Where are the missing Iraqi (Special)Republican Guard?

[Argyll]

Can I ask the regulars for the their feedback on this?
These guys must be somewhere,all Saddam loyalists too
Info from globalsecurity.org
Fedayeen

The Fedayeen, with a total strength reportedly between 18,000 and 40,000 troops, is composed of young soldiers recruited from regions loyal to Saddam. The unit reports directly to the Presidential Palace, rather than through the army command, and is responsible for patrol and anti-smuggling duties. Though at times improperly termed an "elite" unit, the Fedayeen is a politically reliable force that can be counted on to support Saddam against domestic opponents. It started out as a rag-tag force of some 10,000-15,000 "bullies and country bumpkins." They are supposed to help protect the president and Uday, and carry out much of the police's dirty work.
SPECIAL RG

Initially, the unit consisted of some 15,000 young troops, composing thirteen battalions of 1,300-1,500 men each. Subsequently this force grew to upwards of 26,000 troops in thirteen battalions. Units are deployed to guard Saddam's palaces, to escort Saddam on his travels, and others as `emergency response' forces. As of 1998 the SRG was estimated to include about 15,000 troops. As of 2002 the SRG was estimated to include about 12,000 troops, reportedly with armor, air defence and artillery units. These were variously reported to consist of as many as 14 battalions, apparently organized into four Special Republican Guard brigades of up to 2,500 troops each.



Normal RG

As of February 1997 it was reported that the Republican Guard Al-Madeena Al-Munawara Armored Division had been placed under alert to deploy. One of its Armored Brigades was deployed in Al-Rashdiya, while the others are at Al-Taji Military Camp. By early March 1997 the Republican Guard's 10th Armored Brigade (attached to the Republican Guard's Al-Madeena Al-Munawarra Forces based at Al-Taji in Baghdad), has also arrived at Nahiyat Al-Rabee'. By October 1997 Iraqi Republican Guard units had built up in the area of Makhmur, 30 km southwest of Arbil. The Medina Al Munawara armoured division and the Adnan mechanised infantry division moved to the area with 200 tanks, four battalions of heavy artillery and over 10,000 troops.

As of early 1999 the "Al-Medina Al-Munawera" [Medina the Luminous] Forces Command (Quwat Al-Medina Al-Munawera Hares Jimhouri), under the command of the Allahu Akbar Forces-Northern Corps, was based between Al-Taji and Al-Rasheediya.

Opposition sources claimed in January 1999 that the losses inflicted on Saddam's regime during Operation "Desert Fox" included 21 killed among officers and other ranks, with 87 wounded. Destruction or damage to 31 tanks and armored vehicles. The destruction of the armory belonging to the "Al-Medina Al-Munawera" Forces, as well as the destruction of 19 anti-aircraft targets.

In mid-September 2002 U.S. satellites detected two brigades of the Iraqi Republican Guard Medina Division leaving their bases near Taji, north of Baghdad. The units appeared to be moving out to locations that are less vulnerable to US attack.


According to US sources there has been only less than 3000 confirmed Iraqi Military casualties,theres a link here within the News today section!!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPPrint/LAC/20030705/COLETS-8/TPComment/

I think this question of such large numbers out there somewhere needs addresed!!Would you not agree?

[warchild1/27scout]

argyle your right. these are the guys that lose all thier special priveliges(spellcheck)if they lose power and might even get strung up by normal people if caught so they might as well fight to death or leave for syria or newest al queada hq.i think they might just leave or give up thier fight if we could ever kill the"butcher of baghdad". :fork:

[Trident-za]

Thats a fair number of missing "enemy personnel". It seems unlikely that such a large number could go missing so quickly and easily unless there was some sort of plan in place before the war started.... Of course, they could possibly have just "melted in" amongst the civilian population, but then what happened to all their equipment? Many unanswered questions...

[warchild1/27scout]

well the u.s. told them to just go home remember?now your right about equipment and stuff.

[martinexsquaddie]

there have left the heavy stuff where it was
Face it even a merkava would be an expensive way to commit suicide against the US army.
But a few rpgs a dragnov and an rpk and you can inflict casulities until they kill you which if you don't get too ambitious could take ages
look at the problems the IRA caused in Ulster

[Argyll]

I found this article and thought it was worth posting,it may have some bearing on the question,but not to the extent as we have seen though


The Independent (London) May 24, 2003

Us Army Chief Says Iraqi Troops Took Bribes To Surrender
Dollar Notes Easier To Take Than Bullets;
Iraq: The Aftermath
General Tommy Franks: Iraqi troops were bribed'

By Andrew Buncombe

SENIOR IRAQI officers who commanded troops crucial to the defence of key Iraqi cities were bribed not to fight by American special forces, the US general in charge of the war has confirmed.

Well before hostilities started, special forces troops and intelligence agents paid sums of money to a number of Iraqi officers, whose support was deemed important to a swift, low-casualty victory.

General Tommy Franks, the US army commander for the war, said these Iraqi officers had acknowledged their loyalties were no longer with the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, but with their American paymasters. As a result, many officers chose not to defend their positions as American and British forces pushed north from Kuwait. "I had letters from Iraqi generals saying: I now work for you'," General Franks said.

It is not clear which Iraqi officers were bribed, how many were bought off or at what cost. It is likely, however, that the US focused on officers in control of Saddam's elite forces, which were expected to defend the capital. The Pentagon said that bribing the senior officers was a cost- effective method of fighting and one that led to fewer casualties.

