Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode - 25 Iran Iraq War Part 3 - Who Needs a Blue Wave When You Have A Human Wave?

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

On part 3 Saddam's army quickly falls apart as the Iranians launch wave after wave of screaming volunteers at their trenches. Donate to the show https://www.patreon.com/home Follow us on Twitter @lions_by Follow Joe @jkass99 Follow Nick @nickcasm1

Hey everybody, this episode is brought to you by Lift Big Eat Big's new workout program, The Phalanx Method. Coach, powerlifter, strongman, and historian Brandon Morrison took a unique approach in his creation to this three-block, six-month-long effort. Using ancient sources and modern techniques, he was able to recreate the training of one of history's most destructive military forces, the Phalanx. And it's not just the sales line either. This is only three days a week inx. And it's not just the sales line either. This is only three days

a week in the gym and it's brutal. I've competed in powerlifting, CrossFit, and spent way too much time doing brutal army PT. And this is the hardest thing I've ever done before. And you can do it at a commercial gym or like me from your garage. He also includes little historical tidbits every week to keep you interested and to keep you hooked. If you want to challenge yourself or just try something new, go to www.liftbigeatbig.com and enter the promo code donkey to get 15% off the phalanx method. Are you ready to become a warrior of oak and bronze? Good evening from Baghdad. One of the world's oldest cities has become one of the world's newest power centres.

As soon as major hostilities broke out between the two oil producers, Iraq and Iran, we came here to Baghdad to watch OPEC at war, to look in particular at a regime seeking supremacy in the Gulf, and at its remarkable president, Saddam Hussein, one of the least known but most effective rulers in the Gulf, and at its remarkable president, Saddam Hussein, one of the least known but most effective rulers in the Middle East. As the conflict between his country and Iran got underway earlier this year, it was Saddam Hussein who declared, whoever climbs over our fence, we shall climb over his roof.

Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. We do this. I'm Joe. I'm Nick. And Nick is over there making quiet, chewing noises into the mic. We're doing sound checks. And I'm pretty sure this counts as another war crime in the Iran-Iraq war. No? But anyway, we're on iran iraq part three now um so if you haven't caught part two or one go back in time i would them i definitely would yeah there's some there's a lot i want to miss and uh

yeah they're good episodes because we're not because i already i just found out part three we're not covering a magician there's a magician in part two so you need to go back the magician's the only part that nick remembers so i remember more it's just the magician's literally the best part um so the last episode we left you with uh the iranian city of kormshar falling to iraq for the low low price of its entire military offensive capabilities it was still locked in the siege of Lebanon with the Iranians bleeding them dry and having no way to stop the Iranian Navy from giving them the finger. The Iraqi military strategy of kicking in the door and hoping the whole structure came down

ended up being about as wrong as anybody who's ever been wrong about anything in the history of everything. So did Iraq see that as a win taking the city yes yeah oh yeah i would imagine uh they have like coins minted and shit nice yeah i would like that coin so instead really the iranian populace uh did not run from their government but said flock to it and swelled the ranks and rallied around the revolutionary government and uh created new whole new branches of the military they had so many volunteers. So many of these volunteers, I told you in the last episode,

we'd finally get around to talking about the... So this is where I'm going to get chewed up for pronunciation. And I did my best to only have to say the word once. So hopefully it's better. Let's go ahead. Go ahead. Hopefully it's better than the War of 1812 episode.

I got fucking eaten up for St. Blansburg. You'll have to forgive me. Yeah. You'll have to forgive me. Yeah, you'll have to forgive me. I am from the Midwest. Even though I haven't lived there in over 10 years, I still sound like I'm from the Midwest. So anyway. You put ranch on everything.

I do not. Ranch is disgusting. I don't know why you do it. Why are you the way that you are? I say the same thing to you. Many of these volunteers had flown to the Revolutionary Guard Corps' newly created wing called the Basij which was Persian

for the mobilization resistance force which is what I'll call it from here on out what can you go back what was that no I'm not going to do it you can't make me I didn't catch that so established in April of 1980 and I will call them the MRF

for the sake of my pronunciation the MRF would require sake of my pronunciation. The MRF would require almost nothing in regards of enlistment prerequisites. And I mean nothing. For reasons that we'll go into for their actual sole mission a little later, you'll understand why they just needed bodies. I honestly imagine they would like not really give a shit since they had high school kids out there. Yeah.

Um, and when you find out what these guys were used for, you'll find out why they didn't really need anything. Okay. Um, you didn't need any training weapons or even all your fingers. Instead of you just sweet. Instead,

you would just need all a love for that sweet, sweet modern. Um, and there'd be plenty of that. Um, revolutionary speakers and religious teachers would go on tours to the countryside and to local schools, encouraging people to join.

This is partnered with an intense media campaign through this atmosphere of patriotism. Maybe some of it forced. I mean, remember what would happen to the perceived enemies of the revolution just a couple of years ago. Um, everyone not already running to the recruitment offices was swept up.

This included the young some down to age 12 some even younger than that the crippled the unemployed and the elderly some in their fucking 80s fuck for the most part uh like the people who began the iranian revolution they are mostly from a poor peasant background many of them were illiterate meanwhile back at abaddon the iranians were finally getting ready to break the iraqi siege on september 22nd 1981 a year to the day of the iraqi invasion uh the iranians plan was put into effect now i personally like to think that this uh date was picked as a giant iranian middle finger to the iraqis but that is an historical record record i mean it's exactly a year after they invaded that date.

