli force?” But in 1973, we needed to exact revenge on the Israelis—that was the objective, regardless of the cost. When the combat started in 1973, I was still a first lieutenant, but I was completely aware of the Israeli army’s leadership—the names and backgrounds of its generals. This shows you how much interest in studying the enemy we had. We considered ourselves in 1973 to be in a position to challenge the Israeli army. [Moreover], we witnessed how even after their losses they were able to come back and balance, to rebalance their position after the initial Arab gains in the 1973 fighting. Woods: Let me ask a follow-up question on the last point. The lessons of 1967 that affected 1973—comparing that short period of 6 years, where the Arab armies were able to learn and perform at a much higher level than they had in 1967, to the period right after 1973—raises interesting questions. Can you explain to me the lessons process after the 1973 war? In other words, what was the focus of the Arab armies (specifically the Iraqi army) after the 1973 war, as it unknowingly moved toward the Iran-Iraq War?

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Hamdani: In the aftermath of the 1973 conflict, there was a feeling that Israel was becoming stronger than we could imagine. We thought that our preparations for 1973, all the assessments and the reorganizations of the Arab forces, would enable us to eliminate the Israeli army and force it to return to the [pre1967] borders of Israel. But the results of the war gave us the impression that Israel was stronger than we could imagine—all of our preparations had still not [made us equal] to the effectiveness of the Israeli army. We learned that they were far more well equipped and trained than what we expected after the 1973 conflict. I joined the Iraqi Staff College in 1978 and graduated in 1980. All the exercises we studied, theoretically and on the maps, all of them related to Israel, and not on any other target, such as Iran. Another objective for Iraq was to determine how an army might push the Israeli army back to its original borders. So there was hatred toward the United States of America because we felt that we were unable to defeat the Israelis because of the solid American support for them—which affected the political and psychological situation of the United States. After the war, especially from 1977 to 1979, Arab countries started to become more realistic militarily, when talking about the Israeli forces and their capabilities. We also talked about the normalization of relations between the biggest Arab country, Egypt, and Israelis in the Camp David Agreement.25 After this, a fissure emerged between the realistic politics of many Arab political leaders and the emotions of the Arab people toward Israel. The trust between the people and the political leaderships collapsed. This split also occurred between Iraq and Egypt. Iraq was trying to maintain the [split as an] issue and embarrass the Egyptian leadership for its peace projects with Israel. So there was a split between the political leaderships of Iraq and most other Arab countries, and the Arab people. This affected the position of the army and its preparations. For the first time it became apparent that there was a big difference between the political theories (or ideologies) and the reality of the political situation. Therefore, our generation of captains and majors felt that we were going to coordinate the units—the combat unit leaderships, because we were the ones about to take command. We sensed a reality not consistent with the direction of most Arab leaders. A new school started [within the Iraqi officer corps] that we called the “reality school.” We began to differentiate between our real leaders, who were wise in thinking and speaking, and those who just held high ranks but were weak thinkers. It motivated me to become the sort of effective leader who used his brain to understand the processes [involved in] any potential conflict. The political change in Iraq, of changing the direction of our military, did not begin until 1979–1980.26 We actually had a full armored corps ready to go into combat at a high level with the Israeli forces. Our thoughts and sights always

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focused toward the west. So making the switch of the objectives, goals, and targets from the west to the east represented a dramatic change within the military community. Our great experience, exercises, and previous engagements with the Israelis led to our initial and relatively quick success over Iranian forces in the early stages of the war. That is, our confrontations with the Israeli forces and preparations for the next war with them pressured a rather unsophisticated army to become a welltrained one with different people and a different ideology—it helped the professionalizing processes in the Iraqi army. Murray: In terms of 1973, this was the one war where Arab strategy connected with the actual means and ends available, and where the politicians reduced their interference, at least in terms of the actual conduct of military operations. This gave the maximum authority to military professionals to conduct operations and achieve reasonable military goals. Hamdani: I totally agree with you, but there was also real leadership within the Iraqi army. First-rate leaders rose up, while the political leadership had no choice but to go back to real military capabilities. A perfect example is Abd al-Hakim Amer who as a major was promoted to commander of the whole Egyptian army, because of his competence, which underlies the disconnect with times before the conflict.27 And General Sa’d al-Din el-Shathili, who had a totally different vision than Gamal Abdal-Nassir. He was a more realistic professional, rather than a politician.28 He was not influenced by parties during any conflict. The young professional officers within the Iraqi army continued to work until the Ba’athist political party came to power. The Ba’athists actually raised [the level of the army] and accelerated many promotions for young officers before the conflict with Iran. Woods: Specific examples of who emerged from 1973 as the professional generals, and the professional leaders, would be helpful. But tell us about what happened in that period when the Ba’ath party, or at least Saddam’s version of it, took firm control in 1979, just before the war. Was there a distinct change in the professional soldiers and leaders in that period before the Iran-Iraq War? How did the intellectual heroes and real leaders of 1973 fare just before the war with Iran? Hamdani: The Ba’ath party was in power in 1968 in Iraq, but it influenced the military leadership because of the confrontations with Israel, and this presented a dilemma. The party wanted to push the careers of the loyal young military officers, but, at the same time, for the most part it did not sacrifice the level of military professionalism during the time of crisis. Our slogan at the time was, “Better a good soldier than a good Ba’athist!” The turning point came when Saddam Hussein arrived in total control in mid-1979. He quickly gained the reputation of promoting young leaders who were loyal Ba’athists instead of real professional soldiers.

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So for the first time in the history of the Iraqi army, there were a large number of promotions for political reasons. At that time, in 1979, I was still at the staff college. I watched as Saddam promoted Lieutenant Colonel Hisham to brigadier general, as well as to command one of the first-line divisions. Another officer, Lieutenant Colonel Khaled . . . was also promoted to brigadier general, and became commander of the 3d Division, our best. Another was a staff major, Tali Ad-Duri, who was made a full colonel and commander of the 9th Division. Another was Mahmoud Shukr Shahin, promoted from colonel to brigadier general and who then became commander of the 6th Division. So these first four promotions were a major shock for the Iraqi army. All were very dramatic promotions. Then the war with Iran began. Murray: Did this have a large impact on the professionalization of the Iraqi army, now that political loyalty became more important than professional competence? Hamdani: This is correct. By the time we got to the war with Iran, the basic culture of the army had changed because of Saddam’s actions. He ordered politicians to serve at the army level and promoted himself to the military rank [of marshal]. He also emphasized the principle, a very dangerous saying, that as long as one was a Ba’athist he can always be a leader, since the Ba’athist is a truly natural leader. Therefore, there was no problem in a Ba’athist switching from being a politician to a military leader. Woods: Given all that you have explained about the Iraqi army learning after 1967 and 1973, and what you described as the professionalizing processes in your first couple of years as a relatively junior officer—by then you were a staff major, becoming a lieutenant colonel—do you remember talking to your peers? Did professional soldiers like yourself really know and dread the implications of this process of politicization? Did you regard this step as a giant step backward from where you had been in the years leading up to the conflict? Hamdani: This became a complex within the Iraqi military ranks because we knew as professional military officers that we would pay hard and dearly for Saddam’s actions in politicizing the army. Nevertheless, most of us knew that our duty was to continue to try to be a better military professional and not to try and get involved in political processes. Unfortunately, because of Saddam’s dictatorship, we had to keep silent. There was even a good and respectful man, by the name of Adnan Khairallah, whom Saddam promoted from colonel to the deputy general commander of the armed forces (or the minister of defense). Even this good man, whom we deeply respected and who had the right attitude, we did not feel that he was yet qualified for the position, but rather had received the position because Saddam Hussein had married Khairallah’s sister, and so they were brothers-in-law.

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Holaday: During the transitions after 1967 and 1973, the Iraqi military apparently learned many lessons and further professionalized its officer corps. However, during this time, a parallel process—the introduction of Ba’ath-loyal military officers to the higher ranks—seemed to contradict this [learning] progress. The military officers focused on threats from Israel and Iran while the political leadership seemed more concerned with internal dissent and the security of the regime itself. Did this split describe a larger tension between the domestically focused Ba’athist political leadership and the professional military-focused and regional orientation of the officers, one that continued through the subsequent decades? Hamdani: Well, as a matter of fact, there was not a complete change of military leadership as of 1979. The Ba’athist officers reached division leadership positions. There were professionals at a higher level than divisions. . . . we [professional soldiers] were among those professionals. We used to query them to reach out to the highest expertise available. We had more respect for the corps commanders because we considered them the real professional soldiers and commanders—many had been our instructors when we were at the [military] academy and staff college. This [tension] had a considerable impact during the course of the Iran-Iraq conflict. The first shock came at the onset of the war with Iran, when I was a staff major and commander of an armored reconnaissance battalion. At the time, I felt that a strategic mistake had been made. But, actually, neither of the two sides, Iraqi or Iranian, had a real understanding of the nature of the conflict we were entering. You see, each war has its own nature. The war with Israel [1973] had its own nature, and this was different from the nature of the war of the Kurdish insurgency [1974–1975], or the war with Iran [1980–1988], or the war with the Kurdish alliance [post-1991], and different from the nature of this last war in 2003. We experienced this reality directly; we felt and lived it on the ground, where we had only read about it before. When you move from one war to another, you realize there are major differences in character between each conflict. This was the difference between the political and professional members of the military—they had different perspectives about the nature of the war upon which they were about to embark. Woods: I’d like you to put yourself back into 1978–1979, the period when Iraq’s focus was on the Israeli military, focusing westward, as you described. The situation included the collapse of the Shah, starting in 1978, and then the emergence of

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the Iranian revolution in 1979, and finally a new regime in Iran. Thus, a revolutionary regime arose that was obviously of great concern to the Ba’ath party. Iraq now had a strategic challenge to the east. What do you remember about your understanding of the new political threats in the east? This seems to have been a dramatic change from 13 years of focusing on the military challenge to the west. What level of understanding did you have as a soldier about the potential adversary in Iran? Hamdani: When this change started, and Khomeini emerged in Iran, we did not have any other understanding about the regime and its capabilities, other than what we knew about the Shah’s army. I mean, we had no idea what was happening to the Iranian army. All we knew was that the Iranian military had significant capabilities, along with a first-rate American armament—for instance, the F–14 aircraft was something big, a truly advanced aircraft. They also had trained division staffs in many places, units that used to go from Iran to the United States for training. Therefore, we looked at the Iranian army as similar to the Israeli army, but maybe half as effective. We hated the Shah’s government, because the Shah interfered with the Kurds and other Iraqi causes internally. He had interests in the Shatt al-Arab and the Gulf area. He imposed himself as the police officer of the Arab Gulf. But after 1975, he became an echo of history for us.29 There weren’t any real problems with Iran, at least until the religious scholars mobilized their large and zealous population—then this became a scary thing for the surrounding countries and the region. We heard of the revolutionary changes inside Iran that largely wrecked the Iranian army. That is, the Iranian army collapsed with the Shah’s regime, and a popular revolutionary army started to emerge as its replacement. This appeared as a dark cloud. How could this strong, well-equipped, well-trained army just fall away with the regime to be replaced by just farmers and religious folk? We could not believe that the Shah’s army, with its American style and support, was not actually able to protect the Shah’s government. We had many worries over this transformation, wondering about the impact of these new religious leaders and scholars within the new Iranian army, and its possible impact on the Iraqi army, for example—especially the beliefs of the new leaders, who would bring the Middle East back to the stone age with their street education. So in brief, the Shah’s army, built over long years, collapsed like an avalanche. Nobody expected this. Now when we looked toward Iran, there were Islamic militias made up of farmers, workers, small groups, and [even] soldiers from the Shah’s army. This is when Saddam Hussein began to think about laying out a plan to destroy this army, because it was not nearly as strong as the Shah’s army had been. He saw this as the perfect moment, which Iraq needed to seize, because the Iranians were not well equipped, trained, or capable of fighting, and so he could eliminate the Iranian threat.

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In Iraq, the atmosphere emphasized the political and religious threats against the Ba’athist state, all in a frantic media. The Iranian religious scholars tried to export the revolution across the border. So the Iraqi government was under wide pressure from the Shia in Iraq, who were rallying and trying to manipulate the situation to benefit from the revolution in Iran or maybe even to implement the same thing in Iraq. Woods: At that point in time, the Arab Shia and Iraqi Shia made up a large percentage of the regular army in Iraq, right? Did you have concerns about the revolutionary influence within the Iraqi military as a junior officer? Was this Iranian influence a concern, and was it something you had to work against as an officer? In other words, was preventing revolutionary agitation within your forces a real concern for the average unit and junior officer? Hamdani: As a matter of fact, we did not think about the Shia or Sunni percentage issue then. The [Ba’athist] Iraqi state was not built on divisions, but on respect, and on technocrats. We knew that the percentage of Shia was high and that their numbers were large, not only in the army, but in all state institutions. The problem was that the Da’wa party adopted the same goal as the Iranian revolution and acted as a supporting hand for Iran in Iraq.30 They had both political as well as military members working for their long-term agenda in Iraq, and soon became active with the support of Khomeini’s government. Murray: It seems that in 1980, both Khomeini’s and Saddam’s regimes sought war as a means to ease internal difficulties, but also because of a bizarre underestimation of the will and the long-term capabilities of their opponents. Hamdani: This is true, but to be precise, Iraq had no hostile intentions. It started receiving direct threats from Iran, and this is what made Saddam think of a preventative and useful war. Truly, Iran was the one who launched its threats from inside Iraq through the Da’wa party. It was a strange situation. We had young [Shia] officers within the military and the air force, trying to sabotage aircraft and destroy tanks and acting on behalf of the revolution in Iran. The Iranian clerics believed that Saddam was atheist because his regime was secular. They were represented by the group of . . . Ibrahim Al-Ja’afari.31 We, like other soldiers in the world, believed that our weapon was our honor. A soldier is not allowed to put his gun down. So the [sabotage] operations to disrupt aircraft, weapons, and armor all began under the guidance of Iran. This scared us, because it represented a change in loyalty from the military service and the goals and honor of the army. How could someone destroy his own weapons; for whom would he do this? Woods: Let’s explore the Iraqi objectives in the very early stages of the military conflict. What kind of military objectives could stop the Shia revolutionary intent inside Iraq? As described, these were long-term activities, with the Da’wa party seeking long-term influence. How was the military instrument supposed to reach out

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and stop that process from your perspective? For example, was the intent to intimidate the Iranian government, or just to destabilize the revolution and force the Iranians to look internally and stop looking at Iraq? What were Iraqi military operations supposed to accomplish in terms of the larger problem of Iranian influence? Figure 3. The initial Iraqi invasion of Iran, September 1980

Source: Satellite image courtesy of National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Available at <www.parstimes.com/ spaceimages/mideast/>.

