U.S. May Face Elite Iraqi Troops (CBS News is Praying For Blood - MUST-READ!!!)

CBS News ^ | March 22, 2003 | Various

[Timesink]

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U.S. May Face Elite Iraqi Troops
March 22, 2003


U.S. and British forces besieged the southern city of Basra on Saturday and pounded Baghdad with impunity in the first daylight air raids of the war. But tough fighting loomed for coalition troops as they pressed deeper into Iraq.

An soldier from the U.S. Army A Company 3rd Battalion 7th Infantry Regiment watches the blur of a convoy of 3rd Infantry Division forces.  (AP)



"The Americans have no conscience. What have our children done to deserve this?"
Amal Hassan Kamel,
wounded Iraqi civilian

Saddam Hussein talks with elite Republican Guard officers in Baghdad. (AP)

A U.S. soldier stands in front of a poster of Saddam Hussein in southern Iraq.  (AP)

CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports the United States Army could soon clash with Iraq's elite Republican Guard at Karbala, while the Marines could encounter them at Al Kut.

Saddam's regime continued taking a hard line ? denying military setbacks and verbally attacking its enemies in a show of public resolve. Information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf lashed out at the allies.

"They are a gang of war criminals ? international bastards," he said. "They lie day and night. They are not human."

In other major developments:

• Two British Navy helicopters collided over the Persian Gulf, and seven on board were killed, including a U.S. Navy officer. A day earlier, eight British and four U.S. Marines died when their helicopter crashed south of Umm Qasr. A source at Central Command says six journalists have also been killed in action.
  
  
• Delta Force units searching possible chemical weapons sites in the country's west have found one suspect shell in checking three of 650 target areas.
  
  
• It emerged that Ali Hasan Al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam known as "Chemical Ali" for his alleged involvement in chemical weapons attacks against civilians, was the target of an allied attack. It is not known if he was wounded or killed.
  
  
• The Pentagon abandoned a plan to send heavy armored troops through Turkey into northern Iraq.
  
  
• Iran has accused U.S. and British warplanes of violating its airspace, and says a missile landed in Iran, 30 miles from Basra. A spokesman said the Pentagon is "looking into" those reports.
  
  
• In his weekly radio address, President Bush said: "The future of peace and the hopes of the Iraqi people now depend on our fighting forces in the Middle East."
  
  
• The latest CBS News/New York Times poll shows Americans are feeling optimistic about the progress of the war in Iraq, but they believe President Bush hasn't been clear about all the possible consequences of military action.
  
  
• As many as 200,000 anti-war demonstrators, spanning 30 blocks, marched down Broadway in New York City, one of dozens of protests against the intensified war on Iraq.
  
  Military officials say U.S. forces are now 150 miles into Iraq and have crossed the Euphrates River.
  
  At a Pentagon briefing, spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said it's only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed.
  
  She said coalition forces are making "considerable progress," but warned that the situation in Iraq is fluid and challenges are ahead.
  
  While coalition forces have gained the area around Basra, they have not advanced into the its heart. Controlling Iraq's second-largest city, with 1.3 million people, is strategically important but analysts said there was no military value to actually capturing the city.
  
  Elsewhere, Marine engineers sped across the Western desert carrying boats and bridges to span rivers en route to the capital. The Army's 3rd Infantry Division defeated the Iraqi 11th Division to capture the city of Al-Nasiriya as well as two bridges that cross the Euphrates, opening the road to Baghdad.
  
  CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod reports the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade took several prisoners, then came under fire. They fought back, and ended up with more captives.
  
  More units were waiting in Kuwait. Hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers, Humvees and trucks were lined up in parallel columns waiting in single-file to cross the Iraqi-Kuwait border.
  
  A Central Command spokesman said some coalition forces have moved the same distance as the longest maneuver of the 1991 Gulf war in one quarter of the time.
  
  The spokesman, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, said coalition forces had seized three southern oil facilities, at al Faw, Mina' al Bakr and Khawr al Amaya. They found weapons, ammunition and explosives there.
  