They had remember that day. Yeah. That's got to burn a little. Yeah. Anyway, in the middle of the night, the Iranians infiltrated a mind blowing amount of troops to surround the Iraqi forces.

How many people do you think they could infiltrate here? A couple hundred, a couple thousand. I'm going to imagine those numbers you just gave me. It's probably way more. 30,000. Yeah. Figured 30 to imagine those numbers you just gave me, it's probably way more. 30,000. Yeah, I figured. 30,000.

They managed to sneak 30,000 soldiers across the Bamachir River. The magician. So they infiltrated across the river and closed off almost all of the Iraqi's escape routes. Side note here. The source I'm using for this said, quote, the Iraqi military had failed to properly scout out the surrounding area, which might just be motherfuckers.

Don't what? Yeah. This may just be the biggest underestimation or the biggest understatement in the, like the history of military history. Like they just, they just didn't scout like 30,000 people. Isn't it exactly a trickle?

It just goes to show that Iran has a magician too. Hell, the magicians. That's what's going on here. Just whoops, those 30,000 dudes totally snuck past our blind spot. As soon as the ground forces were in place, the Iranian Air Force began to bomb the piss out of the dugout Iraqis. The Iranians had achieved

total air superiority at this point. Any Iraqi attempts to defend against the air assault were brushed aside. The bombings had added effect of severing the continuity of the Iraqi lines and left small pockets of soldiers scattered throughout with no way to support one another. They were easy for the Iranians to support and destroy one by one.

Fuck that. Within a few hours, the Iraqi force of about 60,000 retreated. They responded, sorry, they abandoned their heavy weapons and ran for their lives, using rafts and pontoon bridges to flee across the river. The whole time they ran, the Iranians tore them to pieces

from above with attack helicopters. The shattered remains of the Iraqi forces attempt to reform themselves on the banks of the Karun River, but they are greeted by an entire Iranian armored division. Fuck. Yeah, it's not a good day to be an Iraqi soldier. This ended pretty much any organized attempt by Iraqi commanders to reform their army.

This time there wouldn't be a retreat. There would be an absolute rout leaving behind 1,200 soldiers to be captured. Like I was saying in part two, this is all swing in Iran. Pretty much. It does for quite a while. I haven't heard anything negative that's happened to him well the invasion is not good not really having a magician

they don't seem to need one so as I point out in the last episode Saddam did not take kindly to military failures so almost immediately after the battle was over Saddam recalled seven of his top commanders to Baghdad and had them shot immediately.

This would kind of become Saddam's main way of showing his pleasure with the military's performance. I went with six in part two. So seven, seven. Okay. Yeah. I was off by one.

Yeah. Um, it was around now that, uh, Iraq knew that they were going to be kind of permanently on the defensive. Uh, Iran, however, would not, they would gal going to be kind of permanently on the defensive. Iran, however, would not. They would galvanize their first real victory of the war.

Though, personally, I would count Kormshar as like a victory, too. I mean, they didn't keep the city, but they annihilated the Iraqi army. But in this case, they actually drove the Iraqis from the field and won. So then in January of 1981, Iran would attempt to kick the Iraqis off their land and send their retreating back to Iraq at one fell swoop. So what took them so long after their crushing victory at Abadan to go on the offensive? Well, it's because the revolutionary guard and the army fucking hated each other.

Uh, to make matters worse, the two branches had different supporters within the Iraqi government, each demanding more glory for the side that they supported while denouncing the other as counter-revolutionary. Iranian President Abdul Hassan Bani Sadr supported the regular army, while his own Prime Minister Ali Rajai supported the Revolutionary Guard. As the Revolutionary Guard began to get all the glory, because pretty much all these victories are Revolutionary Guard victories. And if a random volunteer militia wins something revolutionary guard i remember revolutionary guard being some brutal motherfuckers

yeah and um so what after he uh after rajai started getting all these victories under his belt because he's the revolutionary guard supporter benny sarah began to fear for his position and maybe even his life as rumors began to go around that he was a military loyalist therefore he must still be loyal to the deposed shah um to prove that he was just as revolutionary as everybody else he marched right up to the ayatollah who remember like he controls everything yeah and begged him to allow him to take personal command of the regular army um if you're familiar with history at all or our show, you know how badly these scenarios play out. No head of state should ever take personal command of the military. In the 21st century, I should point out,

this isn't the time of kings and emperors and shit. And I also don't think we cover anything that really has a really good ending or any happy parts to it. We are the lions led by donkeys. It's fair. Well, it had a happy ending for the emus. That's true. I actually enjoyed that one.

So firstly, Bonnie solder had no military training, nor has he ever functioned in any capacity where he would have learned military leadership skills. Secondly, a competent military might be able to make up for a shitty commander. That was something that Bonnie center did not have. At this point,

the war, the regular army still had not really been put together from its pre-Revolutionary Purge days. They had a few hundred tanks, but not nearly enough infantry. So no problem. They could just borrow some from the Revolutionary Guard, right? Oh yeah. Nope. Bonnie Sautner wanted this to be a 100% Army victory.

