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Saddam s War An Iraqi Mililtary Perspective of the Iran
Iraq War First Edition Kevin M. Woods Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Kevin M. Woods, Williamson Murray, Thomas Holaday, Mounir
Elkhamri
ISBN(s): 9780160827372, 016082737X
Edition: First
File Details: PDF, 2.57 MB
Year: 2009
Language: english
 KEVIN M. WOODS,
W I L L I A M S O N M U R R A Y, a n d
WOODS, MURRAY, and Holaday

T H O M A S H O L A DAY
with MOUNIR ELKHAMRI
About the Authors NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY
President: LtGen Frances C. Wilson, USMC
Kevin M. Woods is a member of the research staff at the Institute for Vice President: Ambassador Richard A. Roth
Defense Analyses (IDA) and since 2003 has been the task leader of
the Iraqi Perspectives Project. Recent publications include The Iraqi
Perspectives Report: Saddam’s Senior Leadership on Operation Iraqi INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES
Freedom, and The Mother of all Battles: Saddam Hussein’s Strategic Director: Dr. Patrick M. Cronin
Plan for the Persian Gulf War. Research Director: Dr. James A. Schear
Williamson Murray is professor emeritus at The Ohio State University
and senior fellow at IDA. He is the author of numerous books and arti- NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY PRESS
cles. His recent works include The Iraq War: A Military History, The Past Director and Editor, JFQ: Col David H. Gurney, USMC (Ret.)
is Prologue (ed.), and A War To Be Won: Fighting the Second World War. Executive Editor: Dr. Jeffrey D. Smotherman
Thomas Holaday has a degree in Philosophy and a minor in Arabic from Managing Editor, NDU Press: LTC Robert E. Henstrand, USA
Georgetown University. Since joining IDA, he has researched the military-
strategic history of Iraq while working on the Iraqi Perspectives Project.
Mounir Elkhamri is a Middle East military analyst and linguist for
the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office. His articles include
“Dealing with the Iraqi populace: an Arab-American soldier’s perspec-
tive” (Military Review ) and “Iran’s Contribution to the Civil War in Iraq”
(Jamestown Foundation).
Laila Sabara is senior linguist for both the Terrorism Perspectives
Project and the Iraqi Perspectives Project at IDA. Previously, she worked
as an Arab linguist supporting the U.S. Senate and the Departments of
Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice.
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Cover: A view from Wasit Province, Iraq, across the border into Iran (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tiffany Dusterhoft)
Kevin M. Woods, Williamson Murray,
and Thomas Holaday
with Mounir Elkhamri

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University
Washington, D.C.
2009
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Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Summary and Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

General Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Arab-Israeli Wars and the Rise of
the Ba’ath Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Between the 1973 War and the
Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Thoughts on the Iran-Iraq “Cold-War” in the 1990s . . . . . . . 17
Comments on Saddam Hussein as Political
and Military Leader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

iii
The Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Discussion One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Arab-Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973 • Military Transition under Ba’athist Rule

Discussion Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Iraqi Military and Political Transition through the 1970s • Prologue to Iran-
Iraq War • Transition of Iranian Leadership and Military • Decision to Invade
• Saddam’s Aspirations • Earliest Phase of the War • Political and Professional
Soldiers • Disorganized Command and Control of Iranian Operations

Discussion Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Early Use of Air Power • SIGINT [Signals Intelligence] • Winter 1980–1981
Iraqi Command Changes • Saddam’s Response to Failure and Executions •
1980–1982 Losses and Army Expansions • Developments of Iranian and Iraqi
Forces

Discussion Four . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Saddam’s Psychology and Personality Development • January 1981 Armor
Battle • Iranian Human Wave Tactics and Iraqi Minefields • Khomeini’s Spiri-
tual Influence • Battles of Abadan and Khorramshahr • Loss of Special Forces
• End of Initial Iraqi Offensives in May 1981

Discussion Five . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1981–1982 Turbulence in Tehran • Iranian Infiltration Tactics • 1982 Attacks
around Basra • 1984–1988 Marsh Infiltrations and Iraqi Engineering Efforts
• International Support to Iran • Chemical Weapons Usage • Iranian Re-
sponse to Weapons of Mass Destruction • Postwar Preparations with WMD
• 1982–1983 Reorganization and Recruiting for Republican Guard • Psycho-
logical Support of Saddam to Troops • Postwar Republican Guard Reorgani-
zation

Discussion Six . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Summer 1983 Iranian Offensive into Haj Umran • Northern Mountain Opera-
tions and Kurdish Support • A 1,000-kilometer Front • Threats to the Dams
and Baghdad • Unpredictable Iranian Strategy and Tactics • February 1984
Iraqi 6th Armored Division Losses • Iranian Marsh Operations • Intelligence
Development and Satellite Support in March 1985

iv
Discussion Seven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
1986 Al-Fao Campaign and Baghdad’s Misinterpretation of Iranian Strategy •
Traitors in the Iraqi Leadership • Prisoners of War • Operation Dawn • Iraqi
Casualty Competition and the “Bedouin Mentality”

Discussion Eight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Republican Guard Expansion and the Response to Al-Fao • Hussein Kamel •
General Hamdani’s Command Obstacles • 1987 Iranian Attack on Basra and
Casualty Inflation • Shalamjah: The Somme of the Iran-Iraq War • Hamdani’s
Venture through the Front and the Battlefield Conditions

Discussion Nine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
July 1987 Republican Guard Command Changes • Battlefield Missiles • Hal-
abjah • Factors of Post-1987 Shift in “Correlation of Forces” toward Iraq—
Planning Effort for Al-Fao Offensive • Use of Helicopters • Front of 1988 • July
1988 Iraqi Incursion through to Ahvaz and the Mujahideen-e-Khalq

Discussion Ten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Foundations of the Iraqi Military and Saddam’s Detrimental Influence • Ham-
dani’s Effort to Improve Iraqi Military Culture • Questioning Military Orders
and Planning • Lessons Learned from the Iran-Iraq War • Fight to Follow the
War and Saddam’s Perception of Victory and Warfare

Discussion Eleven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Stories of War Heroes, 1973 to Operation Iraqi Freedom • Saddam’s Misunder-
standing of Warfare • Hamdani’s Recognition of U.S. Strategy in 2003 • Under-
standing One’s Enemy

Discussion Twelve. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

1990s Military Planning against Iran • Historical Explanation of Iran-Iraq
Conflict • Religious and Ethnic Elements • Economic and Regional Aspects
(Persian Gulf) • Shatt al-Arab • Ideology, Ba’athism, and Khomeini • Present
Conflict and Iranian and al Qaeda Influence

Discussion Thirteen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Planning for an Iranian Adversary • Iranian Structure • 2003 and Iranian
Strategy • Ayatollah as Executive • Iranian Military Development and Capa-
bilities • Missiles • Iranian Threat to Iraq and Infiltration • Internal Agents •

v
Iraqi Counterinfiltration • Iranian Militias • Iraqi Military Developments
since 1991 • Cooptation of Tribes

Discussion Fourteen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Role of Religion in Iran-Iraq Conflict • Hypothetical Iraqi Offensive Against
Iran and Phases of Preparations • Iranian Influence in Iraq • Arabistan • Bal-
uchs and Kurds • Air and Missile Strikes and Military-Industrial Complex •
Younger Iranian Generation • Smart Weapons and Satellites • Terrain • Op-
erational Objectives • Iranian Lessons Learned • Iranian Missile Deterrent

Discussion Fifteen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Armor Operations • Bravery and the Warrior Mentality • Saddam’s Misunder-
standing of Military Technology • Integration of Helicopter and Tank Capa-
bilities • Lessons Learned on Artillery, Iraq, and Iran • Changes in Iranian
Command and Control • Iranian Tactical and Operational Developments

Discussion Sixteen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Recommendations for U.S. Actions in Iraq from May 2007

Endnotes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Index to Themes in the Discussions . . . . . . . . . . 144

vi
Figures
Figure 1.   Franz Halder, former chief of the General
Staff of the German Army in World War II. . . . . xiii
Figure 2.   General Ra’ad Hamdani (left), former Iraqi
Republican Guard Corps commander, explains
details of the 1986 Iranian capture of Al-Fao
to members of the Project 1946 research team . . . xiv
Figure 3.  The initial Iraqi invasion of Iran, September 1980. . 29
Figure 4.   The southern sector of the war (region of
Khorramshahr) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Figure 5.  Southern war sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Figure 6.   General Hamdani’s sketch of Iranian
infiltration tactics, 1982. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Figure 7.   Iranian Dawn offensives—northern sector,
1983–1986 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Figure 8.   Iranian Dawn offensives—central and
southern sectors, 1983–1986 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Figure 9.  Bubyan and Shatt al-Arab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Figure 10.  Map of the Kut-Sulaimaniyah border
with General Hamdani’s markings . . . . . . . . . 117

vii
Foreword

When lessons learned from the major combat operations phase of Opera-
tion Iraqi Freedom were briefed to the Nation’s top leaders, the question was asked:
“How did events leading to the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime look from the Iraqi
perspective?” That question was posed to the Joint Advanced Warfighting Program
at the Institute for Defense Analyses, triggering the Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP),
a research effort sponsored by the U.S. Joint Forces Command that has delivered sev-
eral volumes of analysis and supporting materials, with more in production.
The IPP is reminiscent of an effort begun in 1946, when a team of U.S.
Army historians and intelligence officers established a relationship with former
members of the German General Staff to develop an understanding of familiar events
from an unfamiliar point of view. This volume marks the extension of that same
methodology under a different sponsor, the National Intelligence Council, to en-
compass a broader spectrum of Middle Eastern military history from the perspective
of Lieutenant General Ra’ad Hamdani, who during Operation Iraqi Freedom com-
manded Saddam Hussein’s II Republican Guard Corps. Interviewed over a number
of days by project leader Kevin Woods and historian Williamson “Wick” Murray,
General Hamdani shared his knowledge about a wide range of subjects, with particu-
lar emphasis on his experiences in Iraq’s long war against Iran.
The project,s objective was to produce a series of personal, organizational,
and campaign histories of contemporary Iraq. This volume is the first in that series,
provided with the hope that it will improve our understanding of Middle Eastern
military thought, the new Iraqi military, neighboring countries, and the dynamics of
a region of the world that is vital to U.S. interests.

Karl Lowe, Director

Joint Advanced Warfighting Division
Institute for Defense Analyses

ix
Preface

T
his paper was prepared under the task order Study on Military History
(Project 1946) for the National Intelligence Council. It helps address the
task order objectives of:
n developing a series of personal, organizational, and campaign histories

of contemporary Iraq
n improving and expanding our understanding of Iraq and its region
n providing national security organizations with historical background

material, political and personality profiles of the region, and data for long-term
studies and analysis
n illuminating the effects and utility of U.S. capabilities as seen by an ad-

versary for doctrine and force developers

n supporting strategic and operational planning by improving U.S. un-

derstanding of Arab military thought, the new Iraqi military, neighboring coun-
tries, and regional dynamics.
The Joint Advanced Warfighting Program (JAWP) was established at the
Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) and as part of the Joint Advanced Warfight-
ing Division to serve as a catalyst for stimulating innovation and breakthrough
change. It is cosponsored by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Tech-
nology, and Logistics; the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; the Vice Chair-
man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command
(USJFCOM). JAWP includes military personnel on joint assignments from each
Service and civilian specialists from IDA. The program is located in Alexandria,
Virginia, and includes an office in Norfolk, Virginia, to facilitate coordination
with USJFCOM.
This paper does not necessarily reflect the views of IDA or the sponsors
of JAWP. Our intent is to stimulate ideas, discussion, and, ultimately, the discovery
and innovation that must fuel successful transformation.

xi
Introduction

I
n 1946, a team of U.S. Army historians and intelligence officers established a
long-term exchange with a select group of former members of the German
General Staff. This program supported the development of personal, organiza-
tional, and campaign histo­ries of the German military, dramatically in­creasing the
U.S. military’s understanding of World War II.
In addition to providing an invaluable look at American military capabilities
through the eyes of its most recent adversary, these former German officers consti-
tuted a special kind of red team to help the Army think through the challenges of force
and doctrine development on a potential “new Eastern Front.” Who better to describe
what it was like to fight the Soviet Army, outnumbered, defensively, in Europe than the
recently defeated Germans? The program’s diverse and long-lasting impacts are evi-
dent in such projects as the acclaimed official U.S. Army in World War II history series
(the “Green Books”), development of early Cold War military doctrines, and the cam-
paign monographs that informed U.S. operations into the late 1990s in the Balkans.

