At 05:00 in the morning of April 17, 1988, coinciding with the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, the Iranian lookouts belonging to the bodies of the Basiji, Pardaran and Artesh (the regular Armed Forces) that guarded the line of the front positioned in the interior of the Al-Faw peninsula, in the extreme south of Iraq, they observed the horizon suddenly tinged with a reddish-yellow glow. A few seconds later, a hurricane of fire hit the Iranian trenches "literally shredding" the 15.000 poorly armed and prepared defenders who guarded that crucial portion of the "Iran-Iraq War" front line. In order to obtain the maximum possible result, in addition to the high potential explosive, the Iraqi artillery fired no less than 100 tons of chemical agents including "sarin" gas and "mustard" gas to eliminate as many Iranian defenders as possible .
As soon as the bombing of the artillery was stopped, 100.000 oddly disciplined and well-equipped Iraqi soldiers, preceded by 5.500 tanks featuring a characteristic red triangle-shaped sign on one side of the turret, and supported by the raids of no less than 900 aircraft and helicopters launched an assault against the survivors of the initial bombing which, after a first furious resistance, were crushed.
The next day, after less than 35 hours of battle, the Iraqis had regained the entire Al-Faw peninsula (against an initial forecast of several weeks!) And the "Iraqi Republican Guard" had earned the front page in all the newspapers and the news of the world.
In reality, the first steps of this chosen body, which in the course of its existence affected the collective imagination like few others in the world, dated back to many years earlier, to be precise to 1964 when, one year after the so-called "February Revolution "Which led to the dismissal and shooting of Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim, the new leader and president of the Republic of Iraq, Abdul Salam Arif, decided to replace the" National Guard "with a new" Republican Guard ".
It should be noted that at the time this initiative did not constitute a normal "rotation" since the "National Guard" was a very large body which performed various military and "gendarmerie" functions while the "Republican Guard" was a small unit the size of a brigade which, although equipped as a "heavy" unit complete with its own autonomous equipment of tanks and artillery, should have been a sort of "Praetorian guard" or "palace guard" for the leadership of the country. And such was the role of the "Guard" for the next 16 years until the outbreak of the "Iran-Iraq War" led to a radical rethinking of its organization and mission.
Contrary to the initial optimistic predictions of the new "rais" of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein, the "Iran-Iraq War" did not result in a "blitzkrieg" at all but soon turned into a terrible war of attrition where the vast reserves of men in possession they played a fundamental role in Iran, soon overwhelming the much smaller Iraqi armed forces, at the time only at the beginning of that tortuous process that would have led them, in the early 90s, to deploy the fourth army in the world to size.
In order to contain the Iranian offensive episodes, the Iraqi High Command decided to create an armored reserve force that could intervene promptly, according to the model already experimented by the Waffen-SS in the Second World War, where the front line had yielded under pressure of the infantry waves of the Iranian Pasdaran.
Initially reticent, Saddam Hussein finally convinced himself to give up his favorite military corps to the needs of the conflict and it was then that the "Guard" entered a profound phase of transformation.
First, there was the detachment of a mechanized infantry core that ended up creating the new "Presidential Palace Special Forces Brigade". Recruited only from members of the Sunni tribe in the Tikrit area, the same tribe from which Saddam Hussein came, this unit inherited the original mission of providing protection to the leader and was placed under the authority of the Special Security Organization (SSO), the security services of Baathist Iraq.
The rest of the "Guard" was instead placed under the control of the High Command of the Armed Forces and organized into five brigades with the task of "mechanized tactical reserve" and in this role participated in the great defensive battles held between 1981 and 1986.
While earning the nickname "Saddam's firefighters", the employment of "Republican Guard" soldiers in this early phase of the "Iran-Iraq War" differed somewhat from the collective idea of a mobile unit for rapid armored attacks that later became popular in the press. Of course, there were occasions when the "Republican Guard" led counteroffensives according to the dictates of the "war of movement", such as when the Iranians launched Operation Valfajr-4 ("Alba-4" in Italian) between October and in November 1983 and the Iraqis tried to fight back. On that occasion, 8 "Guard" battalions were launched against the Iranian Pasdaran and Artesh forces who were supporting an offensive by the Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. Despite the use of tanks, heavy artillery and gas, the Iraqis were reduced to a bad start by the sturdy Iranian resistance and forced to retreat.
