U.S. Wary as Iraq Coup Date Nears

This year there will be no parades, state speeches or poems dedicated to Saddam Hussein, but U.S. officials say they are prepared for trouble this week on the anniversary of the 1968 coup that brought the former dictator’s Baath Party to power.

“This is a period when we need to be more prudent in our security measures,” said Lt. Col. Eric Wesley, executive officer of the U.S. brigade that patrols the turbulent zone just west of Baghdad.

The capital is awash in rumors of impending attacks on U.S. installations, personnel and even foreign journalists that would be tied to the Thursday anniversary, but officials and security experts say there is no reason for excessive concern.

“There is no specific threat,” Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who is a security consultant for the Interior Ministry here, told a news briefing Saturday. “We’ve heard all the rumors.... You have to be cautious, you have to be prepared, and you have to take precautions. It shouldn’t make any difference if it’s this week or next week.”

Officials are expecting isolated gatherings, but they don’t anticipate large demonstrations or riots. Nor do conversations on the street indicate a widespread fear of major attacks.

“Saddam Hussein and his Baathists are finished,” said Ahmed Hussein, a 27-year-old tea vendor in central Baghdad.

In fact, experts downplayed the notion that the Baathist remnants -- which the Pentagon has blamed for most of the recent attacks on occupying forces -- could even mount a full-scale assault.

“Saddam’s people simply don’t have the organizational capability to pull of a Tet-style operation,” one private security expert here said, referring to the 1968 offensive against U.S. forces and their South Vietnamese allies that was launched on a holiday. “They’re basically doing opportunist, hit-and-run-style attacks.”

Each year since 1968, July 17 has been celebrated here as a national holiday and the start of a two-week period of festivities. Pomp and circumstance have marked the date, with Hussein’s ubiquitous image even more frequent than usual on television and radio and in the streets.

In the new Iraq, July 17 is no longer a national holiday. Instead, July 14 -- celebrating the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958 -- will serve as a kind of independence day.

Authorities monitoring the situation have pointed out that other important dates --notably April 28, long celebrated as Hussein’s birthday -- have passed without special problems.

U.S. soldiers on patrol said they have been briefed about the importance of July 17 but weren’t told to expect a major conflict.

Officials here agree that the attacks in recent weeks show no sign of a central command or control base or any evidence that Hussein or one of his associates is directing ambushes -- or would be in a position to orchestrate a major offensive on or around July 17.

Some of the assaults on foreign forces have involved squads of assailants, some possibly paid for their participation, officials say. At least one expert interpreted a perceived decline in the overall number of attacks in recent days as a sign that opponents are holding back until this week -- a notion dismissed by others.

“We’re handling these days just like any other days,” Kerik said. “We’re still living in a high-threat” environment.

The significance of the anniversary has not been lost on planners in Washington.

“Preventive planning anticipating potential hostile actions has been in the works for some time,” a Bush administration official said.

Judith Yaphe, a Mideast specialist at National Defense University, said that rumors of trouble in July have been circulating in Washington for some time but that she didn’t know whether there was any basis, other than the dates, for the fears.

“They’re anticipating something ugly, and hopefully they are preparing for it,” Yaphe said. “That would be good, because it’s 130 degrees by now, tempers are short, electricity is short.”

Early Saturday, coalition officials and Iraqi police in Baghdad arrested eight suspected opposition figures, including four believed to be cousins of Hussein, authorities said. A photograph purporting to show the men torturing someone also was seized, authorities said.

Further details were not available, but officials said the lead came from some of the many tips streaming in since the U.S.-led occupation authority placed a $25-million reward on Hussein’s head.

“The Iraqi people are giving us this information,” said one coalition security official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Iraqis are coming forward.”

In separate operations, the military said Saturday that it had arrested five leaders suspected of involvement in the armed opposition in the northern city of Mosul and near Najaf in southern Iraq.

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Times staff writer Sonni Efron in Washington contributed to this report.