U.S. Fights Iraqi Republican Guard

CBSNEWS ^ | Sunday, March 23, 2003

[JohnHuang2]

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U.S. Fights Iraqi Republican Guard
March 24, 2003


U.S. forces have reportedly begun their first attacks on Iraq's most elite and believed most competent and best-armed troops: the Republican Guard.

The New York Times reports U.S. Army forces began their battle for the so-called "Red Zone" - the land surrounding Baghdad - with air strikes late Sunday by several squadrons of helicopters and over 30 surface-to-surface missiles.

One U.S. pilot in the battle was reportedly wounded by small arms fire, but was nevertheless able to fly back to the Army base.

The target is reported to have been the Medina division, one of the three Republican Guard units whose mission is to protect the ancient city of Baghdad.

The strategy behind the initial attacks is reportedly to soften and cripple the Iraqi division, so as to crush it in follow-up attacks, as the battle is not expected to be a quick one.

Not long after word came Monday of the attack on the Republican Guard, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein - or someone who looked a great deal like him - was back on Iraqi television.

It's not clear whether the address was live or taped, as he said nothing so specific that it couldn't have been said before the war began, although he did refer to the enemy relying less on air strikes and more on infantry troops.

Promising Iraqis that victory would come soon, and exhorting them to cut the throats of the enemy, Saddam said "Iraq will strike the necks (of each enemy fighter)"...Strike them, and strike evil so that evil will be defeated."

The speech went on to praise the bravery of Iraqi soldiers who he said are "causing the enemy to suffer and to lose every day. As time goes by, they will lose more and they will not be able to escape lightly from their predicament... We will make it as painful as we can."

Sunday, U.S. forces saw the toughest and bloodiest fighting of the war so far, as they moved to within 100 miles of Baghdad. The worst fighting was in the Iraqi city of an-Nasariyah, where U.S. Marines suffered heavy casualties.

Iraq captured several prisoners of war in a separate battle and paraded some of them on television, which drew the ire of military leaders and President Bush.

Devastating new explosions rocked downtown Baghdad on Monday morning as allied warplanes buzzed the city. One large blast shook a Ministry of Planning building within the Old Palace, a presidential compound hit in earlier attacks.

The air raids were the heaviest since Friday night. Some of the bombing was targeted at Republican Guard forces defending the capital.

CBS News Reporter Rob Milford says elsewhere, U.S. forces are continuing to mass towards Baghdad - in convoys sometimes miles long - on highways passing major population centers in northern Iraq.

In other major developments:

• Syria claims a U.S. cruise missile hit a bus full of Syrian civilians who were fleeing Iraq, and were in Iraq near the Syrian border when the missile hit Monday, killing five people and injuring ten. U.S. military officials have not been able to confirm that report, but say it is not U.S. policy to target civilians. Sunday, two U.S. cruise missiles went off course, landing in unpopulated areas of Turkey, and Friday, a missile accidentally landed in Iran, also without any reported casualties, in an area 30 miles from a heated battle in Iraq.
  
  
• U.S. troops have found a suspected chemical factory near the Iraqi city of An Najaf and officials are trying to determine whether it was involved in making chemical weapons.
  
  
• One American soldier was killed and another injured in a vehicle accident in Kuwait, bringing the confirmed coalition death toll from the invasion to 25.
  
  
• Two British soldiers are missing after their vehicle was attacked in southern Iraq. Search and rescue operations were underway to try to locate them.
  
  
• An American soldier was accused of a grenade attack that killed one of his comrades and wounded 15 others at Camp Pennsylvania in northern Iraq.
  
  
• A British television news reporter who disappeared in southern Iraq is believed to be dead, his employers said Sunday. ITN television news said reporter Terry Lloyd and two colleagues apparently were caught in a barrage of "friendly fire" on Saturday.
  
  
• President Bush will ask Congress Monday for about $80 billion to pay for the war, relief programs and homeland security.
  
  
• Despite warnings from the U.S. and other NATO allies, Turkey said it is seeking to send troops into northern Iraq to prevent instability at the Turkish-Iraqi border.
  
  Allied soldiers came under attack in a series of ruses Sunday, U.S. officials said, with one group of Iraqis waving the white flag of surrender, then opening up with artillery fire; another group appearing to welcome coalition troops but then attacking them.
  
  Lt. Gen. John Abizaid of U.S. Central Command said a faked surrender near an-Nasariyah, a crossing point over the Euphrates River northwest of Basra, set off the "sharpest engagement of the war thus far." Up to nine Marines died before the Americans prevailed, he said.
  
  Twelve U.S. soldiers are missing and presumed captured by Iraqis in an ambush on an army supply convoy at an-Nasariyah.
  
  "We, of course, will be much more cautious in the way that we view the battlefield as a result of some of these incidents," said Abizaid.
  
  He also noted that some captured Americans "ended up on Baghdad TV" and said this was a violation of the Geneva Conventions on protection of POWs. The conventions forbid subjecting prisoners to any humiliation.
  