Figure 1. Franz Halder, former Chief of the General Staff of the German Army
in World War II

xiii
 Sixty years later, the U.S. Government has another rare chance to examine
doctrine, intelligence, operations, and strategy through the lens of a recent military
opponent. The Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) demonstrated the potential of com-
bining interviews of former Iraqi senior leaders with captured Iraqi documents,
augmented by detailed knowledge of American operations on the ground and in
the air.1 This “quick look” history and its accompanying operational analysis rep-
resent an attempt to understand a substantial part of contemporary history in the
Middle East. By leveraging the concept first used with German officers following
World War II, the IPP has expanded to encompass an additional sponsor, to ad-
dress more topics, and to answer a wider range of operational questions.
Named “Project 1946,” this expanded effort can help develop a deeper un-
derstanding of the region’s future by examining its recent past. An exchange with for-
mer senior Iraqi military leaders opens up a wealth of knowledge of operational expe-
rience in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, campaigns against the Kurds, the Iran-Iraq War,

Figure 2. General Ra’ad Hamdani (left), former Iraqi Republican Guard Corps
commander, explains details of the 1986 Iranian capture of Al-Fao to
members of the Project 1946 research team

xiv
Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 uprisings, military operations and adaptations
under sanctions, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Moreover, such new knowledge can
provide valuable insights into the political, strategic, military, and cultural dynam-
ics of the Middle East.
The task for Project 1946 is to develop a series of personal, organizational,
and campaign histories of contemporary Iraq’s military. Broadly speaking, these
histories, when augmented by archival and open source research, will greatly ex-
pand the understanding of Iraq and the surrounding region. Moreover, such pro-
fessional exchanges can fill gaps in the historical record, develop a richer set of po-
litical and personality profiles in the region, and provide data for other long-term
studies and analyses. In a narrower vein, Project 1946 can illuminate, for doctrine
and force developers, the effects and utility of certain U.S. capabilities as seen by an
adversary. Finally, material derived from this study can support strategic and oper-
ational planning by improving the general understanding of Arab military thought,
military capabilities, selected countries, and regional dynamics. Future Project 1946
deliverables are expected to include a series of monographs and oral histories taken
from interviews of former Iraqi military personnel, periodic summaries of Iraqi
monographs and oral histories, and a database for additional research.

This McNair Paper is divided into two parts. Part One is a summary of the
major insights as interpreted by the authors based on their interviews of General
Hamdani. Part Two presents the detailed, edited transcriptions of the 16 interview
sessions. The interviews are presented in the order in which they occurred and gen-
erally follow the historical course of events. To help the reader, the major themes of
each discussion are listed at the beginning of each interview session and are indexed
alphabetically after the last discussion. A short bibliography is also included.

PART ONE. SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS xv

Part One.
Summary and Analysis

T
he purpose of Project 1946 is to develop a deeper and broader understand-
ing of Middle Eastern military art and science. This project, like the similar
post–World War II projects that inspired it, aims at exploring recent mili-
tary history and culture by examining the documentary record and interviewing
participants from the “other side of the hill.” This perspective may or may not
reflect events as they were or potentially will be. Nevertheless, just as the deliberate
study of the German military experience 60 years ago positively affected early Cold
War capabilities, Project 1946 (and similar efforts) can potentially improve ongoing
and future analyses of the Middle East in the wake of Operation Iraqi Freedom.2
A small team of researchers from the Institute for Defense Analyses
(IDA) and the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office traveled to Jordan and
conducted 16 hours of formal interviews and 8 hours of informal discussions with
Lieutenant General Ra’ad Hamdani (formerly a corps commander in Saddam Hus-
sein’s Republican Guard). General Hamdani’s long career as a professional soldier
spanned Iraq’s participation in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and ended with his com-
mand of the II Republican Guard Corps during the defense of Baghdad in Opera-
tion Iraqi Freedom.3 The specific topical focus of this research effort was Iraq’s war
with Iran (1980–1988) and the potential for war with Iran after 1988.

The discussions with General Hamdani provided insights ranging from

the nature of Saddam’s regime and its civil-military relations to the conduct of
the Iran-Iraq War, and finally to the weaknesses within the Iranian approach to
war both in the 1980s and beyond. Throughout the discussions, he displayed the
strengths and weaknesses of his background, particularly the strengths. Hamdani
is a Baghdad-born Sunni Arab who is comfortable with and committed to a secu-
lar state. In most respects, he is a consummate professional with a solid grasp of
the day-to-day details of competent military leadership, as well as a considerable
mastery of the intellectual framework that military professionalism demands.
2 SADDAM'S WAR

Beyond the immediate aspects of the discussions, Hamdani displayed a lively sense
of humor, a cosmopolitan attitude, and a clear understanding of the military events
that extended well beyond his immediate level of experience and the sometimes
bizarre nature of Saddam’s regime.
It was clear in the interviews that while Hamdani did not speak English
with any fluency, he could read English with considerable comprehension.4 The
entire research team found it a pleasure to talk honestly with an individual who has
thought long and hard about his military experiences in the wars in which he par-
ticipated and which have had such a catastrophic impact on his nation.
Topics of the discussions themselves ranged from the immediate tactical
outcomes of particular actions in the Iran-Iraq War, to the interplay between the
requirements of tyrannies (religious as well as secular) to control their political fu-
ture, to the demands of military organizations for professionally competent officers
who understand tactics and operations and who are able and willing to provide
honest judgments of what is happening or might happen on the battlefield. In that
respect, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Iran and Saddam’s Iraq exhibited consider-
able similarities, although Saddam at times proved a faster learner—at least over
the course of his war against Iran. On the opposite side, Khomeini and his fellow
religious leaders appear to have clung, right through to the conflict’s end, to their
belief that religious fanaticism and revolutionary spirit would triumph over all.
General Hamdani on several occasions commented on how much the
American military had impressed him in both 1990 and 2003. Particularly inter-
esting was his view that the U.S. Army was far superior to any he had seen in the
Middle East—including the Israel Defense Forces. What particularly impressed
him in 1990 was the sight of U.S. Soldiers along the Saudi-Kuwaiti border in full
body armor and Kevlar helmets during the early period of Operation Desert Shield,
despite the fact that the temperature was over 100 degrees and that hostilities had
yet to begin. He claimed to have noted to one of his subordinates at the time that
the American appearance alone underlined “a real sense of discipline.”
The formal discussions documented in Part Two took place over a 4-day
period in May 2007. Kevin Woods and Williamson Murray did most of the ques-
tioning, while Tom Holaday entered the discussions freely—sometimes in Arabic,
sometimes in English. The relaxed nature under which the discussions took place
allowed for maximum exchange of ideas and for follow-on questions to elucidate
the matters under discussion.

Some of the most interesting and insightful discussions began with an

examination of Hamdani’s early military career before the Ba’ath party assumed full
control of Iraq and its military organizations. General Hamdani entered the Iraqi
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 3

army immediately after the 1967 Six-Day War had seen the Israeli ground and air
forces completely shatter the military forces of Syria, Egypt, and Jordan in a blitz-
krieg campaign that lasted less than a week.
He suggested that the humiliation of 1967 helped create not only the revolu-
tionary political situation in Iraq (and other Arab nations) that brought the Ba’ath to
power, but also a seriousness, purposefulness, and professionalism in the Iraqi army
that had not existed before. That increased level of professionalism helps explain im-
provements in the fighting abilities those armies displayed in the 1973 Arab-Israeli
War.5 Arab armies, including Iraq’s, took hard, realistic training far more seriously
than they did before the Six-Day War. They also studied their Israeli enemy much
more carefully. Thus, by the fall of 1973, the Iraqi army was tactically and logistically
ready to deploy directly from Baghdad to fight on the Golan in the last battles of the
war with surprising effectiveness. Concerning his knowledge of the enemy, Hamdani
commented that even as a first lieutenant, he and many of his fellow junior officers
knew the names and reputations of nearly every prominent Israeli general officer.
General Hamdani participated in the 1973 fighting on the Golan as a
young company grade officer. The Iraqis, he claimed, were able to play an impor-
tant role in the conflict by attacking the flank of the Israelis’ two-division drive
on Damascus. Whether the Israelis actually were going that far is another matter.
Histories of the war suggest that the Iraqi attack persuaded the Israelis to halt their
advance and move to reinforce the war’s southern front, where the Egyptians were
about to attempt their breakout from positions on the east bank of the Suez Canal.
What was particularly interesting about Hamdani’s comments was his contention
that the 1973 war represented a significant high point of Iraqi military profes-
sionalism. The logistical movement from Iraq to the Golan, followed by the almost
immediate conduct of operations by the Iraqis after they arrived at the battlefront
during the heaviest fighting on the Golan Heights, became a standard to study and
emulate in the Iraqi army.

In the immediate aftermath of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the Iraqis

continued their efforts to improve the army’s overall level of professionalism and
preparedness. General Hamdani claimed that the Iraqi army, still not overwhelmed
by Ba’ath party “political correctness,” carried out a careful analysis of the lessons
from the Arab-Israeli War. A number of items still stuck in his mind from that ef-
fort. One lesson was that the Arab armies suffered from a considerable deficiency
in technological knowledge—a direct result of the deficiencies in the educational
systems of the Arab world—in comparison to their Israeli counterparts.
It was also clear to Hamdani that the Arab armies had largely modeled
themselves—not surprisingly, given their origins in the colonial period—on the
4 SADDAM'S WAR

slow and methodical approach to war taken by the British Army. In contrast, the
Israelis had modeled themselves on the Wehrmacht with its emphasis on speed,
maneuver, decentralized leadership, and risk taking. The results of these educa-
tional and cultural differences showed clearly in the fighting on the Golan, where
the Israelis reacted faster and adapted more quickly at the lower tactical levels than
did their Arab opponents. These cultural and educational weaknesses would have
little impact in the war with Iran, but they certainly influenced Iraqi performance
in the two wars against U.S.-led coalitions.
General Hamdani admitted there were serious problems with the level
of professionalism of his fellow officers in the Iraqi army (and other Arab armies,
for that matter). Most displayed considerable disinterest in military history or how
other military organizations (non-Arab) might operate. This dichotomy between
Hamdani’s ideal of what military professionalism should be and the reality of the
Iraqi army only grew as the influence of Saddam and the Ba’ath party expanded
during the course of Hamdani’s military career.
Following the 1973 war, the Ba’ath began to make inroads into the army’s
professionalism. The party’s leaders and senior military increasingly emphasized
political loyalty and ideology as important elements in judging an officer’s fit-
ness for promotion. Saddam’s seizure of power in 1979 further accelerated the
politicization of the army. Whereas the saying in the early part of the Ba’ath rule
had been “better a good soldier than a good Ba’athist,” it changed to “better a good
Ba’athist than a good soldier.” The emphasis was now on political reliability and
unquestioned obedience to orders rather than on serious military professionalism.
Moreover, once firmly in charge, Saddam acted to promote a number of lieutenant
colonels to major general, and subsequently to the command of divisions, without
requiring them to hold any of the traditional staff or intermediate level command
positions. Not surprisingly, this had a serious impact on the army’s overall military
effectiveness in a war with a much larger neighbor.
Not all of these officers were political puppets of the political elite; some
were competent, serious officers. But Saddam had promoted them solely based on
what he regarded as their political loyalty. Most crucially, from Hamdani’s point of
view, they had not commanded either battalions or brigades to provide a solid basis
of military experience. Many had not even studied the profession of arms through
attendance at the staff college, which might have at least equipped them intellectu-
ally to handle larger commands. In other words, they were not ready for either divi-
sion or corps command.
Despite Ba’ath interference, however, the efforts made to improve the pro-
fessionalism of the Iraqi army in the aftermath of the 1967 and 1973 defeats did play
a significant role in the initial successes Iraq achieved against the Iranians in the
early months of their conflict. But the larger problem that confronted the Iraqi
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 5

military was the fact that its political masters, as well as its senior leaders, had no
clear strategic or operational goals in mind for the upcoming war.6