That meant he could not use anything from the Revolutionary Guard, and the Revolutionary Guard wasn't going to give it to him anyway. So instead, his army would just go without. There's a lot of armies at play here. Yeah. You got the highary Guard, and the Revolutionary Guard wasn't going to give it to him anyway. So instead, his army would just go without. There's a lot of armies at play here. Yeah. You got the high school kids. Well, they're all pretty much

Revolutionary Guard now. Yeah. It all boils down to Revolutionary Guard and everybody else. Oh, okay. Because of the purges, no one had ever managed to be promoted to fill those gaps

who actually knew how to run an offensive, let alone a combined arms offensive, because this is going to involve air and infantry and tanks uh to make matters worse even though uh even before the revolution uh iranian army was uh pretty advanced uh the armor that they had they kind of fell into the same boat as the iraqis of like we just want really cool shiny stuff um because uh they were so inept they couldn't actually carry out maneuver training before the war yeah and before the revolution uh so now they would totally be fucked um and the forces they did have didn't even have enough ammunition yeah sweet to make matters worse they planned the attack towards susan uh in the raining season

on a plane that was prone to seasonal flooding. And when it did flood, it would turn into a muddy quagmire. Everybody knew this. He made the plan anyway. Giggity. The whole plan also required surprise. But the area the plan called for for Iranian tanks advance over was massive, making it really easy for them to be spotted as they made their approach. So the main attack began January 5th

after a short artillery bombardment. Why a short bombardment? Because all the ammo they had. Figured. About a couple dozen rounds. That was it. All right, good. Yep, good enough.

The ground, as I point out, was a shit field of mud, requiring the tanks and infantry to use the only single road that led through the entire area did they learn their lesson oh you bet you didn't they didn't yes it's hard to surprise anybody when you're driving 300 tanks in a straight line down the only goddamn road towards the city

you're trying to capture but that's what they did their whole thing on yeah you don't need a plane you don't need a train this will probably backfiring But that's what they did. Their whole thing on, yeah, you don't need a plane. Nah, you don't need a train. This will probably work. Backfiring.

The Iraqis quickly spawned them and planned for the defense. Iraqi forces blocked the road in the front and surrounded them on two sides. While their tanks also cannot maneuver in the mud, they didn't have to. They simply dug them in up to the turret. What? They turned them into giant pillboxes.

That's fine, though. They wouldn't be driving anywhere. What happened next would actually be the largest tank battle of the entire war. As the Iranians lacked any kind of recon, they drove right into

an Iraqi trap the next day on the 6th. Neither one of the sides learned anything. No. Fuck. Nope. The Iraqis poured fire

on them from all sides. The Iranian forces tried breaking through by just driving straight down the middle of the road at them. Well, everything's been swinging.

I ran. So honestly, not work. Okay. Um, the entire brigade that charged on the road was torn to pieces. Uh, some attempted to maneuver off the road where they got stuck in the mud and

either died or had to abandon their tanks. Um, the entire, uh, first and second brigades were destroyed. Uh, but the destroyed but they completely refused to abandon the attack what actually happened is one brigade

because remember they're in a straight conga line here as one brigade is destroyed the other one would just keep pressing the attack and they would get destroyed the next one would just press the attack and the infantry is the last one in the column so they're seeing all that shit ahead of them yes

this is reminding me of that shitty games on all phones or computers where you could like they have to go in those little lines and you just put like little pillboxes or little like soldiers down that's what i'm getting yeah this is like a really shitty version of space invader okay because i mean if you're the tanks on the other side they're moving laterally and then they're gonna they might zig and zag or whatever and you just they might get stuck well down goes the iranians i don't know um so uh finally the stormtrooper meets redshirt battle tactic caused iranians to retreat but the defeat was massive a full 17 percent of all of the iranian

military tanks were destroyed or captured uh to make matters worse, for our boy Bani Satter, his fuck-up led to his impeachment. Fearing for his life, he fled from the country dressed as a woman. Yes. He lives to this day under a heavy police watch in a palace in France under constant threat of assassination. Dude, that's awesome. Do you think he was a pretty woman? Probably not.

He was already like 40 at least. I hope he still had a beard. I hope he still had a beard while you, yeah, I'm a woman. I wish I could find a picture. You're a really masculine woman. Yeah. It's a full beard.

You have there, sir, ma'am. Um, so it was after this that the war was truly brought to a standstill. Losses on both sides had been huge and the Iraqi military had shot itself in the dick so hard it couldn't do anything other than dig in and wait. Both sides began constructing trench lines that looked like something on the Western Front. And if that wasn't even World War I enough for you, it gets worse.

So you remember, the Iraqis are dug in an Iranian territory. They still control Kormshar. They still control their entire approach that they took. They're going to sit back and let that be. Which leads us to something everybody knows about this war, and that is the human wave attacks. Yes. The Iranian military is so hard pressed for good equipment

and anybody who's even remotely trained. So they had to figure out a uniquely horrifying way to preserve them. Remember those MRF militia guys? Yeah. They're it. Well, it was their time to shine. So it was their job to charge across No Man's Land, fucking stomp clearing minefields.

And if they survived running across the minefields, their job was to just jump on machine gun positions. Was this a voluntold or like... Yeah, we want to do this. No, no. Oh, no. I have firsthand survivors accounts.

This is absolutely a voluntary. Holy shit. Fuck that. Their whole plan was there wasn't, they weren't like attacking this huge section of the line. So they would pick out what they thought might be a weak spot in the line. Now, remember what military intelligence was at the time. It was probably

just some lieutenant going, that one looks pretty weak. Yeah, but I'm also going off of these motherfuckers don't do recon. No, this was the recon now. Oh. So, what would happen is they would charge across the line. Worst case scenario, they clear a section of the minefield with their bodies.