This and other bloody lessons convinced the Iraqi High Command to adopt a new operational approach. The "Guard" brigades would have waited behind the front line, camouflaged to escape the attacks of the artillery and enemy aviation. Later, once a local breakthrough had been revealed by the overwhelming Iranian forces, the "Guard" would have moved to occupy a defensive position identified along the main line of the enemy penetration axis. There, the soldiers would create an entrenched defensive position in which the infantry tanks and combat vehicles would be "buried" in order to support the infantrymen sheltered from bunkers and trenches with their firepower and thus bleed the forces advancing enemies.
Far from being a true "mobile reserve", the "Guard" therefore ended up being used as a "stopping force", at least in this first phase. The Iraqi operational doctrines underwent a complete collapse in 1986 when, between February 10 and March 10, with a very sophisticated combined operation that surprised almost all foreign observers, the Iranians managed to take possession of the Al-Faw peninsula by completely depriving the Iraq of its very small and vital outlet to the sea and completely overwhelming the Iraqi units in charge of defending the area, including 20 battalions of the "Republican Guard".
Rejoiced by the total victory achieved on the Al-Faw front, the Iranians organized a series of massive offensives called "Karbala 1" up to "Karbala-10" from May 1986 until May 1987 to bring down the Baathist regime. Squeezed, Saddam and the Baath Party reacted by calling all retired veterans, now subject to military service indefinitely and no longer "turn-based" as it was in the early years of the war, and also opted for the permanent closure of the universities until "the end of the crisis" (read: war). These important decisions had the effect of making available to the Iraqi war effort a new mass of men of better quality, both in terms of education and military experience than those who until then had represented "cannon fodder" in the first place. line. To make the best use of these "resources", both Saddam Hussein and the High Command decided to direct them to the "Republican Guard" which was then expanded to include the beauty of 25 brigades.
Being considered the elite of the Iraqi army, the "Guard" soldiers received better training and equipment. Furthermore, to encourage the most talented elements to follow the military career, both the state and the Baath Party created a whole network of assistance and favoritism for the benefit of the officers and soldiers of the Corps (consumer goods, new cars, houses at prices). favor, monetary bonuses, etc ...) in order to "retain them". Not only that, the "Republican Guard" further expanded its recruitment basin by going "fishing" among all the ethno-religious groups in the country, presenting itself as a real "unifying and patriotic institution". These were the premises that guaranteed, during the following two years, the transformation of the "Guard" from an "emergency reserve unit" to an "elite assault armored body" which still remains in the collective imagination.
After absorbing all the enemy offensives during 1986 and 1987, the Iraqi military instrument, now completely reformed and re-equipped, went on the offensive with the series of operations collectively called "Tawakalna Ala Allah Campaign" between April 17 and July 1988 which eventually led to the UN-sponsored ceasefire and the end of the war. The success of these offensives is largely due to the massive use of the "Guard" units which, operating in an offensive context of "war of movement" and making extensive use of armored vehicles, artillery and air support, were able to conduct operations textbook worthy of the "blitzkrieg" of Hitler's memory.
The short period between the end of the "Iran-Iraq War" and the beginning of the "Gulf War" saw a new restructuring and enhancement of the Iraqi military instrument and, of course, its most iconic elite corps could not escape that change. First, in order to prevent coups d'etat and insurrections of any kind, Saddam Hussein decided to establish a new paramilitary force, under his direct command, called "Fedayeen Saddam" comprising 40.000 men chosen among veterans of proven Baathist faith and organized in territorial battalions.
Subsequently, the "Special Forces Brigade of the Presidential Palace" remained under the control of the Special Security Organization (SSO) but was renamed "Special Republican Guard" and expanded to include 26.000 men divided into 4 mechanized brigades (numbered by the 1st to 4th), an air defense command and an armored command.
Finally, the "Republican Guard" properly so called was reorganized with the consolidation of the existing brigades into 8 new divisions:
-1 ° armored division "Hammurabi";
-2nd armored division "Medina";
-3 ° mechanized division "Tawakalna";
-4th "Al Faw" mechanized division;
-5th "Baghdad" mechanized division;
-6th "Nebuchadnezzar" mechanized division;
-7th "Adnan" mechanized division;
-8th division of the special forces "As Saiqa".