Neither the Iraqis nor the Iranians prepared their forces for the war their
political masters were spoiling for. At the beginning of the conflict, the leaders of
the opposing sides had no clear understanding of the requirements for military
effectiveness, or the difficulties their states would confront. Their feeling was that
any sufficiently loyal politician or religious leader was capable of exercising effec-
tive military command—a belief for which their armies would pay a heavy price in
lives and treasure. As the war continued, the armed forces of Iraq and Iran found
themselves involved in desperate efforts to learn and adapt under pressures that
threatened, at times, to overwhelm them. Tragically, it seems that in both nations,
the obdurate ignorance of the political leadership would substantially retard the
effort of military professionals to learn and adapt to the realities of the battlefield.
Both national leaders (Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini) significantly
underestimated their opponent for similar reasons: both had little understand-
ing of the limitations of their military institutions and even less understanding
of their opponent.
Saddam believed that military effectiveness was a matter of the
“warrior”—much as in medieval terms—and the spirit and morale of soldiers, not
necessarily of training, organization, or discipline. To him bravery on the battle-
field, exemplified by his personal vision of the Arab fighter, was the only reasonable
measure of military effectiveness. As Hamdani mentioned in reference to Saddam’s
later confrontations with the Americans, the dictator could not grasp the signifi-
cance of the scale and technological superiority of the American military.
Khomeini, on the other hand, equated military effectiveness on the battle-
field with religious fanaticism. One of the measures of effectiveness both the Aya-
tollah and Saddam used to judge the effectiveness of their battlefield commanders
was the relative number of casualties their troops suffered in battle—very much a
World War I approach.7 Early in the war, use of this metric was particularly true in
the Iraqi case, as applied to division and corps commanders.
From Saddam’s point of view, the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
and the political chaos engendered by Khomeini’s religious revolution provided a
perfect opportunity for him to act against Iran. Moreover, a number of Iraq’s senior
officers (some, but not all, recently appointed to their senior positions by Saddam)
believed that the apparent collapse of the Shah’s army meant there would be easy
pickings to the east. What was not clear at the time, at least at Hamdani’s level, was
what exactly Saddam hoped to gain from a war against Iran, except perhaps the
prestige of a “victory against the Persians.” 8
6 SADDAM'S WAR

In hindsight, there appear to have been two political motives for Sadd-
am’s decision to go to war: first, to overturn the unfavorable 1975 treaty Iraq had
signed with the Shah that dealt with the shared waterway to the Persian Gulf;
second, and more important, to achieve victory over the Persians—at a cheap
price—therefore legitimizing Iraq’s claim that it deserved to replace Egypt as the
head of the pan-Arab movement. This second motivation followed the “traitor-
ous act” of Anwar Sadat, who, in signing the Camp David accords with Israel,
had taken Egypt out of the so-called rejectionist camp. In other words, Saddam
was aiming to assume Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nassir’s mantle from the
disgraced Sadat.
According to Hamdani, the Iraqis had no real military campaign plan
in terms of operational objectives, or even coordinated tactical ones. Saddam ap-
pears to have believed that the invasion would quickly lead to Khomeini’s fall and
replacement by a regime that would surrender much of southwestern Iran to the
Iraqis. Thus, the initial Iraqi operation was a thrust into southwestern Iran, which
militarily achieved little except for the gaining of indefensible territory.
The major problem, however, lay in the fact that Saddam’s leadership style
had so politicized the army’s senior levels that few, if any, generals were able, much
less willing, to provide the dictator with honest assessments of the actual situa-
tion. Early in the conflict, “yes men” so dominated the Ba’athist regime’s military
decisionmaking processes at every level that only major defeats were going to alter
the picture. Deployed into the territory seized from the Iranians, the Iraqi army
was unprepared for the initial onslaught of the Iranians. Many of these attacks de-
pended on religious fanaticism alone for success. Meanwhile, given the optimistic
reports he was receiving from senior commanders, Saddam remained ignorant of
the tactical vulnerabilities of his forces.
As Hamdani made clear, the only sensible operational approach that
Saddam could have followed would have been to seize and then defend the passes
leading out of Iran toward Iraq (predominantly in the central and northern sec-
tors), as well as those in the Zagros Mountains through which Iranian forces would
have had to deploy from the center of the country. This would have complicated
Iranian efforts to launch and support their military forces against the Iraqis. But
such a decision would have had to rest on Saddam’s recognizing that a conflict
with Iran was likely to be a long one—something he never foresaw. Consequently,
the geographic positioning of the Iraqi army on key and defensible terrain was
never seriously considered. Such an approach was not in the cards for a regime
that consistently based its decisions on the dictator’s ill-founded assumptions and
hopes. Much as he would throughout his reign, Saddam tended to believe his own
propaganda—war against Khomeini’s Islamic Republic would prove an easy matter
and would result in a glorious and quick victory.
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 7

On the other side of the hill, the chaos of the revolution meant that there
were no coherent decisionmaking processes at all. Khomeini seemed to regard the
conflict with Iraq as a God-given opportunity to solidify the revolution and defeat
his political opponents in Tehran. Moreover, it also represented an opportunity to
gain revenge for what he regarded as the ill treatment he had received at the hands
of Saddam’s government when, at the Shah’s behest, it forced him in the mid-1970s
to flee Iraq for Paris. It appears that Khomeini and his inner circle had even less
understanding of military realities than Saddam.
According to Hamdani, undergirding Khomeini’s passion for the war was
a belief that religious fanaticism, reinforced by Persian nationalism, could over-
whelm everything in its path. As a result, and almost until the bitter end, Khomeini
would prove unwilling to make peace with Iraq short of complete victory. Iran
would not back down, no matter how costly the war might become, at least until
the point where its forces suffered a catastrophic series of military defeats—an
unlikely event for a considerable time, given the preparation of Iraq’s military for a
major conflict. Thus, while Saddam was looking for a cheap, easy victory, the Per-
sians were looking to accomplish the complete overthrow of Saddam’s regime and
its replacement by a Shia puppet regime.9
The Iranian military had a number of serious problems. Foremost was the
fact that the revolution caused deep fractures within Iranian society—fractures that
represented contending political and religious factions, as well as the divided nature
of opposition to the Shah’s regime. Iran’s military already had been purged of those
loyal to the Shah or those whom the new regime did not trust. Even after the purges,
the Iranian military had little standing with those in the political realm. Military
professionalism was simply not in the vocabulary of Khomeini’s regime. The alterna-
tive to the professional military in Iran was a number of revolutionary militias. None
of these militias had any serious military training, nor, as Hamdani would describe,
did they possess leaders with even the slightest understanding of tactics.
The militias—in some cases no more than small groups swearing fealty to a
local imam or ayatollah with political ambitions—often acted independently, obeying
no instructions and initiating combat actions without orders to do so. Local Iranian
commanders appeared to have had almost complete freedom of action, whatever the
strategic or operational consequences might be. This may well explain the fact that
some Iranian units began shelling Iraqi towns and military positions in a rampageous
fashion before the Iraqi invasion began and before the initiation of large-scale mili-
tary operations. Thus, one can hardly speak of coherent Iranian military operations,
much less a strategic conception, throughout the first 4 years of the conflict.
While the militias were important in the dangerous game of politics
swirling around Tehran, they had no military training and remained disjointed,
answering to different clerics and factions among Khomeini’s supporters and
8 SADDAM'S WAR

exhibiting little interest in repairing their military deficiencies. Not surprisingly,

their attitudes reflected those of their leaders, and they showed little or no willing-
ness to learn from, much less cooperate in military operations with, the regular
army. All of this derived from their belief that religious fervor was the key to vic-
tory on the battlefield. Thus, Iranian tactics remained unimaginative and militarily
incompetent throughout the war. More often than not, human wave attacks were
all the Iranian militias could launch. The result was a catastrophic casualty tally
reminiscent of the fighting in World War I.
Unlike in Baghdad, where Saddam attempted to control everything, the
exact opposite military command model was in effect in Tehran. Various factional
leaders, imams, and others launched attacks or raids in an effort to curry favor with
the religious and political leaders, who were in turn jockeying for position around
Khomeini. Early in the war, few if any of Iran’s attacks appeared to have coherence
or clear objectives, nor did they fit into a larger strategic conception of the war.
Most battles thus contributed to the growing casualties while achieving little of
tactical, much less operational, value. This situation reflected the general lack of
military understanding among the religious and political leaders in Tehran, who
were supposedly running the show.

According to Hamdani, the first 3 years of the conflict reflected the

miscalculations of the opposing sides. Once embarked upon, the war absorbed
the attention of those fighting, while desperate attempts to mobilize larger forces
sapped the ability to adapt and change in a coherent fashion. Saddam’s top-down
interference and lack of understanding of military realities led the Iraqi army to
carry out a series of ill-conceived movements that, despite leading to the cap-
ture of Khorramshahr, were without clear objectives.10 The war itself began with
bombardments on both sides that reflected the war of words surging between
Tehran and Baghdad. While Iranian troops fought with considerable fanaticism
at the local level, they displayed no coherent or effective response to the initial
Iraqi moves. The battle of Khorramshahr (October 6–24, 1980) proved to be a
violent and bloody affair in which each side suffered around 7,000 casualties.
Eventually Iraqi firepower and tactical superiority took the remains of what had
once been a city.
In analyzing Iranian military operations in the first months of the con-
flict, Hamdani suggested that no one appeared to be in charge on the Iranian side.
Instead, local regular army and militia commanders, supported by mullahs on
the scene (who played an analogous role to that of commissars in the Red Army
during World War II), responded to Iraqi moves as they saw fit, with little or no
coordination with each other or the national authorities. Many in Tehran seemed
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 9

content simply to beat the drum of fanatical religious propaganda. Others provided
irrelevant advice, based on their misconceptions and faulty assumptions. New units
arriving at the front had little coherent or sensible training, nor for a considerable
period did there appear to be any kind of lessons-learned process among the units
of Iran’s various military forces. Thus, little combat learning took place among
Iranian forces over the first several years of the war.
Khomeini responded to initial Iraqi incursions with a massive mobiliza-
tion of Iran, which provided huge numbers of men for the militias—and fewer for
the army—who were willing to die as martyrs. Iran, with its far larger population,
enjoyed a significant advantage over Iraq in this regard. Nevertheless, Khomeini
never seems to have understood the need for military professionalism. Throughout
the war with Iraq, Iran’s senior leaders harbored suspicion of those officers from
the Shah’s army who survived the early purges. Hamdani recalled that according to
captured Iranian officers, the evaluation of military competence largely rested on a
judgment as to how religious a commander was or was not. Moreover, the heads of
the various militias displayed little or no interest in exploiting the expertise of the
regular officers for the training of their units.
Ironically, with the massive mobilization, the threat that Khomeini repre-
sented to the stability of the oil regions of the Middle East made it difficult for the
Iranians to acquire the heavy weapons such as tanks or new aircraft that played a key
part in the fighting on the ground. It also led to a situation where the Iraqis—with ac-
cess to modern Soviet and Western weapons—were able to increase their technologi-
cal capabilities slowly but steadily. According to Hamdani, the result of Iran’s lack of
access to sophisticated modern weapons was that, as they depleted the stock of heavy
weapons and spares acquired by the Shah, they had to field a light infantry force
supported by diminishing amounts of armor and artillery. This was not necessarily a
disadvantage in swampy areas like the Fao Peninsula or the mountains to the north-
east of Baghdad, but it put the Iranians at a distinct disadvantage in areas of flat desert
terrain and at the approaches to Basra, where much of the heavy fighting occurred.
After the initial advance into Iran, many of the Iraqi generals deployed at
the front failed to meet the challenge of complex operations. Moreover, in Ham-
dani’s opinion, their lack of experience led to inferiority complexes and made them
unwilling to take advice from their subordinates. The result was a series of stunning
defeats, beginning in 1981, that drove the Iraqis back to and then beyond the start-
ing point of their invasion.11 These defeats forced Saddam to move gradually away
from his emphasis on political reliability for his generals toward greater willingness
to reward and promote those who displayed some level of military competence.
Still, as Hamdani emphasized during our conversations, Saddam never let go of his
deep suspicion of his generals and his belief that they represented the only poten-
tially serious threat to his dictatorship.
10 SADDAM'S WAR

By mid-1982, the Iraqis managed to stabilize the military situation back

on their own territory. Hamdani indicated that special operations forces, com-
bined with armored support, played a major role in bringing this about. However,
Iraq’s special forces proved a wasting asset and by the end of 1982 had been almost
completely exhausted by the heavy losses suffered through continuous use. Despite
its success, there would be few attempts to rebuild Iraqi special forces over the re-
mainder of the conflict. The high casualty rates of junior officers at the front and
the expansion of the Iraqi army meant that both the quantity and quality of officers
qualified for special operations duty dropped as the war spun out of control.

