Behind Enemy Lines

What will our troops be up against if it comes to war in Iraq? One thing's for sure — the Iraqis learned a lot from the beating they took in 1991. This time, they have a plan for drawing our troops into a bloodier fight. What are they planning behind enemy lines? Scott Pelley reports.

General Nizar al-Khazraji knows more about Saddam and his army than anyone outside Iraq. He's the highest ranking Iraqi general ever to escape the regime.

General Khazraji says assassins have stalked him ever since he left because, Saddam believes, General Khazraji is the man who knows too much. He told us the preparations for the next war may look familiar but the end will be very different.

General Khazraji prefers obscurity given that Saddam has marked him for death. But we found the former four-star general in a relatively safe haven in Denmark. Khazraji was chief-of-staff of the Iraqi army, the man Saddam relied on for military advice. Until 1990, when Saddam asked him to write a report on the chances of defeating the U.S. in Kuwait.

"It was evident that there was no possibility of there being a true resistance for a true fight and that the Iraqi forces would be destroyed and Kuwait would be lost and that we might lose Iraq itself," he says.

Saddam's reaction: "As soon as he heard these words he jumped up and spoke with nervousness and anger and he said 'You don't want to fight.'"

Khazraji lost his job, but kept his head because he's a hero in the army, given credit for saving Iraq in the war with Iran. In 1996, he slipped out of the country. Khazraji is in close touch with sources in Iraq who risk death to keep him informed.

What is the American military up against in Iraq? What is left of the Iraqi military?

"If you mean the weapons of mass destruction, in my estimation Iraq does not have nuclear capabilities and if we come to chemical weapons, I also believe that no chemical weapons currently exist, if they do exist he has no means to use them. There remains the matter of biological weapons. It is probable that Saddam has biological weapons and it is probable that he will use them," says Khazraji.

Chemical weapons have a limited life span. Khazraji believes that Iraqi stocks have expired. But as for bioweapons, he says Saddam will use suicide couriers to deliver them inside and outside Iraq.

Says Khazraji: "I believe that there will be a number of agents who can slip into specified places and distribute these weapons."

Khazraji remembers a great deal of work on anthrax. He says bio-weapons are under the control of Saddam's sons, and elite forces who would defend Saddam "intensely." Khazraji fears the battle to come.

"We do not need another tragedy. This tragedy could be bigger than all the previous tragedies," he says.

The last act in Saddam's tragedy is being staged just over the border in Kuwait. 60 Minutes II joined up with the men of the 3rd infantry division who've been training there since September. Most of these men have never seen combat. Many were eight years old in the last Gulf War. Their conflict will not be anything like the last American invasion — which was a four-day sprint to victory.

It's impossible to predict, of course, what the next war will look like, but one thing seems likely: the Iraqis learned 12 years ago that they couldn't go up against the American soldier or the American tank in open desert. Abrams Tanks fire from so far away that most Iraqis never knew what hit them. It's more likely, in another conflict, that they would cede the desert and move into the cities where they have at least some advantages: The advantage of surprise and knowing the territory.

So the Third Infantry Division may have to fight house to house — like a SWAT team - something American's haven't done in ten years. The last time was Somalia, in a battle made famous by the book and movie "Blackhawk Down." Some of U.S. military's best troops were cut down by a lightly armed, poorly trained mob: 18 Americans were killed, 73 wounded. Command Sergeant Major Bob Gallagher was there.

"It was the worst day of my life because I lost the whole group that I was responsible for. I lost Rangers that I was responsible for. People expected me to bring them back," he says.

He was wounded himself: "Shot in my left hand, right arm, and I got some stuff in my back.

To give his men the benefit of that experience, Gallagher built a neighborhood in the Kuwaiti desert. In this collection of trailers, the infantry is training like a SWAT team — using live ammunition. There is a lot to learn.

"They're learning that it's a three-dimensional environment. It's not two-dimensional, like out in the desert here where you can see for miles, literally. We put them inside this urbanized area, and they can't see around the corner. We integrate these big vehicles until our guys are competent, able to use these platforms in an urban environment.

What does he tell them about being under fire? "I tell them it's okay to be afraid. If I didn't think that they had – that you had fear, I'd think twice about you. But it's learning how to operate with that fear and breakthrough it and do your job as a professional."

They're likely to be doing that job in the Byzantine streets of Baghdad. General Khazraji says Saddam's elite Republican Guard is training daily on a strategy to pull Americans into a long siege of the capital city – the way Stalin broke Hitler.

U.S. intelligence has mapped every neighborhood in Baghdad using satellite images. It is a city of five million people — more people than Los Angeles. Baghdad covers 2000 square miles. Khazraji says Saddam will not try to defend the entire city but will withdraw with his best troops into specific neighborhoods he can trust. This is a palace, for example, lined on both sides by the homes of loyal officers.

