Kurds Hope U.S. Will Let Them Join the Fight in Iraq
Thursday, Mar 20, 2003; 3:20 PM
DOLLABAKRE, Iraq -- Kurdish officials expressed hope today that Turkey's refusal to let U.S. troops attack Iraq through Turkish territory will force the Bush administration to align more closely with Kurdish guerrilla forces in northern Iraq who are eager to help assault government-controlled cities to the south.
"We think we may be able to take a more active role," said a senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of two militia-backed organizations that have ruled a zone outside central government control since shortly after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
For the moment, Kurdish forces, said to number 60,000 between the KDP and the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, are on hold at the request of the United States. But a general mobilization of the pesh merga militia, a name that "means those who seek death," has sent fighters to positions all along a ragged frontier that separates the 17,000-square-mile Kurdish zone from the rest of Iraq.
- By Daniel Williams
Iraqi Radio - U.S. Hits Hussein Home, No Casualties
Thursday, Mar 20, 2003; 2:40 PM
BAGHDAD - A U.S. missile hit one of the family homes of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad on Thursday but there were no casualties, Iraqi radio said.
It said the missile had hit the home early on Thursday, during the first wave of U.S. attacks.
Iraqi radio reports no casualties.
- Reuters
Bush Meets With Advisers Today
Thursday, Mar 20, 2003; 1:23 PM
President Bush conferred with his national security adviser early Thursday on the initial strikes against Iraq, as officials tried to determine whether the attack aimed at killing Saddam Hussein had succeeded.
Bush called his Cabinet to the White House for a mid-afternoon war update, a day after he told a global audience that war in Iraq "could be long and more difficult than some expected."
Thirty police cars guarded the front entrances to the White House, where security was unusually intense hours after the first salvo in the war to disarm Iraq. There was no word from Bush or his spokesman on whether the mission was a success.
"The president is not going to be a play-by-play commentator on it," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. "The president has a long approach to this."
- The Associated Press
Blair Readies Britain for War
Thursday, Mar 20, 2003; 1:51 PM
LONDON - Washington's top ally Prime Minister Tony Blair flew into a diplomatic showdown with France on Thursday after readying Britons for a high-risk war in Iraq.
Conspicuous by his silence 14 hours after the first U.S. strike on Baghdad, Blair slipped quietly out of the country for what promised to be a charged dinner with French President Jacques Chirac and other European leaders.
Before leaving for Brussels, Blair recorded a five-minute television address to air "at the appropriate time" -- code for when British forces truly engage in battle.
"Be well aware that if we start losing people (troops), we will lose support very quickly," a military source told Reuters after war kicked off before dawn on Thursday.
- Reuters
Air Raid Sirens Sound Over Baghdad
Thursday, Mar 20, 2003; 1:05 PM
Air Raid sirens sounded over Baghdad on Thursday night for the first time since an all-clear was declared.
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