WAR

[Theresa]

WASHINGTON (March 19) - U.S. forces launched a strike against ''targets of military opportunity'' in Iraq, President Bush said Wednesday night. He described the action as the opening salvo in an operation to ''disarm Iraq and to free its people.''

Bush spoke after the U.S. military struck with cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs against a site near Baghdad, where Iraqi leaders were thought to be, U.S. government officials said. There was no indication whether the attack was successful.

The strikes used Tomahawk cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs dropped from F-117 Nighthawks, the Air Force's stealth fighter-bombers, military officials said.

Bush addressed the nation about two hours after his 8 p.m. EST ultimatum for Saddam Hussein to give up power.

''Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force,'' Bush said. ''We will accept no outcome but victory.''

He spoke as a U.S.-led force of 300,000 troops ringed Iraq, ready to launch a ferocious assault to topple the Iraqi dictator and capture any weapons of mass destruction.

''On my order, coalition forces have begun targeting selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war,'' the president said. ''These are the opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.''

As he has many times in the run-up to war, Bush declared that the United States has ''no ambition in Iraq except to remove a threat. Our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.''

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer had announced Bush's plans to speak on short notice.

Fleischer spoke as anti-aircraft fire and explosions were heard across Baghdad after air raid sirens went off at the capital at dawn.

A U.S. official declined to identify which leaders were targeted or to say whether the attack was successful.

However, a second official said the plan for targeting Iraqi leadership included using F-117 stealth bombers and a handful of cruise missiles.

Bush's speech came at the end of an anxious day of waiting at the White House.

The president scrutinized final battle plans and told Congress why he was poised to launch the largest pre-emptive attack in U.S. history.

After meeting yet again with Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Bush had just finished dinner Wednesday night and was in the living room of the White House residence with first lady Laura Bush when his chief of staff, Andrew Card, called. Card informed the president that intelligence officials had no information that Saddam had left Iraq.

Earlier, Fleischer spoke of somber realities of war.

''Americans ought to be prepared for loss of life,'' he said.

Extra security enveloped the executive mansion while aides inside whispered rumors of Iraqi defections and surrenders.

The president began his day with the usual briefing from FBI Director Robert Mueller and CIA Director George Tenet. He also met throughout the day with his war council, including Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

They reviewed the final details for war in Iraq, aides said, poring over weather forecasts and troop positions.

Bush also discussed battle plans by telephone with Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has sent 40,000 British troops to the Persian Gulf.

Bush sent Congress formal notice that he had determined ''further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone'' would not be enough to contain the ''threat posed by Iraq.'' Bush has contended that Saddam possesses chemical and biological weapons that he could use on his enemies or slip to terrorists.

Bush closed the window to diplomacy Monday when he addressed the nation, but the congressional notification was required under the terms of a resolution passed last year to authorize military action.

The resolution also required Bush to verify that ousting Saddam would not hurt the global war on terrorism. Bush complied with a seven-page report asserting that Iraq supports terrorist networks, including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.

Offering fresh justification for war, the report said one of the spoils of victory may be information about terror cells in the United States.

''United States government personnel operating in Iraq may discover information through Iraqi government documents and interviews with detained Iraqi officials that would identify individuals currently in the United States and abroad who are linked to terrorist organizations,'' the report said.

White House officials said the assertion was mostly speculative.

The United States has initiated attacks in such places as Grenada and Panama, but war in Iraq would set a new standard for pre-emptive military action.

The president also met with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who emerged from the White House to say the long national debate about whether to go to war is over.

Bloomberg made a pitch for more money to help his city prevent a terrorist attack and respond to any that occurs.

((All articles property of the AP))

[Theresa]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (March 20) - Anti-aircraft fire and explosions were heard across Baghdad after air raid sirens went off in the capital at dawn Thursday.

Moments after the explosions began, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters in Washington, ''The opening stages of the disarmament of the Iraqi regime have begun.''

No airplanes were visible in the skies over Baghdad as the air raid sirens blared. Yellow and white tracers from anti-aircraft fire were seen in the sky, and a number of strong explosions went off in the city.

One explosion raised a ball of fire toward the southern part of the capital.

With the sun just rising, a handful of cars were speeding through the streets, but no pedestrians were out.

The military action began less than two hours after the clock ran out on a deadline set by President Bush for Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq or face war. The 48-hour deadline, set Monday after attempts at a diplomatic solution failed, ended at 8 p.m. Wednesday EST and 4 a.m. Baghdad time.

The war was described as ''a vital part of the international war on terrorism'' in a formal notice sent to Congress by Bush.

After about a half hour, the fire from the ground and the explosions stopped, and the capital returned to the hush that reigned over the city throughout the night as the deadline neared. The only sound heard was that of a mosque's muezzin making the call for the faithful to come to dawn Islamic prayers.

In Washington, a senior government official said U.S. forces had launched a missile strike against a ''target of opportunity'' near Baghdad after U.S. intelligence detected the possibility Iraqi leaders were in the area.

The official declined to identify the leaders who were targeted or to say whether the attack was successful.

During the night, the streets of Baghdad had cleared, with little sign of military preparation as the deadline passed.

