Posted on 04/07/2003 4:27:04 PM PDT by RJCogburn
Even as American Marines moved boldly today through Baghdad and British troops entered Basra unopposed, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld insisted on caution, saying that the war in Iraq could not yet be said to have reached a "tipping point."
Mr. Rumsfeld confirmed that a feared cousin of President Saddam Hussein known as "Chemical Ali" had been killed on Friday, and he said Mr. Hussein himself was either dead, wounded or increasingly powerless.
But the defense secretary pointedly declined to confirm reports from American military officials in Iraq that they might have found banned chemical weapons — a possible "smoking gun," as one spokesman put it.
And he remained reluctant to forecast when the war would end. "I can't say we're at a tipping point," Mr. Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing, noting that the military picture varied widely across Iraq. Referring to perhaps the toughest of remaining challenges, the fighting in the streets of Baghdad and other cities, he said, "There is dangerous and difficult work ahead."
But Mr. Rumsfeld added that if Mr. Hussein was unaccounted for — "either dead, or injured or not willing to show himself" — the Baghdad leadership was increasingly isolated, its control of the country ever more tenuous. "The circle is closing," he said.
Mr. Rumsfeld confirmed British reports that Mr. Hussein's cousin, blamed for ordering the use of poison gas against Kurds in northern Iraq in 1988, had been killed.
"We believe that the reign of Chemical Ali has come to an end," he said, referring by nickname to Ali Hassan al-Majid. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon of Britain had earlier reported "strong indications" that troops had found the body of Mr. Majid at the site of a coalition bombing on Friday.
General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, showed a video to reporters at the Pentagon briefing that he said depicted a bomb striking a compound where Mr. Majid had been.
Mr. Rumsfeld also declined to confirm reports that banned chemicals — said possibly to include the nerve agents sarin and tabun, and the blistering agent lewisite — might have been found at a training camp near Karbala.
"Almost all first reports that we get turn out to be wrong," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "We have to take our time and look at it." If the American military is confirmed to have found banned chemicals, it would be exactly the sort of discovery that the Bush administration has wanted — and confidently predicted it would make — as justification for the invasion of Iraq.
Military spokesmen said earlier that American weapons experts had discovered more than a dozen barrels at a site south of the central town of Hindiya, Reuters reported. "Our detectors have indicated something," said Maj. Ross Coffman, a public affairs officer with the Third Infantry Division, possibly pointing to weapons of mass destruction. Further tests were needed, he said, but "it could be a smoking gun."
Reporters also asked Mr. Rumsfeld about the arrival of Ahmad Chalabi, a leader of the exile Iraqi National Congress, in southern Iraq. Mr. Chalabi is leading 700 fighters, some of them supporting American-led forces and others helping coordinate humanitarian work.
Mr. Chalabi is known to have close contacts in the Pentagon; a top American general said on Sunday that his group could form "the core of the new Iraqi army once Iraq is free." But Mr. Rumsfeld sharply rejected reporters' suggestions that Mr. Chalabi was a Defense Department favorite for a future Iraqi leadership role.
"Anyone who's attributed anything to me on that subject, it's inaccurate," Mr. Rumsfeld said. Asked directly whether Mr. Chalabi's arrival in Iraq pointed to a future national leadership role, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "No, I wouldn't think so."
"The Iraqi people are going to make these decisions," he said. "The United States is not going to impose a government on Iraq."
State Department officials have expressed doubts about giving too large a role to people like Mr. Chalabi, some of them decades removed from life in Iraq, who may not find broad support among the Iraqi public.
The Iraqi National Congress said in a statement that the 700 Iraqi fighters, who are lightly armed and with a greatly mixed level of military training, would fall under the command of Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the allied commander for the war, Reuters reported.
In Iran, meanwhile, a spokesman for Mohammed Baqir Hakim, who heads another large Iraqi opposition group, said Mr. Hakim was planning to return to Iraq but hoped to avoid any confrontation with American-led forces and wait for Mr. Hussein's expected fall. Mr. Hakim's group, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, claims to have 10,000 fighters, according to The Associated Press.
The recent successes of the coalition have raised questions about how soon victory may be declared, and how it will be defined.
In London, Mr. Hoon, the British defense secretary, said today that the Baghdad government was "coming to an end" but that a "dangerous period" of resistance remained.
"In Baghdad itself, as in other urban areas, coalition forces may well face a difficult and dangerous period of flushing out Iraqi forces, particularly the various groups of irregulars, thugs and fanatics who hang on to the coattails of the regime," he said.
How could we be at the tipping point when we've got Syria, Jordan and Iran (perhaps throw in some Saudi Arabia) left to take care of.
Syria is now sending men and equipment. Iran says they are going to send "evolutionary Guards guerillas" to disrupt the whole shootin match just when we get things partially under control.
Rumsfeld is correct, we're not yet at the tipping point. We're just at the point of the tip.
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