Free Republic

April 9, 2003 Key Section of City Is Taken in a Street-by-Street FightBy JOHN F. BURNS AGHDAD, Iraq, April 8 - The battle for the heart of Baghdad began before dawn within the sprawling gardens of Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace and tapered off by early afternoon with the Americans in control of an area running perhaps two miles along the Tigris's western embankment and a mile or more back from the river. American tanks moving out of the northern end of the presidential compound into the city's open streets fired repeatedly in the direction of the Information Ministry and...

U.S. Set for a Major Assault on Guards By MATT KELLEY .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - Some of Iraq's Republican Guard units surrounding Baghdad have been hit so hard by airstrikes they are at less than half strength, the Pentagon's top general says. ``I imagine their morale is a little low right now because they've lost a lot of their force,'' Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday. ``Their fighting capability is going down minute by minute, hour by hour. There's not going to be much left to fight with.'' In street-by-street fighting...