The military and strategic situation forced Saddam in 1982 to begin the
mass mobilization of the Iraqi nation. By that point, he realized he had involved
Iraq in a long war and that no easy or quick solutions would bring peace. In that
year, he created the Republican Guard to provide his commanders with greater
flexibility in responding to the constant series of Iranian offensives. The Republi-
can Guard was to form a counterattack force against the major Iranian offensives,
which marked much of the fighting throughout this period. Those Iranian offen-
sives, beginning in the summer of 1982, swept like an arc around Basra from north
to south as the Iranians groped for weaknesses in the Iraqi defenses. The Iranian
efforts in the south—their main emphasis throughout the entire war—reflected
their hope that the Shia of the region would respond to their coreligionists from
Iran (which they did not).12 Nevertheless, these Iranian offensive operations put
immense pressure on the Iraqi forces.
The fact that Khomeini’s military forces, both the regular army and the
militia, were increasingly becoming an all-infantry army that relied almost entirely
on human wave attacks had a considerable effect on the fighting. The lack of armor
and artillery limited the pressure Iranians could put on the Iraqis on the northern
front, because while the mountainous terrain on the border favored infantry opera-
tions, the more open terrain lying beyond provided Iraqi armor with an enormous
advantage, of which it made full use. Similar factors held in the south, where
swamps and waterlogged terrain helped the Iranians to the east of Basra, but the
more open and urban terrain around Basra and to the west favored the Iraqis.
By this point in the war, the heavy losses in the initial fighting had se-
verely depleted the Iraqi officer corps, which never fully recovered despite Saddam’s
mobilization efforts. Still, the Iraqis were able to mobilize sufficient forces to halt
the Iranians and begin a dogged defense of the territory—and oil wells—near Basra
and the mountainous approaches to the east of Baghdad.
Throughout this period, the opposing sides had to resort to a war of attri-
tion. The Iranians consistently used human wave attacks aimed at overwhelming
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 11

Iraqi positions and imposing heavy casualties on the defenders. On the Iraqi side,
there was little thought given to major counterattacks, except where important
positions had fallen. Rather, the goal was to inflict as many casualties as possible
on the attackers. The Iraqis (particularly Saddam) saw hope in the situation, believ-
ing that in view of their terrible losses, the Iranians would eventually overthrow
Khomeini and agree to a ceasefire.
In 1983, having had little success in their attacks against Basra’s de-
fenses, the Iranians opened a major offensive against the approaches to Baghdad
through the mountains northeast of the capital. Their aim, according to Ham-
dani, was to establish a second front against the Iraqis in an area where they
could gain substantial aid from the locals.13 In this case, the Kurds—to Saddam’s
fury—broke the truce they had agreed to and cooperated with the Iranian at-
tacks.14 It also appears that Khomeini was putting substantial pressure on his
military commanders to achieve a major success similar to that of the 1981 coun-
terattack against Saddam.
The Iranian offensive foundered for two reasons. First was the Iranians’
inability to move beyond the tactical mode and articulate a level of operational
capability to exploit tactical successes when they occurred. The cause of this fail-
ure was a general lack of professionalism at the higher levels of Iranian military
forces—not surprising when ayatollahs appeared to play as much of a (if not the
dominant) role as senior Iranian officers in decisionmaking. The second reason
pertained to the fact that the Iraqis, possessing what to all intents and purposes
were interior lines, could shuffle divisions quickly from the south, where they had
concentrated most of their strength to meet the Iranian offensives, to the north.
Moreover, the Iraqis at the highest levels were beginning to exhibit some awareness
of how to operate at the operational level of war.
As their losses mounted at the lower tactical level, the Iranians became
increasingly proficient at infiltration and small unit tactics. In this arena, they were
clearly superior to their opponents. Thus, in mountainous terrain east of Baghdad,
in the north, and in the swampy terrain characterizing the areas to the northeast
and southeast of Basra, they enjoyed considerable advantage. But elsewhere, where
the ground lay open and thus amenable to the use of armor, Iraq’s superior armored
forces, backed by dug-in infantry and artillery, halted enemy attacks and inflicted
disproportionate casualties on the attacking Iranians. As a result, the war took on
the guise of World War I attrition, as the two sides’ military forces, equipped and
trained in different patterns, inflicted heavy casualties on each other without being
able to gain a decisive advantage. By 1984, however, the Iraqis began to use chemi-
cal weapons, which did provide them an important advantage, given the failure of
the Iranians to prepare for such a threat. The use of these weapons would continue
for the remainder of the war.15
12 SADDAM'S WAR

It was during this portion of the war that Hamdani received his most danger-
ous assignment. At the time, he was a battalion commander, having reached that rank
largely on the basis of his military competence and the incompetence of others, rather
than his penchant for suggesting new ideas to his superiors. He received Saddam’s
two sons—as well as Tariq Aziz’s son—to serve as officers in his battalion. Saddam’s
propaganda message was that even his sons were serving in combat, so all of Iraq’s
people must participate in the war for what was clearly the survival of the Ba’ath re-
gime. However, Saddam provided Hamdani with more nuanced instructions: he was
to ensure that neither son fell into Iranian hands or, by implication, died in battle.
General Hamdani suggested that his success in this task could be one of the only rea-
sons he remains alive today. The close relation he established with Qusay, Saddam’s
heir apparent, probably kept him out of prison in the mid-1990s and saved his career
after he dared to offer military suggestions that contradicted Saddam’s views.

The Iranians did display some ability to learn. In 1986, they launched
an offensive against the Fao Peninsula southeast of Basra. Catching the Iraqis off
guard, they seized the peninsula with a joint amphibious assault heavily supported
by artillery. The Iraqi defenders, coordinated from Baghdad, expected an attack on
Basra from the northeast and were completely unprepared for the Iranian strike at
Fao. Moreover, they failed to react quickly, which magnified the Iranian success. In
the marshes and canals of the Fao Peninsula, Iraqi tanks proved vulnerable because
of their lack of maneuverability. Not surprisingly, the Iraqi counterattacks were a
complete failure.
In the Fao campaign, for the first time since the war began, Iranians dis-
played a significant degree of military professionalism. They made every effort to
play to their strengths while minimizing those of the Iraqis. They launched major
forces against the swampy terrain that makes up most of the peninsula. For the at-
tack, they trained a large force of infantry for an amphibious assault and prepared
large numbers of small boats and landing craft. The infantry infiltration tactics
they had developed on the central sector played to the geographic realities of the
swamps on the peninsula. According to Hamdani, the North Koreans provided so-
phisticated combat engineering advice and support to Khomeini’s forces. Perhaps
most significantly, the Iranians managed to achieve a modicum of cooperation be-
tween the remnants of the regular army and the various militias. This allowed them
to plan the operation over the winter of 1985/1986 with considerable precision.
Iraqi overconfidence, together with the unwillingness of those in Baghdad
to recognize what was happening, served to magnify the initial Iranian successes.
The commanders on the spot showed a distinct bravado that they could halt any
Iranian attack, while commanders at higher levels in the Basra area displayed a lack
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 13

of imagination in analyzing what the Iranians were up to. Extensive radio deception
by the Iranians played a role in convincing the Iraqis by reinforcing their prejudices
and assumptions. When the Iraqi generals in the area finally realized that some-
thing major was occurring on the peninsula, senior military and political leaders in
Baghdad further delayed in sending reinforcements, because they concluded that
the Iranians were staging a deception operation and that their main attack would
come against Basra. Not until Iraqi forces—approximately of division strength—
had been crushed and had lost most of the Fao Peninsula did commanders in Basra
and Baghdad awaken to the danger. By then it was too late.
The hesitation to reinforce those units defending the peninsula, par-
ticularly the 26th Division, which were under enormous pressure and on the brink
of collapse, appears to have stemmed from fear that the Iranians would launch
a major offensive against Baghdad, the loss of which would mean the end of
Saddam’s regime. Hurried reinforcements arrived into a chaotic situation. The
Iraqi army responded with counterattacks by heavy armored units. In the bogs and
swamps of the Fao Peninsula, this poorly coordinated approach of armored forces
made no sense; it played into the hands of the Iranian forces’ strengths and resulted
only in heavy losses of men and equipment without regaining any significant terri-
tory. It was a sobering experience for all involved.
It is now apparent that the Iranian strike against the Fao Peninsula was the
opening move of a major offensive to seize Basra and deal the Ba’athist regime an
immense military and political blow. The initial Basra attacks failed, but the com-
manders of the III and VII Corps, close associates of Saddam, were political gener-
als and consistently overstated the losses their troops were inflicting on the Irani-
ans.16 Thus, when a further wave of even larger Iranian attacks hit Iraqi positions,
the Iraqis were clearly in danger of losing Basra and the oil wells to the west. They
held on, but largely due to Iranian mistakes and the enemy’s inability to exploit any
of the gains and breakthroughs its attacking forces had made.
The situation around Basra was desperate and remained so for much of
the rest of the year. General Hamdani described the fighting as another “Battle of
the Somme,” in which both sides suffered extraordinarily heavy losses. The number
of Iraqis killed in action approached 50,000; Iran’s losses were two to three times
higher—at least by Hamdani’s estimate. In the end, the Iraqis held back the Iranian
tide. Chemical weapons played a major role, as did the failure of the Iranians to
prepare their forces to deal with such weapons.

The fighting around Basra did prove a sobering experience for Saddam,
who finally, at least in this conflict, placed more trust in military profession-
als. Certainly, the difficulties the Iraqis encountered in defending Basra after the
14 SADDAM'S WAR

defeat on the Fao Peninsula were considerable impetus for the increased interest in
professionalism for the short term. In fact, throughout 1986, the Iraqis carried out
a number of reforms at all levels that were to have a substantial impact not only on
the defensive battles of 1987, but also the devastating counterattacks they launched
in 1988, which finally broke the back of Iran’s—and Khomeini’s—willingness to
continue the conflict.
The most important reform in Iraq came in July 1986. Saddam made
the decision to pull the Republican Guard units out of the front line and begin a
wholesale reequipping and retraining effort from squad level all the way to divi-
sion and corps command. This involved the arrival of the most modern Soviet
tanks and armored personnel carriers called BMPs (boyevaya mashina pekhoty,
or infantry fighting vehicle) as well as heavy artillery. Saddam seems to have rec-
ognized that he needed to make a major effort to improve Iraq’s military capabili-
ties or face defeat. Thus, there was a greater willingness at the top to pay serious
attention to the recommendations of the more professional officers to build up
the Republican Guard’s capabilities. In addition, Saddam authorized major re-
cruiting drives among those who had largely avoided military service thus far in
the conflict. Targeted were students, the sons of tribal leaders, and many of the
wealthier classes. In particular, the recruiting effort targeted Anbar Province, one
of the strongholds of Sunni and Ba’athist support for Saddam, which was to gain
the distinction of being the only province in Iraq not to revolt during the troubles
in 1991.
This effort to improve the combat effectiveness of the Republican Guard
involved more extensive training at all levels to improve tactical and battlefield
proficiency of officers commanding Republican Guard units. Initially, the aim was
to create a force that could dominate the battlefield by counterattacking Iranian in-
fantry penetrations of Iraqi defensive positions. Saddam initially hoped to create 10
divisions for this purpose, but the Iraqis were ultimately able to create only 5. One
constraint was the inability to fill the critical officer positions owing to the loss of
so many competent junior officers during the war’s first 6 years.
Saddam’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, was in charge of the overall effort to
improve the Republican Guard.17 Perhaps as a result of his limited military qualifi-
cations, Kamel proved willing to listen to the more competent Republican Guard
staff officers and commanders, the most important of whom was Ayad Al-Rawi.
The problem remained that a substantial number of Republican Guard command-
ers were brave but professionally unprepared and often incompetent in the posi-
tions they held. Overall, however, by 1987, the Iraqis were able to field a number of
relatively effective Republican Guard units—at least in comparison to the Iraqi and
Iranian units that had fought the war thus far. These Republican Guards were to
play a crucial role in the last 2 years of the conflict.
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 15

