THE GANG THAT COULDN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT

Interviews with Iraqi armed forces members on how their defenses disintegrated so quickly.

The Iraqi soldiers in their path were hopelessly ill trained. "We never hit a single target," said Assad Ashur, 23, a Republican Guard soldier who had been stationed in Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad on the Euphrates. "One mortar we shot killed about eight Iraqi civilians."

Preparation for the air bombardment was little better. To survive the "shock and awe" bombing campaign, scores of key officers had rented houses in Baghdad in early March, fearing their offices would be bombed. But few had telephones installed or had radio communications.

Instead, commanders dispatched orders on slips of paper carried by car or motorcycle to the houses.

"At first, this man would come sometimes 20 times a day with orders from the commander," said Colonel Rafed Abdul Mehdi, who had organized deployments for Baghdad's antiaircraft missiles from a house in east Baghdad. "We would move the missile launchers several times a day to avoid bombs."

But as US forces intensified their bombing of Baghdad, almost all who operated the missiles abandoned the launchers, rendering the messenger's job irrelevant. "I think the last time he came was April 5," said Mehdi, 38.

The Republican Guard's system of defense, massing its men in concentric rings around Baghdad, also proved disastrous.

"We had four concentric circles of defense. But when the US moved up through the desert, we were told to go back into the cities," said Lieutenant Colonel Tariq Mohammed, 36, of the Republican Guard's crack Medina Division, based in Suwayrah, about 35 miles southwest of Baghdad. "The huge mistake was moving the Republican Guards all the time. The soldiers were exhausted."

By early April, most of the division's soldiers had drifted off. On April 6, Mohammed simply got into his car and drove to Baghdad.