Posted on 03/24/2003 12:40:03 AM PST by JohnHuang2
ASHINGTON, March 23 — Senior American commanders have avoided bombing as many as three dozen high-priority Iraqi targets for fear of civilian casualties, making it harder to achieve some of the air campaign's important goals, military officials said today.
These targets, mostly in Baghdad, include the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, television and communications facilities that allow the Iraqi regime to stay on the airwaves, and the Rashid Hotel, which American intelligence analysts say has a secret underground communications bunker, the officials said.
Even as allied warplanes pounded military sites in Baghdad today, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld condemned Iraq's use of "human shields" at various targets. He said the tactic had prevented the American-led air war from cutting off the ability of President Saddam Hussein's regime to broadcast over state-run television and radio.
"It would be highly desirable to have completely, totally ended any ability on their ability to communicate," Mr. Rumsfeld said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They have put their communications systems in downtown Baghdad, and commingled civil action, civil activities with military activities. And they have done it in very close proximity to large numbers of innocent men, women and children."
Mr. Rumsfeld said, though, that the four-day air campaign was going "exceedingly well," and some military planners said that putting some "high-collateral damage" targets off limits, at least for now, was not seriously hampering the overall military campaign.
But other officials acknowledged that allowing the Iraqi leadership to continue to broadcast its own briefings from obvious targets like the Defense Ministry, or to show pictures of dead or captured American forces, ran counter to the larger goal of isolating the regime and its military high command.
The risk to civilians is not the only issue commanders are worrying about. Senior officials also voiced concern about destroying the same broadcast system that American-led forces would use soon after they seize Baghdad to communicate quickly with the Iraqi people.
Senior Pentagon officials have said for weeks that Iraq was putting civilians in military buildings and putting military equipment, including artillery and fighter jets, at or near schools, mosques and hospitals, to protect their command posts and arms from attack.
Mr. Rumsfeld and his top military advisers have sought to portray the allied air campaign as a model of both precision and sensitivity to civilian casualties, especially in urban settings like Baghdad. There are practical and political reasons for this careful action.
In the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the American bombing of a Baghdad bunker used by both Iraqi intelligence officers and hundreds of Iraqi civilians angered Arabs in neighboring countries and caused the Pentagon to suspend bombing in Baghdad for most of the rest of the war.
"We do everything in our power to keep our targeting as precision-based as it can be, always knowing that there are — there is room for problems that could take place," said Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, a deputy chief of the United States Central Command.
Every target on Pentagon's strike list undergoes a rigorous review. Using a sophisticated new computer program, military planners estimate the blast area of a particular weapon, and then tailor the attack accordingly, matching the size of the bomb, its detonation fuse, its angle of attack and the time of day for the strike to minimize the risk to civilians. Nonetheless, even precision-guided weapons miss their mark 7 to 10 percent of the time, planners say.
Two senior officers familiar with the process of choosing targets said that planners are working to devise ways to attack the restricted targets in Baghdad without unduly risking civilians. "It's a call that General Franks will make, and he'll make it at a time of his choosing," Mr. Rumsfeld said, referring to the allied commander, Gen. Tommy R. Franks.
"Ultimately, if it's a high enough value target, you accept a higher risk of casualties," said one senior Defense Department official.
As the air and ground campaigns advanced, Pentagon officials said no chemical or biological weapons had been found yet, but commanders were following up tantalizing leads.
Military officials said that two captured Iraqi generals were providing information about a suspected chemical weapons facility in Najaf, where American forces today secured a suspected chemical factory.
General Abizaid said there were reports of Iraqi forces near Al Kut armed with chemical weapons. Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a raid on an Iraqi installation in western Iraq turned up a trove of documents that could detail portions of Iraq's suspected chemical weapons program.
General Abizaid predicted that coalition forces would find weapons of mass destruction "once we have had an opportunity to occupy Baghdad, stabilize Iraq, and talk to Iraqis that have participated in the hiding and in the development of it."
Mr. Rumsfeld said on CBS's "Face the Nation, " that American intelligence reports indicated that Iraqi forces "have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them, and that they are weaponized, and that, in one case at least, that the command and control arrangements have been established."
Mr. Rumsfeld also said that secret surrender talks continued with Iraqi commanders and civilians officials, like intelligence officers. "We have people on the ground in the country in a variety of locations," he said. "They are talking to senior military leaders. And in a number of instances those leaders have communicated how they thought it would be appropriate for them to surrender, and they have done so."
While none of the Republican Guard units had surrendered, Mr. Rumsfeld said that could change as American forces approach the Iraqi capital. "The closer we get to Baghdad," Mr. Rumsfeld said, "the greater the pressure, the more likely that they'll tip."
Iraqi civilians are, most probably, being placed in these target areas against their will or via deception as a safe place to stay during bombing raids.
But other officials acknowledged that allowing the Iraqi leadership to continue to broadcast its own briefings from obvious targets like the Defense Ministry, or to show pictures of dead or captured American forces, ran counter to the larger goal of isolating the regime and its military high command.
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