Iraq Armed Forces

The Pentagon proposed training Iraqi soldiers and arranging reciprocal visits to war colleges shortly before Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, documents obtained by a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee show. Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.), subcommittee chairman, said Monday night that the documents were obtained from the Administration as part of a probe of U.S. policy toward Iraq before the Persian Gulf War. Three months before Iraq's armed forces invaded Kuwait on Aug.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has begun withdrawing air-defense batteries, artillery, troops and other materiel from his country's northern and southern "no-fly" zones in the face of steady strikes by American and British warplanes, U.S. officials said Thursday. Although the withdrawals may be temporary, U.S.

With Arab opposition to the Gulf War mounting, a senior Egyptian official stressed Sunday that Egypt will not support any U.S. war aims that go beyond the U.N. Security Council's mandate to liberate Kuwait. Deputy Foreign Minister Butros Butros Ghali expressed Cairo's concern over suggestions that the Bush Administration has broadened its goal from liberating Kuwait to destroying Iraq's military capability and removing Saddam Hussein from power.

Escalating its challenge to Washington's new policy of "containment-plus," Iraq sent more than a dozen warplanes Tuesday into the skies over its Western-imposed southern "no-fly" zone, where they tangled with patrolling U.S. jets. Four U.S. fighter jets twice responded with missiles in the first air-to-air confrontations in six years over one of the two no-fly zones in Iraq, the Pentagon reported. But the missiles failed to hit any of the Iraqi warplanes.

Six Iraqi military helicopters crossed into Saudi Arabia on Monday and landed near a coastal town in the first major defection from Iraq's armed forces involving aircraft, military and government sources here said. Four of the helicopters landed at the Saudi town of Ras al Khafji, on the Persian Gulf coast about 10 miles from the Kuwaiti border, and their occupants sought political asylum there, the sources said. Two others ran out of fuel and landed in the Saudi desert short of Ras al Khafji.

For more than twenty years, the world ignored Iraq's exiles. In Beirut, Shiite historians added names to a registry of 7,000 martyrs killed by Iraqi secret police. There were always new names. In Paris, Kurds solicited donations for their guerrilla force fighting along the Iran-Iraq border. In Los Angeles, expatriates mailed bi-monthly newsletters called the "Iraqi Timebomb" to American media and politicians.

New evidence indicates that allied bombs killed far fewer Iraqi soldiers during the Persian Gulf War than previously estimated but caused enemy troops to desert in such large numbers that some defensive lines were left virtually unmanned, according to U.S. military commanders.

By throwing the heaviest concentration of armor since World War II against Saddam Hussein's vaunted Republican Guard, trapping it between a lethal "hammer and anvil," allied forces have launched the climactic battle of the Persian Gulf War. The engagement is the centerpiece of Operation Desert Storm, the objective of a seven-month political and military campaign that began Aug. 6 when the United States dispatched the first squadron of fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

When Saddam Hussein's army invaded Kuwait last Aug. 2, it was among the largest in the world. By any of several measures, it was in the top 10. In the case of army size in proportion to population, Iraq was No. 1, according to a Times analysis. While the Iraqi army is now in ruins, it may be instructive to see where it stood, and which nations now move up the list. Size of Force in Proportion to Population Rank: Troops on active duty per 1,000 population 1. IRAQ: 53.0 2. Israel: 42.6 3.

The Soviet-built, 8-wheel transports launched Iraqi Scud-B missiles against Israel and Saudi Arabia. The MAZ-543, is powered by a 525-horsepower engine mounted between twin, two-man cabs. It combines the function of transporter and erector, usually travels with a command-control vehicle and a tanker-pumper unit. It can fuel a Scud with liquid propellent and launch in about an hour. Top speed: 45 m.p.h Range: 300 miles Max Load: 33,374 pounds Length: 38 ft. Width: 10 ft.

Iraq said that its aircraft are flying in the "no-fly" zones patrolled by U.S. and British warplanes and that its antiaircraft batteries remain ready to fire on allied planes. U.S. officials would not say whether Iraqi aircraft encountered in the zones would be shot down. Iraq's move came a day after U.S. planes fired on an Iraqi antiaircraft position in the north, killing four Iraqi soldiers.

Though Iraqi forces have been barely visible during the air assault on their country, the Pentagon is bracing for a longshot counterstrike that it fears could still come from Iraq's unpredictable leader, Saddam Hussein. As they pounded the country for the second day, U.S. military officials reinforced troops and equipment in the region to guard against a tank attack on Kuwait and put on alert Patriot antimissile batteries to shield against Scud missiles.

A U.S. intelligence official confirmed Wednesday that Iraq is attempting to develop an unmanned aircraft that could be used to deliver biological weapons on targets as far away as Israel. The pilotless aircraft program, elements of which have been previously reported, was the focus of a report Wednesday on "CBS Evening News." The U.S.

Iraq declared a "holy war" on U.N. sanctions Sunday, calling for a 1-million-strong volunteer force to push for an end to the seven-year embargo it says has caused widespread starvation and death. "We are determined [to carry out] a great jihad to lift the sanctions," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said. "There is no alternative to this after seven years of patience and cooperation with the United Nations and its committees."

Saddam Hussein has rebuilt the Iraqi army into a credible fighting force by reviving military industries and smuggling in hardware components, according to Jane's Intelligence Review. After Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Hussein restarted the prewar network of military industries, reorganized the military command structure and cut the army's size, the British publication says in its November issue.

President Saddam Hussein had planned to resist the United Nations deal to resume Iraqi oil sales to feed his suffering population and had even drawn up plans to make massive cuts in his military to free up resources, senior U.S. officials said Thursday. Hussein reluctantly relented only when it appeared that he would soon have to begin carrying out cutbacks in the military machine that is the most powerful in the Persian Gulf region--and is the prop that has kept him in power.

I care nothing for Pogue's opinions, but I do care about my children. My 13-year-old son listens to L. L. Cool J sing: "They tell me don't drink and drive. I say what is this? Pass the Heineken and mind your own business." (The reference to Heineken has been deleted from a newer version of Cool J's song.) Then my son turns on the TV and hears a jolting message from Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The conflict inherent in these two messages is confusing to my son.

Iraq announced Monday that it will use its captured American and allied airmen as human shields against the relentless air attack on Iraqi targets, prompting U.S. officials to accuse Saddam Hussein of committing war crimes. "America is angry about this," said President Bush, who vowed that the threat will not prompt him to relax the U.S. offensive.

The United States and Britain formally warned Iraq on Thursday not to deploy additional forces near the Kuwaiti border and said the West will launch massive air strikes if Iraqi troops cross a specific line. The warning came in separate diplomatic notes handed to Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Nizar Hamdoun and designed to spell out the terms of a broader resolution on Iraq that the United Nations Security Council passed Saturday. U.S.

Iraq appeared to be pulling the last of its elite Republican Guards out of the "no-fly" zone near Kuwait on Sunday, but the Clinton Administration kept the pressure on, warning Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein that the United States may retaliate immediately the next time the troops threaten Kuwait. A day after the U.N.