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thedrifter
03-20-03, 10:35 PM
OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM
Report: Secret talks
for troop surrender
Pentagon said to conduct stealth negotiation with Republican Guard to eliminate Saddam

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Posted: March 20, 2003
9:40 p.m. Eastern



© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Less than 24 hours after the attack on Iraq began, the Pentagon was reportedly in secret surrender discussions with Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard.

NBC News reports that U.S. forces have actually held back on launching the major "shock and awe" campaign which military planners had vowed to unleash in recent weeks as the negotiations continue.

Pentagon officials say the meetings were prompted by serious cracks in the Iraqi regime.

"There are significant indications that the Iraqi military is breaking from within," a Defense official told Fox News. "So far, so very good."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld revealed the United States is talking directly to Iraqi military leaders, even those in the Special Republican Guard. He said the Iraqis are being told they could avoid all-out war if they took out Saddam themselves.

"The Iraqi soldiers and officers must ask themselves whether they want to die fighting for a doomed regime or do they want to survive," Rumsfeld said.

"We still hope that it is possible that they will not be there without the full force and fury of a war. There are communications in every conceivable mode and method, public and private."

He added there was "broad and deep evidence that suggests that there are people going through that decision-making process throughout that country today."

Military analyst William Arkin told NBC the on-again, off-again attacks may be used to demoralize and confuse the Iraqis.

"It looks like ... it's gonna be a psychological drip, drip, drip, on the Iraqi regime," Arkin said.

Meanwhile, CBS News reports "a senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said military intelligence was picking up signs and 'circumstantial evidence' that Saddam and his senior leadership were either incapacitated or out of communication with battlefield commanders."

There was no confirmation if they had been wounded or killed.

"We are seeing no coordinated response to our first attack," the official told CBS. "It's little things here and there. Some individual commanders are hunkering down while others are launching small attacks and setting fires."

Military officials "believe it is significant that there is a lack of coordination and significant resistance to what we did," the official added.

The ground campaign is now underway, and reports are that there is little strong resistance.

"It is so clear that the Iraqi defenses are so soft," said CBS correspondent David Martin.


Sempers

Roger