Iraqi Kids Learn to Fight for Saddam

Jan. 22 -- In the blazing heat of the Iraqi summers, when most people keep their daytime outdoor activities to a minimum, thousands of young boys have been undergoing arduous military training to emerge as potential foot soldiers in the vast security apparatus that has propped up Saddam Hussein's regime.

Burdened under the weight of Kalashnikov rifles, sweating — and often fainting — under the scorching sun in their all-black uniforms, the lads go through three-week training courses in light weapons training, hand-to-hand combat and basic soldiering, accompanied by a shrill political indoctrination that pledges absolute loyalty to their leader.

They are the Ashbal Saddam, or Saddam's Lion Cubs. These cadres of Iraqi boys, aged between 12 and 17, are trained along the lines of the Hitler Youth, the Nazi movement founded in Germany in the 1920s that remains one of history's most disturbing examples of organized youth indoctrination.

Founded in 1998 to "arm the child with an inner light," the Ashbal is arguably the first rung of a complex labyrinth of Iraqi military and civilian organizations ostensibly formed to maintain Iraqi security at home and abroad. But most experts and Iraqi exiles say the main function of the often competing security units is to ensure the protection of the president and his family.

In their quest to quash any domestic opposition to Saddam's Baathist regime, experts say the extensive security network has permeated virtually every level of Iraqi society following the popular uprisings that broke out in northern and southern Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War.

While some units loosely operate within the state's political and legal structures, experts say there are a number of civilian or popular units that operate above and beyond the law.

And as Washington's war drums beat louder, international attention in recent weeks has focused increasingly on various Iraqi popular forces. Some military experts warn that civilian support for Saddam, no matter how sporadic, could complicate a ground war in Iraq.