Best case scenario, they clear a section of the minefield with their bodies because there's always minefields. And of the minefield with their bodies, because there's always minefields. And they make it across to the other side. At that point, they're supposed to draw fire. If they get close enough to the line, they're supposed to smother that portion of the line with their bodies. And then,

immediately afterwards, is when the Revolutionary Guard and the Army would come in. That's not a good tactic. They were literally Operation Human Shield from the South Park movie. Yeah. Except that went bad in the army would come in that's not a good tactic they were literally operation human shield from the south park movie except that went bad in the movie yeah yeah um so in iran's defense the movie came out after the war how did they how could they know it's true um i'm going i'm really going off that this lieutenant looked at a map and they drew a line and whatever spot had the like least amount of ink on it, they're like, that's a weak part of the line.

Kind of. I mean, it wasn't that much more complicated than that. That's honestly what I'm getting. So the craziest part about these attacks is for them to even have an iota of a possibility of being able to work, they had to be a surprise. How can you surprise them? Do it at night with no support whatsoever. I was thinking a magician.

Iran doesn't have magicians. We don't know. We have an idea. Harry Potter isn't coming to fucking save them. First of all, I don't even like Harry Potter. How could you? Because I've never seen it. Then how do you not like it?

Because I've never seen it. And I know he's not a magician. I mean, because I know people will probably take offense to that. I currently love your mother and I've never met her. So, and I know he's not a magician. I mean, because I know people would probably take offense to that. I currently love your mother and I've never met her. Do you? No. Oh.

Anyway. Dad? I look just like you. No, you don't. So the craziest part, like I said, is like they had to be, they had to take place in the middle of the night. They would do some of them in broad daylight,

but there'd be no preparatory artillery bombardment or air support. I'd imagine this isn't a surprise as soon as bodies start landing on landmines well i mean that's like the goal was to try to get as close as possible as fast as possible um and the thing is is like the other iranian units wouldn't even commit until they thought like hey it's kind of working so like literally sometimes you just run out there for absolutely nothing so guys are scat dancing across the fucking minefield trying to make some go off meanwhile the dudes like back in the other

trench like it doesn't seem to be working we're not going out there today yeah it's like all these dudes are fucking dying i mean but sometimes like the iranian version of zirgarush really would work and this would succeed um and this is where i told you that i have uh firsthand accounts one mrf veteran was a guy named memed described it like this quote you do not have weaponry you have to break the enemy line with your body even the barbed wire sometimes we couldn't cut it so we just throw ourselves on it so we'd and everybody behind us would pass over us our casualty rates would up and up sometimes 70 80 90 percent of our units were destroyed. Fuck. He described it as, quote, beautiful.

What? Yeah. Huh? Yeah. I think the only thing he regrets is that he survived. Probably. It's like, I wasn't a part of that fucking art. One thing I can say is I've accidentally fallen on some fucking, like,

not razor wire, thank God. What, like C-wire? Yeah. I mean, accidentally fallen on some fucking like not razor wire. Thank God. But like C wire. Yeah. I mean, accidentally. It hurts. It's fucking stupid. I couldn't get out of it unless somebody was helping me. That's the point.

Like, yeah, I guess it is the point. It worked. Yeah. And the funny thing is, it was our own defenses that I tripped on. Now, imagine there's landmines on the other side. Imagine how many people accidentally get murked by their own landmines. he's like stumble out the trench to take a piss in the middle of the night boom oh fuck that's why i use a canteen yep piss on your buddy so these attacks almost always ended with thousands of dead and wounded with very little to no gain um they were accused

of blowing them to pieces their overwhelming superiority of just about everything and when that didn't work they just gas the shit out of them because we talked about the purges before so I don't know if this is planned or not but the vast majority of the purge was centered on like the officers that took out

guess what they did like as a job in the army guess what they did chemical defense what the fuck chemical defense as a job in the army, guess what they did? Chemical defense. What the fuck? Chemical defense. And also compare that with the fact that the Iranians had a massive shortage of protection equipment, as we saw in that video,

which we'll talk about later. Oh my God. So at any point, and at this point in the war and i said earlier on a different episode they said uh their lethality is about 20 now they've uh i mean they've they've tested their their weapons in real life and they've changed the the formula they came out with like i don't know the surge or the the fucking uh the blue flavored monster version of their of their of their gas that they worked on the formula and perfected a good flavor that's better than regular that's true i think honestly i don't just don't like monster

me either but uh the lethality is probably up to like 40 or 50 percent now i can go for a red bull you just had a red bull i did and uh so like these gases would burst like over uh math massive like human waves of these militia dudes wearing like t-shirts and shorts and with a 50 percent lethality rate 100 percent fucking poisoning and burning and blisters and their eyes and their lungs and everything. Not a good time. I've heard it's beautiful. Yeah. At least they didn't have to wear mop gear. I think they would rather. This actually led to an interesting international argument.

So the Iranians began to point out, hey guys, we're getting the shit gassed out of us. Because, I mean, imagine this is the 1980s. This is not like World War II or World War I where like massive violations of every kind of law or convention of warfare is being violated. But whatever, everybody's doing it. I mean, this was happening in the day of live news.

People were watching this shit on TV for the most part, seeing pictures. And Iran was like, Hey, this is a fucking war crime. Can we get a hand over here? Um, and nobody believed that everybody's kind of just doing that whole hand over the face thing. Looking the other way.