  The Qatari satellite channel Al-Jazeera also showed the film of the American prisoners, which it said was provided by Iraqi television. In the footage, four bodies could be seen lying on the floor of a room. At least five prisoners, speaking American-accented English, were interviewed. One was a woman; two were bandaged.
  
  A New Mexico woman identified her son, Joseph Hudson, 23, of Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, as one of the five soldiers.
  
  Coalition forces hold thousands of Iraqi prisoners — many of whom surrendered — and these captives have been shown regularly on American television and in U.S. newspaper photos. But Abizaid said the interview shown on Al-Jazeera was meant to humiliate the Americans.
  
  There was more misfortune for coalition forces Sunday as a Patriot missile accidentally shot down a British jet as it returned to Kuwait from a mission over Iraq, killing the two-man crew. But it was also a day of advance, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin. Elements of both the 3rd Infantry, a heavy armored force, and the 101st Airborne, which attacks from the air, are now at An Najaf, a main highway junction where all roads lead to Baghdad.
  
  The 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade covered 228 miles in less than 40 hours. It fought through Saturday night until dawn Sunday, destroying 15 vehicles, killing at least 100 Iraqi militiamen and capturing 20 prisoners of war.
  
  Elements of the 101st Airborne have leap-frogged over other units and are now about 100 miles from Baghdad. Special forces troops might be even closer.
  
  Returning from Camp David Sunday, Mr. Bush said the coalition is slowly achieving its objective, reports CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante.
  
  "It's important for the American people to realize that this war has just begun, that it may seem like a long time because of all the action on TV, but in terms of the overall strategy, we're just in the beginning phases," Mr. Bush said.
  
  The president wouldn't speculate on the health or whereabouts of Saddam Hussein, but did say the Iraqi leader is losing control.
  
  Besides an-Nasiriyah, U.S. forces came under intense fire elsewhere in southern Iraq. Enemy forces probably included Saddam's Republican Guards at the small but strategic Arabian Gulf port of Umm Qsar.
  
  CBS News Correspondent Scott Pelley has been in the thick of the fighting there.
  
  The firefight started at midmorning, along a road that leads into this vital port town. Two platoons of Fox Company engaged the enemy with M-16's, heavy machine guns and mortars.
  
  The Iraqis were dug in along a wide front, firing from an open desert and at least one building.
  
  The Marines called in heavy armor, their M-1 Abrams tanks. The tanks tore through the trenches with 50-caliber machine guns, and then leveled their big guns directly into the building.
  
  The firefight over the rod to Umm Qasr lasted for hours and into the night. The Marines say they have the port completely secured so humanitarian aid can now flow in, but the rest of the determined resistance will take some time for the Marines to break.
  
  Anti-war protests continued in many cities around the world, one of the biggest in Pakistan. Children in Lahore chanted anti-American slogans and other demonstrators carried portraits of Osama bin Laden and Saddam as more than 100,000 people joined in a peaceful rally.

[JohnHuang2]

Sunday, March 23, 2003

Quote of the Day by Erasmus

[EternalVigilance]

In the footage, four bodies could be seen lying on the floor of a room.

This makes me spitting, fighting mad!

The men were obviously abused badly before death, and then they were executed. Bullets in the forehead.

This atrocity should be the headline of every stinking news report in this land today!!!!!!!

Maybe then we could shut the mouths of these traitorous Saddam-loving America-haters!!!!!!!

If you can't tell, I'm at the end of any patience or restraint when it comes to these collaborators with the enemy; whether they are in the press, the universities, Hollywood, Congress, France, Turkey, Germany, the Labour Party in England, the frickin 'Arab Street'----they can all go straight to hell for all I care--the sooner the better.

Where's the outrage!!!!!!!

If you need some, go look at the video of the victims of the Saddamite animals.

It is now time for hard and harsh words. No more playing nice with these people. We owe it to our honored dead to stand up now like free men and women and put a stop to this fools game.

[zarf]

Patience. Bush will stay on point and so should you.

War is won through persistance, tenacity and patience.

The problem of embedding so many reporters is that these reports amplify what are absolutely normal occurances in wartime. We need not respond in kind to the Saddamites behavior. They will die in due course.

[EternalVigilance]

I'm not the least bit impatient; not with the progress of the war, with any of our troops, or with the Commander-in-Chief.

Exactly the opposite.

I'm fed up with those who make their job harder, and give aid and comfort to what's left of the Butcher of Baghdad's regime.

I've had all I'm going to take, and intend to take this political war to a new level, at least to whatever extent I have the opportunity.

[neutrino]

It is now time for hard and harsh words. No more playing nice with these people

I'm in total agreement. We (you, I, and others who think as we do) must, for now, be careful of what we say - the mass of people, even on FReeRepublic aren't ready for some concepts yet - but we can and should work toward the day when we can speak more frankly.