The previous day, hundreds of armed members of Saddam's Baath party and security forces took up positions throughout Baghdad, behind sandbags and in foxholes. But during the night, about half of them left the streets.

There was no sign during the day of regular army troops or armor in or outside Baghdad, where Saddam is widely expected to make his final stand against any invaders.

Al-Shabab - the most watched station in Iraq and owned by Saddam's son Odai - broadcast hours of patriotic songs Wednesday and extensive archive footage of Saddam greeting crowds and firing off a rifle.

At night, the station showed a 1991 American thriller, ''The Guilty,'' starring Bill Pullman. (The plot involves U.S. lawyer who rapes an employee and hires his estranged son to kill her.)

Almost every store was shut in Baghdad during the day and traffic was light as residents continued to stream out of the capital, heading for the relative safety of the countryside.

In the minutes after the 4 a.m. ultimatum expired, Iraqi TV replayed footage of a pro-Saddam march earlier in the week, with people brandishing rifles, chanting slogans and carrying pictures of the Iraqi leader.

All was quiet, too, in the Kurdish north.

At the edge of the autonomous zone, armed Kurdish militiamen manned a checkpoint on a muddy hillside under sporadic rain. The only lights were the tips of their cigarettes.

Since Bush set the deadline, Iraqi officials remained defiant in the face of about 300,000 U.S. and British troops backed by 1,000 warplanes and a fleet of warships - all ready for an attack on Iraq to rid it of weapons of mass destruction that Washington and London say Saddam is concealing.

Members of Iraq's parliament declared their loyalty to Saddam on Wednesday and renewed their confidence in his leadership.

''We are dedicated to martyrdom in defense of Iraq under your leadership,'' they said in a message to Saddam issued at the end of their session.

Speaker Saadoun Hammadi opened the meeting by saying: ''The people of Iraq, with a free and honest will, have spoken decisively and clearly in choosing their mujahid leader Saddam Hussein president of the country.''

Bahrain, a small Persian Gulf state allied with the United States, offered Saddam a haven Wednesday, the first such offer to be publicly extended to the Iraqi leader as Arabs scramble to avert war. There was no immediate comment in Baghdad on the offer.

The Baath loyalists and security forces, meanwhile, stood behind hundreds of sandbagged positions built throughout the city over the past two weeks. Some were inside foxholes. Most were armed with Kalashnikovs, but some had rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-guns. On the city's southern fringes, several anti-aircraft guns could be seen.

Even Baghdad's traffic policemen wore helmets and carried assault rifles.

The Baathists, who wore olive-green uniforms and deployed in clusters of fours and fives, are widely expected to take charge of keeping law and order in Baghdad and other main Iraqi cities in the event of war.

Saddam, Iraq's president of 23 years, also was expected to look to them and other loyal militiamen and troops to deal with any anti-government stirrings by groups tempted to capitalize on the chaos caused by war to try to seize power.

The Iraqi leadership rejected Bush's ultimatum Tuesday in a statement issued after a joint meeting of the top executive Revolution Command Council and the Baath Party - chaired by Saddam.

Asked after Wednesday's parliament's session whether Saddam would bow to U.S. demands and flee, Hammadi said: ''He will be in front of everyone. He will fight and guide our country to victory. This is absolutely unthinkable.''

Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf told a news conference Wednesday that Washington was deceiving American troops about the number of casualties they would sustain.

''We tell American soldiers and officers in Kuwait or wherever else they may be: 'Open your eyes and be alert to the lies of the American administration' ... (to say that) invading Iraq will be like a picnic is a stupid idea,'' he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Baghdad residents did last-minute shopping at the food stores that remained open, seemingly resigned that war would come within hours.

''We cry for Baghdad,'' said civil servant and part-time Baghdad historian Abdel-Jabar al-Tamimi. ''Tonight, we shall be awake waiting for the bombs to fall, but we will also remember that God is stronger than oppression. Wars come and go, but Baghdad will remain.''

Shelves in many shops in the commercial heart of Baghdad were nearly empty after store owners moved their merchandise to warehouses, fearing bombing or looting.

''I took all my goods home for fear of the bombing,'' said Tareq Khalil, who owns a store that sells eyeglass frames on Al-Rasheed Street, Baghdad's oldest surviving road.

U.N. weapons inspectors flew out of Iraq on Tuesday, ordered out by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan after the United States indicated war was near.

Foreign Minister Naji Sabri criticized Annan for withdrawing the inspectors as well as humanitarian workers and U.N. observers on the Iraq-Kuwait border, calling it a violation of U.N. resolutions that cleared ''the path for aggression.''

[Theresa]

Turkey has changed their minds and are now allowing fly-overs.

Ground battles have also started.

[Theresa]

[Theresa]

[Los]

Something else we're doing @ TRS

http://www.bullittzero.com/Vbb/showthread.php3?s=43928a62ab60d4104dc89a250ce0a955&postid=129183#post129183

There is only one anti-war person there. I'm anti war, too, but the president has spoken and our troops are engaged. Viva la Victorie!

[Theresa]

Have you guys seen the MOAB? That is the mother of all bombs.





Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB)

Primary function: 21,500-pound conventional bomb
Guidance: Specific method is unknown but it is precision guided
Launch: Dropped from the rear of a C-130 cargo plane
Other features: The bomb, also known as "the mother of all bombs," is the successor to the 15,000-pound "Daisy Cutter" bomb used in Vietnam and Afghanistan. It will be the largest conventional bomb in history. Work began on the weapon in 2002 and it was first tested in March 2003 at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

[Theresa]

This is mainly what's being used now. It can be fired from ships and subs, too. (Land also)


Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile, AGM-86C air-launched cruise missile

Type: Land attack cruise missile
Range: 1,000 miles
Guidance: Uses global positioning system to reach targets
Launch: Tomahawk launches from ships or submarine torpedo tubes. AGM-86C launches from aircraft.

[Theresa]

Doesn't look like much, but it can go 100 miles w/out water, and/or oil. Also can go over 100 miles w/ all 4 tires blown out. Fairly good on gas, too,

[Theresa]

This is an AH-64 Apache. One was hit, or something, and the pilot had to land in Iraq. He was able to fly it out.

[Theresa]

This is the helo that crashed, killing 16.
CH-46 Sea Knight

[Theresa]

UH-60 BLACK HAWK

One of these went down, and was irreprable. The crew blew it up, (scuttled it).

[Theresa]

Tornado GR1

Primary function: Attack fighter
Armament: 27 mm cannonm and up to 18,000 pounds of ordnance, including Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, ALARM anti-radar missiles and Paveway laser-guided bombs
Maximum speed: 1,452 mph (2,336 km/h) at 36,000 feet (11,000 meters); 710 mph (1,140km/h) at sea level
Crew: Pilot and navigator
Other models: Tornado GR1A model is used for reconnaissance

(for you Brits, )

[Theresa]

SOUTHERN IRAQ (March 21) - Hordes of Iraqi soldiers, underfed and overwhelmed, surrendered Friday in the face of a state-of-the-art allied assault. An entire division gave itself up to the advancing allied forces, U.S. military officials said.

The division - the 51st Infantry Division, with 8,000 men and as many as 200 tanks, a key unit in the defense of the southern city of Basra - was the largest defection in a day when Saddam Hussein's forces showed signs of crumbling.

The surrendering soldiers were not the fabled and well-fed Republican Guardsmen who anchor Saddam's defense - for the most part, these were a rag-tag army, many of them draftees, often in T-shirts. Their small arms could accomplish little against opposing forces wielding 21st century weaponry.

``A lot of them looked hungry. They haven't been fed in a while,'' said one U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He spoke after U.S. Marines and their allies took control of the strategic port city of Umm Qasr and with it, Iraq's access to the Persian Gulf. The out-classed Iraqis fought with small arms, pistols, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Authorities said the nation's southern oil fields would be secured by day's end.

At the same time, the Army's 3rd Infantry Division surged 100 miles into Iraq. The Army's 101st Airborne Division joined the fight. Much more was to come - an extraordinary land-based armada of allied weaponry and troops was caught in an enormous traffic jam in Kuwait, ready to strike when it could cross the border.

There were pockets of resistance, some of it stiff; a second combat death was reported Friday, a member of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force who was wounded while battling a platoon of Iraqi infantry.

But often, the opponent advanced with a white flag in hand, instead of a rifle.

Within a few hours of crossing into southern Iraq, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit encountered 200 or more Iraqi troops seeking to surrender. One group of 40 Iraqis marched down a two-lane road toward the Americans and gave up.

Another group of Iraq soldiers alongside a road waved a white flag and their raised hands, trying to flag down a group of journalists so they could surrender.

Forty to 50 Iraqi soldiers surrendered to a Marine traffic control unit. They came down the road in the open back of a troop vehicle, their hands in the air for about a mile before they reached the Marines.

Their decision to give up the fight was not unexpected, or unprompted; for months, Iraq has been bombarded with messages from the Americans, urging its soldiers to refuse to fight.

At a Pentagon news conference Friday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld called upon Iraq's military to ``do the honorable thing, stop fighting that you may live to enjoy a free Iraq, where you and your children can grow and prosper.''

How many Iraqis aside from the 51st Division had surrendered? No one knew for sure. Rumsfeld said he knew of a few hundred, and others who just quit fighting. ``A lot of people just leave and melt into the countryside,'' he said.

Rumsfeld said the allied forces were advancing, and now controlled ``a growing portion of the country of Iraq.'' The captured territory included two airfields in western Iraq.

Lt. Cmdr. Mark Johnson, a pilot returning to the USS Kitty Hawk from a mission over southern Iraq, said it appeared that Iraqi forces were withdrawing in front of advancing U.S. forces. He could see columns of Marines moving but ``there was nobody coming south to meet them.''

Time and again, he said, he was told to ignore targets like missile launch sites because U.S. troops had passed without any opposition.

The ground campaign appeared to be moving faster than planned. Units reached locations in Iraq 24 hours ahead of their expected arrival time, according to several reporters attached to those units.

The Army's 3rd Infantry Division was following a path through the desert west of the Euphrates River, avoiding populated areas. It appeared that strategists sought to minimize civilian and military casualties by flanking most Iraqi units, and going straight for the Republican Guard around Baghdad.

