Hungry and Exhausted, 4 Iraqi Deserters Surrender to Journalists

Four famished Iraqi army deserters, talking “incessantly” of allied bombing, surrendered to Western journalists in northern Saudi Arabia, the Independent newspaper reported here Thursday.

The journalists, three from the Independent and one from Life magazine, said they came across the four Iraqis while driving near the border with Kuwait, where the soldiers said they had deserted on Tuesday from the 367th Army Division.

After speaking with the “unshaven, exhausted and famished” Iraqis, the journalists offered to take them to allied soldiers.

The four deserters said they had lived in a covered foxhole for two months and ate paltry rations, the Independent reported. “Each day, at 4 o’clock, we were given rice, just five spoonfuls each, a small piece of bread and a little water,” one deserter, a corporal, was quoted as saying.

They received no other food and no water for washing, but had a radio on which they listened to the British Broadcasting Corp. until their batteries ran out 10 days ago, the report said.

“We don’t believe in this war,” another deserter was quoted as saying. “We don’t believe that Iraq should have Kuwait. It is Saddam who has done that. . . . He is crazy.”