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Hamdani: The decision to go to war with Iran rested on several assumptions. The first was to prevent the exportation of the Iranian revolution to Iraq. The second was that the new Iranian army at the time was still in the early stages of formation, while the Shah’s army was dissolving. This presented an opportunity to attack when [the Iranians] were weak. The Iraqi leadership figured that if the Iraqi armies advanced approximately 10–20 kilometers deep into Iran along the borders, Khomeini would have to send [Iranian] forces from the surrounding area of Tehran to the borders. This would leave Tehran exposed, and give the opportunity to the Mehdi Bazargan group to revolt against the religious leadership and gain control of Tehran.32 So the idea was to bring the militia out of Tehran to weaken the revolution for a counterrevolution [see figure 3]. Murray: There is a wonderful quote in your memoir, where you say, “Both political systems lacked strategic vision; they fell easily into the great trap set for them by the major Western powers.” I would argue that there was no trap set, because, in fact, the West did not have any policy, either. Hamdani: There are a few points I’d like to make so that we can better understand how to evaluate the war, if you’d allow me to go into them. We see that both militaries were a part of Third World countries, and, on both sides, the regimes filled up their military institutions in the higher positions according to political loyalty rather than expertise. Additionally, both political leaderships failed to allow the professional military officers to participate in making military decisions. Rather, decisions occurred with political intent down to the lowest level—all the way down to the company level. Both militaries lacked senior level officers sufficiently competent to understand the concept of long-term strategy. But even if these capabilities had existed, or if there were a handful of officers who did have the understanding, their influence was disrupted by the political regimes at all levels. The political limits had a paralyzing effect on virtually every decision. Furthermore, both armies suffered from a limited level of education for both soldiers and officers. Regarding armaments, both armies relied on importing weaponry and other equipment. Murray: The situation was analogous to World War I in 1914, where nobody understood either the strategy or the political framework of the war. Everybody expected the war to be short and then, in fact, everybody had to adapt under the worst kind of circ*mstances—mainly huge casualties and suffering on both sides. Hamdani: No one has ever planned for a long war—this is a situation that humankind has repeated throughout time. Everyone thinks a certain action will happen and refuses to expect the war to be long. Just as in World War I, World War II, or any war, the Iraqi leadership did not expect the war with Iran to last for more than 8 weeks. Politicians always base their plans on winning the war, and they impose this plan on military leaders. This puts more pressure on the military to execute,

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even if they lack the capability to do so. [Georges] Clemenceau, the French prime minister, said, “War is so important that one should not leave it to just the generals.” Then, during World War II, General [Charles] De Gaulle commented, “War is too important to leave it to the politicians alone.” The truth is they were both right, but only if we combine the two aphorisms. This is the problem—there are no clear limits between politics and war. Determining this requires cleverness and talent. Where are the limits of politics and where are the limits of war? Figuring out this balance is where genius, talent, and experience show. The war, or the disaster that happened to Iraq, in my personal analysis, is the same problem that confronted the American administration in 2003—the interference of politicians in war, more than should have been the case. The actions of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, both of whom were politicians, to influence and pressure commanders on the ground did not give the officers the freedom to operate from their knowledge and expertise. Of course, General Tommy Franks did not argue or resist their influence on the military—and this is what affected the current crisis in Iraq so disastrously. General Colin Powell, as Secretary of State, was speaking from a clearer perspective on the military affairs than was the Pentagon. While Colin Powell was involved in foreign affairs, he was thinking more realistically from a military perspective than were the folks in the Pentagon. So as Dr. Murray noted, the problem of leaders not understanding the character of the war in which they are engaged . . . this will continue to remain problematic, whether in First World or Third World countries. Woods: The problems and the challenges that we are discussing today are probably much more universal than we often like to admit. Going back to 1980, I would like to ask about some specific events, such as some you covered in your memoir. Can you describe for me the period between 4 and 22 September 1980? You discussed what you called the series of quick raids by the 6th Armored Division and the 1st Mechanized Division, around 18 September—just before the main invasion. Can you explain the operational issues before the invasion on 22 September? What kind of operations were these? Were they part of the preparation for the main invasion, or just part of a preemptive strategy? How much of this activity was designed to draw the militias out of Tehran and to intimidate the regime, and so forth? Hamdani: As a matter of fact, it was a preparatory and necessary stage prior to the war, because of Iranian shelling of villages along the Iraqi side of the border. Those villages were supposed to become mobilization areas, safe for [Iraqi] troops—so this required pushing the Iranian artillery back so that the mobilization areas were safe, prior to the arrival of the main force.

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Woods: So these operations were designed to secure what [the United States] calls the “line of departure.” These operations were designed to secure the border area in preparation for the actual movement across the Shatt al-Arab. Hamdani: The [Ba’ath] party leadership met with the State Command in Abu Ghraib, on 6 July 1980, and made the decision to launch the war against Iran.33 Then on 7 July, the military and military leaders were informed of the decision to go to war. However, they were not told when the war was to begin. Instead, they were just ordered to begin preparations for the war. So there was no exact day [given] as to when it was going to take place. On 4 September, the early stage operations to secure the mobilization areas started. Murray: Could you put yourself in the Iranians’ shoes? Why were they doing harassing fire along the border? Did they feel that war was inevitable, or were they trying to push Iraq into military operations? What do you think their longterm military and political goals in terms of these actions were? Hamdani: I believe that their first purpose was to confirm the presence of the Iranian force. To say to Iraq that their army had not collapsed yet, that it was still a strong army, and could still influence things. The Iranian army was calling out to its adversary that it still stood strong. The second objective was to send a message to the Da’wa party, which was politically active and had carried out a number of acts of sabotage and terrorism over the summer of 1980, that there is a strong force that would support it.34 The Iranian leadership was confident that the Iraqi regime was ripe to collapse from any internal or external shock. These Iranian actions [aimed at] expediting the overthrow of [Saddam’s Ba’ath] regime. We had to understand that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard had started to dominate in Iran, but that the units carrying out orders were not a part of a centralized, comprehensive plan. Their actions started from different power centers with different agendas. This probably played a role. We’re seeing similar things in Iraq today, where there are various forces following different political agendas, based on different [Islamic] scholars. Woods: General Hamdani, you describe in your memoirs some specific events surrounding the Iraqi 12th Armored Division, as well as the 4th and 8th Divisions. You wrote how in the early weeks of the fighting [September-October 1980], there was considerable confusion on the operational command level, and on the staff planning level. You wrote that logistics and operational orders were unclear. In fact, you noted that the division commanders were not even clear on what their final objectives were. Were these events the result of the new class of generals? Or was this operation of such a scale that the Iraqi military had not adequately prepared for large-scale multicorps operations? Hamdani: The problem was bad planning. There was no accurate or specific planning. The operation did not rest on the facts of a position. This was

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a result of weak leaders, who simply wanted to speed up the process. They even stopped the gathering of intelligence. Murray: Was Saddam, in particular, pushing the planning forward? Hamdani: The political decision was rushed. The plan for war needed more time and more preparations. It had been too little, and the intelligence on which it rested was weak. Murray: It seems that Saddam’s picture of the world in the summer of 1980 was that Iraq was in a position to assume the role that Egypt had played, as the leader of the Arab world. In particular, Saddam seems to have viewed the Iranian confrontation as a way to quickly put himself in a position as the great leader, who could then lead [the Arabs] in the great effort against Israel. Hamdani: This is absolutely true. As a matter of fact, this does not only apply to Saddam Hussein, but to any leader with great ambition. Political leaders will not be memorialized, except through war. Political leaders will take advantage of a war for their interests. When Saddam Hussein entered the scene, like any ambitious political leader, he knew that no political leader would be memorialized in history, except with victory in war. Woods: General Hamdani, as you have described operations in the Iraqi II Corps in October of 1980, I was struck by the reaction of the corps commander to your inspection reports from the divisions on the lack of patrolling and intelligence. You quote the corps commanders as saying, “You’re [Hamdani] ruining our morale, stop complaining about the reality of the battlefield. . . . you’re ruining the morale of the force!” Can you describe this particular commander for me? Was he one of the political generals you were discussing earlier? What was your reaction to his statement? How did his subordinates react? Hamdani: The problem was that most of the division commanders at the time were not competent commanders. We [the professional soldiers] looked at things differently because [the political generals] came into those commanding positions due to their loyalty to the [Ba’ath] party. At the time, I was in command of a reconnaissance battalion, and I had a number of specific tasks. My division commander was one of the worst division commanders, since he was one of these [Ba’ath] appointees. He did not fully understand his role and how to protect his sector, in this case regarding the sector for our paratroopers’ airdrop. Because of his incompetence, I had to carry out his [responsibilities] in addition to all of my tasks. Murray: It strikes me that this sudden politicization of the Iraqi army, which occurred in the space of the 2 years before the war, was driven by Saddam’s fears. This created a situation, which if we look at it in terms of the military history of the 20th century, we see that effective military organizations are those where the reports become more and more critical the higher up the ranks one moves. On the other hand,

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in ineffective military organizations, the reports become rosier and more optimistic the higher the command level. In other words, effective military organizations not only demand bad as well as good news, but are more critical of their subordinates, whereas the Iraqi army suffered from this suppression of bad news. Hamdani: This is the difference between the political objectives and the military objectives. We had to learn about the field beforehand. If it were bad, we would know it was bad. But a politician would tell you that it is fine. Murray: General, you described an incident from 9 October 1980, when you captured an Iranian lieutenant. You wrote how this Iranian POW [prisoner of war] described the internal conflicts between the Iranian regular army and the revolutionary guards. It strikes me that, whereas the Iraqi military was a top-down structured, politically dominated military in 1980, that the Iranian problem was that it was not just a conflict among different power centers, but in fact all sorts of independent centers trying to manipulate the course of events in this revolutionary situation. In fact, it could be that the artillery fire in September before the war began could really have been some mullah at the front line saying, “Fire at them!” In other words, local leaders deliberately trying to start a war. As you have described it, the Iranian situation was so “revolutionary and chaotic” that nobody was running the show. Hamdani: This is definitely possible. At the time, there was no pyramidal structure or decisionmaking process within the Iranian army. It only had Khomeini at the top, and everyone was vying to prove [himself] to Khomeini or to get closer to the leader by showing his role in fighting the Iraqis. There was a conflict between all the people underneath Khomeini over who could satisfy him. And the way to do this was to retaliate against the Iraqi forces on the borders. So there was no coordination. They operated with their own political agendas as ways of getting closer to Khomeini.

Woods: Let’s move on to a few doctrinal topics. Could you describe your impression of how both the Iraqi and Iranian military used airpower in the early years of the war? What was your overall impression of the Iranians’ use of airpower? Hamdani: For starters, both the Iraqi and Iranian armies suffered from shortages in their air forces and air defenses. In neither area were they complete at first. They lacked the technologies, the expertise, and the funding to provide for and

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develop their air capabilities. But we took the Iranian air forces as a competent force that could surpass the Iraqi air force, especially as it had the technological support from the United States. However, there was a balance to that, because they had internal political issues and loyalty problems due to the revolution. A large number of their air force pilots were not able to participate in exercises because the regime believed them to be disloyal to the Islamic government, and so they were not allowed to participate in the conflict between Iran and Iraq. So just because the Iranians had superior capabilities and better equipment, that did not mean they were able to use them. In the beginning, the Iraqi air force tried to carry out an air attack on Iranian air force bases, similar to the Israeli air attack on the Egyptians in 1967. Unfortunately, this strike did not achieve its goals, because the Iraqi air force at the time was in a transitional period and had not yet moved forward. In order for the strike to succeed, we required air capabilities to carry out long-range missions, but we lacked that capability. It is true we had the Tu-22 [supersonic bomber and reconnaissance aircraft] and it was able to go deep enough to bomb Tehran, but the range of the protecting fighter aircraft was insufficient, and we could not perform air refueling.35 The other problem was that the Iraqi air force did not have the ability to jam the radars in the depth of Iran, so the Iranians quickly identified our aircraft at a considerable distance. As a result, our bomber pilots flew at low altitudes between valleys, so that the enemy would not detect them by radar. They succeeded in the early phases in their first attempts, but then the Iranians learned the flight patterns and were able to stop our attacks. Iran gave orders through the Da’wa party to soldiers affiliated with the party who were working in aircraft maintenance to sabotage six of the bombers inside Iraqi bases. The Iraqi air force also lacked missiles that had night guidance systems, and so its aircraft had limited accuracy, thus requiring a larger number of bombs to achieve its objectives. Woods: You are describing what we call interdiction missions or deep fight. On the other side of the airpower coin, along the front, when you were a reconnaissance commander, did you employ fixed-wing or helicopters in the close fight? Was that something that you had much experience with in 1980, and were there any examples of such an employment of close air support? Hamdani: The Iranians were more capable than we were in using helicopters. For us they represented an advanced weapons system. The majority of helicopters available [to the Iranians] were American Cobras, provided by the United States to the Shah, and they were good. On the Iraqi side, we used either the French Gazelle [helicopter] or the Soviet MiG–25 [FOXBAT ground attack aircraft]. As the war progressed, there was a change in the capabilities, as Iraqi air capabilities steadily increased, while Iranian capabilities decreased due to the lack of maintenance, support, and imported spare parts.

