I'd agree that the escape route should be closed. It grates to think of the worst and richest rats getting away.
Our military superiority is so overwhelming that it's hard to see now what can stop us.
But, if I may be permitted a little hand-wringing, I think it was a mistake to make the raid today, tho it was another brilliant military success, obviously. However, it was a wake-up call to the defenders. Baghdad's defenses have been ill-prepared, you wouldn't even know an attack was imminent. After the crushing defeat today, they are finally getting the message, and digging trenches, etc.
Of course, they will lose, but they still have the potential to create a bloody mess, particularly with the civilian population.
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In Baghdad
Overnight, A Capital Transformed
Guards, Irregulars Take Up Positions
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 6, 2003; Page A01
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The incursion seemed more symbolic than strategic, a message that U.S. forces could move at will into the seat of Hussein's power.
Crossing three outlying neighborhoods, M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles moved rapidly and without any apparent fixed objective. But the destruction in their wake was formidable: the charred remains of at least 16 pickups, cars, trucks and personnel carriers, some with Republican Guard insignia; six antiaircraft guns overturned or still burning near the Dora grain silo; damage to a bridge on the road to Saddam International Airport; the wreckage of at least two tanks. It was not known how many casualties resulted.
By 9:30 a.m., it was over, and the government deployed in force.
For weeks, Baghdad was remarkable in its lack of a military posture. The only sign of the ground war in southern Iraq were the knots of Baath Party militiamen who had taken up posts across the city. Their numbers dramatically multiplied today, outnumbering residents in the streets in much of Baghdad. Along with police, they manned checkpoints on the edge of a city that more and more looked deserted.
Saddam's Fedayeen gathered, most in their distinctive black uniforms, but a few choosing a more personal touch -- white gowns, red-and-white kaffiyehs or a white turban. They intermingled with groups of soldiers underneath the canopy of palm trees, some lugging mortars, antiaircraft guns, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and rifles.
Joining their ranks were males in civilian clothes carrying guns, some appearing to be in their mid-teens. In one square, men with the Fedaan tribe raised their red flag over a sandbagged position, suggesting the government had called on tribes from the countryside to aid the city's defense. Trucks carrying water and fuel shuttled between positions throughout the day.
By nightfall, there were signs the government would concentrate its forces closer to the city's center. Soldiers dug trenches along roads that enter Baghdad from the south. Tanks were parked at major downtown intersections like Nisoor Square. Under a bridge near the Baghdad Central Railway Station, soldiers erected chest-high dirt barriers, with police and Baath Party militiamen directing traffic to alternative routes.
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