Like, you know, I've pointed this out probably a dozen times now, but I ran the international boogeyman. Nobody likes them. Everybody's on Iraq side here. Um, so I ran,

um, uh, thought, well, if, if this isn't going to work, um, um well we need to draw attention i mean now we know why nobody wanted your attention to it and that's because the allies were supplying iraq with all the precursors and industrial uh things they needed to make gas yeah but um so they did this by inviting a b camera crew to prove what was being used.

So a listener actually sent me this video. I'm not going to say who did it, but if you want to out yourself on Twitter, that's fine. They sent me a video, which I will link on there. And it's. So he has a theory that this whole thing was staged. And it all went wrong. So it's either hilarious or like the most incompetent thing on earth so in the video yeah uh in the video iranian troops dig up a mustard gas shell and unscrew its warhead um so picture this there's about 10 dudes none of whom are wearing a total

protective suit between them and using a pair of pliers break up a mustard gas shell on camera with a crew about 10 feet away also picture this before you dig that up you're doing your dishes with your yellow fucking rubber gloves and then you get told hey go and dig up this fucking mustard gas can't like yeah real quick the only thing they're wearing on their hands are what have to be kitchen gloves um and so then they once they have the shell open they begin pouring pouring out the liquid uh because most people don't realize this that the gas is actually stores a liquid once it hits oxygen it turns into a gas but they do this by introducing it into the air so it immediately turns the gas and burns everybody they're like pouring it into a fucking growler yeah it's like a mason jar like a hipster fucking chemical warfare agents um so

yeah they they start pouring all out and it's pouring it like it's a 40 or something and everybody gets chemical burns um a cameraman ends up getting sent to the hospital. It looks like rug burns. Yeah, I mean, those are pretty minor blister. Yeah. You want to see some nasty ones, you can look at Halabja. It's fucking gnarly.

But the simple fact is, it was sent to us as obviously a set scene that they thought was going to make them look good. Like, hey, look, we're professionals at taking care of this poison gas at the same time look we're getting gas spilling all over their fucking hair and they just fuck yeah like one guy's pouring it into the glass and the and the other guy is like holding a glass which is a terrible idea and he's just spilling all over what look like look like the the thinnest nitrile gloves you've ever seen in your life. He's wearing that fucking all over them. Stupid cloth gloves that like auto shop sell for a dollar.

I have those in my garage for people that are stupid. And they don't even cover their wrists. Yeah. And pretty much everybody gets chemical burns. But, uh, so the guy who sent it to me said it's, it's staged and went wrong because if it was like an Iranian film crib,

like, yeah, it's probably staged. They're not that stupid because you'd think they've been dealing with gas a fair amount of time. Now they, you learn quickly with these things. Um,

you either learn or you fucking die. Um, but you know, as a BBC crew, they all got mustard gas burns. They probably thought it'd be fucking sweet. Yeah. Like we're going to show off to these guys.

Oh God. Deadly mustard gas. It's really burns. Yeah. Everything could just kind of tastes like lung fluids now this doesn't taste like fucking mustard yeah uh so that that was a pr stunt that went terribly they actually ended up coming up with another uh way to show europeans that iraqis were gassing them the same crew no no i mean iran did it was uh they sent their casualties to europe to get

treated yeah uh because i mean they have significantly better medical care and everything Iran did. It was, they sent their casualties to Europe to get treated. Yeah. Because I mean, they have significantly better medical care and everything. but like, did they send like urgent? Well, I mean, it's, well,

I mean, mustard gas care is, you know, there's immediate treatment and then there's like long care treatment because you're going to have to get your eyes fixed, your lungs fixed, everything else. Um,

but I think it has something to do with like international treaties for war casualties like there was um iraqi war casualties being treated all over europe and countries that weren't even involved there right i'm not exactly sure the uh diplomatic uh lines that worked that way but i mean there's iraqis and iranians getting treated in europe throughout the time oh okay um so anyway uh this back and forth meet grander without end would go on for a full eight months before uh anybody would attempt another offensive um and they would uh in november 1981 iranians launched what was now called Operation Tariq al-Quds, an operation that could only exist through the immense incompetence of the Iraqi army. So the Iraqis controlled almost the entire Kujastan province still, and patrolled exactly 0% of it.

Nice. So I say this because theanians actually began their operation by building an entire fucking road straight through enemy territory so they could truck all of their force behind them yeah what they built a road right through enemy territory so they can then drive their army down that road and then deposit it directly behind the iraqis okay yeah i don't know how they pulled it off they pulled it off yeah um so even though they managed to surprise the iraqis the fighting still lasted two weeks and how did the road crew get fucking through the iraqis are terrible at recon they just don't they don't give a fuck yeah it's just an ongoing thing.

So the fighting lasted two weeks and killed two times as many Iranians and Iraqis, mostly due to their dependence on the human wave attacks. Eventually, the Iranians were able to retake the city of Boston. No fears, mass holes. It wasn't that Boston. You guys won the World Series. They completely disrupted the

Iraqi logistical network because they just swooped in behind them. Within a year, by May 1982, the Iraqi army was completely broken. During the Second Battle of Kormshar, which held for months when the Iranians were defending it, remember, or for a month, one month. But it was supposed to be taken in two days. While being defended by a little more than a bunch of randos with whatever guns they could find, could only be held by two days by the defending Iraqis, despite the fact that the Iraqis were dug in

behind reinforced positions, and unlike the Iranian counterparts who were defending it, they had tanks, artillery, and air force supporting them. Remember, the vast majority of the Iraqi army are Shia conscripts. They were treated terribly, beaten and starved, and that was just for training.

