Saddam Hussein planned to use "camels of mass destruction" as weapons to defend Iraq, loading them with bombs and directing them towards invading forces. The animals were part of a plan to arm and equip foreign insurgents drawn up by the dictator shortly before the American-led invasion three years ago, reveals a 37-page report, captured after the fall of Baghdad and just released by the Pentagon. It is part of a cache of thousands of documents that the United States Department of Defence says it does not have the resources to translate.
British soldier in Iraq British soldier in Iraq
Earlier this month, the Pentagon released copies in the original Arabic onto the internet in the hope that others would interpret them into English.
Handwritten on official paper, one of the reports appears to be a road map for the insurgency, with detailed instructions for training what it calls suicide bombers.
In the memo, they are described as "estishehadeyeen", Arabic for suicide martyrs, and would almost certainly have been foreign volunteers.
The memo details a training commission to be headed by senior officers, including a colonel from the "Directory of Political Orientation". Their job, says the report, was to "prepare a very intensive training course", "to raise the physical fitness and train in the use of Kalashnikovs and hand grenades".
It continues: "The largest section of the course will be specialised to focus on using the explosive material in the body, in motorcycle, in cars, and in camels". Camels will be "provided by the Directory of General Military Intelligence".
The memo also reveals the incredible bureaucracy that underpinned Saddam's Iraq. Rifles and hand grenades were to be provided by a Department of Armament and Equipping, explosives by the Directory of Military Engineering and "religious sermons that emphasise jihad'' by the Directory of Political Orientation and the Religious Scholars.
The papers have been translated by Arabic-speaking members of Free Republic, a conservative internet discussion forum that believes the documents will justify British and American claims that Saddam had made Iraq a haven for terrorists.
If the translation is correct, it suggests that many of the foreign fighters now attacking coalition forces and bombing Iraqi civilians were directly trained by the Saddam regime, although there are no known reports of camels being used in suicide attacks.