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The first time the Iraqi air force planned and fully utilized its helicopters was on 27 October 1980. The planning and usage of 100 percent of the Iraqi army’s aviation capabilities produced good results. However, there was a problem in that both sides exaggerated the losses their aircraft caused to the enemy. The exaggeration was abnormal. Another problem was the Iraqi air force’s lack of knowledge in and about their own aircraft. They could not differentiate during battle between Iraqi aircraft and Iranian aircraft. This caused a considerable number of incidents of friendly fire, especially when ground forces were using the SA–7 [shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile]. We lost many Iraqi aircraft as a result. This led Iraqi commanders to shut down the entire air defense system during any campaign where our helicopters or aircraft were in play in order to avoid friendly fire losses. At the same time, this meant that Iranian helicopters would show up, and there would be no response from the air defenses. I remember an incident in the middle of one battle, when I was on top of a hill and saw two Iranian Cobras [attack helicopters] coming from behind our forces and firing at ground targets. They were flying so low that I could actually see the pilot and his long beard. I gave orders for the ground forces to respond, but they replied they had orders to do nothing, because everything was shut down, so that they could not use their antiair capabilities. During the early stages of the war, the air forces of the opposing sides had only a secondary role in the conflict, especially on the frontline fighting and close to the border. Over the course of the conflict, their role developed. The ability to distinguish aircraft on the part of air defense operators improved, and we noticed this change. The problem that emerged later was that the Iranians sealed the gaps that the Iraqi aircraft had exploited early in the conflict, as they improved. Murray: Were there any indications that the Iranians were intercepting Iraqi radio transmissions, or using any kind of signals intelligence? Did they show any initial capability to collect signals intelligence, or did Iran develop that capability during the course of the war? Hamdani: Well, they relied on regular equipment for their superiority, because the Iraqi side had more and better electronic warfare (EW) equipment. The Iranians also had EW equipment, but it was limited, so they relied mostly on spies. We could identify their troop movements by using ground radar systems, such as the Rasit.36 In the reconnaissance battalion I commanded, we were able to detect small animals with our radar and could read every kind of sound pattern. The men of the radar reconnaissance platoon started to know the difference between a tank engine, a car engine, and other engines related to the area. But one day, one of the soldiers said, “I don’t know what this is.” From the sound, it was indeed strange. Therefore, I sent a combat patrol to this place. In fact, it was a donkey moving around in a bizarre way, since its legs were tied up.

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The electronic warfare equipment was largely a French program that we had and started in 1976, so this gave us an advantage over the Iranians, on the tactical as well as the strategic level.37 We gained useful information, such as when and where the Iranian troops were going to move, with great accuracy. Woods: In your memoir, you mentioned that in late November [1980] there were changes of command in the Iraqi military. Specifically, you noted that Saddam relieved the II Corps commander in January 1981. Were these changes of Iraqi military leadership in late 1980 and early 1981 a direct result of poor performance of those division and corps commanders? Was this a signal that Saddam realized that perhaps his political generals were not performing as he had hoped? Hamdani: The first reason for their removal was that the Iraqi forces were expanding horizontally. We had begun the war with only 37 brigades. When we first engaged on 22 September, the 37 brigades had the task of performing their operations in great geographic depth and breadth, but the war did not end there— the Iranian counteroffensives began. So there were many gaps and there was a need to expand the Iraqi army, and a corresponding need to reorganize the leadership, expand it, and promote a number of officers. Some commanders failed, while others succeeded, regardless of the reason for the failure. This pushed Saddam to promote those who succeeded and eliminate those in leadership positions who had failed, providing more opportunity for the younger officers. The problem with Saddam was that he understood excellence in command as only a matter of courage. Therefore, he concentrated on courageous people, even if they were stupid and for the most part disregarded expertise and professionalism. Woods: There is much mythology and rumor about the way Saddam dealt with failures on the battlefield, especially in the early years of the Iran-Iraq War. The stories say that if commanders did not perform or did not show proper courage, he had them executed. It seems difficult to know whether this occurred. Do you have any knowledge or personal experience of commanders whom Saddam pulled off the battlefield, stripped of command, and then actually executed for poor performance? Hamdani: This is a tough topic for those officers who, when [Saddam] started [promoting political generals], knew that the war was going to take longer and be harder than Saddam conceived. It became clear that our capabilities were not sufficient once the Iranians started to strike us with continuous counterattacks. Saddam put great pressure on Iraqi commanders on the ground to avoid losses, which led them not to report failures.38 Withholding losses from reports and thus not receiving reinforcements or other support left commanders in impossible combat conditions. However, this was better than reporting their failures and suffering

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execution. The executions started with high-ranking officers and then worked their way down through the ranks. Woods: Can you remember the most prominent examples of [battlefield executions] from the first year of the war? Hamdani: The first one executed was the commander of the 2d Brigade in the Beit Sa’ad region, Staff Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Juwad Kadhum, at the beginning of 1981. After that, Saddam had a company commander and soldiers of the same brigade executed. In 1982, the III Corps commander, Major General Salah Al-Qadi, was executed. Then Brigadier General Juwad Asaad, the commander of the 3d Division, followed. Murray: In the 1980–1982 timeframe, both the Iraqi army and the Iranian army engaged in ferocious combat with major ongoing military operations and heavy losses among both NCOs [noncommissioned officers] as well as officers. At the same time, the structures of both armies were expanding rapidly. Can you explain how effectively this was done, what sorts of choices were made, what worked, what did not work, and who did a better job expanding their military forces—the Iranians or the Iraqis? Hamdani: Well, first of all, both parties did not expect a long war. There was strategic advice to the Ba’ath party claiming that if Iraq forces were to advance a distance of 10–20 kilometers into Iranian territory, the political situation would change in Tehran with Khomeini’s overthrow. On the other hand, the Iranians believed that if their army advanced toward the Iraqi border, Baghdad would fall, since there would be an Islamic revolution among the Shia. So both parties did not expect the war to be long, and this forced them both to mobilize their nations. With regard to expansion, Iraq had less trouble because the Iranian military was undergoing a fundamental change from being the military established by the Shah to reorganizing itself as a religious army. Iraq kept the same structure and just had to increase recruitment. We did not worry as much as the Iranians about restructuring hierarchies. The Iranian army relied on the Pasdaran force, which was the Islamic Revolutionary Guards—it started to expand that force at the expense of the traditional Iranian army. The other organization that emerged was the Basij, or the volunteers. Its units consisted of poor rural folk, who volunteered to fight, but who received little or no training and only light weapons. The Iraqi military, on the other hand, was expanding and increasing its armaments, its air force, artillery, armor, and so forth. Therefore, it already improved in terms of technology and the nature of the troops. The Iranian military formed a new kind of religious army that believed in a religious doctrine. So the Iranians had three different forces: the traditional army, which steadily weakened, with the air force attached to it; the Pasdaran, or Islamic Revolutionary Guards,

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which expanded to become the main force and which gained air and naval forces; and the Basij volunteers, whom the Iranians gathered from villages with religious rhetoric. The last only got speeches without training. We called them “livestock herds.” The Iranians used the Basij for one-time missions on the front. Both sides had advantages, though. The Iranians clearly had a major geographic advantage, where they felt comfortable with the defensive depth of their country, since no Iraqi attacks could reach deep enough to disrupt Khomeini’s regime (by ground or air). For us, we could never relax, because we had little strategic depth. A simple comparison of the distances of the two capital cities from the border underlines this point. Iranian soldiers were approximately 116 kilometers from Baghdad, while Iraqi soldiers were 800 kilometers from Tehran. Tehran always possessed a comfortable buffer zone. Moreover, Iranian forces were three times larger than Iraqi forces; they had a larger human population than we did. Their mobilization system rested on a war season. On normal days, they would have no problem with frontline support, whereas we would have to maintain full capabilities throughout the year, since we were in a defensive strategic situation. The spiritual, moral, and religious influence of Ayatollah Khomeini was strong at the beginning of the revolution, and so this had a tremendous psychological impact on the Iranian people. Their soldiers were willing to do anything, such as walking through minefields and suffering huge losses. They believed that Karbala was crucial and was just across the border, so that they had to do whatever it took to execute the mission. Our technical side started to improve steadily, while it weakened on the Iranian side. So the mobilization system of Iraq was better than that of Iran, since it could exploit about 60 percent of the country’s manpower, while the Iranian side used only 20 percent. But this also represented a weakness, for this meant using 60 percent of the total manpower during the war. Regardless of the increases in Iraqi expertise, the Iranians possessed an overwhelming number of forces. Woods: Can you expand on the purpose of the Pasdaran and the Iranian popular forces a little more? Hamdani: The purpose of building up the popular Iranian forces was to compensate for the threat they believed the secular Iraqi army posed. The victories of the Iraqi army over the faithful of Iran struck a nerve in Khomeini’s ideology, since he believed it was impossible for the faithful to lose. He had wanted to gain the support of the Iraqi Shia, but this did not happen, and so this may have affected his long-term planning. Woods: Paralleling the growth of the Iranian Pasdaran and Basij was the growth in the Iraqi popular army. Could you tell us about what the Iraqi popular army provided the regime and the overall war effort that Iraq was not getting from

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the regular army? Was it a way to hurry up and push bodies to the front, and thus skip or minimize the training, or were there other purposes for the popular army? Hamdani: Iraq needed to mobilize the largest possible number of Iraqi people and weapons. Later on there was a greater emphasis on vertical expansion and competence, but at this point there was a horizontal increase, which decreased the level of competence in the Iraqi armed forces. That decreased to the point where the army could no longer expand horizontally. So there was a need for troops in depth, for defense, maintenance, and depots, and this created the push to form the popular army. The popular army worked for 2 or 3 months at a time, because 60 percent of the workforce was unavailable for the normal economy. Therefore, Saddam created a system where this popular army would fulfill defense duties for 2 or 3 months only, and then return to the civilian sector, so that there would be a balance between the normal economy’s workforce and the manpower required for the war effort.

Murray: Let us turn to Saddam Hussein for a little while. It seems that during the course of the Iran-Iraq War, he began to recognize that military professionalism was something he needed, and yet it also appears that his instincts and desires were, as soon as the Iran-Iraq War was over, to get rid of it and return to the system he was developing before the war. This seems to be a pattern that runs through his entire reign—going back and forth—but always having the instinct for a need for political reliability, rather than professional competence. Hamdani: This is true. There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was smart enough where, at the beginning of the war, he relied on the military expertise as much as possible—especially those at the Ministry of Defense and the general staff of the army. For example, Saddam relied on General Abd al-Jabbar Shanshal to a considerable extent, a man who was professional and had experience, but at the same time loyal and not hostile to Saddam. There were also some assistants—such as General Abd al-Jabbar al-Asadi, and others who were not Ba’athists, but professionals.39 The division commanders were loyal to Saddam, as most were Ba’athists. At the same time, Saddam was betting his future success on this war. If he did not succeed, his legacy would be affected. So he had to rely on military expertise. He gave his generals authority and respect, but this was not necessarily out of an understanding of the nature of war, since he was not a military man. He thought that he could learn through those people during the war by placing himself in the battlefield.

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Saddam Hussein said about himself in a meeting with intellectuals of the Arab Organization at the beginning of the war, “I engaged in war and I don’t have information at a higher level than captain in the Iraqi army, while I am the general leader of the armed forces.” He was honest when he mentioned this, but while confessing this ignorance of the country’s military opponents, he was also trying to display how commanders, including himself, learn and gain experience and expertise through the war. Saddam felt that he could back down on everything, give away positions and power, but he could not afford to lose the war against Iran. Woods: Modern armor battles are rare enough that I was struck by a description of one that you wrote about in your memoirs that occurred during January 1981 between the Iraqi 10th Armored [Brigade] and the Iranian 16th Armored [Division]. Could you describe the character of the battle, how big it was, the sorts of maneuvers involved, and what precipitated it? Hamdani: Well, the Iraqi 10th Armored Brigade carried out a counterattack on the Iranian 16th Armored Division and inflicted major damages on it. Our armored battalions were certainly much better than the Iranian armored because our armored units had fought in the October War and trained in light of the lessons learned from the wars with the Israeli forces in 1967 and 1973. The Iraqi armor was also superior just on pure technology. The Russian T–72 tank was better than the British Challenger. Moreover, the T–72’s maneuverability was superior since it is lighter and is more flexible. Murray: Getting back to Saddam—from your perspective, what were Saddam’s strengths and weaknesses, when looking at the man as a whole, not just specifically from a military or political perspective, but in terms of watching him over the long period that you did? How would you sum him up generally? Hamdani: Well, Saddam Hussein is a most complex personality. We might even say that he possessed several personalities. We can analyze Saddam Hussein’s personality according to the theories of [Sigmund] Freud or [Alfred] Adler, or even [Ivan] Pavlov. We need the theories of these psychologists in order to analyze Saddam’s personality. And this is not an easy thing; his personality was very complex. I mention these three psychologists because they bring in different elements: Freud was the founder of the theory of the analytical method in psychology; Adler is the one who developed what we call the “inferiority complex,” while Pavlov talked about the adaptability of character—the capacity for adaptation. So we need these three to explain Saddam’s personality and provide insights into its complexity. The inferiority complex suggests that people behave the way they do because of a lack of confidence in certain areas. Pavlov’s discussion of the adaptability of character explains that an individual’s personal character or behavior is something he or she assumes or copies from others to cover up other weaknesses. Saddam had a very strong, powerful, and charismatic personality.