The bulk of the allied force hadn't even entered Iraq yet.

There was a huge traffic jam at the border - thousands of vehicles parked in parallel rows, nothing but columns of trucks, humvees, oil tankers, flatbed tucks, armored vehicles and vehicles of every stripe, from horizon to horizon. The traffic was so bad that it took 6 1/2 hours for one unit to go 51 miles, in swirling dust.

Crossing the border Friday morning, the 3rd Battalion of the 7th Marine Infantry faced little resistance. Tanks attached to the battalion attacked five Iraqi tanks just north of the border, destroying them easily.

The battalion passed the brown, stone rubble of several buildings it had shelled just minutes before - the air still held the acrid smell of explosives - and at least five enormous pictures of a smiling Saddam Hussein, some with him wearing a robe, others with him in a headscarf, that stood intact at the border post.

They reached the town of Safwan, where speakers warned Iraqis to stay out of the Marines' way. A few ventured outside: A man on the side of the road bearing a white flag. Another in a long, gray robe, prostrate on the ground, apparently in prayer.

``I never thought I'd see this place,'' said Cpl. Matt Nale, 31, of Seattle. He stuck his head out of the top of an Amtrack armored personnel carrier, looked around, smiled and repeatedly nodded with wonder.

The Marines later took control of positions mostly abandoned by Iraq's 32nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade, blowing up a few abandoned tanks and armored personnel carriers and engaging in short firefights with a few Iraqi soldiers who had stayed back to defend their headquarters and barracks or were unable to flee in time.

[Theresa]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (March 21) - A huge explosion shook the center of Iraq's capital before dawn Saturday, hours after the most ferocious attack of the war left Saddam Hussein's Old Palace in flames and Baghdad shrouded in smoke.

Aircraft could be heard overhead, but it was unclear what had been targeted. Following the single blast, sirens presumably from ambulances or police cars could be heard racing through the city.

The blast at first light shattered the eerie silence that had fallen over Baghdad after the rain of missiles Friday evening.

The barrage, which began just after 9 p.m., filled the sky with towering fireballs as the Tomahawk missiles hit and air raid sirens squealed. At one point, a half-dozen adjoining plumes of smoke twisted into the sky.

Allied ships in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea fired 320 Tomahawks in the largest strike since the war began. Two Iraqi palaces were among the buildings destroyed by the third missile attack on the city in two days.

The attack was apparently coordinated to simultaneously strike against Baghdad and two other cities, Mosul and Kirkuk in the north. The Iraqi defense minister, speaking as the missiles fell, said the coalition was also targeting the southern cities of Basra and Nassiriyah.

The air barrage came with U.S. ground troops already a third of the way to Baghdad, and with Saddam and his regime fighting to demonstrate their control of the country despite reports of surrendering Iraqi troops and the loss of strategic sites.

The spectacular blasts lit up the horizon, illuminating Baghdad even as they devastated parts of the city of 5 million people. In response, the Iraqis opened up with anti-aircraft bursts that winked in the darkness. At one point, the sound of a missile roared through a street before exploding into a fireball.

Three major fires raged inside Saddam's Old Palace compound, which stretches for 1.7 miles on the west bank of the Tigris River. The compound is the official center of the Iraqi state, and home to the offices of the prime minister's staff, the Cabinet and a Republican Guard camp.

Its turqoised-domed main building appeared untouched. But a building next to the palace was on fire, and black smoke billowed from a 10-story building in another part of the compound.

Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said two palaces were attacked: the Peace Palace, used for foreign dignitaries, and the Azzouhour Palace, a museum once used by the royal family, which was overthrown in 1958. Pointing to the damaged Peace Palace, al-Sahhaf lashed out at U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

''This criminal dog calls it a military site,'' the minister said.

Despite the apparent setbacks, Saddam's regime was taking a hard line - denying military setbacks and verbally attacking its enemies in a show of public resolve.

Asked Friday night about an Iraqi counterattack, al-Sahhaf replied, ''Our leadership and our armed forces will decide this, in what guarantees the defeat of those mercenaries, God willing.'' Speaking of Rumsfeld and President Bush, he declared, ''Those only deserve to be hit with shoes.''

During the day, Iraqi television showed footage of Saddam meeting with his son Qusai, the commander of the Republican Guard, and the defense minister, Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmad, presenting a united front. The television said the meeting took place Friday.

The leadership's bravado stands in contrast with U.S. claims that Saddam's control was in danger of crumbling.

In Baghdad itself, bravado was scarce. Radio Baghdad was knocked off the air, and the streets were deserted after the missile attacks. By Saturday, the radio resumed broadcasts playing patriotic music.

It was a contrast with the patina of normalcy in Baghdad during the day Friday.

Before the air raid sirens started again, the Iraqi Air Force stood before a flag-waving crowd - on a local soccer field. The Air Force played in one of two Baghdad soccer games, winning 1-0 against a team from the city of Najaf.

Highlights were shown on local television; it was likely the most action for the Air Force since the war began two days ago.