In addition, 4 new divisions called "internal security" were created but in fact they were further mechanized divisions:
- division "Al Nida";
- "Al-Abed" division;
- division "Al-Mustafà";
-division whose name is unknown.
As the elite and main attack force of the Armed Forces of Iraq, the 12 divisions of the "Republican Guard" led the lightning offensive which in two days, in early August 1990, led to the complete conquest of Kuwait and the its incorporation as "nineteenth province of Iraq".
The Iraqi attack began at 02:00 in the morning on August 2, 1990 and was led by 100.000 men and 700 tanks of the divisions "Hammurabi", "Medina", "Tawakalna", "Nebuchadnezzar" and by the division of special forces " As Saiqa "while the other divisions of the" Guard ", the conventional formations and the commandos of the Iraqi army followed with the second group. Contrary to popular belief, the invasion was not "a walk" and there were moments during which the Iraqis were taken by surprise by the unexpected reaction of the Kuwaiti, as in Al Jahra where elements of the 35th army brigade Kuwaiti managed to slow the advance of the "Hammurabi" and "Medina" divisions for more than 5 hours in the so-called "Battle of the Bridges", or on the island of Failaka where the division of special forces "As Saiqa" had to deal not only with the local garrison but also with masses of armed civilians who engaged the commandos in violent close confrontations, and finally at the Dasman Palace where the "Royal Guard" and other elite elements of the Kuwait Armed Forces immolated themselves in a battle that lasted 10 hours and which, while ending with their total annihilation, allowed Emir Jaber III and most of his government to repair Saudi Arabia, to fat to failing the main objective of Saddam's coup.
Immediately after the start of the mobilization of the forces of the International Coalition ("Operation Desert Shield") the forces of the "Guard" were withdrawn from the first line and placed in reserve so as to intervene in a second phase, once the resistance of the forces Army officers had unnerved the American, British, French and Arab League troops offensive.
In light of the exploits of previous years, Saddam Hussein placed enormous trust in the forces of the "Guard" so as to send them a message on the eve of the outbreak of the war which, among other things, read: "When in the course of history they write about Napoleon's Imperial Guard, they will do so only to position it behind the Republican Guard of Iraq".
At the same time, western observers also kept a close eye on the actions of the "Praetorians of Saddam", defined several times in various western media as: "The Iraqi equivalent of the Waffen-SS but without the same human warmth".
When, on January 17, 1991, the air forces of the International Coalition hit Iraq with their offensive, the divisions of the "Republican Guard" were distributed as follows:
- the four "internal security" divisions were deployed on the north front, between Mosul, Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah, to face the never dormant Kurdish guerrilla and to prevent the possible opening of a front with Turkey;
- the division of special forces "As Saiqa" was placed to preside over the 8 islands of Kuwait located in the far north of the Persian Gulf;
- the divisions "Hammurabi", "Medina", "Tawakalna" and "Al Faw", grouped in the "First Republican Guard Corps", were positioned in an area south and west of Basra to act as a backup and tactical reserve for the conventional forces of the Iraqi army that remained in Kuwait;
- the divisions "Baghdad", "Nebuchadnezzar" and "Adnan", grouped in the "Second Republican Guard Corps", were instead held around the Iraqi capital Baghdad together with the forces of the "Special Republican Guard" to serve as a strategic reserve of last resort. .
In the night between 16 and 17 January 1991, 2.250 fighters of the International Coalition began the air campaign against Iraq and occupied Kuwait and in the following 42 days of bombing, until February 23, they made 100.000 raids unloading 88.500 tons of bombs that completely devastated Iraqi civilian and military infrastructure.
Despite the storm of fire, the "Guard" units managed to cope with relatively minor damage as the Coalition's aerial and satellite reconnaissance had failed to map the defensive positions created by the "First" and "Second Corps". However, the demoralizing effects that air raids had on soldiers should not be reduced in any way. Furthermore, the interminable raids of the enemy aircraft had the effect of reducing the air and air defense forces to a minimum, as well as the other conventional Iraqi forces, collapsing the entire operational framework within which the "Guard" was supposed to operate. as part of a wider strategy.