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Woods: What historical character would you say he is closest to? Hamdani: He had a combination of Hitler’s and Stalin’s personalities. He was strong and firm, like iron, as Stalin was, and courageous. He had a unique, unreal courage. He was also like Hitler, in his inferiority complex. By playing the persona of a great general and putting himself in the position as the commander in chief of Iraq’s armed forces, he hoped to cover over the gaps of his military knowledge and thus compensate for his shortcoming. Saddam’s personality embraced most virtues as well as most vices. As a reader and listener, he was precise and careful. At other times, he would totally shut off others from participating in the dialogue, and conversation would become totally one-way. Saddam possessed a personality that at one moment might kill the closest person to him, a member of his family, without a care; then the next moment he would be extremely sensitive, tears in his eyes over the injury of a cat. He had this kind of double personality. Holaday: Was he aware of these behavioral and mood changes in himself? Did he recognize some of these things about himself? Hamdani: We cannot call it schizophrenia, but Saddam lived a life of impersonation, where every personality would emerge in an instant. For instance, in one moment, you would find Saddam Hussein the intellectual, who would think as deeply as a philosopher would over a subject, as a good leader or decisionmaker. The next moment he would be like a naïve and backward farmer. He would switch from being a civilized person to the stubborn Bedouin personality he held deep within himself. This switching back and forth is what people who dealt with him could not stand. As he got older, his violence and impulsiveness decreased, but his state of isolation increased. When I was young and attended meetings, my pulse would hit 150 beats per minute, because one did not know what to expect or what would come next. We could not know what kind of behavior to expect from Saddam through a meeting. Many times one would think that there is no man more noble or generous than Saddam Hussein, but in other situations, he would be mean and spiteful in a way beyond our imagination. We can think of Saddam’s personality as changing over several different phases. First, there was the phase before the invasion of Kuwait; the second phase came after the invasion; then there was the third phase, following the escape of Hussein Kamel in 1995. In the phase prior to Kuwait, his personality was violent and strong, trying to be a famous leader of a nation, not just within Iraq, but throughout the Arab world. As much as he was accomplishing and building in a positive sense, he was a frightening monster to anyone who confronted him, and in the end, this contradicted his long-term objectives. After the invasion of Kuwait, and Iraq’s defeat, his personality changed, especially after the revolt of the Shia community in 14 provinces. That was a huge shock to him, because he always thought he had the support

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of the Iraqi people. What he had created, he had then lost not only the respect, but he lost the trust in his own people, and he became contemptuous of them. He also lost trust in his close, high-ranking generals, the ones close to him, and even close members of his family, because he thought that maybe some of them had involved themselves in the revolution after the invasion of Kuwait. The next phase was after the escape of Hussein Kamel, and Saddam’s elimination of his son-in-law. After that, he became unreasonable, and he isolated himself from the rest of the country. Saddam Hussein would not trust anyone, except for his closest circle. But even within that circle, he would doubt their loyalty, and so he stepped away from them and the government administration. At that point, I was the commander of the Al-Madina [Al-Munawarra] Division and then the corps chief of staff in Tikrit.40 I remember that he would always move from place to place, always in isolated places. It got to a point where he would not trust his people or any Arab leader, including King Hussein of Jordan. In the past, he had been an active person, visiting the troops on the ground, the various ministries, factories, and other government establishments, and different villages throughout Iraq. In this new phase, he stopped such activity and started requiring the ministers to come to him, and even then only a small number of officials. Some of the ministers had no kind of close, direct contact with Saddam Hussein for almost 2 years. And this goes even for the military leaders. Saddam did not visit his generals, even those of the Republican Guard. Nevertheless, he would request them to come over to him for discussions and meetings. Saddam Hussein devoted himself to leaving a permanent presence in Iraq’s history through the construction of enormous buildings and incredible palaces. He wanted to prove that regardless of the efforts by the Western and other Arab powers to eliminate him, he had left his mark in Iraq. He also spent much of this time in isolation writing novels, plays, and poetry. He wrote two big stories, in which he used examples from his own life. He titled them “Men around the City” and “Zabiba and the King.” You could not understand the effort spent on them! They would play many times in the theaters, and you would be surprised the number of times they played on television. He would not mention that he was the writer of this story or that play, and so unfortunately, most Iraqis had no idea that Saddam was the author. We knew, since we were close to him. In these works he expressed every feeling he had—toward his relations and the problems with his wives, his children, those in his close circles, his people, and his advisors. He expressed what he was going through in those novels. Here’s an interesting story: At the end of 1997 Saddam sent me his personal escort in Tikrit—he was at the Presidential Palace in Tikrit—instructing me to be present along with all the division commanders as soon as possible. I had to be at the palace at a certain time for a top-priority meeting. I suspected there

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was a conspiracy in the works, like a military coup, or some kind of special duty. It took me some time to gather up all the divisional commanders, who were halfway across the country. I prepared myself and reviewed all the security and defense plans, so that I could brief Saddam if he were to ask me any questions. As I walked in the hall to which he had summoned us, I saw it was full of spectacular individuals; there were all sorts of poets and artists competing with Saddam. I stood there at attention with the other divisional commanders, sitting and waiting for 5 hours ready for his order, without knowing why he had sent for us. We had no clue about what was going on! Saddam did not speak to us. So there I was thinking all the while that there was going to be a challenging mission, and so I had reviewed all the security plans, thinking there would be a mission for these assembled commanders. I just kept reviewing things and did not listen to any of the poems or anything; I just thought about the plans. Then the soiree ended, and as the poets were leaving and so forth, we went up to Saddam to ask him, “Sir, do you need anything; is there something for us to discuss?” and he just said, “Oh, no. You guys are free to go.” And that was it. On June 30, 2002, I had a discussion with Saddam, and I tried to change the subject to one dealing with a potential future conflict with the Americans. I also talked for 45 minutes, trying to change Iraq’s ideology and doctrine of defense to one more like guerrilla warfare, since we were going to lose a conventional war with the Americans. The man listened to me for a full 45 minutes without interruptions. We discussed this issue because we were definitely going to lose the war to the Americans, due to our weak capabilities. Although he disapproved of my suggestion, such matters had never been easy for anyone to approach Saddam—with the possibility of changing our strategy and plans for war. At the end of his reign, Saddam Hussein became unrealistic. He lived in a fantasy world, where he started saying that God was with him, and that he was an invincible power. He lost confidence in everything—in politics, in Arabs, and in his people—but he had great faith that God would never leave him. Another incident of interest occurred during a meeting with his close ministers where they were talking about the general situation. All of a sudden Saddam lost control and violently pounded his fist on the table, saying, “King Hussein Abu Abdullah [of Jordan], I will never forget that you dragged me into a war, when I was the one who supported you—now you are trying to plan a coup against me?!” Saddam was cursing at King Hussein, and wanted to take revenge against him. Saddam completely diverged from the topic of discussion, and the ministers present and his personal security guards quickly left the room, seeing that he had turned into a monster. So Saddam’s personality caused the loss of a state, the loss of the nation, the loss of a country, the loss of an army, the loss of a party, and the loss of himself.

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He made such unrealistic demands and held such stubborn objectives, and then he would try to turn matters into a spiritual issue. His logic was abnormal! He would always say to us, “Preserve the last scene.” And indeed, in the last scene he died in extreme courage and heroism: when he was sentenced to death, he defied death and his executioner; he accepted his death sentence. He made sure that at the last moment he went into history standing strong. What is ironic about this situation is that Saddam always prohibited us from using mobile phones and satellite dishes, but it was just such a prohibited mobile phone that saved his final image. He died as a courageous knight, defying death. He hated these technologies for scientific reasons, but this mobile phone was the thing that confirmed the last scene and preserved what he believed to be his legacy. Woods: Getting back to the military side, I noticed two things in your description of the 8 years of the Iran-Iraq War. As a professional, you expressed shock in the way the Iranians used the human wave tactics with the Basij charging young men across the minefields. And you show great empathy for these young men, who sacrificed themselves with little chance that their tactic would succeed. Could you give us a picture of what those kinds of attacks were like for the regular Iraqi army, either defensively or offensively? When you came across these masses of militiamen, applying these futile and irrational tactics, what did it look and feel like? Did you see any changes over the course of the 8 years of the war? They were still using the human wave tactics in 1986 and 1987, so was there anything different, or just more of the same? Hamdani: At the beginning of the Iranian revolution, there was this threat of [the rising] Khomeini. So there was a doctrine that glorified religious scholars. At the beginning of the war and the Iranian Revolution, the Iranian fighters showed a zeal and extreme courage, even where they suffered great losses. A tremendous number of the people had the will to fight and sacrifice themselves, regardless of the costs. With time, however, Khomeini’s holiness weakened, and therefore such operations also weakened. The charm of the revolution started to fade in 1985 and 1986. So we can divide the use of human waves into the two periods before and after 1985. In the final stages of the war, it got to the point where the Pasdaran and Basij even started surrendering in large numbers to Iraqi forces. If you compare the will to fight that they had in the first period, it would be 10 times the fervor of what is going on right now in Iraq. About the mines, we figured that they did not tell their soldiers about these minefields. It seems as if a large percentage of the Iranian officers failed to warn their soldiers about these minefields. We would find Iranian soldiers injured in the fields, and after questioning them about what pushed them to cross the minefield, they would answer that they did not have a clue, that the leader had

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not told them they were advancing through minefields. Moreover, it appears the Iranian leaders and intelligence kept certain information from the ground forces, because there would be less damage and costs in sending human waves rather than tanks over minefields. Woods: Did Iraq develop any specific tactics, aside from firepower, to work against this, or was this something that the army had to do nothing to adapt to? Hamdani: Well, first of all, we increased the minefields. We increased them tenfold so that the Iranians had no chance of crossing the minefields successfully. Say a minefield was 600 meters wide; we would have one mine for every meter. These were the standards of usual minefields. Then, we intensified them in such a way that there were 10 possibilities for a soldier to be injured by a mine along the 600 meters. There would be different kinds of mines: tank mines, vehicle mines, and individual mines—and we started using the Italian bounding mines, which would explode with the maximum amount of damage.41 We also increased the protection weapons for the minefields, like machineguns. Increased fire would stop the potential for infiltration. Woods: Another tactical or doctrinal question relates to the fighting around Abadan and Khorramshahr. We have seen some documentary footage of these battles, and we were curious about how well prepared the Iraqi army was to conduct urban operations (in the modern sense of the term) to deal with the population and the complexity of the vertical terrain, the buildings and structures. As these battles were notable for their high intensity, were there any changes between the early fights in Abadan in April 1981 and Khorramshahr that summer? Were there any changes in how the Iranians dealt with them, because at first, they were on the defense, and then in 1982 they came back and pushed the Iraqis out, such as in the case of Khorramshahr and some other small cities? [See figure 4.] Hamdani: We have to understand that Khorramshahr42 had a spiritual impact on the Iraqis. These two cities were Iraqi and were given to Iran by the British in recent history. So there was a goal to liberate the occupied Iraqi territories. Many Iraqis saw it as a spiritual duty to return this city to Iraq, as it has always been a symbol of our Iraqi city. It was so important that you could ask anyone within the Iraqi ranks and he would still remember the memo that instructed us to liberate Khorramshahr. It was the general command statement or memo number 99. Everyone would remember this because of its symbolic importance. At the time, the special forces were of high caliber, as many were graduates of American and Egyptian academies. Therefore, a plan to liberate the city was laid out that relied in particular on Iraqi special forces. To be honest, the Iranians displayed ferocious resistance during the urban fighting, to the point where it became difficult and costly for us to occupy it. They would always attempt to retake

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Figure 4. The southern sector of the war (region of Khorramshahr)

Source: Copyright © 1991 from The Longest War: The Iran Iraq Military Conflict by Dilip Hiro. Reproduced by permission of Routledge, Inc., a division of Informa plc. Original map title "The Southernmost War Sector on Land," p. 16.

their last bases even after we had pushed them over the bridge. They would hold every point to the bitter end, so they were able to inflict heavy losses on our forces. These battles would be difficult for any army, for sure, but the Iranian leadership accepted the heavy losses [their soldiers] suffered, enabling them, through their determination and stubbornness, to regain the territory from us down the road. In the early stage of the war, both armies had high spirits and were at their peak of fighting ability, so there were two stubborn armies fighting each other, each one driven by its own belief [system]. Unfortunately, this caused us to lose the best of our troops, including the special forces, in the first 2 or 3 years of the war. On the other hand, the Iranians also lost the best of their troops in these early stages. After this, both sides changed their offensive methods to focus more on human masses, pushing people along narrow fronts. For the Iraqis it was especially true in 1986 and 1987. These fronts were small and had a very large number of boots on the ground, leading to massive human massacres. Just as Sun Tzu said, “Battles without strategic planning will turn into human massacres.”