Many shops and cafes remained open Friday afternoon, secure in the safety of sunlight. Only the presence of armed Baath Party activists and jeeps mounted with heavy machine guns cruising the streets served notice of the ongoing war.

In Washington, a senior U.S. official - speaking on condition of anonymity - said Friday's bombardment might not be as intense as originally planned because surrender talks were continuing with senior Iraqi officials. The official said if the negotiations faltered in the coming hours, the bombing would go full-throttle.

Earlier, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, scores of bombs were readied to fire and stored in racks in the ship's cavernous hanger bay. Ordnance crews worked steadily through the day attaching global positioning system and laser guidance kits to 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound bombs and moving the ordnance from the ship's 22 weapons magazine to holding bays.

Dozens of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornet strike planes loaded with bombs roared off the Kitty Hawk's deck before nightfall Friday.

Al-Sahhaf acknowledged Friday that one of Saddam's homes was hit in an earlier U.S. bombardment, but said no one was hurt. The Iraqi News Agency said 37 people were injured in Thursday night's Baghdad raid.

Al-Sahhaf also denied any U.S.-led advance into Iraq and argued that TV images of Iraqis surrendering were fabricated. ''Those are not Iraqi soldiers at all,'' he insisted.

And he suggested that any captured U.S. and British soldiers may not be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. Al-Sahhaf said Iraq was considering how to treat them.

''Those are mercenaries,'' he said. ''Most probably they will be treated as mercenaries, hirelings and as war criminals. ... For sure, international law does not apply to those.''

Later, however, a statement issued in Saddam's name on the official Iraqi News Agency said Iraq will follow the Geneva Conventions with respect to any captured soldiers despite the ''grotesque crimes'' committed by the Americans.



both articles courtesy of the AP

[Theresa]

SOUTHERN IRAQ (March 22) - U.S. and British forces streamed in a long line of tanks and armored vehicles toward Basra, Iraq's second largest city, on Saturday, a day after they collected underfed and overwhelmed Iraqi soldiers who surrendered in droves.

An entire Iraqi division, the 51st Infantry, gave up to U.S. troops Friday, military officials said. A key unit for Basra's defense with 8,000 men and up to 200 tanks, it was the largest defection in a day when Saddam Hussein's forces showed signs of crumbling.

Saturday morning, American Marines and British troops rumbled within nine miles from Basra on the main road from the Kuwaiti border, Highway 80 - nicknamed the ``Highway of Death'' during the 1991 Gulf War when U.S. airstrikes wiped out an Iraqi military convoy along it.

They rolled past abandoned concrete Iraqi military barracks, white flags fluttering from their roofs, burnt military vehicles beside them. Bedraggled Iraqi civilians watched blankly, some children motioning with their hands to their mouths.

In the wake of the British and Americans, were surrendered soldiers. Up to 50 Iraqi captives were left packed into improvised pens of concertina wire, watched over by Marines. Partly disassembled rifles taken from the surrendering soldiers were piled beside the road.

At the Kuwait border, the rest of the allied force was caught in a massive traffic jam - like a great train yard in a desert muddied by overnight rains. Hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers, Humvees and trucks waited in columns up to 70 vehicles long to pass into Iraq.

Basra appeared to be the next main objective after U.S. Marines and their allies seized the strategic port city of Umm Qasr and with it, Iraq's access to the Persian Gulf, as well as the key oil facilities on the al-Faw peninsula and many of southern Iraq's oil fields.

At the same time, the Army's 3rd Infantry Division surged 100 miles into Iraq, moving in the desert parallel to the Euphrates River. It avoided the populated river valley and flanked Iraqi units, going straight for the Republican Guard around Baghdad. The Army's 101st Airborne Division also joined the fight.

With the convoy along Highway 80, orange flames could be seen shooting from two major oil pipelines that were on fire. Cobra attack helicopters flew overhead, making their way through the heavy clouds of smoke. Some distance away, a third pipeline was on fire.

There were pockets of resistance, some of it stiff, with Iraqis fighting with small arms, pistols, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. A second combat death was reported Friday, a member of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force who was wounded while battling a platoon of Iraqi infantry.

Australian commandos, who have been operating deep in Iraq, destroyed a command and control post and killed a number of soldiers, according to the country's defense chief, Gen. Peter Cosgrove.

But often, the opponent advanced with a white flag in hand, instead of a rifle.

The surrendering soldiers were not the fabled and well-fed Republican Guardsmen who anchor Saddam's defense. For the most part, these were a rag-tag army, many of them draftees, often in T-shirts. Their small arms could accomplish little against opposing forces wielding 21st century weaponry.

``A lot of them looked hungry. They haven't been fed in a while,'' said one U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Within a few hours of crossing into southern Iraq, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit encountered 200 or more Iraqi troops seeking to surrender. One group of 40 Iraqis marched down a two-lane road toward the Americans and gave up.

Another group of Iraq soldiers alongside a road waved a white flag and their raised hands, trying to flag down a group of journalists so they could surrender.

Forty to 50 Iraqi soldiers surrendered to a Marine traffic control unit. They came down the road in the open back of a troop vehicle, their hands in the air for about a mile before they reached the Marines.

