Hearts and Minds: The United States is bombarding military units in the south of Iraq with leaflets, broadcasts and e-mails urging them to surrender rather than oppose a looming invasion, US officials said.
Speaking after President Bush gave President Saddam Hussein a 48-hour deadline to leave Iraq or face war, they said there had been "scattered" signs of some success in the surrender initiative, but declined to give specifics.
The intention was to persuade Iraqi forces in the south to stand aside when US-led forces sweep north from Kuwait towards the oilfields around Basra en route to Baghdad.
"Indications are very scattered, but I would say positive," said one official who asked not to be identified.
Defence officials said instructions being given to Iraqi forces were specific, including telling them to leave their tanks with their turrets reversed and to abandon vehicles in the open while returning to barracks.
The officials refused to detail the Iraqi responses but noted cautiously that Mr Saddam's elite and hard-line Republican Guards units were stationed further north near Baghdad.
Of the 280,000 US and British troops arrayed in the Gulf against Iraq, 175,000 are in Kuwait awaiting orders from Mr Bush and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, to launch a massive air and ground invasion to remove Mr Saddam and destroy alleged stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
US defence officials and private analysts say one of the first objectives of an invasion would be to overwhelm regular army units and take Basra which is only about 65 km from the Kuwait border, as tens of thousands of US and British forces sweep northward.
Basra is 550 km south-east of Baghdad.
US defence officials said also there had been growing signs that Iraq was preparing to use chemical and biological weapons against invading troops and to destroy its own oilfields.
"Some trenches dug in the south could be quickly filled with oil and set afire to delay any advance," one US official said.
"They might just blast rigs and blame it on us."
At the Pentagon, one official confirmed a Washington Post report from Kuwait that the US military was trying to negotiate "capitulation agreements" with Iraqi commanders, under which enemy troops would turn over most of their weapons and return to their barracks rather than be taken prisoners of war.
The advantage of such a move, which would allow Iraqi commanders to keep their side arms, would be to alleviate the advancing US and British forces of the burden of keeping tens of thousands of prisoners while speeding northward.
- (Reuters)