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Murray: So with most of the special operations forces worn out or destroyed by 1982 on both sides, was the failure to reconstitute this capability a reflection of the huge pressures put on both Iraq and Iran to maintain their extraordinarily large armies, which were expanding throughout the war? Hamdani: There was an attempt, but it failed because of the lack of time and the continuous demand for forces at the front line. The front could not sustain pulling the troops out to send them for training. And training good units requires a long time. Therefore, the horizontal expansion took place at the expense of the vertical expansion, in terms of building our capabilities. There were high requirements to qualify to be members of the special forces, with its members previously attending the academies of Turkey, Egypt, and the Soviet Union, so the troops we lost were once in a lifetime and were impossible to replace. Woods: Another thing we would like to hear about are the reasons why the initial Iraqi offensives ended around 19 May 1981. From what you said earlier, it seems like that decision was due to a combination of things, specifically related to some of the actions of the 9th Armored Division, how they had been in an offensive posture with the tanks always out front, but were not moving quickly, and were not doing a lot of reconnaissance. It seems that because they had not done the kinds of preparations necessary to transition to the defense, the initial Iranian counterattacks were effective. Was this the result of the lack of a plan, that there was some idea that Iraq could just go into Iran and hope that certain things would happen, or was it that they would be able to create a new defensive line? It seems like the offense just stopped and nobody transitioned to the defense. Was this due to a lack of planning or a lack of logistics, that the Iraqi army was not able to sustain itself? Why were the Iranian counterattacks so effective? Hamdani: Well, we failed in our attacks. The Iranians started to take away our territory and attack our troops, so our troops carried out counterattacks to stop them. Most of these attacks failed to push the Iranians out from all locations. The Iranians remained at the borders with those who were killed, and they began to advance into Iraq. There were a few reasons for this. Our main troops were weakened because of the continuous attacks. So while it was possible to provide logistic support, there were many reasons for the failure. The courage of the Iranian soldiers could sustain their losses deep into our territories. And the size of their forces was huge, because they began to gather troops during the attack so they would be superior. So we would not go into Iranian territories anymore, but they could gather any force and achieve success at whatever point they wanted, since they were free to move in their depth. They realized that we no longer had any attack capabilities. Therefore, the Iranians felt safe to move freely and knew that Tehran was secure, and they could gather troops from all their sectors to achieve superiority in whatever specific location they desired to attack. We, on the other hand, had to have defense along the entire border.

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Woods: Why were the Iranians so confident that the Iraqi forces would not advance? Was this knowledge of the practical limits of the number of forces Iraq had, and the amount of the logistics the Iraqis could push forward? What was the limiting factor for Iraq at that point in May 1981? Hamdani: This was a fact of the war. Where could we go, if we wanted to advance to a certain depth in Iran? For example, let us say that as a division commander you wanted to go more than 40 kilometers into Iranian territory, what would be the point? Going this far would not get you any closer to Tehran, because it would still be another 800 kilometers to the Iranian capital. So this imposed a natural limit on the Iraqi offensives. We began to assume a more defensive position. We did not have the capability to push a division 30–40 kilometers into Iran, and such an advance would not have put an end to the war. Our strategy had to become defensive because of the depth of their territory. Cities like Tehran and Isfahan were far too deep in their nation. We knew we no longer had the capability to advance, except using aircraft, which possessed sufficient range.

Discussion Five 1981–1982 Turbulence in Tehran—Iranian Infiltration Tactics— 1982 Attacks around Basra—1984–1988 Marsh Infiltrations and Iraqi Engineering Efforts—International Support to Iran—Chemical Weapons Usage (Anecdotes, including Halabjah)—Iranian Response to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)— Postwar Preparations with WMD— 1982–1983 Reorganization and Recruiting for Republican Guard— Psychological Support of Saddam to Troops—Postwar Republican Guard Reorganization Woods: Immediately after the Iraqi offensive culminated and the conflict entered a static period, in 1981 and 1982, it seems there was a significant amount of turbulence in Tehran, precipitated by bombs (car bombs and ordinary explosives), assassinations, and an increase in insurgent activities from organizations like the MEK [Mujahideen-e-Khalq].43 Do you think that this was the result of Saddam’s changing tactics, shifting the battlefield away from the front, or do you think that it was more of a natural occurrence within a revolutionary situation? Or was this just the kind of thing to happen along with the chaos of revolution and war? Hamdani: Actually, it was not a result of Iraq’s actions. It was the result of the nature of matters at hand in Iran—the vast changes occurring in the Iranian political arena, with many of the parties conflicting with the Shah. The Iranian revolution consisted of religious, national, secular, and student currents, all different. But the religious scholars and Khomeini and the components of the religious institutions were better able to drive the revolution forward under the leadership

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of Khomeini. Of course, there were disputes and competitions among the religious scholars, but Khomeini was able to rise as a leading religious and charismatic personality with his French media presence. So all that happened was a normal part of competing interests during a revolution and a transitional period. On the other hand, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq did carry out the attack at the Islamic conference [office of the Islamic Republic Party] in 1981, which killed 72 people, including Ayatollah Beheshti.44 Of course, Iraq had ties with the revolutionary current around Bazargan. The only connection I can think of between Iraq and Iran was with the political party Free Iran. It was a secular party led by Mehdi Bazargan, who held the post as the first prime minister after the revolution.45 Khomeini pushed for him to resign from the government, and after that [had him] arrested. Other governments came after that. Ali Raja’i was also killed, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sadegh Ghotbzadeh was executed, as he was a CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] agent.46 There was another politician to come after him called “Omar Shukri Zadeh” [note: the authors can find no public references to this individual] to be the revolutionary minister of foreign affairs, and he was accused of being a CIA spy and then executed. After all this, Iraq started to provide support to MEK. Woods: You mentioned in several places in your memoirs that one of the most successful things the Iranians did on the tactical battlefront was their infiltration tactics. This is interesting, as it leads us to think about the World War I experience of the Germans. Can you describe the nature of Iranian tactics along the front, especially in the area of the Iraqi IV Corps in early 1982 along the Duwairij River? [See figure 5.] Hamdani: This was the area of the III and IV Corps, across from the area of what we now call al-Kut, that is, between al-Kut, al-Amara, and the Duwairij River. The IV Corps was here [northwest of Tib to the south and west of Dehloran], and this was the area of our largest minefield.47 The area was suitable for armored actions. The majority of the infiltration was by infantry, and there was a large area for gaps. We had the 1st Division in (Dezful) sector, and this was the best route for armor to infiltrate. So we created a large minefield to prevent access to Iranian armor. The Iranians started to mobilize, since we had taken up strategic defense positions. They began to pull troops from all their sectors and from the depths of their country and put them in a staging area. This process took them about 3 to 5 months. They started the infiltration process at a certain time and in a certain way so they could attack the closest specified front and achieve success in infiltrating by continuously replacing the momentum with more forces. The staging area was at Dezful. We considered that the place where they would gather people from the northern and southern sectors, as well as from deeper in the country. This staging

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Figure 5. Southern war sector

area gave them the flexibility to assign forces to different parts of the border, while we lacked sufficient manpower to cover the whole border. They attacked from many directions and created a long, drawn-out frontal battle. Moreover, they had the flexibility to reinforce successful units. If one unit at this point along the border were to penetrate our defenses, they would funnel more people in and keep the momentum going in this direction. There was a good example of this in 1982. They would attack in the form of units, one division at a time, but once they achieved success in one area, the others would retreat back and would join the successful attack. Woods: Was Iraq able to recognize this operational approach when the Iranians first implemented it? Did the Iraqi 1st Division recognize that Iranian success was coming in the 3d Division sector and reposition its troops accordingly? Was Iraq able to respond to Iran’s lateral movements in the early stage of the war? Hamdani: Well, Iranian infiltration was not deep, because it relied on infantry, and they were only infiltrating during the night. So they could not move more than 10 kilometers at night. The result was limited infiltration. We had to come up with plans for how to contain such attacks [see figure 6].

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Figure 6. General Hamdani’s sketch of Iranian infiltration tactics, 1982

Source: Copyright ©1991 from The Longest War: The Iran Iraq Military Conflict by Dilip Hiro. Reproduced by permission of Routledge, Inc., a division of Informa plc. Original map title "The Southernmost War Sector on Land," p. 16. Subsection of map in figure 5 with Hamdani's notations.

The flanking forces would attack on the wings (the flank). This would allow us to reduce and close the penetration the Iranians had made. Approximately 90 percent of Iranian attacks were successful in the early stages, but the attacks invariably lost their momentum. They would seize control of an area, suffering serious losses, and then we would shell them extensively with our artillery and bomb them with air support. But they were very persistent. The Iranians later realized that they could not achieve success on open ground. So they began to concentrate on the areas that neutralized the movement of our armor and weakened the impact of our air forces and artillery, such as in water-flooded areas, marshes, and sand dunes (and sand bars). In those locations, the impact of our armor and artillery/aerial bombs was less effective. In 1984, the Iranians started to infiltrate the marsh areas, and so our armored elements were not able to get at them because of the water and high vegetation. Murray: Did this represent an effort by the Iranians to wage and sustain a long-term war of attrition to wear down Iraq until it finally broke? Hamdani: Yes, this played a role after 1984, when they concentrated on valleys and rough mountain areas, where it was difficult for our armor to move. This was the turning point, where they adopted new tactics toward the end of 1984. They were superior in infantry, while we were superior in armor, and so they neutralized our armor in this fashion.

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Woods: You described the Iranian operations around Basra [tactically suicidal attacks] in the summer of 1982 as “mad.” What was different about Basra? Did the Iranians think that being the second Iraqi city, that if they could break into and capture Basra, then maybe they would be able to break Saddam’s regime? What was different about the way Iran attacked Basra? Hamdani: The land east of Basra, in general, has a large open area suitable for armored units, and so we easily repulsed the Iranian attacks by our armor, before they could make it to the Shatt al-Arab and al-Basateen areas.48 Murray: As the Iranians spent significant time focusing on Basra, with this open terrain that favored Iraq, why wasn’t there a greater emphasis in the north to break through to Baghdad, where the mountains would favor the infantry? Was it a matter of logistics? Hamdani: In fact, all the roads leading to Baghdad are in open areas that favor armored troops and air forces, and the Republican Guard and other ground forces would have provided a great obstacle to the Iranians. So they did not think they would succeed in getting to Baghdad. This meant that their main effort aimed at [making gains in] the south. Moreover, they preferred Basra for several reasons: the majority of the population there is Shi’ite, and in terms of the entire Gulf region, Iraq has a strategic location. If Iran were able to occupy Basra and turn it into an emirate or an independent government separate from Iraq (it would be a part of Muhammarah, Arabistan, Ahwaz, and so forth), they would cut off Iraq from the Gulf. So we can see they had strategic interests in this area. The idea of protecting Basra from Iranian incursions goes back to the Shah’s era, and is the reason why Iraq’s leaders had constructed the Fish Lake in the mid-1970s. The lake was a barrier to the Iranian armored troops. It was intended to limit their movement and the potential for a strategic long-term effort to take over Basra. The Iraqi National Defense Plan was prepared before Saddam took power to address the potential for the Iranian 90th Armored Division to attack and occupy Basra. At that time [early 1970s], we had fewer armored units, and those we did have were focusing on moving into Jordan [to support an Arab war against Israel]. Thus, we built this water barrier to limit the possibility of an Iranian attack on this front. We studied this plan in the staff college and war college in the mid and late 1970s. It was always a part of the Iraqi defense line. In 1982, an Iranian armored division began infiltrating in this area and attacked along two axes—one in this area, and then one farther south. Because of the open terrain farther north and closer to Baghdad, the Iraqi army intercepted the Iranians. The Iranians then started working their way south, trying to find another way to infiltrate. So it was not until late 1982 that they actually came across the Fish Lake and destroyed our 9th Division. Despite this Iranian success, our armored troops were able to launch attacks in these directions.

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As of 1984, they moved to the marsh areas north of the lake and the Majnun Islands [see figure 5]. And their infantry operated well down in this area. They learned the lesson in 1982 that they could not be successful in the open areas both east of Basra and east of Amara [see figure 4]. After 1987, they began a strategy of attrition aimed at our armored forces and air force—the influence of our air force remained limited because of the soft land and water in these areas. Woods: With all these operations around the marshes and lake areas, engineers had their work cut out for them. Both Iraqi and Iranian engineers had to develop new methods. For Iraq’s engineers, you have described them as building “fingers of land” and artificial sand bars. Iranian engineers focused on building small pontoon bridges and moving them quickly. Can you describe some of this engineer effort and the fighting environment? Hamdani: One thing that the Iranians relied upon was using hovercraft for infantry movements. They connected one area to another by using bridges made out of a cork material, which would float on the water. They also made small rafts out of the same material to float artillery inside the rivers [like an artillery barge]. There were also engineering efforts in the oil areas, where they built “dirt stoppers” [berms]. They occupied these areas and expanded them with the [cork material] because the longest of the reed plants was 3 meters. They were able to build combat bases for their soldiers on the berms in our oil fields, which they expanded with the cork. Elevated dirt roads connected the oil fields and refineries to one another. The height of the reed plants made reconnaissance difficult to the point where we could not see what the enemy was doing, for example, when the Iranians set up their floating artillery positions. We had to build high observation posts and begin using our helicopters in different ways, to fly at certain elevations in order to get a better view. Such operations lasted from 1984 to 1988. We had a hard time maneuvering our Republican Guard troops [in this area], and used amphibious forces and engineering troops, as well as amphibious armor such as the BMP–1 and BMP–2. We also relied on our helicopters for dropping our airborne units in different locations for our counterattacks. And during this time, we used chemical weapons extensively. Murray: It appears that as the war went on the Iraqis resupplied and upgraded their tanks and equipment, such as with the T–72s, while the Iranians were getting no new tanks during the war. Therefore as their tanks were destroyed and not replaced, they became a lighter and lighter force, dependent on their infantry. Is this the case? Hamdani: Yes, this is correct. They had to switch from a heavy to a light army because of their nonreplacement. Moreover, the Iranians relied on the expertise of the North Koreans. As a result, their engineering methods, as far as tactical bridges and floating bridges and pipelines they built on the Shatt al-Arab, all came from the Korean experts who