At a Pentagon news conference, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld called on Iraq's military to ``do the honorable thing, stop fighting that you may live to enjoy a free Iraq, where you and your children can grow and prosper.''

Rumsfeld said the allied forces were advancing, and now controlled ``a growing portion of the country of Iraq.'' The captured territory included two airfields in western Iraq.

Lt. Cmdr. Mark Johnson, a pilot returning to the USS Kitty Hawk from a mission over southern Iraq, said it appeared that Iraqi forces were withdrawing in front of advancing U.S. forces. He could see columns of Marines moving but ``there was nobody coming south to meet them.''

Time and again, he said, he was told to ignore targets like missile launch sites because U.S. troops had passed without any opposition.

``As it turned out, there was nobody to drop bombs on tonight,'' Johnson said. ``It was simply because we had already taken that land,'' he said. ``There was no need to bomb any more.''

The ground campaign appeared to be moving faster than planned. Units reached locations in Iraq 24 hours ahead of their expected arrival time, according to several reporters attached to those units.

The bulk of the allied force hadn't even entered Iraq yet. The traffic at the border was so bad it took 6 1/2 hours for one unit to go 51 miles Friday, in swirling dust.

Crossing the border Friday morning, the 3rd Battalion of the 7th Marine Infantry faced little resistance. Tanks attached to the battalion attacked five Iraqi tanks just north of the border, destroying them easily.

The battalion passed the brown, stone rubble of several buildings it had shelled just minutes before - the air still held the acrid smell of explosives - and at least five enormous pictures of a smiling Saddam Hussein, some with him wearing a robe, others with him in a headscarf, that stood intact at the border post.

They reached the town of Safwan, where speakers warned Iraqis to stay out of the Marines' way. A few ventured outside: A man on the side of the road bearing a white flag. Another in a long, gray robe, prostrate on the ground, apparently in prayer.

``I never thought I'd see this place,'' said Cpl. Matt Nale, 31, of Seattle.






8000 Iraqi's surrendered!

That is so great............... less fighting all around. They said they were malnourished, including the civilians in the area. The poor kids were asking for food. That must be so heartbreaking.

[PrankishSmart]

[Theresa]

^According to Iraq, the Coalition "kidnapped" civilians, and put them in uniform, and made them pretend to be soldiers surrendering. ummmmmmm................. ROFLMAO

So how do they want to explain all of the munitions taken? Or the 200 tanks that were destroyed?

[Theresa]

Just saw a great pic on the news. Some Marines are tearing down one of those huge pics of SH, and an Iraqi civilian has a hammer is and beating the crap out of the head,

[Theresa]

WASHINGTON (March 22) - After weeks of waiting off Turkey's coast, dozens of U.S. ships carrying weaponry for the Army's 4th Infantry Division have been redirected to the Persian Gulf, two U.S. defense officials said Saturday.

The decision ends U.S. hopes of using Turkish bases to move heavy armored forces into northern Iraq, where Bush administration officials fear conflict between Turkish forces and Iraqi Kurds.

About 40 ships carrying the division's weaponry and equipment were to begin moving through the Suez Canal on Sunday, one of the officials said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.

The 4th Infantry's soldiers, who remained at Fort Hood, Texas, after their weaponry and equipment went to the Mediterranean last month, are likely to go to Kuwait, the officials said.

It also was possible that they could enter Iraq directly through the Gulf port of Umm Qasr, now under the control of British and U.S. Marines after clashes Friday with Iraqi forces.

At Fort Hood, officials said lead elements of the division are expected to begin moving early next week. Officers greeted the decision with relief.

``At last, a decision's been made - the speculation's over, the waiting is over, the wondering is over,'' said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a public affairs officer. ``Now it's time to go do our jobs.''

Aberle said it was too early to say where the troops will go and what their role will be.

The original plan had the entire division of about 17,500 soldiers heading to Turkey, along with some Army troops based in Germany. It was not immediately clear if the full division would go to Kuwait.

The redirected cargo ships are to begin arriving off the coast of Kuwait about March 30, one official said. All the ships would arrive by about April 10.

From Kuwait they could move into Iraq to serve as reinforcements if the ground war lasts more than several weeks, or as occupation forces after the Iraqi government's collapse.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, it appeared Saturday that one of Saddam Hussein's chief enforcers, Ali Hassan al-Majid al-Tikriti, was in command of the Iraqi military and security forces in a large portion of southeastern Iraq. Ali Hassan is known to his enemies as ``Chemical Ali'' for leading a campaign against rebellious Kurds in the 1980s that used chemical weapons to kill thousands.

The administration has said it wants to try Ali Hassan for war crimes or crimes against humanity.

The Army already had hundreds of troops into southern Turkey to facilitate the possible use of bases there as a staging area for the 4th Infantry, but Turkey's parliament refused to grant access.

Turkey also has been off-limits so far for U.S. aircraft flying missions into Iraq from aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean, officials said Saturday.

As an alternative for securing northern Iraq with the tanks and other heavy armor of the 4th Infantry, U.S. special operations forces are now in the area and other conventional forces may join them, officials have said.

Northern Iraq is a particularly sensitive area because of the autonomous Kurdish region and the potential for Kurdish conflict with Turkish forces.