  The effort to demoralize Iraqi leadership appeared to be paying off. An entire division of the Iraqi army ? the 51st Infantry Division, with 8,000 men and as many as 200 tanks ? surrendered. CBS News Correspondent Scott Pelley reports an Iraqi colonel in U.S. custody is providing significant information about Iraq's defenses.
  
  In his first appearance of the war, the invasion commander said the invasion was succeeding in throwing Saddam Hussein's government into disarray.
  
  "There is a certain confusion that is going on within the regime. I believe the command and control is not exactly as advertised on Iraqi television," Gen. Tommy Franks said.
  
  In Baghdad, intermittent explosions were heard throughout the day in the first daylight air strikes of the war. At least 20 columns of dark smoke rose from points around Baghdad. Al-Jazeera television reported that the plumes were coming from fires that Iraqis had set to oil containers around the city to obscure targets.
  
  Iraqi officials said more than 200 people have been injured in the bombing so far. One death has been confirmed.
  
  At Al Yarmouk Hospital, one of the critically injured was Amal Hassan Kamel. She was in the hospital with her 8-year old son Wa'ad Hashim, who was injured in both legs by shrapnel.
  
  "The Americans have no conscience," Kamel said. "What have our children done to deserve this?"
  
  Meanwhile, the situation in northern Iraq grew more complicated. It was unclear whether Turkey had moved troops into the area.
  
  A Turkish military official said they had, but the Turkish general staff denied the reports.
  
  CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports fighting has erupted between Kurdish fighters and Ansar Al Islam ? the group the Bush administration alleges in linked to al Qaeda. Kurdish officials said American advisers were traveling with their forces. About six U.S. cruise missiles or bombs hit an Ansar installation.
  
  One of the journalists who was killed, an Australian, died in a car bomb blamed on Ansar. Women and children were also killed in the blast.
  
  The five other journalists died in southern Iraq. Two Americans and one Frenchman were killed headed to al-Nasariya in southern Iraq. Two Britons were killed after crossing the Iraq-Kuwait border.
  
  The Pentagon identified two Marines killed in combat Friday as 2nd Lt. Therrel S. Childers, 30, of Harrison County, Miss.; and Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, 22, of Los Angeles.
  

[battlegearboat]

Dan Rather likes to show off his camel toe.

[The Louiswu]

On the way to...

[deport]

Should the Republican Guard chose to there could be a battle..... But why would the Coalition Forces chose to fight a pitched battle with them when we have the aerial superiority and capability to do to them what was done to Saddam's Palaces in Baghdad. I think if the RG decides to wage a battle then 'shock & awe' will be brought to bear upon them like they've never dreamed.

Same with street battles in Baghdad.... why fight. Surround the city and stop all things going in such as supplies (food)..... take out a few key locations but easily replaced things such as pumps (water), transmission lines (electricity), then sit and wait. They can't survive forever. At some point they will have to come out.

Just my opinion.

[chainsaw]

If Iraq has elite forces, the forces of the US are SUPER ELITE. Superior in every respect bar none.

[Conservative4Ever]

Right from the gate the reports have been it will get tougher the closer the troops get to Baghdad. I trust Tommy Franks, Condi Rice, President Bush and all to know what the hell they are doing. This compaign has been brilliant.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Lets pray for the safety of both forces facing elite Iraqi troops. The allied military and the NYPD.

[chainsaw]

I Curse all their Mustache's !

The mustaches are just a show of puberty in iraq.

[Balata]

Actually the other day I saw a report that they surrendered to a US High School Band. The source was the onion. :)

[MindBender26]

Sorry about that, but your headline breaks the first rule of good reporting. It is not backed up fact in the story.

It may be your opinion that CBS is "praying for blood" but please, with all respect, don't state that as a fact unless the story backs it up, and this one does not.