Now they had been stuck out in the middle of nowhere for over a year being promised an easy victory as wave after wave of screaming religious zealots charge at them from all around the clock. Their will to fight, a war that literally made no sense to them, finally wore out after the second battle of kormashar

33,000 iraqi surrendered the most of the war up to that point iraqi saddam's army had become a shambling corpse of its former self well yeah i could see why they probably felt that way like you said in a part two

the invaders had no, like, why are we doing this? What the fuck? They didn't really have much of a plan other than let's just go take these two cities. They thought that was going to be the whole war. Like Iran was going to be like,

okay, whatever. Just fold over. Yeah. Um, so clearly any idea of, you know, his true warrior army that we talked about,

like, and then they were just natural warriors. Yeah, it kind of seems non-existent. Yeah, had been shattered. And at this point, no one could lie to him anymore. So like any good leader, Saddam settled down,

looked at what happened, and accepted that he led his military to ruin. I'm just fucking kidding. Oh, wow, you fucking got me. Was the magician there too? He blamed his entire military for failing him and began shooting people again.

If military leadership in Baghdad failed their goals, Saddam would have them brought out in front of the rest of the government and shot. Sometimes he'd shoot them himself. That's really personal. The line of the, I mean, remember, he made his bones being a fucking executioner and an assassin, so he's never been shy of violence.

I hope the magician's in the background just Alakazam. Magician isn't there, Nick. The line for executions didn't end there though. Soldiers who violated Saddam's orders and broke and ran or simply retreated when ordered

in a situation became hopeless, were brought out in front of the rest of their comrades and executed. If their comrades did not take part when ordered, they would also be executed. An Iraqi veteran named Abdan, the guy we talked about before. Oh, he survived. Oh, yeah. He said it this way, quote, The executions, you just can't erase them from memory.

I was sitting there with my colleagues and there was a fuss outside. I saw two military ambulances show up. I asked my colleagues what was going on. He told me two or three soldiers. They're preparing them to be executed. The excuse was that they had left their position. I couldn't watch. I just heard two shots, the sounds of the shots. It was very bad, really very bad. The soldiers weren't alone, however. If an officer ordered a retreat, they too would be shot. Normally by the next commander in line. say what you will about Saddam. His unhinged madness and insanity was pretty equal.

I mean, think back to the other leaders that we've talked about who kind of lead through this way. You have our boy Luigi Cadorna, the blessed one. And then we've talked about the Soviets. They were soldiers get executed, soldiers get executed. Luigi Cadorna's decimation did not involve officers. His officers just got fired. Yeah. And he fired literally thousands of them.

But Saddam, you displeased them and you failed. You get shot. Equality icon. Saddam Hussein. Sometimes by the boss man himself. Yeah. I mean, I'm just glad that somebody's finally paying attention to me why are you using your holster sir i mean honestly also those ambulances

are probably fucking like stacked they're probably really good ambulance with shitty people inside them the ambulances yeah i mean i feel like if you're in an ambulance you're not getting murdered all the time yeah i mean like by, they probably have some really good shit. Oh, because everybody's getting hurt all the time. Yeah. Their asses whooped. So where did you train to be a medic? I just hung out on Iraqi basic training for a while, you know.

So it should be said around now that Iraq, by all means, should have fallen apart at the seams. Under the stress, the losses, and the cost of war. But it didn't. It definitely did not. So far, their army had been cut nearly in half and only had about 100 operational jets left. Even in the face of almost certain execution, desertion within the ranks is out of control.

And multiple times during the war, Iraqi jet pilots would just jump in their jets in between missions and fly off to the nearest country that would let them land. Hey, can I land here? Please? Not only would they land, they would give people all the fucking intel they ever wanted. So, yeah. I'll spill the beans, dog.

Please. Saddam even knew his army was spent and withdrew from the Kyrhistan entirely back to the Iraqi border to dig in and await the inevitable Iranian invasion. So the whole purpose of the war is shitcane at this point. So much for that weak infrastructure. It was this time that I believe this in the last episode

that the international gears began to turn to keep Iraq afloat. So at this point, US President president ronald reagan said quote we will do whatever necessary to prevent iraq from losing the war nice and this is not some secret either this is like openly talked about during meetings of congress and houses of representatives so like this isn't some backdoor cia shit though they do get involved because of course they do they're our third host. They are. They're involved in a lot of our episodes.

So Iraq can only export about a half million barrels of oil a day at this point in the war, which couldn't even foot the bill of the war, let alone fund the rest of the country. I mean, they're a petro state. That's how they afforded everything. And that was when Saudi Arabia swooped in to begin pumping at least $1 billion a month into Iraq just to help pay their bills. Swing a 20 my way. Yeah. 20 bucks.

I mean, remember, they were one of the people who like talked Iraq into going to war. Yeah. They're like, so how about you go take up those revolutionaries, bro? Gassing up their boy. Like, hey, man, you can do this, dog. Just fucking pumping up Saddam like, oh yeah, dude. They weren't going to let him lose the war without getting a payback in their investment.

Say what you will about the Saudis. They're a country of ethics and morals, clearly. I see what you're doing. I don't know what you're talking about. That's alright. My jokes sneak up on you like a bone saw. So the U.S. also stepped up its game in order to damage Iran as well. They began to give Iraq massive no-interest loans to prop up the teetering regime.

