We’ll Outwit Allied Troops, Hussein Vows

During a religiously charged speech to Muslim supporters Friday, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein outlined plans to outwit and outmaneuver the technologically advanced U.S.-led forces that are preparing to drive his half a million troops from Kuwait.

Hussein’s speech was made half in the style of a revival meeting and half as a military briefing. He was frequently interrupted by turbaned preachers who shouted “God is great!” and other Muslim calls to prayer and battle. One sheik gave Hussein a $100 bill to buy bullets.

Hussein, wearing a khaki uniform and green ascot, belittled the fighting capabilities of American and other Western troops, arguing that the coming conflict will be a showdown between “believers and infidels.” The Americans, he promised, will be crippled by their lust for such pleasure spots such as France, Italy and--inexplicably--Belgium.

“They will see how Iraqi men, youths and women will fight them,” Hussein said, never mentioning by name Kuwait, which he has annexed as Iraq’s 19th province and which the U.S.-led multinational force intends to liberate if Iraq does not leave.

“The Americans will come here to perform acrobatics like in the ‘Rambo’ movies,” Hussein went on, “but wherever they land, they will find people who will resist them.”

He noted that the allied armies possess “remote-controlled missiles” but said that in the end, it will take soldiers on the ground to drive out Iraqi troops from their trenches.

“Once they move tanks toward our soldiers, we will emerge from underground to confront them,” he vowed.

Hussein’s words, spoken in a conversational manner, appeared to confirm what military analysts and foreign observers had been saying for months: That Iraq will rely on static warfare to hold off advancing U.S. troops and hope to prolong the conflict. Iraqi officials said they expect anti-war sentiments to intensify in the United States if American casualties mount.

Hussein dismissed the reputed air superiority of the allied arsenal by saying that the planes would have to fly within 3 miles of the front line and that Iraqi defenses are capable of shooting down aircraft at a distance of 12 to 20 miles.

Focusing on the front in and near Kuwait, Hussein insisted that his forces would not be fooled by enemy troop movements meant to confuse his military command.

“Confusion happens to people without experience of war,” he declared. “We are people who do not speak from military manuals but from eight years of combat experience”--a reference to his country’s long and punishing war with Iran.

Without elaboration, he claimed that the American ability to mount helicopter assaults would be limited and that small units “will be devoured by wolves.”

Hussein appeared to admit that his troops will face allied jamming of their communications but played down the disadvantage.

“We do not need communication,” he boasted. He said his army had practiced for an entire year to “overcome difficulties when it is cut off from headquarters.”

Pilots, too, are under orders to carry out prearranged missions without receiving direct orders, he said.

Hussein did not address the chances that his adversaries would knock out Iraqi defenses with cruise missiles fired from afar, or America’s apparent readiness to take the air war deep into Iraq in order to cripple the country’s ability to lash out with long-range missiles. Nor did he repeat his threat to attack Israel if war breaks out.

He did, however, call for a holy war to drive foreign troops from Saudi Arabia as well as to end Israel’s control over the Palestinians. Trying to lay claim to the soul of the conflict, Hussein proclaimed the battle not as one over land but one between “good and evil.”

“Do you think the infidel will be able to fight with spirit?” he asked as his audience shouted words of encouragement. “It will never happen. We are sure we will achieve victory with the help of the Almighty.”

The appeals for divine aid highlighted Hussein’s continuing efforts to whip up support among other Muslim nations and to build Iraqi morale as the date for war approaches. The United Nations has set Tuesday as the deadline for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait or face military force.

Although the ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party, which Hussein dominates, is notably anti-religious, Hussein presides over a largely observant population. The majority in Iraq is fervently Shiite Muslim.

In Mecca, in neighboring Saudi Arabia, a group of Muslim clerics issued messages in opposition to Hussein on Friday. Soldiers who fight on behalf of the Iraqi leader are “losers whose place is in hell,” the Mecca group warned.

The Muslim gathering in Baghdad attracted several hundred Muslim clerics from countries as far away as Bangladesh and Malaysia. The meeting received wide publicity.

The deputy mufti of the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem took part, as well as Louis Farrakhan, the American leader of the Nation of Islam movement.

The preachers surged forward as Hussein entered the meeting hall, and he was presented with a model of the mosque at Mecca, the holiest shrine in Islam.

Hussein made no reference in his speech to failed peace talks this week between his foreign minister, Tarik Aziz, and Secretary of State James A. Baker III nor to the visit to Baghdad today of U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.