Free Republic

Five American prisoners of war and at least eight dead GIs - three of whom had apparently been executed - were put on display for Iraqi TV cameras in sickening images broadcast around the world by an Arab news network, reports the New York Post. Iraqi forces ambushed US troops at a key Euphrates River crossing on the march toward Baghdad, killing an estimated 16 Americans and capturing at least five in two clashes that resulted in the largest number of US casualties of the four-day-old campaign to take down President Saddam Hussein's government.Iraqis took their first American prisoners, and...

The United States launched missile strikes on "selected targets of military importance" in Iraq early today, making good on its threat to use force to oust Saddam Hussein, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.US and British invasion forces ploughed through sand berms in southern Iraq and skirmished with Iraqi troops while more than two dozen tomahawk missiles slammed into Baghdad in a second wave of attacks to try to topple Saddam Hussein, says The Boston Globe.Coalition forces could enter Baghdad within the next three or four days, a spokesman for British forces in the Persian Gulf said Friday, according to the the...