Washington, Jan 05: The United States will be ready
to invade Iraq by the end of this month, a media report said
today.
The proposed force of 250,000 soldiers is just half the size used in the first Gulf war. After a short war, the plan
is to fly many troops directly into Iraqi airfields seized by
the US, ‘Time’ magazine reports.
However, hopes are dimming that turkey will allow its
bases to be used as stepping stones.
A dispatch in the ‘New York Times’ warns that while the US is thinking of a war against Iraq as a war against Saddam Hussein, there are heavily armed tribes whom Saddam Hussein has cultivated and given semi-autonomy and they will not necessarily support the Americans after the war.
"The British experience during World War I," it says, "Is
a cautionary history cited often in Iraq these days. Expecting a warm welcome when they marched into Iraq to toss out the ottomans, the British instead were met with hostility from the tribes which united to massacre, tens of thousands of British soldiers.
"The graveyards of the British, are still in Iraq," said one of the tribal leaders interviewed by the paper, Sheik Talal Salim al-Khalidi.
Sheik Talal described the likely resistance to the Americans in religious terms.
"We protect the nation's land and we would consider killing Americans a jihad in the service of god if they come
here as aggressors," he said.
"The Koran says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, so when anybody kills us, we will kill them."
The paper says that there are 150 major tribes in Iraq, which break down into about 2,000 smaller, heavily armed
clans.
Bureau Report
