From Iraqi officers, three tales of shock and defeat

"The Fedayeen hit, but would then go back and collect their 10 million Iraqi dinar reward," Saad says. "Only soldiers can hit American troops and progressively move forward."

Besides their inability to press home an attack, the Fedayeen also deployed en masse to the south, and couldn't redeploy before American forces were at the gates of the capital. Officers say that Mr. Hussein's several television appearances were also a source of anger.

"He only praised the divisions in the south one time, and after that praised the Fedayeen, Baath Party, and militia, and forgot to praise the Army," says Saad. "That frustrated leading commanders in the war. We needed more reassurance and motivation, and he gave it only to certain groups."

Another mistake was the decision to move Republican Guard units south of Baghdad - where they could be easily targeted by American jets at Karbala, Hillah, and Al Kut. "While they were moving, the Republican Guard were a target for American fighter planes and they lost a lot of men," says Jaburi. "It was very easy for the Americans to enter Baghdad."

"The way we fought the war was to try to damage American troops as much as possible so that the US and British people would put pressure on their leaders to stop the war," Jaburi adds.

Pressure instead was mounting on Iraqi forces, which were the subject of a building psy-ops campaign since last fall. Saad says his units had little exposure to the messages on tens of millions of leaflets dropped on Iraqi units from the air, because Mukhabarat internal security and military intelligence agents scooped them up first.

"The soldiers would see them fall, but were not allowed to read them," says Saad. "The Army has lots of Baath infiltrators, which kept a tight grip and collected those very fast."

Radio broadcasts warning troops not to fight and telling them how to surrender were not often heard, since few soldiers had radios, Saad says. But faxes and e-mails to commanders had a "big impact" - even though those lines of communication were cut some 10 days before the war began.

"Of course it has an impact - if one commander receives a fax and gives it to his senior, in this simple way the officer knows of the US technical superiority," Saad says. "Imagine him thinking: 'If the Americans are able to get into the mind of a senior commander this way, how can I protect a whole division?'"

In the south, the picture was complicated by the crossing over from Iran of thousands of Iraqi exile forces loyal to the Shiite Muslim cleric Mohamed Bakr al-Hakkim. It was this militia that forced Saad's units in Al Amarah to retreat, he says, not the Americans.

"The hit from behind is stronger," says Saad. The militia, known as the Badr Brigade confronted the Iraqis at several rear positions from Baghdad down to Basra, targeting Baath Party and regime command centers, while avoiding contact with US forces.

Along with two other officers, Saad fled the Badr advance late on April 4, and hid with a local sheikh. They changed out of their uniforms and, despite suspicions from the Iran-based militia, the sheikh swore that the officers were his relatives from Baghdad.

On April 6, every Iraqi still in uniform in Amarah was killed by Badr soldiers. Then at 5 a.m. on April 8, American troops nearby ordered that all weapons be given up within 48 hours. The Badr units disappeared, and in that gap, Saad and his two fellow officers made their way home to a capital without a defense ministry anymore.

Losses were great. Of the 700 men under Jaburi's direct command, 200 died. That hurt, he said. "But to lose our country was worse."

For Saad and Asaad, officers of lower rank but 22-year veterans in the Iraqi military, the possibility of a position in a US-organized national force appeals.

"The Army we fought was the most advanced in the world ... and they told us to surrender, and to not lead the country to destruction," says Asaad.

"If the Americans provide protection and sovereignty, and if they lead Iraq in a new direction, then our ideas [about the US] will change."

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