Saddam, sons targeted in strike
msnbc.com
msnbc.com
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 8
U.S. forces hunker down in Baghdad
NBC, MSNBC and news services
U.S. forces established a foothold in one of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's palaces in Baghdad by early Tuesday and appeared set to keep a presence there after swooping into the city the day before. The coalition forces aimed at toppling Saddam and ridding the country of weapons of mass destruction also moved to cut off escape routes from the capital. Meanwhile, in a city near Baghdad, the military was led to a site where suspicious chemical compounds were stored -- a discovery that, if verified, could prove that Iraq had continued its banned weapons programs.
U.S. TROOPS REMAINED in the presidential compound on the west bank of the Tigris River, apparently determined to deliver a powerful message to residents and Saddam loyalists that his regime was broken.
They had been part of an early morning assault by more than 70 tanks and 60 Bradley fighting vehicles from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division. The attack was a power play designed to prove to Saddam and the Iraqi people that "we can come and go at our pleasure," a U.S. military official told NBC News on condition of anonymity.
U.S. military officials initially described the operation as a foray similar to one by two armored units Saturday, but there were indications that the troops might be planning to use the presidential palace as a beachhead for further operations in the capital. The New York Times reported that U.S. commanders on the ground said three army battalions would remain in the city center.
In addition to taking the palace, U.S. forces visited a second presidential palace in Baghdad, exchanged fire with Iraqi snipers holed up in the state-owned Al-Rashid Hotel and briefly surrounded the Iraqi Information Ministry with tanks.
"The circle is closing," U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared at a Pentagon briefing Monday.
Rumsfeld said that while U.S. forces did not know where Saddam was, "we do know he no longer runs much of Iraq."
A top U.S. commander suggested that Iraqi forces had little fight left, even in the capital. "I think the command and control of the Republican Guards is at the point now where the most they can do are sporadic attacks from very, very small units," said Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Looking beyond Saddam, Rumsfeld said planning was under way to turn over control of several government ministries other than defense and intelligence to Iraqis.
"It's pretty well sorted through," he said.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf continued to deny that the enemy had breached the city's defenses.
"They say they brought 65 tanks into center of city. I say to you this talk is not true. There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad at all," he said, standing on a Baghdad rooftop as sirens blared and smoke billowed into the sky.
'SMOKING GUN?'
There also were reports that coalition forces may have achieved a breakthrough of a different sort: finding evidence of banned chemical weapons in Iraqi arsenals.
NBC's Dana Lewisreported Mondaythat members of the 101st Airborne Division were led by an Iraqi former colonel to an agricultural facility near Karbala, where they found barrels that contained nerve agents that included sarin, according to a preliminary analysis. If confirmed, it would be the first known discovery of bannedchemical weaponsthat the coalition has accused Saddam's regime of harboring.
U.N. inspectors returned to Iraq in November after a four-year pause, but several months of searching failed to turn up a so-called "smoking gun," leaving the U.N. Security Council members divided on how to proceed. The United States and Britain charged that Baghdad had not cooperated fully and continued to hide weapons it had agreed to destroy.
THUNDEROUS ASSAULT
The thrust into Baghdad by the entire 2nd Brigade of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division began Monday at dawn as missiles screamed over the city and thunderous explosions shook buildings.
The column met moderate resistance -- mostly assault weapons-fire and rocket-propelled grenades -- as it pushed north on Highway 8 and into the city.
Troops stormed al-Sajoud Palace, which Saddam reportedly used as a residence, and set up a prisoner-of-war holding pen inside the elaborate compound on the west bank of the Tigris, a winding river that divides the city. Troops also visited the al-Jamhourry Palace to the east, which was used chiefly for official ceremonies, but did not stay, U.S. military officials told NBC News.
The ruling Baath Party headquarters nearby was destroyed. U.S. forces in other parts of the city used explosives to destroy two statues of Saddam.
"I do believe this city is freakin' ours," boasted Capt. Chris Carter of Watkinsville, Ga.
However, Iraqi resistance was still evident 10 hours into the incursion as Iraqi snipers fired on U.S. soldiers from rooms in the state-owned Al-Rashid Hotel after a platoon conducted a patrol in the neighborhood near the palace. U.S. tanks returned fire with their main guns and .50-caliber machine guns.
