A whole division surrenders

[Gonz]

That's hard to fathom.

By MATT KELLEY
The Associated Press
Friday, March 21, 2003; 6:59 PM


An entire division of the Iraqi army, numbering 8,000 soldiers, surrendered to coalition forces in southern Iraq Friday, Pentagon officials said.

Iraq's 51st Infantry Division surrendered as coalition forces advanced toward Basra, Iraq's second largest city. The mechanized division had about 200 tanks before the war, according to independent analysts and U.S. officials.

The 51st was one of the better equipped and trained in Iraq's regular army forces and was the key division protecting Basra, a major transportation and oil shipment hub on the Shatt al-Arab waterway that leads to the Persian Gulf.

© 2003 The Associated Press

 

[ris]

its a new offensive strategy - swamp the enemy with numbers until they give up.

 

[Squiggy]

Actually, the division dispersed to the winds and the commander and his second in command surrendered.

 

[HeXp£Øi±]

Figured Basra would be a breeze. It'll be the first place we see people chanting 'USA' in the streets.

 

[greenfreak]

What do you do with thousands of surrendees (is that a word?) Give them back after the war is over? These could be the same people who surrendered back in Desert Storm. But what else can you do with them?

 

[greenfreak]

I have an idea. We can send them all to FRANCE.

 

[Gonz]

France? That'd be cruel

Most of the surrenders are average joes forced to serve. Give them their family & home & some food & they'll be okay.

The Republican guard is a little trickier. Most will reintegrate into society, some have to join saddam.

 

[HeXp£Øi±]

Agreed, sending them to France would be breaking the laws of the geneva convention. No cruelty to pows.

 

[greenfreak]

That would be divine though. All those Iraqis running around Paris, can't you see it?

 

[Gonz]

they already are

 

[Professur]

I can well understand an entire division giving up. For the last ten years they've been looking out on that desert at the skeletal remains of their last effort against americans. They're the equivilent of a pitchfork wielding peasant confronting an armoured knight. A few will keep trying. Most will realise that it's a lost cause and hope for mercy. I say grant them it and move on. The allies aren't there to dismantle the Iraqi army. Just too remove it's head.

Don't forget, if Iraq is left too weak, Iran is gonna come flooding over that border.

 

[Astaroth33]

That would be divine though. All those Iraqis running around Paris, can't you see it?

I'm picturing the French surrendering to all those displaced Iraqi POWs...

 

[Gonz]

 

[Gonz]

Wanted: Dead or Alive

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein has decreed that any Iraqi who kills an enemy soldier will get a reward equivalent to $14,000.

And $28,000 will go to anyone who captures an enemy soldier alive, the decree said, according to the official Iraqi News Agency.

Shooting down an enemy fighter plane is worth $55,500, a helicopter, $28,000, and a missile, $5,500. Killing the pilot will bring $14,000; capturing the pilot alive is worth twice as much.

 

[drkavnger99]

Just heard on the radio that at an oil field that the soldiers shot the officers of thier batallion so they could surrender to the americans! Now someone tell me that life isn't stranger than fiction!