In the fighting that occurred in 1987—almost all of it around Basra—the

newly refurbished and expanded Republican Guard divisions proved to be the de-
cisive force Saddam had been in search of since 1980. The Iranians continued their
major attacks aimed at taking Basra, during which they again showed little willing-
ness to learn from previous experiences. Moreover, much of the religious fanaticism
that had characterized their troops in the war thus far began to subside. Given the
huge losses the forces had suffered without discernable gains, the Iranian leaders, po-
litical as well as military, were beginning to have difficulty motivating their soldiers.
However, the major factor in the Iraqi ability to hold off the Iranian at-
tacks lay in the skill and capabilities of the expanded and improved Republican
Guard formations. In the heavy fighting throughout 1987 just to the east and
northeast of Basra, Republican Guard units repeatedly hammered the Iranian
breakthroughs and quickly retook the ground the Iranians seized. The continued
success of these counterattacks had the effect of steadily lowering Iranian morale
and setting the stage for the major Iraqi offensive of 1988.
The Iraqi offensive for 1988 aimed to regain the territory lost to the Ira-
nians on the Fao Peninsula. Planning began relatively early in 1988 and involved
Saddam and six senior officers. Not until immediately before the offensive were the
staffs brought into the planning processes. Beyond the six officers and Saddam, no
one knew the extent of the coming offensive. The attack had major political as well
as operational goals, because the loss of the Fao Peninsula, the one success the Ira-
nians had enjoyed thus far in the war, would deal Khomeini’s regime a major blow.
Deception operations covered the Iraqi preparations for the offensive.
It is still not clear what happened on the other side, but Iranian intelligence ap-
pears to have missed the signs of the impending Iraqi attack. The Republican
Guard’s offensive caught the Iranians flat-footed. Whatever improvements had
occurred in their military forces—substantially less than those of Iraq—major
rifts remained between the militias and the regular army and among the militias
themselves. The Iranians reacted not at all at first, a fact that probably reflected
the same overly optimistic reporting to Tehran by senior commanders at the
front that had marked the Iraqi reporting about the Iranian attack on the Fao
Peninsula in 1986. The slow reporting exacerbated the fact that Iranian forces
possessed relatively little mobility and, hence, found it difficult to react effectively
to a deteriorating situation.
Once again, the Iraqi attack resembled a World War I offensive with its
heavy emphasis on the use of artillery and gas against the Iranians. By catching
Khomeini’s forces by surprise, the Iraqis were able to minimize their weakness in
command and control (C2)—a weakness on both sides throughout the war—while
maximizing the C2 difficulties on the other side.18 Most of the Iranians fought
doggedly, but the surprise the Iraqis had gained, as well as careful planning and
16 SADDAM'S WAR

preparation for the battle, allowed the Republican Guard to dominate the battlefield
even considering the difficulties of the terrain. Firepower, gas, and superior plan-
ning eventually resulted in a devastating defeat for the Iranians. Shortly thereafter,
Khomeini agreed to an armistice with Saddam’s Ba’athist regime, and the dismal
Iran-Iraq War came to an end.

General Hamdani offered some interesting observations on what the Iraqis

believed they confronted in terms of an Iranian threat in the 1990s. Historically, Iraq
has been the borderland between the Arab and Persian worlds, with major Iranian
invasions in 1626 and 1754 of the Mesopotamian valley, then held by the Ottoman
empire. He emphasized the historical Iranian drive to the west in both military and
cultural terms.19 Saddam’s initial response to the Iranian problem in the postwar pe-
riod was to emphasize the naval and air components of a future conflict—clearly an
indication that even he had been influenced by the cost of the ground fighting.20 In-
cluded in his analysis was an emphasis on mobile ballistic missiles, which had played
a major role in what the Iraqis had termed “the Battle of the Cities.”21
From what the Iraqis could tell, the Iranians made major efforts through-
out the period to bring their military forces up to the standards set by the Iraqis in
the last year of the war. The shambles that the Americans had made of Iraq’s mili-
tary in the 1991 Gulf War also played a role in these Iranian efforts. There did ap-
pear to be considerable efforts to bring the Pasdaran and Quds militias up to some
semblance of professional standards. The events of 1990–1991 had a huge impact
on the Iraqi military, while the continued confrontation with the United States dur-
ing the 1990s made it difficult to focus on the Iranian threat.
Still, Saddam and most officers believed that a renewed war with the Ira-
nians was more likely than another major conflict with the United States. Given the
experiences of 1980–1988, however, most felt such a conflict would not involve a
similar conventional war, but rather Iranian efforts to infiltrate agents, arms, and
small forces to support another major rebellion by the Shia.22

General Hamdani provided a detailed and nuanced view of Saddam as

a military and political leader. He first noted that Saddam possessed a complex
personality—“one could say that he possessed multiple personalities.” The dicta-
tor was highly intelligent and, when open-minded, which he was at times, quick to
grasp essential points. On the military side, his openness largely depended on the
difficulties Iraqi forces were confronting at the time. In the early days of the war
with Iran, for example, he was quite open and flexible when adapting to difficult
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 17

military situations. For the most part, however, he tended to confuse reality with
what he wished to be true.
Saddam was certainly not an easy person to explain. According to Ham-
dani, the dictator was a combination of Stalin, the ruthless ruler, and Hitler, the
aspiring general. Interestingly, the first military uniform that Saddam put on was
that of an Iraqi field marshal. Hamdani recalled that Saddam could in the blink of
an eye switch between his various personalities: “In one moment…he might kill
a member of his own family without a care; then the next moment he would be
extremely sensitive, tears in his eyes over the injury of a cat.” To make matters espe-
cially difficult for those who worked in his immediate surroundings or had to brief
him, one never knew from moment to moment which one of Saddam’s personali-
ties was going to emerge.
Saddam had little understanding of military issues or what made for effec-
tiveness in military institutions. Not only did he not want to know about the extent
of American military and technological superiority, he also largely dismissed such
factors as irrelevant on the battlefield. What mattered to him was the ideal of the
Arab “warrior,” an individual who, he believed, had consistently proved his superi-
ority on the battlefields of history and who would do so again. Above all, Saddam
had no understanding of strategy.
The military defeats and the serious operational situation at the front
brought an increasing sense of military realism to Saddam’s approach to the war
with Iran. That was much less the case in 1990–1991 and no longer the case by
2003. The combat conditions of 1982–1984 forced him to give greater freedom to
his subordinates and, for the most part, made him more receptive to their advice.
Nevertheless, political loyalty to the Ba’ath regime and particularly to its president
remained the foremost of his criteria for selecting senior officers.
Up to the Kuwait adventure, Saddam’s focus was on being a strong leader.
But after the disaster of Kuwait, there was a significant change in his personality.
With the rebellion of March 1991, he lost his trust in the Iraqi people, and his para-
noia deepened. From that point on, virtually every decision that he made appeared
focused on maintaining his control over Iraq. Combined with his paranoia and lack
of trust in nearly everybody, the result was an Iraq where practically no sensible de-
cisions could be made. Moreover, everyone in his immediate circle, including his
sons, was terrified to the point that few were willing to suggest anything that they
thought might upset the dictator.
In the mid-1990s, his persona significantly changed—again for the
worse. The defection of his son-in-law, Kamel, to Jordan affected him deeply. From
Saddam’s perspective, the worst had happened: a member of the Tikriti mafia—in
fact, of his inner family—had betrayed him. As a result, he isolated himself from
everyone. Rarely did he go out among the people. He no longer trusted his senior
18 SADDAM'S WAR

officers, and some of his senior ministers went up to 2 years without seeing him.
Finally, he no longer visited or reviewed the Republican Guards. It was during this
period that Saddam began the construction of great palaces all over Iraq, few of
which he ever visited.
During this period of isolation, Saddam spent much of his time writing
stories, poems, and novels. In 1995, he called his senior commanders, including all
the division commanders, together. At the time, Saddam was holding an extended
soirée with a group of artists and writers. The generals were held in expectation
of the emergency meeting with Saddam and then were told to go home without
ever having discussed anything with him. This last stage, which culminated in his
unwillingness to address the increasing threat from the United States in 2002, was
marked throughout by Saddam’s thoroughly unrealistic expectations and his inabil-
ity to connect reality with his own hopes and dreams.
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 19

Part Two.
The Interviews

T
he following transcripts are from a series of long conversations with Gen-
eral Ra’ad Hamdani on May 14–19, 2007, in Jordan. The conversations
occurred predominantly in Arabic with a mix of simultaneous and parallel
translation into English. Interview transcripts have been edited for clarity and read-
ability. Project members (Kevin Woods, Williamson Murray, and Thomas Hola-
day) are identified by name in connection with the questions each asked.

Murray: Please allow me to frame my questions with a few guiding ideas.

These questions derive from what American military historians have focused on
for the last 20–30 years. First, we are beginning to understand that no matter how
good an army is on the tactical and operational levels of war, if it doesn’t get the
strategy and politics right also, it loses. The crucial area is how well the strategy
and the policy at the ends and means are calculated. Second, we understand that
military organizations always get the “next war” wrong to one extent or another.
The issue is how well prepared they are to adapt to the actual conditions of the war
that confronts them. Finally, and mixed in with the processes of adaptation in a
long war where both sides adapt, both sides change and so the critical element is to
maintain that adaptation process throughout the course of the war. That said, many
of our questions will focus on how well the Iraqi and Iranian military commanders
at different levels adapted to the war they fought.
I’d like to begin by asking about your views on the 1973 Yom Kippur War,
recognizing that you were a very junior officer at the time—my guess is that you
understood a great deal of the things that happened then later on in your career.
The Arab armies did substantially better in the 1973 war than they did in the 1967

FIGHTING IRAN
20 SADDAM'S WAR

war. Can you explain your perceptions of how such an improvement took place
over such a relatively short time—between 1967 and 1973?
Hamdani: First of all, the loss in 1967 was a great disappointment for the
Arab population because of the high expectations. It got to the point where people
in most Arab countries rallied to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the results
of the war and even to ask for a change in the military leadership, and actually the
current government at that time. So because of the disappointment that reigned
over the Arab community, Arab political and military leaders made an effort to
study the 1967 war and find lessons to be learned. This had a tremendous impact
on the 1973 war.
Before 1967, the numbers of the military were very small, equipment was
not up to date, and additionally, everyone in the community believed that just by
having the Egyptian and the Syrian armies working together, they could actually
get the job done against the Israelis. When that failed, the resulting shock led to
a loss of confidence in the militaries and governments. Nassir’s resignation was a
direct result.23
There were similar movements in Syria, and even in Iraq, where the Ba’ath
party made requests for the resignation of Abd al-Rahman Arif, since his govern-
ment was unpopular and incapable of facing the challenge from Israel or any other
potential adversary.24 Then, the 1968 military coup took place in Iraq, partially
justified on the setback caused by the defeat of 1967. One could see the effects in
Egypt as well, where people started to despise the average Egyptian soldier and call
him a “Deserter of Sinai.”
You see, the shock experienced by the Arab people was equivalent to the
shock of September 11, 2001, for Americans. You could multiply the dissatisfaction
felt in America by 10 to understand the atmosphere in the Arab countries around
Israel at the time. When the battle began, I was in my last year of high school tak-
ing the final exams, but the authorities canceled everything. Everyone was disap-
pointed and crying because of the loss of 1967—it was the loss of an illusion about
the strength of the Arab armies.
So based on this, officers began to study Arab military capabilities—in
Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. They started to study the reasons for the Arab defeat and
reassess the military capabilities of their own forces.
Murray: The Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu says that one of the most
important elements in war is to know one’s enemy. My sense is that in 1967, the
Arab armies, both in terms of professional attitudes as well as popular attitudes,
simply did not know or understand or even fear their enemy, whereas in 1973,
there was a far more serious and professional understanding that they were up
against very, very tough people.
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 21