But that wasn't it. They began feeding Iraq satellite intelligence of Iranian positions, and American radar planes began to fly in real time in support of Iraqis on the ground, giving them updates of Iranian troop movements. More than 60 Defense Intelligence Agency officers joined Iraqi government to provide combat planning and assistance. The U.S. also began active combat in support of Iraq. Lieutenant Colonel Roger Charles, who worked for the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon, said that the U.S. Navy used specifically equipped Mark III patrol boats during the night with the

intent of luring Iranian gunboats away from their territorial waters so they could be fired upon and destroyed. He said, quote, they took off at night and rigged up false running lights so that from a distance it would appear that there was a merchant ship and the Iranians would want to go and inspect it. The CIA

also actively bombed Iranian manufacturing plants in order to slow their arms industry. And then there was the tanker war. Not the kind of tanker that I like. Oil tankers. Oh, okay. Which was the name given when both Iran and Iraq began waging economic warfare against one another

in the form of attacking oil tankers, even ships from neutral nations, in order to deprive the other nation of oil profits. This was an obvious target. That's how both sides were financing their war efforts. Iraq's navy was already trashed. They got around this by moving oil through Kuwait, which would then move, which is kind of funny when you think about a couple of years from now in this history arc. Iraq would then ship it to the international market on Kuwaiti flagged ships.

So Iran, seeing the obvious switcheroo that was happening here, simply began attacking all Kuwaiti flagged ships, crushing the Iraqi ability to export the oil and pay its countless loans that it was now using to stay afloat. If you were to pick a country to come in and just kind of accidentally on purpose go to war with Iran here, who would you pick? Honestly, there's so many in my head. I'll just tell you my answer isn't going to surprise you because it was the U.S. I don't know why that was a really strong one. The U.S. launched Operation Prime Chance

and Operation Earnest Will, where the U.S. deployed massive naval, air, and special forces contingent to the area in order to protect U.S. flagged ships. I know what you're thinking. Why does this matter? They're U.S. flagged. Because attacking a U.S. flagged ship

under international law would be attacked on the U.S. itself. Right. Well, then the U.S. flag ship under international law would be attacked on the U.S. itself. Right. Well, then the U.S. flagged all Kuwaiti ships, U.S. flagged ships and dared the Iranians to attack them.

Ooh. It's effectively guaranteed an Iraqi revenue stream as long as the war lasted because the Iranians weren't retarded. Yeah. They're not going to go out there

and pick a war on purpose with that because I have no doubt if like they were like, fuck it keep attacking them we would have gone to absolute war oh yeah um at this time yeah yeah we at least we just started doing airstrikes yeah um france sold them fighter jets like i said before and anti-ship missiles while west germany and the u.s sold them pesticides and poisons that could be used to create a larger chemical stockpile. Yeah. So yes, the U.S. contributed directly to supporting war crimes.

That means we helped directly have Saddam Hussein have weapons of mass destruction. Now, we did not just sell him mustard gas or sarin gas or taubin gas, but we did sell him the precursors for all three of those. And West Germany, using actual Nazi scientists, helped him design the plants to create these things. Now, this will actually discuss to you more when we get to about 1988 and the full extent of...

Oh, we go this far. That's the end of the war is 1988. Holy fuck. Um, and you'll see the, like the full extent of what Saddam was willing and able to do with this new stockpile. Um,

so during this time, Saddam actually announced that he wanted to sue for peace. Uh, he, he knew he was losing. Why not? Right. Yeah.

Okay. He, he knew that at this point he just had to try to keep his country but more importantly to him his government intact he didn't want to end up at the bottom of a rope that would happen a couple years later but not quite spoiler yeah spoiler to anybody who blanked out of the last 15 years yeah um 17 years sorry um so he proposed an immediate ceasefire until terms could be agreed upon.

The Ayatollah fired back that no peace could be achieved until a new government was in place. Because remember, now he just wants his Islamic revolution to spread. He wants the Ayatollah shit. Yeah, and... That was in part one? Yeah.

Yeah, he furthered those means by assembling his own Iraqi government in exile, led by an exiled Iraqi cleric. To counter this, Iraqi health minister Riyad Hussein, no relation, actually came up with what I think might have been a good move. He suggested that Saddam could step down as president to achieve peace. And then as soon as that paperwork is signed, he pulls the old little brother, big brother move and says says takes these backseas and just reassumes the presidency

the old razzle dazzle yeah yeah hit him with the old razzle dazzle um this probably wasn't a fantastic move i'm sure the ayatollah would have been like okay but now the government has to be in baghdad and they'll be like oh oh fuck, this isn't going to work. So I'm still here. Uh, but you know, at least he had a plan. Yeah.

Uh, Saddam asked the rest of the room if anybody else agreed and nobody did. Nobody probably, nobody wanted to get shot at this point. Everybody probably looked over at Riyadh was like, dude, you're a fuck. They're like,

so Tom's wearing his pistol today. Yeah. He's wearing his pistol shooting pants um so uh since nobody else answered and i honestly don't think it would have mattered if anybody else did uh the health minister was executed on the spot personally by saddam and uh he then continued the meeting like nothing happened just the body people getting just cleaning up in the back like people like just doing the kick and chicken on the ground as he bleeds out of his fucking speed hole he's putting his forehead um so uh saddam knew it

was only a matter of time before iran stormed over his southern borders uh he ordered the iraqi state to be committed to total war as the entire country shifted focus towards the military conscription ramped up and began to accept pretty much anybody with a pulse uh i wonder what those recruiting commercials looked like. Yeah. The recruiting commercial was just a white van showing up at your house, someone shoving you inside.