Secondly, where is the "America-hate" pull quote? The story seems pretty straightforward to me. The reality is that there is a lot of heavy fighting yet to do, and the fighting will get harder, and the opposition get better, as we close on their SOG.

Trust me, two tours in RVN doing LRRPs and covering a few wars as a reporter, I have learned it's never easy. Some of this armchair bravado posting stuff (not yours) is BS, and almost an insult to the grunts on the line who are being shot as we write.

We will win, but underestiating the enemy is fatal.

[Conservative4Ever]

The tag line is the greatest.....LOLOL....love it.

[sissyjane]

CBS News now reports possible terrorist attack in Kuwait.SSix injured.Don't know if it was a motar or grenade.

[Straight Vermonter]

Never forget what Stormin' Normnn said about the Elite Republican Guard, "Elite is a relative term".

[sissyjane]

I heard it on CBS TV NEWS report.Son took over TV,so can't search further.

[madison46]

If we have Abrams M-1, it won't be any different.. They die*

[Timesink]

Sorry about that, but your headline breaks the first rule of good reporting. It is not backed up fact in the story. [...] It may be your opinion that CBS is "praying for blood" but please, with all respect, don't state that as a fact unless the story backs it up, and this one does not.

Oh, come on MB! You've been here long enough to know what vanity statements in parentheses after headlines ARE opinions, and that they are standard on FR. And there is hardly anyone on FR so stupid as to believe that either a) CBS literally allowed onto its web site any phrase like "We Want Blood!" or b) that I was at all accusing them of having done so. They know it was an opinion on my part and nothing more, and they were and are free to read the CBS story and make their own judgement.

Second, I backed up my opinion at the bottom of the story. I stand by it. In addition: As I type this, the top story on CBSNews.com, and all FR is talking about, is the (alleged) terrorist grenade attack on the 101st Airborne camp. CBS News has NOT send out a breaking news email about that, yet they did for this. I consider that unethical, and the result of an obvious lust for hard battle in the newsroom. You're welcome to disagree, but it's a perfectly legitimate argument.

Secondly, where is the "America-hate" pull quote?

There's only one pull quote. It is overtly anti-American. It's in the left column between the first two photos. (I don't blame you for missing it; it's horrid design work on CBS's part.)

Trust me, two tours in RVN doing LRRPs and covering a few wars as a reporter, I have learned it's never easy. Some of this armchair bravado posting stuff (not yours) is BS, and almost an insult to the grunts on the line who are being shot as we write. We will win, but underestiating the enemy is fatal.

I've never been a soldier, but I'm ex-AP, ABC and CNN. And I don't disagree with you for a moment the the hardest is likely yet to come for the soldiers. But the way CBS basically advertised this just reeks of, at best, third-grade level taunting of American troops after just having all their prior armchair newsroom "analysis" about mass American casualties, millions of Iraqi dead, thousands of oil well fires, etc etc, all proven to be absolute cow dung: "Oh, sure, you walked over the regular Iraqi army, but what about when you reach the Republican Guards? They're gonna RALLY beat you up, nyah!" And at worst, yes, it reeks of them just wanting blood to they can have something "cooler" to report.

[Timesink]

One retraction: as soon as I finished posting, I got a "DING!" and a CBS alert finally arrived about the 101st. So I'll give them credit for that, at least.

[wordsofearnest]

Amen. Two more words "AIR SUPERIORITY"

[JoeSchem]

Iraqi officials said more than 200 people have been injured in the bombing so far. One death has been confirmed.

According to liberals, the economic sanctions of the past twelve years have killed over two hundred thousand Iraqi children.

The problem with the liberal viewpoint is that food and other necessities have been supplied to Iraq by the international aid community, and furthermore Iraq has been able to sell its oil in exchange for foodstuffs. So if children have been dying, it ain't because of the sanctions. It's because of Saddam. Saddam has been killing forty children a day, sixteen thousand a year, two hundred thousand in all for twelve years.

Now, if two hundred soldiers dead now stops two hundred thousand children from dying over the next twelve years, who's to say that's a bad thing?