Hamdani: Part of the answer lies in a different area—the old Arab mili-
tary leadership after 1967 reassessed and reorganized the structure of their forces.
Moreover, they reconsidered the political ideology and objectives of the armies—
by that, I mean all armies including the Iraqi army. They realized through the as-
sessments that most of the Arab forces had rested on the British model, while the
Israeli forces were similar to the German model of World War II.
So we, as the Iraqi army, adopted a system called the “battle legion” that
integrated infantry and armor. Before 1967, those two branches had trained to fight
separately. After 1967, they merged to conduct combined arms operations for the
infantry and the tanks. Furthermore, after that, the air forces were connected to the
armored and infantry forces—thus, there was more cooperation. The air force’s task
had previously remained limited to support operations, but its aircraft now became
integrated with ground operations. Because of this integration between the ground
and air, we came to realize the importance of ground-based air defense systems. In
previous years, we had used only the air force against the enemy’s air force. Due to the
reassessments and integration, we were able to create a form of joint air defense sys-
tem. The air force realized that when it comes to air defense, it is not just the air force
that has the job, but it must also come from the lower levels, from the infantrymen.
We requested a lot of information from the Soviet Union at that time, and
many officers attended military planning sessions there and had Soviet experts visit
Iraq to exchange ideas and train and support our forces.
The largest problem we encountered was the fact that the world was very
advanced technologically, while the education level of the Arab soldier was at a
very basic level. At that time, as young officers, we had a major responsibility, espe-
cially when we requested new equipment, mostly Soviet equipment. But even this
new equipment was of lower quality than the equipment provided to the Israelis by
the Americans. President [Lyndon B.] Johnson’s granting of considerable supplies
of U.S. weapons and equipment to Israel, such as the F–4 Phantom II, represented a
terrifying level of support for us. In 1964, I remember seeing a video with President
[John F.] Kennedy in it, where the Americans displayed a demonstration or train-
ing exercise with the Phantom aircraft dropping its bombs and firing missiles. This
had a psychological impact on Arab officers, especially Iraqi officers, because that’s
the way they look at it—that’s whom we fight, that’s our enemy, and that’s their ca-
pability. Therefore, they all felt afraid of the Phantom, which we knew and had seen
in 1964, and which in 1969 went to the Israeli military, because of the American
contribution to Israel. So our expectations of the enemy’s capabilities were high.
It was clear that [Iraq] needed modern weapons and technology from the
Soviet Union in order to counter those of the Israelis. But the real problem was that
even if we had the equipment, we did not have the scientific expertise and training
22 SADDAM'S WAR

to actually make good use of it. This was the objective after 1967, to get revenge
and regain respect for the Arab countries. This was accomplished, first of all, by
changing the objectives, the mentality of the military leaders, as well as the style of
how we fought during the first war.
I graduated from the military academy in 1967, in Jordan, and most of
our topics of study, training, and combat exercises were about the geography and
operational range of Israel. As a lieutenant, I had seven or eight books in my tent all
about the Israeli training, preparations, and weapons, and the American weapons
and so forth. Everybody was interested in learning about our enemy, learning about
his capabilities, his ideology. Even from my tent I would watch and try to identify
the different tanks and airplanes that I saw—seeing the French AMX–13 [tank],
the Centurion [British tank], the Phantom [American fighter], the Sukhoi [Soviet
fighter flown by Arab air forces], and the Mystère [French fighter]—this sort of
thing to get more information and learn more about our enemy. I fully recognized
that our competence is represented by how much we understand the enemy.
In 1972, the 71st Brigade moved from Jordan to Iraq, along with the rest of
the 3d Armored Division, which was the best division in the Iraqi army at that point.
We adopted the same battle system as the Israeli army; we trained the same way, and
we carried out several long maneuvers over months in the desert in southern Iraq, for
any future involvement [in a confrontation with the Israelis]. We learned that one has
to do rehearsals and exercises on a consistent and intense basis.
So in the 1973 confrontation, we had a much better understanding of the
capability of our enemy; we knew largely what to expect. We had mainly focused on
having the Israelis as our opponent. In 1967, we had the audacity, after putting all
the Arab forces together, to ask, “Who is this Israeli force?” But in 1973, we needed
to exact revenge on the Israelis—that was the objective, regardless of the cost.
When the combat started in 1973, I was still a first lieutenant, but I was completely
aware of the Israeli army’s leadership—the names and backgrounds of its generals.
This shows you how much interest in studying the enemy we had. We considered
ourselves in 1973 to be in a position to challenge the Israeli army. [Moreover], we
witnessed how even after their losses they were able to come back and balance, to
rebalance their position after the initial Arab gains in the 1973 fighting.
Woods: Let me ask a follow-up question on the last point. The lessons of
1967 that affected 1973—comparing that short period of 6 years, where the Arab
armies were able to learn and perform at a much higher level than they had in
1967, to the period right after 1973—raises interesting questions. Can you explain
to me the lessons process after the 1973 war? In other words, what was the focus of
the Arab armies (specifically the Iraqi army) after the 1973 war, as it unknowingly
moved toward the Iran-Iraq War?
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 23

Hamdani: In the aftermath of the 1973 conflict, there was a feeling that
Israel was becoming stronger than we could imagine. We thought that our prepa-
rations for 1973, all the assessments and the reorganizations of the Arab forces,
would enable us to eliminate the Israeli army and force it to return to the [pre-
1967] borders of Israel. But the results of the war gave us the impression that Israel
was stronger than we could imagine—all of our preparations had still not [made us
equal] to the effectiveness of the Israeli army. We learned that they were far more
well equipped and trained than what we expected after the 1973 conflict. I joined
the Iraqi Staff College in 1978 and graduated in 1980. All the exercises we studied,
theoretically and on the maps, all of them related to Israel, and not on any other
target, such as Iran. Another objective for Iraq was to determine how an army
might push the Israeli army back to its original borders.
So there was hatred toward the United States of America because we felt
that we were unable to defeat the Israelis because of the solid American support for
them—which affected the political and psychological situation of the United States.
After the war, especially from 1977 to 1979, Arab countries started to become more
realistic militarily, when talking about the Israeli forces and their capabilities.
We also talked about the normalization of relations between the biggest
Arab country, Egypt, and Israelis in the Camp David Agreement.25 After this, a fis-
sure emerged between the realistic politics of many Arab political leaders and the
emotions of the Arab people toward Israel. The trust between the people and the
political leaderships collapsed. This split also occurred between Iraq and Egypt.
Iraq was trying to maintain the [split as an] issue and embarrass the Egyptian lead-
ership for its peace projects with Israel. So there was a split between the political
leaderships of Iraq and most other Arab countries, and the Arab people. This af-
fected the position of the army and its preparations.
For the first time it became apparent that there was a big difference be-
tween the political theories (or ideologies) and the reality of the political situation.
Therefore, our generation of captains and majors felt that we were going to coor-
dinate the units—the combat unit leaderships, because we were the ones about to
take command. We sensed a reality not consistent with the direction of most Arab
leaders. A new school started [within the Iraqi officer corps] that we called the “re-
ality school.” We began to differentiate between our real leaders, who were wise in
thinking and speaking, and those who just held high ranks but were weak thinkers.
It motivated me to become the sort of effective leader who used his brain to under-
stand the processes [involved in] any potential conflict.
The political change in Iraq, of changing the direction of our military,
did not begin until 1979–1980.26 We actually had a full armored corps ready to go
into combat at a high level with the Israeli forces. Our thoughts and sights always
24 SADDAM'S WAR

focused toward the west. So making the switch of the objectives, goals, and targets
from the west to the east represented a dramatic change within the military com-
munity. Our great experience, exercises, and previous engagements with the Israelis
led to our initial and relatively quick success over Iranian forces in the early stages
of the war. That is, our confrontations with the Israeli forces and preparations for
the next war with them pressured a rather unsophisticated army to become a well-
trained one with different people and a different ideology—it helped the profes-
sionalizing processes in the Iraqi army.
Murray: In terms of 1973, this was the one war where Arab strategy con-
nected with the actual means and ends available, and where the politicians reduced
their interference, at least in terms of the actual conduct of military operations.
This gave the maximum authority to military professionals to conduct operations
and achieve reasonable military goals.
Hamdani: I totally agree with you, but there was also real leadership
within the Iraqi army. First-rate leaders rose up, while the political leadership
had no choice but to go back to real military capabilities. A perfect example is
Abd al-Hakim Amer who as a major was promoted to commander of the whole
Egyptian army, because of his competence, which underlies the disconnect with
times before the conflict.27 And General Sa’d al-Din el-Shathili, who had a totally
different vision than Gamal Abdal-Nassir. He was a more realistic professional,
rather than a politician.28 He was not influenced by parties during any conflict.
The young professional officers within the Iraqi army continued to work until
the Ba’athist political party came to power. The Ba’athists actually raised [the level
of the army] and accelerated many promotions for young officers before the con-
flict with Iran.
Woods: Specific examples of who emerged from 1973 as the professional
generals, and the professional leaders, would be helpful. But tell us about what hap-
pened in that period when the Ba’ath party, or at least Saddam’s version of it, took
firm control in 1979, just before the war. Was there a distinct change in the profes-
sional soldiers and leaders in that period before the Iran-Iraq War? How did the
intellectual heroes and real leaders of 1973 fare just before the war with Iran?
Hamdani: The Ba’ath party was in power in 1968 in Iraq, but it influ-
enced the military leadership because of the confrontations with Israel, and this
presented a dilemma. The party wanted to push the careers of the loyal young
military officers, but, at the same time, for the most part it did not sacrifice the
level of military professionalism during the time of crisis. Our slogan at the time
was, “Better a good soldier than a good Ba’athist!” The turning point came when
Saddam Hussein arrived in total control in mid-1979. He quickly gained the repu-
tation of promoting young leaders who were loyal Ba’athists instead of real profes-
sional soldiers.
 AN IRAQI MILITARY PERSPECTIVE 25

So for the first time in the history of the Iraqi army, there were a large
number of promotions for political reasons. At that time, in 1979, I was still at the
staff college. I watched as Saddam promoted Lieutenant Colonel Hisham to briga-
dier general, as well as to command one of the first-line divisions. Another officer,
Lieutenant Colonel Khaled . . . was also promoted to brigadier general, and became
commander of the 3d Division, our best. Another was a staff major, Tali Ad-Duri,
who was made a full colonel and commander of the 9th Division. Another was
Mahmoud Shukr Shahin, promoted from colonel to brigadier general and who
then became commander of the 6th Division. So these first four promotions were a
major shock for the Iraqi army. All were very dramatic promotions. Then the war
with Iran began.
Murray: Did this have a large impact on the professionalization of the
Iraqi army, now that political loyalty became more important than professional
competence?
Hamdani: This is correct. By the time we got to the war with Iran, the
basic culture of the army had changed because of Saddam’s actions. He ordered
politicians to serve at the army level and promoted himself to the military rank [of
marshal]. He also emphasized the principle, a very dangerous saying, that as long
as one was a Ba’athist he can always be a leader, since the Ba’athist is a truly natural
leader. Therefore, there was no problem in a Ba’athist switching from being a politi-
cian to a military leader.
Woods: Given all that you have explained about the Iraqi army learning
after 1967 and 1973, and what you described as the professionalizing processes
in your first couple of years as a relatively junior officer—by then you were a staff
major, becoming a lieutenant colonel—do you remember talking to your peers?
Did professional soldiers like yourself really know and dread the implications of
this process of politicization? Did you regard this step as a giant step backward
from where you had been in the years leading up to the conflict?
Hamdani: This became a complex within the Iraqi military ranks because
we knew as professional military officers that we would pay hard and dearly for
Saddam’s actions in politicizing the army. Nevertheless, most of us knew that our
duty was to continue to try to be a better military professional and not to try and
get involved in political processes. Unfortunately, because of Saddam’s dictatorship,
we had to keep silent.
There was even a good and respectful man, by the name of Adnan
Khairallah, whom Saddam promoted from colonel to the deputy general com-
mander of the armed forces (or the minister of defense). Even this good man,
whom we deeply respected and who had the right attitude, we did not feel that
he was yet qualified for the position, but rather had received the position because
Saddam Hussein had married Khairallah’s sister, and so they were brothers-in-law.
26 SADDAM'S WAR

