LONDON, Feb 3: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has decentralized the Iraqi army in preparation for urban combat and will rely on his son Qusay to co-ordinate a defensive war in the cities, according to exiled generals monitoring Iraq.

“The Americans will be fighting ghosts. They will find it very hard to know were the enemy is. Those who are betting that Saddam will be defeated quickly are mistaken,” Lieutenant General Tawfik al-Yassiri told Reuters.

“Tens of thousands of elite Iraqi forces have spread underground, above ground, in farms, schools, mosques, churches... everywhere. They are not in camps or major installations. These units are prepared for city warfare and have the experience for it,” said Yassiri.

Yassiri took part in a 1991 uprising against Saddam and now heads a council of exiled officers. The officers say they still maintain contact with their former comrades inside Iraq.

Another exiled officer, who did not want his name published, said some of the best trained units in house-to-house fighting are not part of the regular Iraqi army. “They are vicious,” the officer said. “They were trained in Europe and do not even wear uniforms.”

He did not elaborate, but European states supplied Iraq with military equipment and training in the 1980s.

Saddam’s former military aides say secondary systems of communications are in place to help the Iraq army function under US strikes, including simple long range walkie-talkies and fibre optics cables that are hard to hit underground.

They say the focus of Iraqi defences are Baghdad and that Qusay, Saddam’s younger son and most trusted lieutenant, is pivotal in keeping the Iraqi leader in command of his army.

In a region ruled by autocratic leaders reluctant to delegate power, Saddam has placed Qusay fully in charge of units responsible for the security of the regime, namely the Special Republican Guards and the Special Security Apparatus, the exiled generals say.

“Qusay still takes orders from Saddam. But Saddam will be trusting few people to see him or know where he is during the war,” said Lieutenant General Saad al-Obeidi, who was involved in Iraq’s psychological warfare in the 1980’s.

“It will be almost exclusively Qusay, although he does not have any military experience really,” Obeidi said.

Saddam, his former aides say, has divided Iraq into three sectors — the north, centre and south — with commanders for each sector delegated almost total power during hostilities.

They say they have found out the identity of only the southern commander so far — Saddam’s cousin Ali al-Majeed, known as Ali Chemical for leading Iraqi troops that smashed a 1988 Kurdish uprising in the north using chemical weapons.—Reuters