In the heart of the city, U.S. soldiers who reached the gold- and blue-domed palace used the toilets, rifled through documents in the bombed-out compound and helped themselves to ashtrays, pillows, gold-painted Arab glassware and other souvenirs.
BLOODY BATTLES
U.S. Marines and Army troops faced bloody fighting along Baghdad's southern edge.
U.S. Central Command forward headquarters in Doha, Qatar, also issued a statement saying Iraqi rockets struck a group of Army personnel carriers at the brigade's field headquarters in southern Baghdad, killing two soldiers and two journalists and wounding 15 other people. One of the two journalists was Julio Anguita Parrado from Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo, who was traveling with the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division as a reporter. El Mundo's Web site said an unnamed reporter for a German magazine was also killed.
Two Marines also were reported killed and two others were wounded when their armored troop carrier was hit by an artillery shell at a bridge across a canal, although the Pentagon did not confirm the deaths. Reporters traveling with the Marines said they advanced into the capital by foot after the Iraqis blew apart the bridge.
HOSPITALS OVERWHELMED
The advance into the center of Baghdad was the second such move by the U.S. forces since they seized the city's main airport Friday, giving them a base to launch the final phase of the war aimed at overthrowing Saddam's regime.
Central Command reported that 2,000 to 3,000 Iraqi fighters were killed in the first thrust -- a sweep Saturday by two armored units from the 3rd Infantry Division through the city's southwestern industrial section.
There were reports of more heavy casualties in Baghdad. The International Committee of the Red Cross said the numbers were so high that hospitals had stopped keeping count.
"No one is able to keep accurate statistics of the admitted and transferred war wounded any longer as one emergency arrival follows the other in the hospitals of Baghdad," a Red Cross statement said.
"Ambulances are picking up the wounded and running them to the triage areas and on to hospitals. Some of the wounded try to reach the nearest hospitals by foot," the statement said.
SEEKING SIGNS OF SADDAM
Two senior U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity that the troops were seeking evidence that might point to the current whereabouts of Saddam. The officials said there was intelligence last week indicating that he was staying at a barracks on the grounds, prompting strikes by U.S. missiles and bombs.
Iraqi forces put on a show of force in parts of the city still under their control. Armed militiamen and Iraqi army troops patrolled the street outside the Information Ministry. Most Iraqis stayed indoors, but some shops were open, and public buses were running. Iraqi TV and state radio stayed on the air, broadcasting patriotic songs, religious sermons and archival footage of Saddam.
BRITISH ENTER BASRA
In southern Iraq,British forces took control of much of Basraon Monday. They were met by a few pockets of resistance and were greeted by hundreds of people who shook their hands and welcomed them to Iraq's second-largest city.
Royal Marine commandos seized a vacant, pink-hued marble palace belonging to Saddam. Elsewhere in the impoverished city, there was widespread looting and even reports of some retaliatory attacks by Iraqis against militiamen still loyal to Saddam.
"The last 48 hours have been historic for Basra. After decades under the heel of Saddam's brutal regime, U.K. forces are in the process of delivering liberation to the people of Basra," Air Marshal Brian Burridge told reporters in Qatar. "There will be some difficult days ahead, but the Baathist regime is finished in Basra."
For two weeks, the British had held off from storming the city of 1.3 million people to avoid civilian casualties in what they feared would become bloody urban fighting against Saddam's Fedayeen fighters and other loyalists.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
President Bush arrived Monday in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for ameetingwith British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The coalition partners will discuss peace efforts in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, but their summit is primarily meant to review war progress and to iron out differences about how Iraq will be rebuilt and governed when hostilities end.
In a sign of growing confidence on the part of the coalition, the U.S. war commander, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, visited troops inside Iraq, including soldiers in the holy Shiite city of Najaf. A Central Command spokesman, Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, said Franks made three stops in Iraq on Monday, but he gave no details.
Ali Hassan al-Majid, the man dubbed "Chemical Ali" by opponents of the Iraqi regime for ordering a poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds, is believed to have been killed in an allied air strike, U.S. and British officials said Monday.
NBC's David Shuster in Qatar, Jim Miklaszewski in Washington, Carl Rochelle in Washington, Dana Lewis near Karbala, Kerry Sanders near Diwaniyah and Chip Reid near Baghdad; MSNBC's Bob Arnot near Baghdad; |