Holaday: During the transitions after 1967 and 1973, the Iraqi military ap-
parently learned many lessons and further professionalized its officer corps. How-
ever, during this time, a parallel process—the introduction of Ba’ath-loyal military
officers to the higher ranks—seemed to contradict this [learning] progress. The
military officers focused on threats from Israel and Iran while the political leader-
ship seemed more concerned with internal dissent and the security of the regime
itself. Did this split describe a larger tension between the domestically focused
Ba’athist political leadership and the professional military-focused and regional ori-
entation of the officers, one that continued through the subsequent decades?
Hamdani: Well, as a matter of fact, there was not a complete change of mili-
tary leadership as of 1979. The Ba’athist officers reached division leadership positions.
There were professionals at a higher level than divisions. . . . we [professional soldiers]
were among those professionals. We used to query them to reach out to the highest
expertise available. We had more respect for the corps commanders because we con-
sidered them the real professional soldiers and commanders—many had been our
instructors when we were at the [military] academy and staff college.
This [tension] had a considerable impact during the course of the Iran-Iraq
conflict. The first shock came at the onset of the war with Iran, when I was a staff
major and commander of an armored reconnaissance battalion. At the time, I felt
that a strategic mistake had been made. But, actually, neither of the two sides, Iraqi
or Iranian, had a real understanding of the nature of the conflict we were entering.
You see, each war has its own nature. The war with Israel [1973] had its
own nature, and this was different from the nature of the war of the Kurdish insur-
gency [1974–1975], or the war with Iran [1980–1988], or the war with the Kurdish
alliance [post-1991], and different from the nature of this last war in 2003. We ex-
perienced this reality directly; we felt and lived it on the ground, where we had only
read about it before. When you move from one war to another, you realize there
are major differences in character between each conflict. This was the difference
between the political and professional members of the military—they had different
perspectives about the nature of the war upon which they were about to embark.
Woods: I’d like you to put yourself back into 1978–1979, the period when
Iraq’s focus was on the Israeli military, focusing westward, as you described. The situ-
ation included the collapse of the Shah, starting in 1978, and then the emergence of
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
Así pasaba Mendino su
congojosa vida, huyendo de los
lugares donde de Elisa se trataba,
honrándola ó llorándola, porque
para ella y para él era este recato
de grande importancia, y así se
entretenía en sus cabañas con el
vaquero Coridón ó con Castalio
su primo lo más del tiempo, y esto
porque en amor no falte su
costumbre, que es haber siempre
quien de nuevo llore; Cardenio,
enamorado de Clori, perdió el
respeto á Castalio, que más que á
sí la quería, y la pidió en
casamiento, y el generoso padre
de ella, viendo la igualdad de los
dos ricos pastores en edad y
suerte, y que ambos le pedían y
ambos eran dignos, y á Castalio
heredero y á Cardenio heredado,
dió la palabra á Cardenio y dejó á
Castalio, de manera que estuvo
mil veces por darse la muerte. En
estos trances tan dolorosos se
pasó lo restante del invierno. No
os he dicho nada de Galafrón,
siendo mucho lo que hay que
decir; mas presto celebraremos el
sepulcro de Elisa, donde serán
sus lágrimas las mejores, porque
allí faltarán las de Mendino; y
ahora veréis que llega á la ribera
un galán cortesano en hábito de
pastor; Alfeo se llama, y con dolor
viene: tratemos dél, en tanto que
de Mendino y Castalio sus
recientes daños no nos dan lugar:
que tal vendrá, que los hallemos
más tratables, pues

El mal que el tiempo hace,

el tiempo le suele curar.
 SEGUNDA PARTE
DEL PASTOR DE FILIDA

En tanto que el generoso Alfeo

siguió las pomposas Cortes tan
satisfecho de su habitación, que
le parecía tiempo perdido el que
en otra parte se gastaba,
mayormente el de aquellos que
de las ciudades y villas, retirados
á las humildes aldeas, vivían
entre aquella soledad
acompañada de murmuración, y
aquella compañía desierta de
consejo, no es de maravillar que
así amasse el trato cortesano:
porque criado en él y aficionado á
las artes, hallaba allí del mundo lo
mejor; ayudábale á gozarlo ser
rico y liberal, gentil, cortés,
discreto y bien nacido, amado de
todos, y sobre todo, señor de su
voluntad. Pero después que vió la
hermosura de Andria, que era sin
igual, y probó su condición, tan
fácil al mal y al bien, que en
breves días, enamorado y creído,
sintió el favor de su parte, medida
de su deseo, y en más breves la
ponzoña secreta de su dulzor,
juzgó enemigos al cielo y á la
tierra, llamó la muerte, aborreció
la vida, estragó su pecho hasta
quedar tan trocado de sí, que á sí
mismo no se conocía, y tan
enemigo del lugar, que á otra
cosa que infierno no le
comparaba. Huyó dél, corrido de
sus amigos, desesperado de su
contento y atónito de su perdición;
buscó la ausencia, con deseo de
que en ella le viniese la muerte
sin que la despiadada Andria
supiese de su muerte ni de su
vida. Así como iba trocada su
fortuna, así lo iba su traje: camisa
cruda llevaba y sayo pardo
vaquero, caperuza de faldas y
calzón de lienzo, polaina tosca y
zapato gruesso, é intencionado
de encubrir su suerte y guardar
cabras y ovejas en la ribera del
Tajo, donde al silencio de la
noche enderezó sus pasos, sin
más compañía que su dolor y
cuidado, que casi con alas del
viento apresuraban su jornada,
llegó á su verde ribera al punto
que el sol con la primera lumbre
ahuyentaba las postreras
sombras de la noche. Era el
tiempo que la deleitosa
primavera, desechando las flores
de sus plantas, casi apenas el
deseado fruto entre las tiernas
hojas descubría. Y á las aves de
la noche por las cavernas
encerrándose, las del día
(desamparados los nidos)
dulcíssimos cantares acordaban.
Ya el rústico Arsindo, desde un
alto peñasco que sobre el Tajo
pendía, tocaba una sonora
bocina, á que de todas partes de
la ribera le comenzaron á
responder con flautas, chapas,
adufres y otros instrumentos
pastorales, donde Alfeo entendió
ser día entre ellos de gran
solemnidad y fiesta, y
acrecentando su pena, se entró
por la espesura de unos tarayes,
y recostado en la tierra junto á un
pequeño arroyo que del Tajo
salía, los ojos en él y el
pensamiento en Andria, al son del
agua y al compás de sus suspiros
comenzó á decir:

ALFEO
Apartado de la vida
pago, viniendo á morir,
con la pena del partir
la culpa de la partida;
culpa que (si bien se apura)
procede en tal ocasión,
no por falta de razón,
mas por mengua de ventura.
 Húyome de vos agora,
aunque decirlo es afrenta,
mas si vos quedáis contenta,
iré pagado, señora;
sin derramar más querellas,
que en su mayor fundamento
las ha de llevar el viento
y á mí la vida tras ellas.
Partíme de vos sin veros,
porque no puedan decirme
que fué possible partirme
y no lo fué enterneceros;
excusaré, mal mi grado,
el juzgar en la partida
á vos por desconocida
y á mí por desesperado.
No hay fortuna que
assegure
aquel que de vos se parte,
ni tiempo, razón ni arte
que por su salud procure;
y así á tan amarga suerte
no buscaré resistencia,
pues vos disteis la sentencia,
yo ejecutaré mi muerte.
No crece en esta jornada
la pena como el quereros,
que no es mayor mal no veros
que veros contino airada;
y pues iguala á la ausencia
lo que padezco presente,
no podrá llamarme ausente
quien no me lloró en
presencia.
Yo me huyo, y no me quejo,
porque no vengo conmigo,
perdonadme que os lo digo
 por galardón de que os dejo;
y si os mostráredes servida
en partirme desta suerte,
podré decir que la muerte
me valió más que la vida.
Coged el fruto que ofrece
mi partida en mis enojos,
pues quita de vuestros ojos
lo que vuestra alma aborrece;
quedad satisfecha así,
que aunque soy el agraviado,
triunfaré como vengado
si sé vengaros de mí.
De este bien desconfiando,
mis males agradeciendo,
vuestro desdén conociendo,
de la vida no curando,
tal me voy á tierra extraña
á volverme en tierra poca
con vuestro nombre en la boca
y en el alma vuestra saña.

Bien pensó Alfeo que se quexaba

á solas, ignorando que á su
siniestro lado, á la caída del río, al
fin de la espesura, estaba la
cabaña de la pastora Finea,
discreta y bella serrana, la cual,
recordando á la bocina de
Arsindo, fué herida de las
palabras del afligido amante;
mientras las cuales duraron, dejó
el humilde lecho, calzó abarcas
de limpio cuero con cordones de
fina lana, vistió su cuerpo gentil
de saya parda oscura con saino
baxo y camisa blanca gayada,
cogió sus cabellos, y cubriéndolos
con un ancho y alto tocado á fuer
de la serranía, salió al lugar
donde Alfeo estaba con más
semejanza de muerto que de
vivo. Y aunque la graciosa Finea
había bien entendido de sus
palabras la causa de su dolor,
dissimulando le dijo: ¿Duermes,
pastor? No duermo, dixo Alfeo.
¿Pues por qué, dixo Finea, dejas
passar el río tu manada, que
cuando della no cures, del daño
que puede hacer deberías tener
cuidado? No tengo cosa, dixo
Alfeo, que á nadie pueda dañar,
sin haberla en el mundo que á mí
no me dañe. Según esso, dixo
Finea, tú eres el más desdichado
de los hombres, pues ninguno lo
es tanto que no halle quien dél se
duela. Y sin duda ya yo lo hago
de ti, porque me pareces
enamorado y forastero. En lo uno
y lo otro, dixo Alfeo, has acertado;
sólo yerras en tener compassión
de mí, y así te ruego no la tengas
si no eres amiga de tiempo muy
perdido. ¿Qué sabes, dixo Finea,
si puedes pagarme en mi
moneda? ¿Eres acaso, dixo
Alfeo, enamorada y forastera?
Esso, dixo Finea, puedes tú ver,
sin preguntarlo, en mi traje por
una parte y en mi piedad por otra.
Pero dime, pastor, así triunfes de
tus enojos, ¿quién eres, de dónde
y á qué eres venido, que tu hábito
me dice uno y tu persona me
descubre otro? No creas nada,
dixo Alfeo, que aquí estoy yo que
te desengañaré de todo, pues no
puedo ser ingrato al cargo que en
tan breves razones me has
echado: suplícote primero me
digas qué es la causa del ruido
que esta mañana (al parecer del
sol) sonó en la ribera. La causa,
dixo Finea, de las voces é
instrumentos que has oído es una
junta casi general de los pastores
desta ribera que hoy se hace en
lugar señalado, por recordación
de la difunta Elisa, hija del
caudaloso rabadán Sileno, cuyas
cenizas serán cada año en este
mismo día celebradas. Por esto
subió el rústico Arsindo á avisar
con su ronca bocina desde las
altas peñas, y toda la pastoral
compañía desde sus moradas le
respondieron, á cuyo son recordé
yo y oí tus quexas, y estimo en lo
que es razón la voluntad con que
te ofreces á darme cuenta de ti;
pero el detenimiento en este lugar
podría ser peligroso, porque el
sitio de Elisa es más de una milla
distante de donde estamos, y la
obligación de entrar yo á tiempo,
forzosa, y sin duda no hay pastor
ni pastora que no vaya
caminando, así que en el camino
podré saber lo que tanto deseo, y
tú mandar lo que ya quisieres de
tu gusto, que responderé á él con
toda la obligación que me has
hecho. Pastora, dixo Alfeo, yo no
debo hacer essa jornada si no es
porque tú lo quieras, y así te
acompañaré hasta donde fueres
contenta, que para mí no tiene
más un lugar que otro, salvo los
de la soledad á que mi mala
fortuna me tiene tan obligado.
Sígueme, pastor, dixo Finea, y
saliendo de entre los tarayes se
entraron por una senda estrecha
y deleitosa, entre olmos y salces,
y á poco espacio, antes que nada
pudiessen tratar, sobrevino á la
parte del río una banda de
apuestos pastores y hermosas
pastoras, y entre ellos Licio,
pastor de mucha estima,
desfavorecido y celoso de Silvia,
una de las pastoras que allí iban.
Fuéles forzoso á los dos, Alfeo y
Finea, seguir su compañía, que
sin esquivarse del nuevo pastor,
iban en dulces pláticas
entreteniéndose, y á la mitad del
camino Finea pidió á Ergasto que
tañese y á Licio que cantasse, á
cuyo ruego Ergasto sacó la flauta,
y á su son Licio comenzó á cantar
de aquesta suerte:

