Saddam's War Games

Printed from the Washington Times:

Bunker buster
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has pointed to the 1991 bombing of the Amiriyah bunker in the Baghdad suburb as an example of how Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein fights.

In a recent prewar press conference, Mr. Rumsfeld said Saddam put civilians in a military command bunker knowing allied planes would eventually strike it. Sure enough, on Feb. 13, 1991, an Air Force jet attacked the communications command bunker with a penetrating bomb. At daylight, the Iraqi regime displayed the dead civilian bodies to the international media as an example of America's murderous ways.

In his new book, "War with Iraq: Critical Lessons," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Buster Glosson writes a detailed description of how the target, No. L30, was chosen. "Why were civilians in the bunker?" asks Gen. Glosson, who designed the air campaign. "At this point in the war, how likely was it that people would go to a bunker on their own when they could very easily see we were only bombing things of military significance in Baghdad. In other words, the safest place to be in Baghdad was in an apartment complex or in a housing area."

He answers his own question: "Saddam did it on purpose. Saddam wouldn't have cared about the fact that a lot of people that were killed were dependents of the military and the intelligence service. That fact was irrelevant to him. All life, except his own, is irrelevant to him."