Re: Concealment of Equipment and Devices
1. During our observation of enemy air attack techniques in bombing and destroying deployed equipment and devices belonging to sectors not currently in operation at this time, in which the principle of deployment by our troops, we noticed that the troops deployed, fortified and established control to protect against any land attack.
2. The use of shelters that provide complete concealment and would completely hide the weapons, equipment and devices underground (as applied at the beginning of Gulf War I) has been authorized. As applied at the beginning of Gulf War I, this will make them hard-to-find targets for the enemy’s air force, especially weapons and devices not currently in operation at this time which may be brought into operation in the future. In the event that there is insufficient roofing material, begin with the most important priorities.
Act accordingly.
Signature
General Ibrahim `Abd-al-Sattar Muhammad
Army Chief of Staff
This is being read by some as alluding to hiding WMD. I don't think so.
The memo is clearly written in reaction to lessons from Desert Storm. In that war, the Iraqis deployed their ground troops to resist a ground attack and suffered from our air attacks more as a result. If we could see it we could hit it and what we hit we killed.
This memo, to me, is simply telling commanders to expect air attacks rather than ground attacks and to hide underground any equipment they don't need in order to preserve them for later when they can be hauled out and used. This "later" could be during a ground invasion or after the war is over, depending on the equipment. The Iraqi Baathists sorely missed weapons destroyed in Desert Storm in the decade after that defeat and hoped to avoid losing what was left in 2003--assuming they'd still be there ruling Iraq, obviously.
Indeed, during Desert Storm, the Iraqis suffered from the synergy between our air and ground power both during the air campaign and during the ground war. After enduring more than six weeks of air attack, during the ground campaign when our heavy armor plowed into Iraqi units, engaging them at great distance and beyond Iraqi visual detection range, Iraqi vehicle crews abandoned their vehicles to take shelter from what they thought was yet another destructive aerial attack. This is the right thing to do under air attack. But under ground attack, it helps the defenders a lot if the the defenders actually man their weapons, shoot back, and maneuver. The Iraqis did not do this and so our ground troops had many turkey shoots against unmanned armored vehicles.
Anyway, while I suspect some WMD are buried in the deserts of Iraq somewhere, this memo is not a smoking gun on WMD. It is just a warning to avoid smoking hulks at the hands of our aircraft.
