‘Saddam may use human shields’

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may use Baghdad’s four million residents as human shields and even erect a "chemical belt" around the city if attacked, a former nuclear adviser to the strongman visiting Manila said yesterday.

Hussein Shahristani, a nuclear scientist who once served as adviser to Saddam, said he had been told by people inside Iraq that in case of a war, Saddam’s forces would be withdrawn to hold out in Baghdad.

Shahristani, now a director of the Iraqi Refugee Aid Council, a group that helps people fleeing Saddam’s regime, based his accounts on reports from contacts from within Iraq and those who recently fled the country.

"Saddam is planning to fight his war in Baghdad" if US forces invade Iraq, Shahristani told a forum of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of the Philippines (FOCAP.)

He said two special Republican Guard divisions and other security forces of up to 100,000 people would reinforce the city’s defenses to lure Americans into brutal street fighting, "using four million people in Baghdad as human shields."

This would discourage American troops from advancing on Baghdad which has a complex network of tunnels where Saddam and his chemical and biological weapons could be concealed, he said.

Shahristani also said that Saddam could create a toxic "chemical belt" around Baghdad to trap people inside. He did not elaborate.

But he added that large numbers of civilians killed would increase pressure on the United States to stop fighting.

He also expressed fear that Saddam might use chemical weapons on Iraqis in the south so he could blame the deaths on Americans.

However, Shahristani said that his contacts inside Iraq had found that aside from the Republican Guard and other loyalists, few would fight for Saddam.

"The general understanding is that the army is not going to fight," he said.

He said that if the US-led forces could launch a "surgical strike" that only targets Saddam and his Republican Guard, then the general public would be encouraged to rise up against Saddam as well.

Shahristani, who was imprisoned by Saddam for refusing to help develop nuclear weapons, said while the Iraqi leader did not have systems to stage biological and nuclear attacks, he could use "sleeper cells" comprising "terrorists". – AFP, Marvin Sy