LICIO
 ¿De qué sirve, ojos serenos,
que no me miréis jamás?
De que yo padezca más,
mas no de que os quiera
menos.
Si el que con gusto moría,
queréis que rabiando muera,
aunque mudéis la manera,
firme está la fantasía:
de ira y gracia llenos
dais por un mismo compás
el mal de menos á más
y el favor de más á menos.
Si imagináis que dexarme
tan sin ley y sin razón
en mí ha de ser ocasión
para desaficionarme;
pues no bastan ser ajenos,
industrias son por demás,
antes el deseo es más
cuando la esperanza es
menos.
Podéis con desabrimiento
quitarme el verme y el veros,
mas no que por conoceros
no me agrade mi tormento;
ser tan hermosos y buenos
que lo dexáis todo atrás,
esto en mí siempre fué más
y lo demás todo menos.
Si por matar al amigo
no podéis ser alabados,
y os queréis ver disculpados
con todo el mundo y conmigo;
cuando huya de sus senos
el alma triste además,
 miradme, y no pido más,
mas tampoco pido menos.

Todos, sino Silvia, oyeron

atentamente la tierna canción del
angustiado Licio; pero ella, que de
costumbre tenía esquivarse con él
en todo, mientras duró se
entretuvo con Dinarda en plática
de poca importancia, según
pareció por lo que Dinarda hizo,
que pidiendo á Ergasto que no
cessase y á Licio que le
respondiesse, Ergasto empezó á
tañer, y ella á cantar, y Licio á
responder desta manera:

DINARDA Y LICIO
—¿Si Silvia se te desvía,
más la sigues?—Hago bien.
—Morirás por ello.—Amén;
quizá la contentaría.
—Pon más consideración
en tan confusa aspereza,
que te lleva tu firmeza
carrera de perdición;
¿cuando más males te envía
más te humillas?—Hago bien.
—Tú te destruyes.—Amén;
que esso es lo que yo querría.
—No abras con tal error
tu mal soldada herida,
que si es mala la caída,
la recaída es peor;
mira que es gran niñería,
 no escarmentar.—Hago bien.
—¿Y si te pierdes?—Amén;
que poco se perdería.
—De tantos males y enojos
¿qué nuevas esperas buenas,
si tu afición y tus penas
son culpas ante sus ojos?
¿A la que te desafía
te avassallas?—Hago bien.
—Veráse vengada.—Amén;
que entonces yo triunfaría.
—Eres juez tan cruel
en sentenciar tu processo
que, ó se te ha enjugado el
seso
ó no naciste con él;
lo que en tu frente se cría,
¿es locura?—Hago bien.
—¿Y si te atassen?—Amén;
que por cuerdo quedaría.

O por oir Silvia á Dinarda, ó

porque el cantar la movió á más
atención que el primero, mientras
duró estuvo puestos los ojos en
los pastores que cantaban. Mas
ya que vió que era acabado, con
rostro grave y hermoso, vuelta á
la pastora le dixo: Volvamos,
Dinarda, á nuestro cuento, que
aunque el día es largo, para esso
faltará lugar y para essotro no,
que llegados al valle todos
cantaremos. Esso creo yo, dixo
Uranio (pastor de pocas palabras,
pero de mucho aviso), mas será
la diferencia que cantaréis en la
rama y Licio en la red. Si yo la
hice, dixo Silvia, en ella muera.
¿Pues quién la hizo? dixo Licio.
Tú, pastor, dixo Silvia; si alguna
hay, aunque tu desassossiego no
es prisión, sin duda, sino temor de
venganza de las más conocidas
sinrazones que jamás contra
mujer se han hecho. ¿Quién las
hizo? dixo Licio. Tú, dixo Silvia,
que en medio de una tierníssima
voluntad mía, donde eras solo
señor, moviste en pago tus pies y
tu lengua contra mí. Si tú primero,
dixo Licio, me quitaste el seso, no
fué mucho que yo hiciesse
locuras. ¿Pues tengo yo culpa,
dixo Silvia, á tus desvariadas
sospechas? Desso, dixo Licio, tú
eres testigo, pero sey juez, que yo
huelgo de ser el condenado. Sola
una cosa, dixo Silvia, quiero
preguntarte: ¿Qué te movió á
desterrar á Celio de la ribera?
Esso, dixo el pastor, fué concierto
de nuestra contienda que el que
quedasse vencido no pudiesse,
por término de un año, apacentar
en la ribera del Tajo: condición fué
sacada por su boca y desafío
hecho por su mano, y pena por
que yo passara (aunque á mi
pesar) si él me venciera. Y oxalá
Licio fuera el vencido, con que el
cielo me ayudara con la más
mínima parte del sentimiento que
por Celio tienes. Mira, pastor, dixo
Silvia con rostro más altivo y
tierno; vuelve á Celio á su
cabaña, y de mí y de la mía no te
acuerdes jamás, y agradece
mucho que me humillo á
enseñarte cómo podrás tenerme
menos agraviada. Sí, agradezco á
ti y al cielo, dixo Licio; y llamando
á Ergasto, á passo largo se
entraron por una senda que á
mano derecha estaba, quedando
los demás pastores muy
agradecidos del noble respeto del
pastor y del buen proceder de la
pastora. Pero viéndola casi
forzada á llorar, no quisieron
enternecerla; antes, vuelto Uranio
al nuevo pastor Alfeo, con gran
cortesía le preguntó su nombre y
su venida. Mi nombre, dixo el
pastor, es Alfeo; mi venida, de
passo, y serlo ha más si os soy
inconveniente. Esso estuviera á
mi cargo, dixo la serrana Finea. Y
volviendo á los demás les
asseguró que Alfeo era muy digno
de su compañía y trato. Y en
estos agradables razonamientos
llegaron á una hermosa y gran
floresta que á la entrada del valle
de Elisa estaba, y donde había
orden de irse aguardando los
pastores hasta que juntos
entrassen al sagrado valle. Y assí
agora hallaron muchos, divididos
por los arroyos y fuentes, tejiendo
guirnaldas, juntando ramos de
diversas flores y algunos tañendo
y cantando con gran harmonía y
arte, que allí estaban Sasio,
Filardo y Arsiano, y la pastora
Belisa, hija del doctíssimo
lusitanio Coelio, los cuatro más
aventajados en música y canto
que en las españolas riberas se
hallaban. Ayudábales el mucho
estudio, suaves voces v
discreción y donaire, aunque en
suavidad y harmonía Belisa los
dejaba atrás. Cantando estaba
Arsiano cuando nuestros pastores
llegaron; pero á poco rato, Belisa,
ayudada de Sasio, al son de la
lira con gran dulzura comenzó á
cantar aquestos versos:

BELISA
Entre hierbas fresquíssimas
floridas,
un cendal por los ojos
rodeado,
juntos los pies, las alas
escondidas,
Suelta la aljava, el arco floxo
al lado,
durmiendo estaba con
descuido y gana
el pequeñuelo dios de Amor
echado.
Llevaba en el frescor de la
mañana
Filida sus ovejas, que las
flores
iban barriendo con la blanca
lana.
No sonaban zampoñas de
pastores,
iba cantando (cuando vió
dormido
al mismo Amor) qué cosa es
mal de amores.
No conoció quién era,
aunque le vido,
porque nunca sintió su pena
grave,
mas llegó á conocerle sin
ruido.
Miróle y dixo con su voz
suave:
¿Hombre y ciego y con alas?
No eres hombre.
¿Ave con solas alas? No eres
ave.
Si te pusiste aquí porque me
assombre
con tu nueva facción, por no
hacello
quiero saber de ti cuál es tu
nombre.
Una trenza texió de su
cabello
y atóle, y recordando el Amor
luego,
se vió cautiva della y preso en
ello.
Filida dixo: Dime, alado
ciego,
cómo te llamas. Respondió
riendo:
Furor causado de tu gran
sossiego.
Filida le responde: No te
entiendo.
Y dice Amor: Mi nombre es tu
belleza,
con cuya luz la misma nieve
enciendo.
Yo soy Amor, si quieres más
certeza,
ves allí el arco, ves allí la
aljaba,
tiéntalos y verás su fortaleza.
Filida dice: El tiempo que
me amaba
el que solo obligada me tenía
al yugo que atajó la muerte
brava,
Cuatro coronas el Amor
traía,
no era arquero, no era amor
alado,
ni ciego como tú, que bien
veía.
Tú vienes con dos jaras
adornado,
una ligera y otra muy pesada,
y el efeto por dicha más
pesado.
Dícele humilde Amor: Essa
dorada,
de sólo bien querer está
sangrienta,
y essa de plomo, en desamor
bañada.
Sin quebrar la pesada te
contenta
 puedes, pues para el hombre
que te viere
es imposible que su fuerza
sienta;
Mas cuanto tu beldad acá
viviere,
por fuerza essotra vivirá
segura,
que cuando de mi aljaba se
perdiere,
la hallaré en tu gracia y
hermosura.

La mucha arte, la gran harmonía

del vario son que la pastora
Belisa á sus versos iba dando, fué
de manera que no quedó pastor
ni pastora que por una y otra
parte no la rodeassen. Y al fin de
su cantar, como maravillados de
oirla y no menos satisfechos de
mirarla, no se movían de aquel
lugar, deseosos que tornasse á su
agradable canto. Pero á esta hora
ya la floresta estaba llena de la
más noble y lucida gente que
jamás se ha visto entre pastores.
Y el viejo Sileno, con largo sayo y
retorcido bastón, la barba al cinto,
cana como la limpia nieve, y
sobre su arrugada frente una
corona de funeral ciprés, salió del
valle acompañado de los cuatro
escogidos y gallardos pastores
Mireno y Liardo, Galafrón y
Barcino, en discreción y gentileza
iguales, y en caudal y estimación
lo mismo. Traían de varios
pellicos sus vestiduras, con
dardos gruessos de fresno de
puntas de luciente acero en sus
manos, sus cabellos limpios y
peinados, cubiertos con
guirnaldas de verde yedra, á cuya
entrada todo el pastoral concurso
prestó un atento silencio. Y
después que Sileno con sus
cuatro pastores hubo pasado y
visto por todas partes la floresta,
vuelto al encerrado valle mandó
que Arsindo tocasse en él su
bocina, cuyo son apenas fué oído
cuando por una sola entrada que
el valle tenía se trasladó en él
toda la gente que en la floresta
estaba. Dispuesto era el lugar
para la gran fiesta que se
ordenaba. Tenía de ancho media
milla y una en largo. Guardábale
de ambos lados un espesso y alto
monte de gruessos robles y viejas
encinas, por entre los cuales
baxaban muchos arroyos de agua
clara, que unos hacían estanques
en el fresco valle y otros por las
cavernas sumiéndose,
acrecentaban su deleite y
hermosura. No faltaban en el
llano fuentes puríssimas que,
como de cristal, bañaban los
troncos á las diversas y hermosas
plantas. Estaba entre ellas una
alta pirámide de rico mármol, casi
toda cubierta de nativa yedra y de
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