There were reports Friday that Turkish soldiers in armored personnel carriers had rolled into northern Iraq near where the borders of Turkey, Iraq and Iran converge. But the Turkish military on Saturday denied it. The reports had said 1,000 Turkish commandos had crossed the border.

The United States has no evidence of Turkish movements or new any new incursions in northern Iraq, a senior Bush administration official said.

On several fronts Saturday, U.S. troops kept up their push into Iraq, bolstered by the surrender of thousands of Iraqi forces, including an entire army division. Neighboring Iran protested over strikes on Iranian territory by at least three U.S. missiles.

The State Department assured Iran, in a message sent through Swiss intermediaries, that the United States was investigating. Spokesman Philip Reeker offered public assurances that the United States respects Iran's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

As the Army's 3rd Infantry Division surged more than 100 miles across the desert toward the capital of Baghdad, U.S. and British Marines closed in on Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.

The battle for Basra, a strategic oil hub of 1.3 million people that is about three dozen miles from Iraq's southern border with Kuwait, got a boost Friday when the main Iraqi army division guarding the city surrendered from its top leaders down.

Iraq's 51st Infantry Division (Mechanized), comprising some 8,000 soldiers and about 200 tanks, was regarded as one of the better units in Saddam Hussein's regular military, though it was not part of the more elite Republican Guard.

An Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad who declined to give his name said Pentagon claims the 51st Division had surrendered were untrue.

Far to the north, the United States used five missiles to attack positions of Ansar al-Islam, a radical group linked to al-Qaida, which controls a small enclave within semiautonomous Kurdish regions.


[/b]

[Theresa]

KUWAIT CITY (March 23) - Grenades exploded at a 101st Airborne command center in Kuwait early Sunday, killing one and wounding 13 servicemen, and a U.S. soldier was detained as a suspect in the attack, the Army said.

Three others who sustained serious injuries were undergoing surgery, the military said.

The attacker threw three grenades into three tents, including the command tent, military officials said. The motive in the attack ''most likely was resentment,'' said Max Blumenfeld, a U.S. Army spokesman. He did not elaborate.

The name of the soldier who died was not released because family members had not been notified, said George Heath, civilian spokesman for Fort Campbell, Ky., the storied 101st Airborne Division's home base.

''Incidents of this nature are abnormalities throughout the Army, specifically in the 101st,'' Heath said. ''Death is a tragic incident regardless of how it comes, but when it comes from a fellow comrade, it does even more to hurt morale. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the soldier. We pray that incidents of this nature do not happen again in any military organization.''

The suspect, found hiding in a bunker, is an engineer from an engineering platoon in the 101st Airborne, said Col. Frederick B. Hodges, commander of the division's 1st Brigade.

The attack in the command center of the 101st Division's 1st Brigade at Camp Pennsylvania happened at 1:30 a.m. (5:30 p.m. EST Saturday) and apparently involved only grenades, Blumenfeld said.

One of the grenades went off in the command tent, he said. The tent, the tactical operations center, runs 24 hours a day and would always be staffed by officers and senior enlisted personnel, Blumenfeld said.

Ten of those wounded had superficial wounds, including puncture wounds to their arms and legs from fragments of the grenade, Heath said.

Helicopters evacuated 11 to Army hospitals, Blumenfeld said.

Names of the wounded were not released, and Blumenfeld did not say if any high-ranking officers were hurt.

Hodges said he was asleep when a sergeant woke him up.

''I immediately smelled smoke,'' the commander told Britain's Sky News television. ''I heard a couple of explosions and then a popping sound which I think was probably a rifle being fired. It looks like some assailant threw a grenade into each of these three tents here.''

The suspect, whose name was not released, has not been charged, Blumenfeld said, adding that investigators did not know if others were involved.

Two Middle Eastern men who had been hired as contractors were detained and later released, Heath said.

Earlier, Heath said the attack appeared to have been carried out by terrorists. Military officials had said the attacker used two grenades and small-arms fire.

Camp Pennsylvania is a rear base camp of the 101st, near the Iraqi border. Kuwait is the main launching point for the tens of thousands of ground forces - including parts of the 101st - who have entered Iraq.

Near Camp New York, another encampment in Kuwait, a Patriot missile hit an incoming missile, a military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. There were no reports of injuries or where debris from the missile might have landed. Camp New York, which is near Camp Pennsylvania, was the largest of the desert staging camps.

Jim Lacey, a correspondent for Time magazine, told CNN that he was about 20 yards away when explosions at Camp Pennsylvania went off at what he said were two tents that housed division leadership.

''The people who did it ran off into the darkness,'' he said.

He said he interviewed an Army major who was sitting outside the tent. ''He said he saw the grenade roll by him,'' Lacey said.

After the attack, troops fanned out around the compound to find the perpetrators, Lacey said.

''When this all happened we tried to get accountability for everybody,'' Hodges told Sky News. ''We noticed four hand grenades were missing and that this sergeant was unaccounted for. We started looking for him and found him hiding here in one of these bunkers. He is detained and he is being interrogated right now.''