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worked with them. Iran received military support and advice from North Korea as well as the Pakistanis, the latter especially for the air force, but the most came from the North Koreans. This was the source of many of their military innovations during the war. But this was not government-sponsored support. It only came from volunteers who pretended to be war experts. The Iranians would only take advice directly from Shi’i Pakistanis.49 Woods: Changing the subject a bit, it seems that the most glaring topic absent from your memoir is a discussion of chemical weapons and their effectiveness. Why is it that you left WMD out? Was it because of the environment in which you were writing, which was not conducive to describing weapons of mass destruction or chemical weapons of any kind? Beyond this, I would also like to get your impression, as a professional officer, of the implications of using chemical weapons on the battlefield. Obviously, it could be used against you, and it is clearly dangerous to handle. And it works both ways; the wind could change or you might have to maneuver across a contaminated battlefield. Could you describe for us the chemical warfare in the war, especially its early use in 1983 and 1984? Hamdani: Well, I referred to chemical weapons as “Special Weapons” [in the final published version of the memoirs, not the draft available to the Project 1946 team]. On April 17, 1988, Iraqi artillery units launched more than 1,000 firings (all types of artillery fire), and in this, I believe, the bombardment used chemical weapons. It was a mix of artillery, tanks, rockets, and all this, including, I believe, chemical weapons.50 Meanwhile, the wind did change direction, and this forced our units to continue wearing the masks. Even the Republican Guard Headquarters was slightly affected [by the Iraqi chemicals]. And this is in the more updated published version of my memoirs. Woods: At some point in 1983, you became the commander of an armor unit; could you describe for us what it was like for you when you first found out Iraq was going to use chemical weapons? Was the purpose of the chemical weapons in your mind to provide a tactical solution? Hamdani: We feared the effects of the chemical weapons on ourselves because of the wind. The problem we had was that when our soldiers wore their protective masks, it would also limit their combat effectiveness, and the masks were generally uncomfortable. In the case of the wind changing directions, it would strike us, and we had to continue fighting while wearing the protective masks. We hoped that the attacks would go deep, not just at the front line. We wanted to use the chemical attacks on the Iranian reserves in depth, so that we could fight more freely. We requested that headquarters use the chemical weapons on the supply lines inside Iran. In this last war, in 2003, I asked Saddam Hussein whether he was planning to use chemical weapons or not, so that I would know how to plan.51 He answered,

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“No, there is no use for that.” So I deployed my troops more flexibly without having to worry about the possible use of chemical weapons. My belief that we would not use chemical weapons was reinforced by the fact that we were going to fight in populated areas like the countryside and villages. Moreover, from my perspective, the impact of the use of chemicals is more psychological than material. Another example was in the battle of Halabjah, in 1987, the 84th Iranian Infantry Division and the 55th Iranian Parachute Brigade were both present. The target in Halabjah was not the Kurds, but these two units. Woods: Can you describe the [military] decision process when the chemical weapons were used during the war? Hamdani: There was a special higher headquarters established for the use of such weapons, not only at the field level but also at the strategic and operational levels, to plan for chemical attacks. The Iraqi army artillery commander would be at this headquarters at a senior level, and the chemical commander would also always be a member of this headquarters. The officer in charge would be the Iraqi army’s operations director. Murray: Was the decision to use chemical weapons a measure of desperation, or was it an attempt to escalate the war as a means to persuade the Iranians to stop the war? Hamdani: Both. It was an “and,” not an “or.” To make up for the troops we lacked, we required greater artillery capability. For example, we used chemical weapons in the lower Fao area, since the land comprises soft soil and marshes, which rendered our artillery and air-delivered weapons useless and prevented the effective employment of armor. For these reasons, the Iranians occupied and defended these areas, where air attacks or armored support would not have a great impact. Therefore, we had no other choice but to use the chemical weapons. We used the chemicals in Al-Huwayzah area, in Majnun, and in Shalamjah [Chalamjeh], the orchard area. This entire area is soft. The Iranians started to pay great attention to AlFao Island, and they defended it with extreme resistance after they failed to occupy Basra. After the Iranians realized how strong Iraqi defenses around Basra were, they started moving south, and attacked areas such as the island areas—Bubyan, for example. These islands are full of palm trees and so forth. They attacked and crossed at Ma’amer (along the Fao Peninsula), and the port of Al-Fao. In the area that the Iranians occupied, we had stationed the 26th Division. The Iranians planned another attack, pretending that they would attack the 7th Division. The moment they attacked, they took over the southern tip of Fao, and then started working their way north along the “Strategic Road.” This road continues up to UmQasr. But our troops were able to gain control of the attack in this location and then began to launch counterattacks.52

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Woods: Is this one of the cases where you used chemical weapons close to the front, or where you tried to use it deep—on the logistics and crossing areas? Hamdani: No, this is where we settled down and pushed the Iranians to this other location, across a canal. The Iranians struggled desperately in this location and displayed tremendous resistance. Then they received backup support from their artillery, and after 2 months of fighting they had stopped our forces at this point along the canal. This is when the attack with the chemicals took place. The operations took place in 1986, and we also launched a chemical attack in 1988, the year of liberation, when we finally pushed them out of this area. In 1988, the Republican Guard was heavily involved in the liberation. The number of soldiers we lost [killed in action] from 1986–1988 was 53,000, and we had 220,000 injured. So that’s why we used chemicals, when such battles happened, because the losses were unbearable. In Halabjah, in 1987, the Iranians had two divisions, the 84th Iranian Division and the 55th Parachute (Airborne) Division. The Iranians entered Halabjah near the area of Darbandikhan Lake, and the dam, which has a high elevation. They occupied this area and moved to take the Shadiran Mountain, after which the land becomes flat all the way to Sulaimaniyah. So if they succeeded in getting past Shadiran Mountain, they would be able to infiltrate much more and reach Sulaimaniyah. Our defensive line here was desperate and relying especially on our special forces. The Kurds in Halabjah had evacuated. They left because the battle had been going on for over a month before the use of chemicals. Jalal Talabani controlled the eastern sector, and the Iraqi government contacted him, as it had become an operational area, fearing for the safety of the Kurdish residents [and warned them] not to stay in the area. Talabani notified [the Iraqi] command that the Kurds had evacuated the area. To my knowledge, he signed a document confirming that the evacuation took place from the village. Then, we used the artillery to launch chemicals on this sector. The attack almost entirely exterminated the Iranian division. This was the first true mass use of chemicals, where the air force fully exterminated the 84th Division. It was limited to Halabjah Valley. This had a tremendous psychological effect on the rest of the Iranian soldiers. This is not meant to be a defense of what we did, but for the purposes of historical honesty, the Kurds were not the target of this attack. We had focused it on the Iranian forces present in that area. The Kurds who died during that attack were those folks who refused to obey orders to evacuate the city, and their numbers did not exceed 75–150 killed.53 And another thing is that the Iranians also retaliated by using chemical weapons. Murray: It seems that the Iranians did not use the chemical weapons until the very end of the war. Why?

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Hamdani: It was their lack of capabilities and limited production. They only had a limited capability when we started using chemical weapons, not to mention all the effort to produce those. Woods: What do you think the Iranians learned through all this 8 years of experience about chemical weapons? What did Iran take away from that experience? Hamdani: Well, they had countermeasures, for sure. For example, they developed some kind of distilled gases that looked like white smoke to minimize the effects of a chemical attack. POWs told us of these tools, but we were never able to find out what it was that they were using, and our specialists could not come to any conclusion about the substance the Iranians were using. Woods: I’d like to hear about how you used your experience fighting the Iranians in the 1980s in your senior staff positions in the early 1990s, and finally your corps command in the late 1990s. How did your thoughts about and plans for fighting Iran develop over time? Did you expect that Iran would use chemicals? Apparently, Iraq did not have chemicals in the late 1990s, but I presume you thought Iran did. After all, they used them in the late 1980s, and were not under the same restrictions as Iraq was after the 1991 war. Did you anticipate or expect the Iranians to use chemical weapons, had you gone to war in the 1990s, based on what they had learned fighting in the 1980s? Hamdani: In the 1990s, for the most part, we had a lot of good protection equipment, more than what the Iraqi army needed, and so our army was trained and each soldier was provided with two [chemical] protection masks that fit his size. Our soldiers had also received training in case of chemical attacks. And we had decontamination stations in each brigade, and in the headquarters of the battalions and companies. The picture that was shown in Colin Powell’s presentation54 was actually a picture of a decontamination station of the 14th Brigade inside part of the Medina Munawwara Division. So yes, there was always the assumption that had we gone to war after 1991, Iran would have used chemical weapons. Woods: Let us go back to the Iran-Iraq War. You have described the period of October-November 1982 as a quiet one. At around this time [the Republican Guard] was being issued new equipment. You were given command of the Hamza Battalion just as it took possession of brand-new T–72s. Saddam Hussein directed that a series of large-scale tests and training exercises be conducted in early 1983. These were to be followed by a period of analyzing the lessons. Can you describe what happened in this period? How were the Republican Guard forces pulled back away from the front, reorganized, expanded, and given new equipment? Can you describe this process, and specifically Saddam’s involvement? Did the “lessons learned” process aim to adjust current doctrine? Hamdani: I came to command the Republican Guard Battalion (Hamza) as a result of the battle of Al-Hindidi. In that battle, my battalion had performed in

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outstanding fashion. Saddam used to rely on his relatives’ Republican Guard battalions, but his relatives were not disciplined and had little competence and only limited previous participation in war. So Saddam began to choose commanders from the best Iraqi armored battalions to command Republican Guard battalions, whereas previously he had chosen only his relatives. Obviously, Saddam had started to realize that the [overall] capabilities of the Iraqi army were weakening; even the competent troops were starting to lose. Moreover, at this point, Saddam finally recognized that this was going to be a longer war than he had expected. So he started picking the best officers, commanding officers, and junior officers within the Iraqi army and put them in the Republican Guard, and he aimed to save this new force for the major counterattack, as frontline forces were weakening day by day. This was in line with the recommendations of the general officers to create a special armored force that was well equipped and well trained, led by expert, high-ranking officers, with great experience, and to use this force on special occasions to counterattack serious threats. Murray: The great British soldier of World War II, Lord Slim, argued that the creation of large specialized forces had a negative tendency on the remainder of British forces, and that, in fact, it would have been better to aim for a higher overall standard throughout the Fourteenth Army than create special forces. This was clearly not the approach of the German and Soviet armies in World War II, where they had a relatively small percentage of elite guard divisions or SS units with all the best equipment, leaving the rest with relative junk. In Iraq’s case, do you feel this was a wise decision, or should the emphasis have been more on raising the standards of the whole army? Hamdani: Well, in general, around the world, the majority of the world’s armies rely on two or three types of troops of different types. Even the United States has the National Guard for every state, but also the Marines, who are specialized for special operations. And the presence of the Marines does not reduce the importance of the National Guard. There is a difference in the kind of assignment that each force takes on. For example, at this time, the regular army would undertake ground offensives, and they would go to the objective but would stop, as it was a done deal when they reached their target. On the other hand, the Republican Guard would conduct several operations, moving from up in the north down to the south and from the east to the west through several battles, and would probably resist more effectively than the regular army because of their better training and mentality. Every time I led a mission, I would tell my soldiers that failure was not an option, that they must win the battle, for there were no forces behind them, only traffic police. With this mentality, there were no options, and it was different from the regular army soldiers. We would have great momentum, a strong attack, and a clear goal with well-developed plans, because we would always know that we were the last line, and that we would lose if we turned back.

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Murray: Was it an all-volunteer force of both officers and soldiers, or were entire Republican Guards units hand selected? How did the political reliability of the Republican Guard officers during this period play a role? Obviously after the war was over, political reliability would come back as a major influence. Hamdani: The selection process for how the Republican Guard chose its officers was that [its recruiters] picked the experienced and qualified officers from the original army. And the loyalty issue was more of a psychological state, since members of the Republican Guard Army felt that Saddam Hussein was their direct leader. Saddam held a certain position in the leadership for the Republican Guard, who felt that they had a different chain of command and that they had open communication and direct contact with Saddam. So they saw him as taking care of their interests. It gave the psychological impression that they were important and affected the fashion with which they carried themselves and conducted their operations during battle. Woods: You have described Saddam as having dialogues with fairly lowlevel commanders and, especially after 1985, with brigade and division commanders of the Republican Guard. Tell us some more about this. Hamdani: Well, this would provide significant psychological import, because Saddam would not meet with the chief of staff of the army or the minister according to the chain of command. Thus, the soldier would feel that Saddam was talking to him directly, regardless of the loyalty or the party affiliation. But this was just a psychological effect, like, for instance, President Bush somewhere talking to a soldier, as if he were a friend, cheering him up. So regardless of what the soldier might think of Saddam, the direct contact had an impact on him. This shows the difference between the Republican Guard and regular army loyalties and behavior. Throughout the war and afterward, most Iraqi officers started to realize that they did not want to become members of the Republican Guard, because of the great responsibility demanded of them. There were approximately 365 days worth of training, with high-level missions, and high levels of expectations and sacrifices from the Republican Guard. It was all psychological. Murray: When the war with Iran was over, was there an effort to bring the regular army up to the standards of the Republican Guard, or was it simply to continue along the same track that had existed during the war, with the Republican Guard holding the elite spot, and the regular army at a lower level? Hamdani: In fact, after the war they tried to reorganize the entire Iraqi army and Republican Guard to lower the number of soldiers. We had about 37 divisions when we started the war and that was up from 11 divisions originally. During the war, we increased the army up to 57 divisions. So this definitely consumed the society’s manpower, and it did not seem appropriate for the army to continue in this way. Therefore, the process of reducing the army’s size and developing lessons

