"Da Bomb over Baghdad"
Posted on 04/05/2003 9:56:34 AM PST by RJCogburn
An armored force of 60 American tanks and other vehicles wheeled suddenly into the center of Baghdad today, taking the city's defenders by surprise and triggering a rolling firefight along boulevards lined with some people waving, and others shooting.
The demonstration of American force left at least hundreds of Iraqi fighters dead and was intended, United States military officials said, to show the 4.5 million residents of Baghdad that the Army and Marines now encamped at the city's edges could attack at will.
"We just wanted to let them know that we're here," said Maj. Gen. Buford C. Blount III, commander of the Third Infantry.
As such, the goal of the raid appeared more psychological than military as Washington and London debate whether to challenge Saddam Hussein's political grip on Iraq by naming an interim government.
It also seemed possible that coalition commanders decided to respond to Friday's dramatic appearance of Mr. Hussein on the streets of Baghdad amid a cheering crowd of supporters. The adulation for the Iraqi leader, no matter how carefully staged or taped in advance, was beamed out on Iraqi and Arab satellite television as a measure of proof that he had survived all allied attempts to kill or silence him.
A grisly discovery reported by British military officials today of what were said to be the remains of hundreds of people at an abandoned military compound on the outskirts of Zubayr, in southern Iraq, served to remind allied forces and the world of other aspects of Mr. Hussein's rule. The remains were packed in bundles that contained shreds of military uniforms, the British officials said, but it could not be determined how old they were, or how they got there.
Between 600 and 1,500 Iraqi gunmen battled the Americans as they rolled through Baghdad streets today, killing one American tank driver and wounding six other American soldiers. American commanders on the scene estimated that more than 1,000 were killed. Later, officers at Central Command in Doha, Qatar, put the number much higher — 2,000 to 3,000 — and there was no explanation for the variance.
As the incursion was happening, Iraqi officials denied that American forces were in the city. Iraq's information minister, Mohamed Saeed al-Sahhaf claimed further that Iraqi forces had retaken the international airport to the west of the city, where the tanks that rumbled through Baghdad's streets later met the Third Infantry Division's First Brigade.
"The Republican Guard is in full control," Mr. al-Sahhaf said. "We have defeated them, in fact we have crushed them. We have pushed them outside the whole area of the airport."
The Iraqi official insisted that the "whole trend" of the military campaign had changed in Baghdad's favor.
However, the tank battalion, the 64th Armored Regiment of the Third Infantry Division's Second Brigade, returned later to its staging area on the southern perimeter of Baghdad via a different, more secure route that avoided the city center entirely. No hostilities were reported on that journey.
The British soldiers who investigated the Zubayr military base found 200 makeshift coffins bearing seriously decayed corpses, perhaps a year or a number of years old.
Soldiers of the Royal Horse Artillery also found Arabic documents and photographs of men bearing head wounds and showing signs of torture or disfigurement in the warehouse.
"I wouldn't want to speculate, but the bones inside are obviously years old," Capt. Jack Kemp told British reporters at the scene.
Also today, the 101st Airborne staged a rapid deployment to the outskirts of Karbala, which like neighboring Najaf, is the site of one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam. Najaf has become increasingly pacified by the Army's entry into the city last week that United States military officials have said was welcomed by an edict, or fatwa, from the grand ayatollah there, Ali al-Sistani.
Karbala, however, was bypassed by coalition forces as they first feigned an attack on its defenders, and then dashed around it through the Karbala Gap to reach Baghdad and seize the airport.
Basically, they are on the ground to go through and secure the highways and supply routes, and also they are looking to squelch any paramilitary threat in the area," Maj. Mike Slocum told reporters traveling with the formation in Karbala.
To the east, at Aziziyah, Marines responded to battlefield intelligence gleaned from an Iraqi special forces prisoner and rushed to a girls' school where the prisoner said groups of Iraqi men had knocked down a wall to hide something in the courtyard and then laid fresh concrete over it in three nights' time.
The intelligence report raised the immediate suspicion that chemical or biological weapons might have been hidden under the concrete, Marine officers said.
"We don't have a clue, but we are going to dig it up and see," said Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, the Marine commander in charge of the area.
In recent days, American forces in the field have been reported following such leads, which would prove that the Iraqi government possesses weapons of mass destruction that were never declared.
In Baghdad, a statement said to have come from President Hussein claimed that "the enemy's grip" on Iraq "has weakened."
The statement suggested that by setting the military objective at Baghdad, causing supply lines to be strung across broad expanses of desert, was a strategic mistake, and exhorted Iraqis to attack at these weak points.
"You must inflict more wounds on this enemy and fight it and deprive it of the victories it has achieved," he said. "You must rattle their joints and terrify them and speedily defeat them in and around Baghdad."
But coalition commanders said, if anything, Iraqi forces seemed more and more disorganized, making possible today's bold dash into Baghdad.
"American armored combat formations have moved through the heart of Baghdad, defeating the Iraqi troops we have encountered," Navy Capt. Frank Thorp told reporters at the United States Central Command headquarters in Qatar.
"This was a clear statement of the ability of coalition forces to move into Baghdad at times and places of their choosing and to establish their presence really wherever they need to in the city," Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart said at a news conference in Qatar. He declined to say whether any troops had stayed behind, but military officials who were part of the raid indicated that the entire force had exited the city, with the exception of one destroyed, and abandoned, tank.
Although soldiers in the convoy and a cameraman who rode along described harrowing scenes and at least two camera crews recorded the foray, a number of journalists based in the city were unable to find evidence that the column had passed through.
General Renuart described the path by saying the column entered from due south on the main highway that skirts the tight bend in the Tigris River that forms the Karada district of the city. The highway continues toward "what I would call pretty near the center of Baghdad and then turns out to the West," he said.
Though Baghdadis might argue that one has not been to the center of Baghdad unless reaching Liberation Square and the old city along the Tigris in that district, General Renuart nonetheless insisted, "It's about as close to the center as I know how to define."
"This isn't about taking or holding ground," Captain Thorp said. "At this point, that was not an objective to hold any territory in Baghdad. This was an opportunity that the ground force commander saw to move troops through a major area of Baghdad, and jumped on it."
Although the tanks were gone by midafternoon, military officials said United States special operations forces are operating in and around Baghdad, seeking to develop targeting information and political intelligence on the whereabouts of key leaders.
Britain today termed the defeat of the Iraqi army and much of the Republican Guard "comprehensive."
"It is clear that elements of the Republican Guard have suffered a comprehensive defeat with very heavy losses and a number of desertions," a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said.
I agree.
It had seemed that the American media took some kind of perverse comfort in using the term "Elite Republican Guards", almost as if they wished it true. I, like you, will be pleased to have this myth laid to rest. Literally.
Oh, BS! It was done to achieve their objective, and to protect the coalition forces. If they wanted to "show" that we could attack at will Baghdad would be a glass parking lot by now.
their big mistake, they believed our media
"Da Bomb over Baghdad"
Unfortunately, that can be our mistake every 2 and 4 years at election time.
-- Churchill.
No doubt they were holed up in the same bunker as the "Effete DemocRATic Guard" leadership.
Amazing ain't it? I know of several US cities that could use clean up crews like that.
dennis miller couldn't have said it better, lol
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