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were in no hurry to get where they were going.
    Power went out in much of the country, including Baiji. The city was home to an oil refinery, and eventually the plant was targeted by the allies as they attempted to cut supplies of fuel to the Iraqi military. Our anti-aircraft battery was attacked by one or more allied planes. I’m not sure whether they were British or American, though from what I remember I think the aircraft was a Tornado, which was flown by Britain’s Royal Air Force as well as the Italians and Saudis. In any event, the plane was too far for me to get a positive identification myself, and frankly I had good reason to stay in our bunker: the aircraft dropped cluster bombs on us.
    I am happy to report that we didn’t fire at them, and there were no casualties on the ground. None as the result of the bombing, that is. There was one loss due to stupidity. Which, in war, is more dangerous than explosives.
    After the attack, we found an unexploded cluster bomb lying on the ground near one of the batteries. One of our officers approached the bomb and for some unknown reason drew his pistol and fired. He was a good enough shot to hit the bomb—which then exploded, killing him.
    What is the American saying? You can’t fix stupid?
    The officer’s idiocy was typical not just of our leadership, but of the army in general. The last thing Saddam wanted was an army that was so highly trained and capable that it might challenge him. Dumb officers who were loyal were preferable to smart officers who might want to be dictator themselves someday. We’d been at war for years with Iran, yet our leaders didn’t know that much about advanced Western weapons. They had no idea of the firepower Americans possessed.
    Nor did they understand America. The coalition allies used strategies that they hoped would limit civilian casualties and collateral damage. From the Iraqi point of view, these limited attacks seemed like the sum total of American capabilities. It was hard for our leaders to understand that the allies were pulling their punches. That made no sense to them.
    Our guns, useless as they were, remained intact. But the raid on the refinery was successful enough to put the plant out of operation for the duration of the war. It was a scene repeated over and over again in Iraq, as the Americans and their allies overwhelmed pitifully antiquated defenses and poorly trained men. The coalition made quick work of the Iraqi army in Kuwait. The route used to retreat became known as the Highway of Death, as our escaping troops were easy targets for allied planes. Frontline Iraqi units that didn’t surrender were destroyed as the coalition executed what became known following the war as the “left hook,” sweeping into Iraq and cutting off the south with an attack from the western desert along the Saudi border.
    Sometimes I think it would have been better if the Americans had kept up their attack, gone on to Baghdad and chased Saddam from power. But if they’d made the attack without much of a plan for what to do afterward—as they did in 2003—the end result would have been chaos and eventual bloodshed among Iraqis. The misery would have been the same, just sooner.
    As soon as the coalition ended its attack, the cities in southern Iraq began rebelling against the dictator. Iran helped both encourage the rebellion and then support the people who were trying to take over. But as soon as he knew that the Americans wouldn’t attack him in Baghdad, Saddam pushed what was left of his forces south to end the rebellions. The rebellions were quickly crushed.
    My unit stayed put. There wasn’t too much call for anti-aircraft guns to fight poorly armed civilians.
    I don’t know what I would have done had I been ordered to join an attack. I hope I would have been brave and done the right thing: not harmed innocent civilians. But at that time, it’s very likely I would have followed orders.
    Thank God I was never faced with that