Did Iraq pre-plan the tactic of false surrender?

[fhios]

According to NPR (okay, I heard it on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me), in the week before the war, an Iraqi unit surrendered to an American one setting up a loudspeaker to broadcast propoganda, but when the Americans, lacking a formal declaration of police action or whatever, had to return them, they went gladly. This is very odd behavior, off course. Most armies usually see desertion as an execution-worthy act, and the Iraqis are suppossedly worse than most. Is it possible that those surrendering were staging a ploy to convince the Americans of Iraqi willingness to surrender and thus make them pliable to their plan of ambush? Likewise a poster here kept indignantly quoting a poll stating that the Iraqis wanted to be invaded (an inherently ridiculous idea. Was there actually someone saying they a shooting war around themselves and their loved ones? Does anyone still believe in this desire to be attacked now?). Could this have been part of this scheme? It actually seems, at the very least, like one plausible explanaition for this alleged datum.

[a_unique_person]

When you look at the chaos that is Iraq, I think it is clear that Saddam couldn't organise his way out of a wet paper bag.

[Mauler]

in the week before the war, an Iraqi unit surrendered to an American one setting up a loudspeaker to broadcast propoganda

You can't take prisioners of war without some sort of declaration of hostilites.

Most armies usually see desertion as an execution-worthy act, and the Iraqis are suppossedly worse than most.

The further out you got from Saddam the less organized his military was. They were under equipped and poorly outfitted to begin with and would not be surprising if the command structure of that unit to have failed to the point that the soldier could have left and returned without much notice. I doubt that they or the American forces reported to the Iraqi command that they weren't taking prisioners yet.

Is it possible that those surrendering were staging a ploy to convince the Americans of Iraqi willingness to surrender and thus make them pliable to their plan of ambush?

The US and allied forces have always taken prisioner at every opportunity so it's not like there was a need to make them more likely to accpet POWs. It's more likely that the command structure of that Iraqi unit had failed and the soldiers could leave and return without notice. There is no concievable way to make American forces more willing to take POWs.

[fhios]

Originally posted by Mauler


You can't take prisioners of war without some sort of declaration of hostilites.



The further out you got from Saddam the less organized his military was. They were under equipped and poorly outfitted to begin with and would not be surprising if the command structure of that unit to have failed to the point that the soldier could have left and returned without much notice. I doubt that they or the American forces reported to the Iraqi command that they weren't taking prisioners yet.



The US and allied forces have always taken prisioner at every opportunity so it's not like there was a need to make them more likely to accpet POWs. It's more likely that the command structure of that Iraqi unit had failed and the soldiers could leave and return without notice. There is no concievable way to make American forces more willing to take POWs.

You're missing my point. The very agreeability of these people to return to the very command structure they had escaped--that structure being an extension of Saddam--calls into question the real motives for their desertion. If they really wanted out, wouldn't they have asked for asylum or something?

[fhios]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
When you look at the chaos that is Iraq, I think it is clear that Saddam couldn't organise his way out of a wet paper bag.

Are you speaking from experience? I was not aware that you were an Iraqi. I had the impression you were an Australian. This would explain your previous willingness to have America enter the war though. You wanted to kill people you saw as the infidel.

So are you saying he is not responsible for current attacks on US troops? If he's not able to organize anything of any complexity, then he would not be able to launch the current terrorist attacks suffered by my nations soldiers and those attacks would have to be the result of actions on the part of the Iraqi people themselves. In such a case my nation's political leaders would have to be fighting in opposition to the Iraqi political will.

Lastly: hey, the ploys above would only require the recruitment of the soldiers in it, and some slightly more competant version of "Comic Ali" to type a falsified story on the nonexistant poll into a news wire service input. Are you saying he couldn't even organize, say, ten guys?

[Mauler]

You're missing my point. The very agreeability of these people to return to the very command structure they had escaped--that structure being an extension of Saddam--calls into question the real motives for their desertion. If they really wanted out, wouldn't they have asked for asylum or something?

We don't know how agreeably they returned to Iraq or the condition of the command structure they escaped. US armed forces aren't allowed to take asylum applicants since it's a diplomatic issue. I doubt there was the diplomatic infrastructure in place on the front lines to allow for asylum requests. They would have had to seek it from the neighboring countries. Even if the idea of asking for asylum occured to the Iraqis at that time.

They could have been sent or went to the refugee camps there were being set up if they chose not to fight as well.

Given the nature of Gulf War 1 the command staff would have known how readily the US and allied forces accepted and recruited for POW's makes the concept of surrendering earlier to make them more likely to accept surrender rather foolish. We took so many prisioners we had trouble keeping track of them, and we still took them all every time they surrendered. Forces were surrendering to anyone out there back then including the press. You could make a case for the Iraqi command wanting to make it appear they were more likely to surrender not for the false surrenders but as an attempt to send less combat troop. But that would't hold much water either.