"He hopes the battle of Baghdad will last a long time. This would lead to an arousing of the Arab street and to an international backlash that might lead to the stopping of the war before Saddam is finished off," Khazraji says.

Saddam's options are limited. He lost two thirds of his army in the last war. Ken Katzman says he hasn't rebuilt. Katzman briefs Congress on Iraq for the Congressional Research Service.

He says the Iraqi air force is "unable to train. Confined by the no fly zones. Not like it'd be a factor in any war."

Of Iraqi army tanks, he says: "They're not going to be in a situation where they can really hold it together as a cohesive military."

In terms of command and control, he says: "I expect the Iraqi military to be cut off from each other within 48 hours."

"The regular army, likely to surrender, likely to suffer defections pretty quickly. Republican Guard will likely hold out in cities and fight an urban-based guerilla war," he adds.

U.S. intelligence expects Saddam to try to slow the allied advance. He could detonate his oil fields as he did in Kuwait, and blow up key bridges. He's already denying access to his own airfields: Satellite pictures show runways barricaded with piles of junk and even useless old fighter planes.

"Its probably one of the most dangerous and uncertain environments that we can find ourselves fighting," says Buck Kernan. Until two months ago, Kernan was the four-star general leading the U.S. Joint Forces Command, which is involved in preparing the war. He is now a CBS News military analyst.

In urban combat, will there be American casualties? "That's correct, that's correct, have got to be prepared for that," he says.

"There are analysts who are briefing Congress that there could be as many as two thousand, five thousand casualties if it comes to a hard fight in Baghdad," Pelley says

"Could be, I wouldn't hazard a guess as to what the numbers might be what it might be," Kernan says.

Is the Army prepared for casualties of that nature?

"I tell you this is one of those things in battle that you can never be fully prepared for," Kernan says. "Warfare is up close, dangerous and personal, and people get hurt, and it has an impact on the unit no question about it. But you've got to be disciplined enough, determined enough to fight through that, and I think our troops are shown that they are fully prepared to do that."

Lieutenant Colonel Stephan Twitty is training soldiers in a camp near the Iraqi border. They call it Camp New York in memory of September 11th.

"They know that we're going to fight as we train, and right now we're training to assume the worst," he says.

Twitty fought in the Gulf War 12 years ago alongside Philip Decamp and Rick Schwartz. They're battalion commanders now preparing their men for a tougher battle than the 100-hour war of 1991.

"They know what's at stake now and it's a different ballgame. And they know there's a chance that it could get very, very ugly, and they're ready for that," says Decamp.

Why ugly? This time the war's not over until they get Saddam, his sons and his top command.

"Twelve years ago, 13 years ago the Iraqi soldier was not fighting for something he believed in. Is he fighting for something he believes in today? We don't know," says Twitty.

Urban warfare could involve civilians as shields or as soldiers.

"We're training our soldiers to perceive, recognize and identify the threat. A lady in tennis shoes may have an AK-47 under her dress," says Twitty. "That is a threat to my soldiers. It could be a little boy, 14 years old, if he presents himself as a threat, he's a threat to my soldiers."

There is a chance American soldiers won't face that dilemma. General Khazraji told us there are Iraqi officers willing to rebel against Saddam but they are waiting to hear some assurance from the White House.

"The military establishment must feel that it is not going to be dissolved or destroyed or its generals and officers prosecuted for crimes for which they were not responsible," Khazraji says.

He says he himself is an example of unjust prosecution. Danish investigators want to know whether he ordered a gas attack on a village in 1988. He says the order came through Saddam, not him.

If the Iraqi military got this message of encouragement from President Bush, what does Khazraji think they might do? "It is very possible that the Iraqi army will rebel against Saddam Hussein," he says. "I know the army. I know how the officers think. I know how every one of them has been wounded by Saddam more than once."

But exile isn't his style. Short of a coup few expect Saddam to run as Osama Bin Laden did.

Says Katzman: "Bin Laden is sort of a spoiled rich kid. You know? He's from an elite family he's had all the luxuries. He always been very well off financially and so there's a tendency for him to flee very quickly. Saddam is a different animal. He's from the villages, the lower middle class, the Bedouin culture. And in his culture, you stay, you fight, you meet your fate."

No one can predict the fate of the Americans now churning up the desert. They're too young to remember a time when America suffered heavy losses in combat. It's been 35 years since the tet offensive in Vietnam claimed 1,536 Americans. Since then the casualty lists have been short, 23 in Panama, 148 in the last Gulf War, 30 in Afghanistan. Just like 12 years ago, it'll be easy slicing through hundreds of miles of desert. The hard part may be the last mile to Saddam.

What will Sergeant Major Gallagher tell his troops before they go over the line? "That last thing I'll tell them is, my wife sent me, it's a Celtic phrase and it goes something like this: 'Strength is my brother, honor is my friend, may luck be your lover until we meet again.' That's what I'll tell them right after I tell them, 'Lets go.'"