"What is the effect you want?" a senior Pentagon official said. "How much does a cruise missile cost? Between $ 1m and $ 2.5m. Well, a bribe is a PGM precision guided missile) - it achieves the aim but it's bloodless and there's zero collateral damage.

"This part of the operation was as important as the shooting part; maybe more important. We knew that some units would fight out of a sense of duty and patriotism, and they did. But it didn't change the outcome because we knew how many of these Iraqi generals were going to call in sick," he added.

The revelation by General Franks, who this week announced his intention to retire as commander of US Central Command, helps explain one of the enduring mysteries of the US-led war against Iraq: why Iraqi forces did not make a greater stand in their defence of Baghdad, in many cases melting away and changing into civilian clothes rather than forcing the allied troops to engage in bitter, street-to-street fighting.

John Pike, director of the Washington-based military research group, GlobalSecurity.Org, said: "It certainly strikes me that this is part of the mix. I don't think there is any way of discerning how big a part of the mix it is ... but it is part of the long queue of very interesting questions for which we do not yet have definitive answers." In the run-up to the war against Iraq, the Pentagon revealed its ambitious efforts to try to encourage Iraqi soldiers and officers to lay down their weapons rather than stand and fight.

As American and British troops massed in northern Kuwait in preparation, millions of leaflets printed in Arabic were dropped over towns and cities where troops were thought to be concentrated, urging them not to support Saddam. The leaflets gave specific instructions as to how the troops should surrender and included such information as ensuring that all tanks turrets were turned around and pointed towards the north. Senior officers were also targeted by US psy-ops officers using e-mails and telephone calls to their private addresses and mobile phones.

As result, while some Iraqi forces - especially those supported by militias - put up staunch resistance in several cities as allied forces marched north, many thousands of Iraqi soldiers chose not to fight, in most cases simply throwing off their uniforms and going home to their families.

But the confirmation - revealed in the current edition of Defence News by reporter Vago Muradian - that crucial senior officers were bribed, would explain why there was so little resistance in locations where it was anticipated that better-trained troops such as the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard, would make a stand.

This was particularly the case with the Iraqi capital, where there was surprisingly little resistance, apart from pockets of fighting in south- east Baghdad and around the international airport to the west of the city. It also explains why it was possible to undermine the Iraqi forces' centralised command structure.

Some of the techniques employed by the Pentagon to persuade Iraqi troops not to fight were used with some success in the recent war in Afghanistan, where US special forces carried with them considerable sums of money in dollar bills to buy off warlords whose support was deemed crucial to the war effort.

[Vance]

Well you forgot about POWs, we captured alot of them. :\

[Argyll]

Actually we didn't Vance,not the supposed Elite Republican Guard,there were very few captured,and also most of the POW's were from the Southern Region,and were regulaur Infantry Units and as far as I'm aware there are only 5-7000 of them anyway,still leaves a lot of potential insuregent troops out there!!

[warchild1/27scout]

i guess we took some lessons from afghanistan with the bribe thing huh. not that it was a good thing because when someone else with money comes around the bullets start coming back towards us again

[Vance]

I said we caught alot of POWs, like the Iraqi military in general. Not the SRG

[Seiyuuki]

It's not abnormal for soldiers, perhaps even the SRG, in face of imminent defeat, to simply disrobe their military gears and clothing and just merge in with the civilian populace to avoid any punishment from the victor.

Then again...SRG number in the thousands, kind of difficult to make that just disappear.

[Argyll]

The question Vance and the topic itself is not about regular Army,it asks where did the(Special)Republican Guard go ?
I'm not interested in the regs,but the fanatics that still pose a threat to Coalition troops!!!

[Seiyuuki]

These fanatics still running around and shooting at American and British soldiers, beside foreign nationals, were properly former SRG.

I doubt that many of these fanatics are regular, they were conscripted, they weren't pay well, fed well or have anything well provided for them. They were probably happy to be out of the army forever.

[REMOV]

The question Vance and the topic itself is not about regular Army,it asks where did the(Special)Republican Guard go ?Some sources (esp. Russian) said that those units... never existed. Were only in computers of US analitics ;)

(...) the fanatics that still pose a threat to Coalition troops!!!You know, the situation is more complicated, because some of fighting groups aren't connected with Saddam regime. They are normal Iraquis who don't like foreign occupiers (despite their nationality) - it's comprehensible - no one likes strangers in his own land (coming under the banners of liberation and freedom etc.) who sometimes killing innocent people.

Compare this to situation in South Vietnam in '60. There were three sides of conflict - communist from North Vietnam, South Vietnam regime army and... South Vietnam rebels, who wants to live in a normal democratic country (not under a dictatorship or in communism), cooperate with NV, but their aims were different. There's quite good book about it write by Edward B. Atkeson (and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf's introduction) "A Tale of Three Wars: A Novel" (http://hallmemoirs.com/index.php/Mode/product/AsinSearch/1889927007/name/A%2520Tale%2520of%2520Three%2520Wars%253A%2520A%2520Novel/browse/2369/page/2).

Or try to imagine powerful foreign forces comes to the US to liberate Americans from George W. Bush's presidency. They came, saw and conquered, and naturally Americans stand up and fight with enemies - elements of Bush regime (for reason of clarification let's suppose that it was a criminal regime) and... normal Americans who hated Bush's regime, but also hates the occupiers. And remember - they goes to your country, destroy your army, overthrown you government (regardless of it's criminal nature it was your country OWN government) and doing in your country everything they want to. No one likes be occupied.

I hope I'm intelligible ;)