On February 24, the long-awaited land invasion, the "Mother of All Battles" using an expression so dear to Saddam Hussein, began with a deep penetration into the territories of Kuwait and Iraq. Protected by a violent artillery barrage, 150.000 men and 1500 Coalition tanks attacked the Iraqi defensive device which quickly collapsed like a house of cards suffering overwhelming losses in both men and vehicles.
Unable to move due to the omnipresent threat of the Coalition fighter-bomber, the "Guard" units had to give up the only element that could have offered them any advantage, "strategic mobility", and simply retreated waiting for the inevitable " wave "which, in fact, hit them between 26 and 27 February. In those days, the plains between Basra and the Kuwaiti border became the theater of what, overall, was defined as "the second largest armored clash in American history after the Battle of the Ardennes" when the divisions forming part of the "First Corps of the Republican Guard "were hit by the attack carried out by the VII Corps comprising the 1st British armored division and various American units (the 1st and 3rd armored divisions, the 1st cavalry division, the 2nd and 3rd armored cavalry regiment, the 1st and 24th infantry divisions). In a series of violent engagements held at "67 and 73 Easting", at "Al Busayyah", at the "Phase Line Bullet", at the "Medina Ridge" and at the objectives "Norfolk and Dorset", the divisions of the "Guard", in particular the "Tawakalna" were hit non-stop by the American and British armored units and although they tried to baste some limited counterattacks, they were finally badly beaten and forced to fall back.
The disparity between the forces in the field can be understood by examining the extent of the contenders' losses. During the battles that opposed them to the "Guard", the Americans and the British complained overall 61 dead and 201 injured, also losing 42 tanks, IFV, APC and other vehicles of various types destroyed or damaged. On the other hand, the men of the "Guard" suffered at least 10.000 dead and injured and 15.000 prisoners, losing the beauty of 2500 armored vehicles of all types destroyed or captured, over 200 rotated vehicles, more than 1000 pieces of artillery and about a dozen air defense systems.
If at first glance the clash seems to have been one-sided, we must first think that the units of the "Guard" were entrenched in a desert area, devoid of any barrier or natural defense, without any possibility of waging a "battle of movement ", led by a prepared but excessively hierarchical and lack of flexibility officer corps, equipped with technologically at least 20 years older vehicles than those in possession of the opponent and constantly hammered by the Coalition's artillery, planes and helicopters. This being the conditions on the ground, we can say that it was a real miracle that the "Guard" managed to hold on for 4 days during which he even managed to repel some of the enemy's bets (as in the case of the battle of the "Phase Line Bullet ") And to strike up some counterattack attempts.
As General Najim Abdallah Zahwen Al Ujaily, commander of the "Hammurabi" division, said several years ago during an interview: "We did the best we could. The soldiers themselves tried to fight as best they could. But if you find yourself lacking in many things necessary to move forward, you can fight as much as you want, but without the proper weapons and means you simply can't do it, and you just have to retreat. This is simple logic. Only our faith in Allah and in the Body was stronger than what we had ".
It was Colonel Montgomery Meigs, commander of the 2nd brigade of the 1st American armored division to grant the honor of arms to the soldiers of the "Guard", in particular to those of the 2nd armored division "Medina" saying that, unlike the others Iraqi army men: "These guys stayed and fought".
The "Guard" units were also responsible for shooting down 6 enemy aircraft (1 A-10 Thunderbolt II, 1 AV-8B Harrier II, 1 F-16, 1 UH-60 Blackhawk and 2 AH-64A Apache). The catastrophic Iraqi military defeat and subsequent ceasefire did not bring peace, however, as Iraq immediately plunged into a violent revolt of the Kurdish and Shiite populations (the "1991 Uprising") which was repressed after a month of fighting. campali that urban that resulted in an authentic caritter who provoked more victims of the same "Gulf War" and contributed to further weaken the "Guard" which, in this case too, had been massively deployed to defend the regime.