I can imagine that would happen live. They're like, that looks like my house. Yeah. What is that? So he kicks open your door. You, for the glory of Sidob, get in the truck. And I know I said before, Sam was spending a stupid amount of money on his military

but now he ramped that up to a full 80% of all the money that Iraq had I mean you effectively have Saudi Arabia and the United States paying all your other bills so Iraqi commanders devised a tactic that would buy them time and they would be right

that's what I do with my roommate and for the first time now i don't know if this is they finally cracked a history book or they're like or this is just the the obvious evolution of trench warfare because they've already dabbled in trench warfare at this point and now they're just dabbling in uh defense and depth so um they came up with this tactic to directly counter the Iranian human wave attacks, because those were working, believe it or not.

And they figured out the same thing that the Germans figured out during World War I. And that was if you build trench after trench after trench, supporting one another, like, cool, one trench is taken, we'll just retake it. And then the Iraqis also had a penchant for stopping maneuver of armor.

Like, they were significantly better at using their tanks as, like, pillboxes. Yeah. Since they did, they dug them in all over the line. They planted millions upon millions of landmines and brought more poison gas than probably the Iranians you could even dream of to the front line.

Not good dreams. Nightmares, yeah. And it worked, but obviously we're going to talk about that in the next episode. And that is when the Iranians launch Operation Ramadan, one of the largest land battles since World War Two next week. Ooh.

In part four. You're just going to leave me like that? That's right. I am. Tease, tease, tease. You have horrible poison nerve gas death. Blue balls. Yeah.

I hope that isn't a thing. You know, it's the 21st century. That's somebody's fetish it probably is like they sit around alone at night like just hitting refresh on you porn waiting for somebody to upload fucking tob and gas erotica i i could see that honestly i probably know some people you're probably right. Oh God. I probably do too. Yeah.

That was a good episode. You know, I like that. This, this series, I was, I was originally trying to keep it to like three or four parts. Um,

and I might still be able to keep it to four parts, but I, I don't want to, you know, what's going to happen is I'm going to skip something that somebody that's been listening to the series has been waiting to hear. I'm sort of fucking yada yada my way through it. It happens. There's quite a few benchmarks that I need to cover that we absolutely will cover.

There's a couple supplementary episodes that will happen. But there's no way I can cover every event in an almost decade long war. It's the same reason why we're never going to do a whole story arc of World War I. Cause I know we talked about that. Yeah. I mean, it's,

it's an largely misunderstood and unknown war that had every major evolution of modern military science at its disposal from helicopters, the poison gas to nukes were in play. And there's so many little things going on in this big old fucking shit pile, but it's like uniquely middle East. And also, you know,

I've probably said this a dozen times now, it's almost like a modern equivalent to the French Revolution, where a whole bunch of nations who did not necessarily like one another and were almost at war with one another, all banded together to try to kill the Islamic Revolution in its womb. Yeah. I mean, because at one point, both the USSR and the US and China are all supporting Iraq to try to kill Iran. Jeez. Like, Iran's only real major supplier until a pivotal moment in history, which we will talk about, was Syria. And really all Syria ever did to support Iran was stop letting Iraq use its oil pipeline. Because that's really all they could do.

Yeah. iraq use uh its oil pipeline because that's really all they could do yeah um but yeah and also there's a lot of things that um they have minute parts um kind of like world war one where you know iran goes into a mode here um that can be compared to the isanzo river battles where it's like operation one through six and nothing happens i'm not going to cover all six of them um i'll yada yada my way through that and if you hate me so be it um i find the battles of the isanza river hilariously intriguing but i can see why people get bored with after number eight yeah it's the same thing yeah yeah which is why the memes are great which and we'll see a lot of that in this war that all gloss over to keep it entertaining and decently fast-paced, which I feel like we've been doing. So that's part three.

Thank you for tuning in. Tune in next week to find out how Iran messes this up as this war goes. Everybody always messes. It's like this war. If this war had a tagline, it be like and then it gets worse because it's it hasn't been good at all no no uh let's just say somebody figures out how to get their gas lethality up to about 80 percent and someone attempts to uh invade an island using tanks yes it gets stupid. But and then people start launching ballistic missiles at one another. But we'll get there.

Alakazam. You know, I feel like at this point you feel like a major part of the Iraqi military infrastructure is like an Iraqi Hogwarts. I feel like I wish you were right. Gets a lot of his inspiration

probably from the joys he gets from his magician. I feel like the magician's already fled now. I mean, people are airstriking Baghdad. He's not hanging around. I honestly feel like Saddam won't let him flee. That's probably right. Because he's like, you bring me joy. We're talking like rabbit out of the hat magician,

not like dragon ball-y magician. I'm thinking totally the same thing. He has a little Pringles tin and he just up like snake saddam ha he's like so i'm just like whoa like fucking like freaked out like holy shit i stole your nose i stole your nose want to see this thumb fucking moves his thumb unbelievable all right so that that's all for this episode follow us at lions underscore by follow me at jcast99 follow me at nickcastm1 and we will see you next week later hi this is nate bethea and i'm the producer of the lions led by donkeys podcast this show is brought to you by audible

and as it just so happens audible is offering our listeners a free audiobook with a 30-day trial membership just go to audibletrial.com forward slash donkeys and browse the selection of audio programs. Download his title for free and start listening. Once again, that's www.audibletrial.com forward slash donkeys to get started.