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learned from the war started in 1989, but then the Kuwait crisis changed the matter, and the same forces demolished after the Iran-Iraq War were called back again, but with less spirit, of course. Murray: The Israeli Army specifically used its initial elite unit, the Golani, as an example of the level to which they wanted to train up their infantry forces. In 1973, when the U.S. Army created the Ranger Regiment, it was deliberately created as an elite force, but also to set the standard for the whole of the army’s infantry. Was there any kind of conception, in terms of the 1980 reforms, that the Republican Guard was going to serve as an example for what the rest of the force should be, or was it still conceived of as a two-tier force? Hamdani: The Republican Guard remained as the model of high standards for the Iraqi army, of the well trained and experienced forces that had existed in the 1970s, as evidenced by their engagements with Israel. Therefore, Iraqi leaders tried to use this as the standard for the rest of the army. For example, when I took command of the Al-Madina Al-Munawwarah division in the Republican Guard, I was always trying to bring its soldiers back to the high level of expectations that I had as commander of the 3d Division, because that was the best army division in the region. Personally, as a division commander and later as a corps commander, I used to stay up at night in order to review the level of the training tests, the training methods developed for the soldiers and the officers, and the level of threat that we were going to face. I would spend hours focusing on how to learn from our prior battles, such as with Israel, and how this should affect our training programs. We always tried to set the bar high for the special forces, at the level of the Israeli Army, and then, once we got to know U.S. forces, we tried to set our bar to the level of the Russian and U.S. Special Forces. These were our goals, we always tried to improve everything, and this all had a significant impact. I used to ask the commanders, the division and brigade commanders, after showing them a picture I had of American soldiers standing all straight in their uniforms next to a convoy. I would then compare that depiction to a picture of regular Iraqi officers, asking them, “Can you explain to me why the Iraqi soldier looks this way, while the American soldier looks that way? One of them [the Iraqi] looks disappointing, while the other [American] one is standing there, confident and proud, with his Kevlar looking great.” I even told Saddam Hussein this and commented: “The training, preparation level, and discipline of the soldiers should be this [the American] way.” Murray: This is interesting, because it is clear that Saddam did not believe that discipline was important. To him, the essential thing was the “warrior spirit” and the “warrior will,” not the sense that, in fact, discipline was far more important. Often the “warrior spirit” gets you killed, while discipline kills the other person. Hamdani: True. This is because Saddam was never a military officer.

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Discussion Six Summer 1983 Iranian Offensive into Haj Umran—Northern Mountain Operations and Kurdish Support—A 1,000-kilometer Front—Threats to the Dams and Baghdad— Unpredictable Iranian Strategy and Tactics—February 1984 Iraqi 6 th Armored Division Losses—Iranian Marsh Operations—Intelligence Development and Satellite Support in March 1985 Woods: The Iranian offensive into the Haj Umran sector in July-August of 1983 was considered one of the most significant threats to Baghdad early in the war. Because of this offensive, you essentially had to evacuate sectors in the south and in some cases airlift reinforcements directly into the fight in the north. Can you describe these movements for us? [See figures 7 and 8.] Hamdani: When the Iranians realized they were unable to achieve success in the areas of Iraqi superiority in armored and air force units, particularly in the south, they altered their strategy from one of seeking deep penetrations to one of mounting operations in areas of complex terrain, where the use of armored and air force units was difficult. So they started to work in the mountain and marsh areas to achieve a greater degree of success. [In the north] they also found Kurdish parties who cooperated with them, such as the PUK [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan] and the KDP [Kurdish Democratic Party]. [In the south], they had the Iraqi Da’wa party, which was loyal to Iran. Woods: Can you describe specifically what the PUK and the KDP did to provide support? Was it close cooperation, or were they acting as covering forces? How specifically did Kurdish forces act in concert with the Iranian offensive? Hamdani: They provided three types of help. First, they offered guidance on the unfamiliar terrain and information about the region; second, they helped in matters of logistics; and third, they participated along part of the front line with small teams of Iranians, because of their knowledge of the area. This Iranian tactic of collaborating with dissident Iraqi groups caused Iraqi forces to disperse from the south to the north and stretched our line of defense. This forced the Iraqi leaders to confront major battles on two fronts, separated by a considerable distance. Woods: The reports in the Western press at the time suggest that this battle [Haj Umran sector in July-August of 1983] was the first major use of chemicals by Iraq, and it resulted from a lack of sufficient forces.55 Was the use of chemicals at this point to help the Iraqi forces buy time to reposition? Hamdani: Well, I do not think that this was the first time. No chemical weapons were used in 1983. The first time we used them, it happened later, maybe in 1986 and afterward, but nothing during this earlier period.56

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We have to understand that in the early stages of the war, there was an agreement between the Kurdish leadership of the PUK and KDP with the central Iraqi government. Saddam’s regime allowed them legally not to participate in the conflict. They would have to be members of the army to fight the Iranians. Unfortunately, they stabbed Saddam in the back by providing support for the Iranians in the early stages of the war. Saddam considered this action as the first act of treason by the Kurds toward the central government. Murray: What do you think the Iranian aim was in launching this late 1983 offensive? Was the offensive aimed to pull the Iraqi forces out of the south, or did it have some major operational goal such as pushing on to Baghdad? Do you think they were simply fighting the war of exhaustion against Iraq by trying to extend the battlefront, or were they fighting a much larger sort of operation, literally aiming to knock Saddam’s regime out of power? Hamdani: In fact, there were many reasons. One was to compensate for their losses and failures in several attacks in the center and the south. There was considerable pressure coming from Khomeini on the regular army and militia for their Figure 7. Iranian Dawn offensives—northern sector, 1983–1986

Source: Satellite image courtesy of National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Available at <www.parstimes. com/spaceimages/mideast/>.

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failures at the time. So they responded in this way to show strength to the political and religious leadership. Another reason was to force the Iraqi leadership to fight over two fronts separated by almost 1,000 kilometers. It is difficult for any military to fight on fronts separated by this kind of distance. This brings up the expression known to military officers of “maneuvering on interior lines.” Take Israel, for example. It is not difficult for the Israelis at the strategic level, because they can maneuver at the interior lines, where at one point they would move against Egypt and then at another toward Syria. Another reason was to gain an area where the Iranians might form a provisional government in the future. If the northern area was suitable and the mountain areas had Kurdish parties that were a part of the Iraqi government, it would be possible for the Iranians to occupy this area and establish an independent state. This would create internal political conflicts for the central Iraqi government. Woods: This sounds like the strategy the Shah used in the 1974–1975 Kurdish war, correct? Figure 8. Iranian Dawn offensives—central and southern sectors, 1983–1986

Source: Satellite image courtesy of National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Available at <www.parstimes. com/spaceimages/mideast/>.

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Hamdani: Yes. The other issue is that mountainous areas require a large number of troops, and therefore would consume a major part of Iraq’s reserves. This would hurt the effectiveness of the remainder of the force down south. Murray: Was it not also advantageous to the Iranians to open a front here because it was logistically easier to supply from Tehran and the centers of Iranian power, rather than the fighting in the south? Hamdani: Yes, I agree. But we have to remember that the Kurds provided logistic support that was already in place in the mountains. The other critical danger that concerned the central government of Iraq, and that Saddam worried about, was that if Iranian forces made it to the dams of the rivers in the north, they would gain a major advantage. Those dams were critical, because if the Iranians were to destroy them, the central and southern areas [of Iraq] would be flooded. From the Iranian perspective, this would represent a great achievement. On the other hand, at this time, there was never a direct threat to Baghdad. Woods: Can you tell us more about the Iranian offensive that began on 21 February 1984? Your memoirs described these attacks as occurring across the whole sector around Basra and just to the north of Basra, but the Iranian tactics were “very unclear.” What do you mean by this? What was it about the Iranian tactics that was unclear? Hamdani: Well, as to how the Iranians were operating, the majority of the people giving commands were not a part of a centralized command structure. As I mentioned earlier, there were multiple lines connected to Ayatollah Khomeini, regular lines of the regular armies, the Pasdaran militias, and the Basij volunteers. Everyone connected to Ayatollah Khomeini, and they competed amongst themselves, as to who would have more influence on the front to attack the Iraqis and damage Saddam. Their operations were not coordinated on the ground, and so, for a while, when we analyzed their movements, we could not make any sense of what they were doing. We were trying to figure out what was going on, and finally we realized that each one of these units was operating independently, and that there was no C2, no strategic planning. Woods: So in the Iraqi staff, you were looking at all this and saying, “What is their plan, what is their strategy?” Hamdani: We kept doing analyses, and one of the combat patrols sent to one of the valleys clashed with a hostile patrol. I decided personally to investigate [by interrogating] a prisoner. (There were five of them, but four were killed.) The one [Iranian] who survived had a camera and a tape of their missions. He had traveled from deep in Iran over the previous days and weeks. We interrogated him and looked at the tape. It showed the five militia members in the area of Isfahan, with a sheikh or an imam. Then it showed them moving along the road in a civilian vehicle toward the front. So I had him clarify to me how his patrol came all the way

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from Isfahan to Iraq directly, despite all the preexisting Iranian military formations and divisions. He told me that he was a follower of so-and-so Husayniyah [name of a local imam] and that he and his men had received the mission to go to the front and reach Karbala. Their entire group consisted of approximately 30 militants from Isfahan. I asked him how did he cross the battle line into this sector, and he asked me, “What line?” He said he had come to cross in this location because this was the area of operations of a commander who had ties to his imam. So when they got to the front line, he said, it was the duty of the [Iranian soldiers] there to let [him and his fellow soldiers] execute their mission and then come back. This kind of thing never happened before in any army in the world. This local imam formed a force that moved approximately 700 kilometers directly from Isfahan to the front line. From a military perspective, this is a senseless suicide . . . to try to send these men all the way to Karbala. Woods: I would like to understand a little more about the losses suffered by the 6th Armored Division in operations during February 1984. You describe in your memoirs the difficulties the 6th Armored Division had in the [central front] marshes, and that they suffered heavy losses. Can you describe Iranian and Iraqi armored operations in and around the marsh area? Is there anything aside from the engineering improvements, already discussed, that can help us understand how Iraqi armor operated in this area? Can you describe what sort of mechanized operations the Iranians pursued? Hamdani: The Iranians surprised the Iraqis at the beginning of the fight, because we considered the area of Baneh [note: location name unclear] to be well protected by Iraqi defenses. The defenders relied on natural and artificial barriers in that sector, such as minefields and other kinds of physical obstacles. The negligence of Iraqi leaders at that time lay in the fact that they thought the enemy would not cross these depressions and marshes, and, therefore, they actually reduced their defenses. So the Iranian attack [on the 6th Armored Division] was a surprise. That was the first problem. The second was that the Iranians deployed a well-trained and equipped infantry division. They deployed an effective resistance in this area that was hard to operate in and maneuver around. Before the attack, they launched a small mission that did not catch our attention. They used frogmen to explore the approaches to our positions. Some of the [Iranian] divers were killed or injured, but this did not affect the Iraqi front. This was a huge mistake on the part of the commanders in the area for not paying attention and realizing this reconnaissance mission was clearly part of a larger plan. Woods: You mention in your memoirs that “to prevent further losses, the commander of the 6th Armored Division took the responsible decision to

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withdraw. He courageously accepted the consequences of his actions.” Can you explain what this means? Was he forced out of command or removed by Saddam? What happened to the 6th Armored commander who had responsibilities for that sector? Hamdani: Yes, I will explain the answer to this question, but this is part of a broader issue that I must explain along the way. This commander was courageous, realistic, and professional. I participated and fought alongside him in this battle, so I speak from experience. Due to the defeat, he lost his command and received an assignment as the planning officer for 2 months, after which he went into retirement. This was not the appropriate way to compensate him for what he had done and for all his experience. The corps commander, who gave this mild, unexpected punishment, General Maher ‘Abd Rashid, was stupid, but he was a close friend of Saddam Hussein. The division commander told me that I was probably only one of a few commanders who came back to thank him and express gratitude for his long service in the regular army. The defeat of the division was not due to the 6th Division commander’s mistakes. It was the mistakes of the corps commander, General Maher ‘Abd Rashid, which had resulted in the great losses on the ground and allowed the Iranians to surprise us. Earlier, the Iranians were also able to surprise us on Bubyan, 30 kilometers south of Basra. The corps commander saw this attack, which came just before the main attack on the 6th Division, as though it [the Bubyan attack] was going to be the main thrust. So the Iranians tricked the corps commander, not the division commander, into sending his reserves in this direction. Then the enemy infiltrated through the marshes [and hit the 6th Division]. They launched a powerful and skillful infiltration with boats, helicopters, and various engineering units for airlift and artillery [see figure 9]. Woods: Were there any issues at this point with the marsh Arabs and the various tribes? Hamdani: Well, there was not much of a population, just small groups of people who were fishermen, and they did not have much influence. But back to the battle. The Iranians crossed the marsh and reached all the way to the Tigris River. Thanks to their engineering efforts, beyond any imagination, and their great level of tolerance and courage, the Iranians were able at this phase to develop their defenses in that area in such a way that, in just a few weeks, they built these tactical bridges and pontoons [Hamdani describes them as “cork” bridges], and expanded some of the dirt berms. It was really an incredible feat of engineering. At the same time, our forces, including the 6th Division were unable to counterattack into the marsh areas. So the 6th Armored Division decided to withdraw its troops rather than sacrifice one of Iraq’s best divisions. Woods: Did Iraqi intelligence ever pick up on the engineering preparations and the buildup of the Iranian bridging teams?

