Operation Iraqi Freedom - Day 1 - LIVE THREAD

20 March 2003 | An.American.Expatriate

[An.American.Expatriate]

This is a thread to collect all the breaking stories regarding the Libration of Iraq

[txrangerette]

It's Patriot anti-missles we use to
shoot down incoming; otherwise you're
correct.

[Peach]

What does that mean about today stuff - operation southern watch on steroids? (no tea yet - help me out!)

[TexKat]

TV SPEECH 'WAS A TAPE'

[Green]

Have to head off to work now and will be without tv and can only get online sporatically through the day. Please ping me with any breaking news!

[colette_g]

Sky News reporting sirens in Kuwait again

[Redleg Duke]

"Yeah, we might accidently kill General Franks, for example."

Asshole spill on this thread...Moderator clean-up please!

[Peach]

oops - thanks

[Toskrin]

Looks like him to me. The human eye is a lot better than any face recognition software. Ignore the glasses, beret, untailored clothes, and lack of makeup. This is what Baghdad chicks wake up to when they've had too many drinks the night before.

The nose, facial lines, ears all look identical, but I'll give you that the picture is not good quality. The question is - was it recorded before or after the strike?

[txrangerette]

Activity as in the no-fly zone, only
hyped-up as if on steroids...

[section9]

I'm almost certain that the panzer formations will begin moving out tonight. I don't think we want to hang around the border area for three days. I think Tommy Franks wants to get moving before the Iraqis have time to come up with a series of spoiling attacks.

We're hearing a lot of "we're gonna have two to three days of air prep..." talk. I'm not buying that. I think we go tonight, air and ground.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Peach]

I'll try to do that; we're going to have storms on and off all day but if anything big breaks and I'm still on - will ping you.

[The Wizard]

Operation Southern Watch is the daily air flights we do over Iraq's southeren area.No fly zone

[Bahbah]

"Second missile fired by Iraq was their version of the SUNBURN type"

Thanks. I just caught a reference to "sunburn" and thought they were worried about our troops getting, well, sunburned.

[mewzilla]

Any more word on the drone/light plane that crashed near some troops this morning? McWethy on ABC seemed to think that since the all clear has been given, no chem/bio weapons involved.

[steveegg]

There are several versions of the Sunburn, a couple have a longer range (I've seen claims of 135 nm). All, however, have ship guidance systems as they come out of the factory (I will note that the AGM-84E SLAM, an offshoot of the Harpoon, has a land-attack guidance system).

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Reuters - 'No Conclusions' Saddam Speech Was Authentic

[trussell]

Latest news says they were not scud missiles. The are confirmed short range, surface to surface, alsamoude(sp?) missiles.

[Peach]

So we're just going to do what we've been doing all along - softening stuff up.

[Dog]

Reporter with gas masks on in Kuwait.....explosions heard there..

[Peach]

No word on Fox. I'm curious too.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

U.S.- 'No Conclusions' Saddam Speech Was Authentic
Thu March 20, 2003 07:19 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. official said on Thursday the United States was drawing "no conclusions" as to the authenticity of a defiant speech by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein following the launch of war against Iraq.

"We've reached no conclusions about who that was, or when it was taped or anything like that," the senior administration official told reporters. He declined to confirm reports Saddam was a target in opening strikes on Wednesday of the U.S.-led war to oust the Iraqi leader.