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Where have Saddam's Republican Guards gone?

THE GUARDIAN, Washington
The last few days have been a cause of great bemusement to military experts. Three divisions of the much-feared Republican Guard were said to be lined up south of Baghdad, itching for a fight; and yet when US forces arrived the Iraqi troops largely vanished in front of their eyes.
The war plan was alleged to have become bogged down; and yet in recent days the push north towards Baghdad has been quicker than anyone imagined.
Saddam's regime, it was claimed, was poised to launch chemical and/or biological weapons as soon as the forces crossed the "red line" around Baghdad. That line has been crossed but there is no sign of such weapons being deployed. Whatever happened to the Republican Guard?
"They didn't show up," LieutenantColonel Terry Ferrell, a squadron commander in the US 7th Cavalry Regiment told the Army Times. He and other officers of the 3rd Infantry Division had expected a major confrontation with the Republican Guard's 10,000-strong Medina Division at the Kerbala Gap 70 miles south-west of Baghdad.
The most serious skirmish came when the 3rd Division crossed the Euphrates at Musayib, but it involved only about a dozen Iraqi armoured cars,
all destroyed. "Where are they all hiding?" asked one soldier.
From the reports from journalists and the accounts of coalition military officials, there is no one explanation of the guards' evaporation.
First of all, it does look as if this was the part of the war the military planners got right. They did not foresee the ambivalence of the people and the tenacity of the Fedayeen, but they did believe the Republican Guard was not the elite it was purported to be. Furthermore, the Soviet-era T-72 tanks were hobbled by neglect and a lack of spare parts. Even dug among the palms and villages of the Euphrates valley they were easy targets for thousands of coalition bombing sorties.
The rout was all the more comprehensive because the back-up divisions were ordered into the open. The Hammurabi were sent to the west of the city, the Nebuchadnezzar to the south, alongside the Medina, and the Nida to the south-east, in support of the Baghdad. Their tanks and armoured vehicles were destroyed as they moved. They are now thought to have splintered.
The question now is whether the soldiers have slipped back into Baghdad, and whether they are still willing to fight from there. Surrendering officers from the Medina Division have said many of their troops fled to Kerbala, while the marines have tried to cut off
the Baghdad Division troops from pulling back into the city. Whether they are willing to fight in the streets will not be known until the first US columns enter. So the obvious question would be -- are US troops being lured into the city?
From the very beginning US and British military planners said that Saddam Hussein would try and suck the invading troops into his capital. Iraq's military doctrine, noted Air Marshal Brian Burridge, commander of the British forces in Iraq, was based on the Soviet model of defence in depth. Saddam, he said, "is going for a Stalingrad siege. He wants to entice us into urban warfare".
On the face of it, that kind of asymmetric, guerrilla warfare is the only way to fight a modern, well-equipped army. Street-by-street fighting could lead to heavy casualties on both sides.
It is a prospect US commanders and their soldiers cannot relish. Unexpected resistance in other Iraqi towns, including Basra and Nassiriya, does not augur well.
There were reports yesterday of forces loyal to President Saddam - an estimated 15,000 Special Republican Guard, Fedayeen, and Ba'ath party officials - setting up gun positions in Baghdad, many hidden or underground. Yet the loyalty even of his special security forces may not last for ever.
US military commanders say they
have plans to avoid bloody streetfighting. They could adopt classic urban warfare tactics, taking control of the city of some 5 million people section by section.
The nightmare explanation for President Saddam's bizarre tactics is that he is laying an elaborate trap to lure coalition troops into the streets of Baghdad, where he will unleash a cataclysmic biological or chemical weapons attack. "Once he knows his number is up, he may not give a damn about anything else," Garth Whitty, a defence analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, said. "That will be at the back of the mind of every soldier going into Baghdad." Someone was clearly orchestrating the movement of the six Republican Guard divisions as they wheeled to defend the southern reaches of the capital.
In the last 24 hours, Pentagon officials have tentatively repeated the claim that the regime's nervous system had been seriously damaged.
Within Baghdad, it will be far easier to coordinate a defence, even without radio communications. Runners can mingle with the civilian population, taking orders and messages from bunker to bunker, as demonstrated in famous sieges such as Stalingrad and Algiers. The only limiting factor is the troops' readiness to carry out orders.