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Figure 9. Bubyan and Shatt al-Arab

Hamdani: In fact, we were taken by surprise. There were many problems because of a lack of intelligence. The other thing is that we did not expect that Iranians, or any army for that matter, could survive for more than a week in the

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marshes. But the Iranians proved their capacity to persist by living with the fish and foxes, and so forth. They really surprised everybody. Even using our air units and helicopters, we were not successful because of the type of plants and the terrain. I mean the high grass and reeds grew to a height of 3 meters. We also lost the value of our air support in the marshes. Moreover, it was difficult for ground radar to intercept enemy movements, because when the wind blew and moved the plants, it created all sorts of sounds, and the radar screens would become fuzzy. So because of this phenomenon, we could detect only the sounds of engines, such as on a large boat, but not the sounds of people. Murray/Woods: It seems a couple of things are going on here. One is Iraqi commanders underestimating Iranian tenacity, as well as the growing sophistication, perhaps, among the Iranians to take advantage of the terrain in order to minimize Iraqi capabilities. This is a different kind of operation occurring in the marshes than what was going on with the imam sending the patrol from Isfahan to Karbala. Hamdani: That’s right; this was well organized and well planned. The truth is that the Iranians displayed a high level of performance, and different capabilities, such as the engineering, even with the large numbers of losses within their forces. I must have seen about 50 bodies floating in the river in the marshes, and these were regular Iranian army, not the militia. They were not concerned with losses or choosing the front, and, unfortunately, they never cared about their fallen soldiers. You would see them being grabbed and eaten by fish, and the Iranians would just leave them dying. Woods: You mentioned the lack of high-quality intelligence. In your memoirs, you make a specific note that not long after this, in March of 1985 with the Taj al-Ma’arek battle, there was an improvement in intelligence. You mentioned satellite pictures and that sort of thing. So it appears that things improved with satellite and aerial photography. Did this kind of information make a difference and prevent another battlefield surprise like the one you just described? Hamdani: First of all, yes, the intelligence information was excellent, and got better because of a number of factors. I felt that the Arab party that might have sent us information was either King Hussein [Jordan] or King Abdullah [Saudi Arabia], because one of them visited us then. But at the same time, there was coordination with the American military attaché in Baghdad. At the same time, we had aircraft with better cameras for photography. We also had good sources of strategic intelligence, such as from the spies inside Iran as well as other countries around the area. We also had good wireless eavesdropping. This was new equipment [for us], so the electronic war was going well. The most important thing [in limiting new surprises] was that the Iranians attacked the same area once again; they did not go to another sector. Therefore, we had the opportunity to watch them for a whole

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year and see how they progressed. So the enemy did not surprise us from another front, but came from the same place, and we knew exactly what to expect. Murray: I noticed that in 1984–1985 your regiment, Hamza, was moving between the major frontline combat and then back to Baghdad to rest and reset. Was this the normal procedure for just the Republican Guard, or was there an effort made to do this with all the army formations to keep them refreshed from fighting? Hamdani: Yes, this was only for the Republican Guard. Because it was a strategic force, all kinds of special operations units would come back. Once they accomplished their missions, all strategic reserves would come back in order to reorganize their structure, training, and supplies.

Discussion Seven The 1986 Al-Fao Campaign and Baghdad’s Misinterpretation of Iranian Strategy—Traitors in the Iraqi Leadership—Prisoners of War— Operation Dawn—Iraqi Casualty Competition and the “Bedouin Mentality” Woods: In the Al-Fao campaign, you mention that the enemy took you by surprise. You noted earlier that in February of 1986, intelligence had improved. Nevertheless, here the Iranians were able to take the Iraqi command by surprise. You suggest that there was some sort of deception operation meant to distract the Iraqi high command, while the Iranians were seizing Al-Fao. Could you describe the circ*mstance of the initial Iranian offensive to seize Al-Fao, why you think they were successful, and if and where there were deception operations associated with it? Hamdani: I remember this well because I participated in the area at the field level and saw the intelligence that was coming in from those doing the monitoring. They confirmed that the attack was going to be toward the VII Corps in the south. However, the Iranians deceived our strategic intelligence desk [in Baghdad] into believing that the attack would come against the III Corps [central] sector, which was the same sector [the Iranians] had attacked in 1984, 1985, and 1986.57 The field knew the truth while the military strategists in Baghdad said, “No, the attack is going to happen here in the [central sector].” So there was a disagreement between the two levels, and the military strategists in Baghdad refused to accept the facts the commanders had seen on the ground. Woods: What did the planners in Baghdad think was happening? Hamdani: They believed that the Iranians would conduct operations in the same way that they had in 1984, 1985, and 1986—attacking the same sector of the VI Corps. The strategy had a flaw that was visible from the field—I saw personally that the enemy was going to attack the VII Corps, when I went on reconnaissance missions. We could see that the Iranians were dropping the boats they were

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going to use, building observation posts, and making gaps between the orchards to stockpile their war supplies. They were building logistic roads with their corps of engineers. So we could see that the Iranians were going to attack in this direction, but back in our headquarters they dismissed this as just a trick and believed that the main attack was going to come against the VI Corps. Woods: Were the Iranians trying to run a deception indicating that they were going to repeat the previous years’ attacks on the sector? Hamdani: Well, there was interception of radio communications just inside the area of the VI Corps, because there were strategic wireless stations to indicate that there would be something there, but there was no ground activity. So the Iraqi strategic leadership sent a mass group of loyal Ba’ath party members [militia] to the VI Corps sector to cut down the reeds. One person I remember playing a role in this was Wafiq Al-Samarra’i [director deputy military of intelligence responsible for the Iran branch].58 It was possible he dealt with [these decisions] at that time, as he was in charge and so could have been the one behind the disagreement [with the forward forces]. He [Al-Samarra’i] is currently serving as the security advisor to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. For us, [Al-Samarra’i] is a traitor. Saddam trusted this man to the highest degree. He knew many secrets that many generals did not know. He was a smart person, but also selfish. He would not allow any good Iraqi intelligence officer to get promoted or to work his way up the chain of command. Even the director of Iraqi intelligence did not have much control over this man because of his close ties with Saddam. [For example], we started to exchange some POWs between Iraq and Iran, mostly injured, young soldiers, and so forth. One of these Iranian prisoners was a very high-value POW from the Iraqi perspective, to the point where Saddam met personally with this person a number of times. At one point, Wafiq Al-Samarra’i returned this most valuable person to Iran without Saddam’s knowledge or that of the intelligence director. This was really dangerous. When the individual arrived back in Iran, we had at the time a spy at the Iranian operations headquarters in Tehran. And we also had a network of spies working for Iraqi intelligence [in Iran]. The second day this POW made it back to Iran, all these spies and our agent in the Iranian intelligence headquarters were executed. Woods: Who was this POW? Was he a general or a senior spy? Hamdani: No, he was a vague individual, but he had a lot of information from Iranian intelligence. We knew he worked with or was a member of the Iranian intelligence, but we were not so sure about what he did specifically. He was an ambiguous and important individual, with a dark cloud on top of him. Woods: Do you remember his name? Hamdani: No, I can’t remember, by God. We had a general in the Iranian operations working on behalf of the Iraqi intelligence, and immediately after this

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POW went back to Iran, this general and his cell that provided us with information were executed. This was in the same year [1986]. Once information about these actions of Wafiq Al-Samarra’i reached Saddam, he was so upset and frustrated that he dropped Al-Samarra’i from being second in command of Iraqi intelligence to being an intelligence officer for the VII Corps. I remember going on a reconnaissance mission in the VII Corps’ area of operations, and I had to stop at the corps headquarters, because one of the commanders needed to talk to me. And when I came in, there was General Wafiq, and I will never forget how he was sitting. I asked him, “What are you doing here?” and he did not answer me. So when the corps commander came in I asked him what General Wafiq was doing there, he replied that General Wafiq had made a terrible mistake that would normally deserve execution by Iraqi standards, but because Saddam loved him and their close ties, he just dropped him down from his former position. After he fled to Europe in 1992, we received further information.59 Qusay, Saddam’s son, asked me, “Can you believe that Wafiq Al-Samarra’i was a traitor since 1982? He worked for the Iranian service since 1982.” I told Qusay that this was impossible. So he showed me a file about the general since that time, and it told about how Talabani recruited him in 1982 to work for both Talabani and the Iranian services. This was really a shock. This man was the reservoir of all the intelligence information that Saddam received. Woods: So what was motivating Samarra’i, especially in 1982? Why do you think he betrayed his country? Hamdani: It was so strange that we could not believe that he would do this. This is why, as I mentioned earlier, he [Al-Samarra’i] never allowed anybody smart or experienced to become an intelligence officer or to make it through the ranks. Every time someone would make his way, the general would find an excuse to get rid of him. Murray: How was he able to work his way into Saddam’s circle? Hamdani: First of all, he was very smart. We had other smart people, like the chief of staff of the army, but to get close to President Saddam Hussein one had to possess the ability to read [Saddam’s] mind and express his opinion. Al-Samarra’i would read the other generals in discussions and lay out the groundwork, such that it would sound like whatever decision Saddam had decreed, it was the right one. He would use his skills to manipulate situations, and in this way, he earned Saddam’s trust. This needs to be understood in the context of Saddam’s rarely giving much authority and trust to others. However, once that trust was gained, he would trust the person until proven otherwise. At present, the Anfal trial that is prosecuting the former minister of defense and the chief of staff of the army is nothing compared to the role of Wafiq Al-Samarra’i, who was in charge of the intelligence of the Anfal operation.60

AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE

Woods: In the specific incident regarding the release of the senior Iranian intelligence officer captured, how did General Al-Samarra’i explain this? I understand that he said it was a mistake, but was the idea that he was not intending to release him, or that he hoped to turn him into a double agent? How did he explain this to Saddam? Hamdani: By God, I don’t know the details, but he had an incredible skill to convince others and earn their trust. But from what I heard from others close to Saddam, he tried to convince Saddam that he tried to use to the prisoner as a double agent inside the headquarters back in Tehran. Al-Samarra’i managed to convince Saddam that they should use the prisoner as a double agent, but Saddam was upset that Al-Samarra’i did not go back to him to get the final decision on whether to release him. Woods: Getting back to the 1986 Al-Fao campaign. Can you describe for us the specific conditions faced by the VII Corps and the initial Iranian attack? Why do you think the Iranians were successful as quickly as they were, and what events precipitated the panic and breakdown within the Iraqi forces? Hamdani: First of all, the Iranians were able to work freely [without Iraqi interference] and mobilize their troops and reserves in the VII Corps area of operations. Our strategic observation posts focused on the VI Corps, and so they observed little. Second, the Iranians were [militarily] superior in the Al-Fao area. Iraq had only the 26th Division for defense in the area. The force that attacked was as big as an Iranian corps, along with an intense artillery bombardment and thousands of quick boat crossings. It was a short distance from the orchard lines to Iraqi positions that provided the necessary protection and cover [to the Iranians]. At night, right before dawn, waves of Iranians suddenly attacked. We had our defenses along the river. In these areas there was nothing but orchards. There are three main roads into Al-Fao from the northwest. The first road runs alongside the Euphrates River to the Shatt al-Arab, the second runs up to Basra, and the third come in from Um-Qasr in the west. Iraqi commanders had established and built up their defenses sufficient to deter a secondary attack, but not a major one. That is, it was sufficient enough in case of a deception attack. Most of the focus of the defensive line was back in the area of the VI Corps. Even the VII Corps commander was subordinated to the VI Corps commander. At that time we were astonished at this stupidity; we couldn’t believe our leadership was this stupid. The enemy attacked Al-Kharnoubiyah area in this direction at the same time as in the area of Um Al-Sababikh Island. These attacks were at the brigade level, although there was a division that crossed the Um Al-Ma’aber area. There was meticulous [Iranian] preparation for this battle; I witnessed a lot of it.

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Murray: Was there any particular Iranian general or Iranian group of officers who had come up with this plan? Who do you think was responsible? Hamdani: [The mission was planned by] the chief of staff of the Iranian army and the minister of defense who adopted this effort at the highest level. It was called “Fajr operation,” or Operation Dawn. The commanders were from the new Iranian leadership, representing a mix of the army, the Pasdaran, and others, along with some officers from the naval forces. Woods: This turns out to have been some of the most complex conventional combat of the war. The Iranians seem to have integrated their ground forces, used multiple point crossings, integrated airpower, and coordinated considerable artillery. It was also a joint combined arms operation since it included Iranian naval forces operating simultaneously with air and ground forces. Can you provide us any additional insights? Hamdani: Yes, [the Iranians] demonstrated a high-quality performance of integrated operations. There were thousands of boats that fit 400 people, rushing in before dawn. These were rubber boats, wooden boats, and big boats all transporting thousands of soldiers in a few moments under the cover of intense artillery and air bombardment of the area. We downed some of the Iranian aircraft and the recovered pilots gave us information about the attacks. These were important since our leaders would not believe our reports without that evidence. One of the POWs was an air force captain, and he gave us the plan about how they had [crossed to the Fao Peninsula] and told us that there was at least a corps level force in the attack. This was when the strategic command back in headquarters [Baghdad] finally began to pay attention. To confirm that he knew what he was talking about, the captain also mentioned that the Iranians probably had more than 1,000 Iraqi POWs back at their headquarters. But even with this report and headquarters acknowledging that this was part of the main attack, Baghdad still had worries about a secondary attack back in the [central] VI Corps sector. Woods: Did the Iranians use any form of naval infantry or marines for landings along the coast during this operation? Hamdani: No. One cannot do landings along these coasts because of their limited depth. Even our navy did not operate in this area, and our navy was the one with the capabilities to do so. [The coastal area to the south of the main attack], approximately 3 kilometers from us, was not suitable for boat landings because the deep water is too far from the shore. As for the role of the Iranian navy, they shelled this area and helped i

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