At the end of the "Gulf War" and of the "1991 Uprising" the very serious losses both in men and in means suffered by the "Guard" imposed a significant reduction of the staff and 2 of the 5 mechanized divisions (the "Tawakalna" and the "Al Faw ") and 3 of the 4" internal security divisions "(the" Al-Abed ", the" Al-Mustafa "and the one with an unknown name) were dissolved due to the losses suffered and their men distributed among the other surviving units ( the fate of the internal security division "Al-Nida" was different, which was elevated to the rank of armored division). The armored endowment of the body was reconstituted, but only by "stripping" the surviving heavy units of the Iraqi army of most of the vehicles that survived the "carnage" of 1991. The "Special Republican Guard" itself was reduced in consistency from 26.000 to 12.000 men while the Fedayeen Saddam lost ¼ of their staff (from 40.000 to 30.000 men).
The situation of Iraqi elite forces continued to worsen in the years following the "1991 Uprising" due to the international embargo, the repeated military actions by the American (air operations in the "no-fly zones" 1991-2003, attacks with cruise missiles of 1993 and 1996, aerial bombing in the context of Operation "Desert Fox" in 1998), of a new major uprising of the Shiite population in 1999 and of the official mass purge of the body by Saddam Hussein who, with the passing of the years became increasingly paranoid and fearful of losing power due to a coup.
The mass shootings of the officers had a particularly negative effect on the "Republican Guard" because they completely paralyzed the institution so as to render the entire functioning process dysfunctional and the training of the soldiers and the maintenance of the vehicles virtually impossible.
In 2003, on the eve of the American invasion called "Iraqi Freedom", the "Republican Guard" counted between 50 and 80.000 men depending on the sources, equipped with 750 tanks and the backbone of the heavy equipment left to the Iraqi armed forces. A further 90-100 wagons were then in service at the "Special Republican Guard".
As for the battle order, the "Republican Guard" now aligned 7 divisions against 12 of the heyday:
- armored division "Al-Nida";
-1 ° armored division "Hammurabi";
-2nd armored division "Medina";
-5th "Baghdad" mechanized division;
-6th "Nebuchadnezzar" mechanized division;
-7th "Adnan" mechanized division;
-8th division of the special forces "As Saiqa".
As for the "Special Republican Guard", it maintained the pre-existing division into 4 brigades, an air defense command and an armored command as well as the "Fedayeen Saddam" maintained the organization by territorial battalions. However even if on paper the "Republican Guard", the "Special Republican Guard" and the "Fadayeen Saddam" appeared as imposing forces, the reality on the ground was much more prosaic, with many of the units heavily under staffed. While in 1990 the "Guard" divisions numbered 25.000 men each, in 2003 they barely reached 10.000 and the total sum of the human potential of the "Republican Guard" of the "Special Republican Guard" and of the "Fedayeen Saddam" arrived according to the most estimates rose to 122.000 men (less than half of the total number of soldiers deployed in 1990 by the "Republican Guard" alone!). Nonetheless, when the American forces invaded the Iraqi territory penetrating deep into it, it was these seriously weakened but still combative forces that opposed the last spiritual resistance of the Baathist regime.
In a series of bloody close clashes that took place in the lush agricultural and marshy areas around the cities of Samawah, Najaf, al-Kut, al-Hillah, Karbala and on the outskirts of Baghdad itself, between the end of March and the beginning of April of 2003, the resistance of the surviving forces of the "Republican Guard" was definitively crashed and, after the American forces had penetrated the capital, demolishing the statue of Saddam Hussein located in Firdos square on April 9, also the last remains of the "Special Republican Guard "And the" Fedayeen Saddam "were forced to disperse.
Not long after, with the so-called "Order Number 2", Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, dissolved all the structures of the previous Iraqi state connected in one way or another with the regime of Saddam Hussein. One of these institutions was the "Republican Guard" which, like the other elite forces mentioned above, ceased to exist after 39 years of history.
What, according to the Americans and many superficial Italian commentators connected to them, should have been a rapid and effective purge has instead turned into a long-term nightmare given that, cut off from any career possibility in the new Iraq, a large numbers of officers and soldiers once part of the "Guard" and other armed and security structures of the old regime have chosen the path of armed insurrection ending in recent years to land in large numbers even among the ranks of ISIS.
To this day, despite the years having passed, the grim epic of the "Republican Guard" and its "relatives formations" continues to cast its shadow on the future of the fragile Iraqi democracy.