The 101st Airborne is a rapid deployment group trained to go anywhere in the world within 36 hours. The roughly 22,000 members of the 101st were deployed Feb. 6. The last time the entire division was deployed was during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which began after Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait.

Most recently, it hunted suspected Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan. Its exploits are followed in Kentucky with much pride.

News of the attack at the camp compounded the anxiety of relatives of the division's soldiers.

''I get a little worried but when I think I should be crying, I'm not,'' said Chelsey Payne of Clarksville, Tenn., whose husband, Sgt. Robert Payne, is with the division. ''I just don't get scared about my own husband, I just know that he's a good soldier and he's coming home. He promised me.''

Kuwait is the main launching point for the tens of thousands of ground forces who have entered Iraq. Before the war with Iraq broke out, Americans had come under attack four times in the oil-rich emirate since October. Three of the attacks were blamed on Muslim extremists

[Theresa]

LONDON (March 23) - U.S. and British forces fighting in Iraq suffered their first ''friendly fire'' casualties on Sunday when the allies said a U.S. missile likely downed a British plane.

It was Britain's third air tragedy of the conflict and underscored the perils of waging round-the-clock strikes on Iraq, which has been pounded by bombs and missiles since the war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein began on Thursday.

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon voiced regret at the accident -- a string of similar mishaps stirred controversy in the 1991 Gulf War -- and said an urgent review was underway.

''There is no single technological solution to this problem. It is about having a whole set of procedures in place. Sadly on this occasion they have not worked,'' Hoon told BBC television.

The Defense Ministry would not say what type of plane was lost, how many crew were on board or the nature of their mission.

A U.S. defense official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters at the Pentagon: ''Apparently a Patriot shot down a British Tornado.''

A Tornado is a ground attack aircraft with a crew of two.

A British defense source told Reuters the number of missing was in single figures. The Defense Ministry could not confirm a report that two Western pilots had landed by parachute in Baghdad and that a frantic search was underway to find them.

Officials said the plane, returning from a mission in Iraq, was probably intercepted and shot down close to the Kuwait border by a U.S. Patriot missile.

Patriots are designed to intercept enemy missiles and the mistaken firing at a British plane is a blow for allied morale as it faces resistance from Iraqi forces on the ground.

Officials were keen to stress the losses thus far were slight in comparison to the number of missions flown, with 45,000 British troops committed to the U.S.-led assault.

But it was the third air accident in as many days, with 14 British troops already killed in two helicopter crashes.

A U.S. Sea Knight helicopter crashed in Kuwait on Friday, killing eight British soldiers and four U.S. Marines.

On Saturday, two Royal Navy helicopters from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal -- Britain's flagship in the war -- collided in mid-air, killing six Britons and one American.

''We have sadly witnessed the sacrifices our forces are ready to make for our safety and security,'' Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in the People newspaper before the third air loss. ''And we have to be ready for more sadness and setbacks ahead.''

OLD PROBLEM, NEW WAR

In the 1991 Gulf War to drive invading Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, nine British troops were killed accidentally by allies so-called ''friendly fire.''

Journalists were also under fire in the present conflict, with three television journalists disappearing after their car came under attack near Iraq's second city of Basra.

The ITN television network said it was increasingly concerned for the safety of its veteran reporter Terry Lloyd, 51, editor Fred Nerac and local translator Hussein Othman.

One crew member who escaped said the firing was coming from the direction of British forces' positions; the Defense Ministry said the crew could have been caught in crossfire.

''Friendly fire'' will figure high at a war cabinet due to be held later on Sunday, when Blair will discuss the war's progress with his top ministers.

Blair's decision to go to war without U.N. blessing has divided Britain and confronted him with by far the most serious and sustained opposition of his six-year premiership.

But with war now underway, the public is finally rallying behind President Bush and his top ally Blair, who has staked his political career on the Iraq crisis.

Two newspaper polls on Sunday showed the public appeared to have softened its previous strong opposition to the Iraq war.

An ICM poll for the News of the World showed 56 percent believed Blair's handling of the crisis had been ''about right.''

The paper said support two weeks ago was just 29 percent.

In the Sunday Times, a YouGov poll showed 56 percent now thought the United States and Britain were right to take military action, with 36 percent opposed. In the previous YouGov poll before war, the figures were almost exactly the reverse.

Nearly a quarter-of-a-million demonstrators marched for peace in the streets of London on Saturday, but the numbers were well down on a million-strong protest staged before war began.

[Theresa]

WASHINGTON (March 23) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday some American soldiers are missing in the fighting in Iraq and that there is a report of a missing allied aircraft.

Rumsfeld said he could not provide any information about a missing aircraft. In Baghdad, security officers searched the banks of the Tigris River, apparently looking for one of more pilots who may have bailed out of a downed plane.

Asked what he could say about missing pilots, Rumsfeld replied, ''Nothing.'' He suggested that the search in Baghdad was staged.

''There has been a report of an aircraft missing,'' the secretary acknowledged on NBC's ''Meet the Press. ''I don't want to speculate because I simply don't know.''

Rumsfeld said there are some American troops who are missing in Iraq. He noted that under the Geneva Convention governing prisoners of war, ''It's illegal to do things to POWs that are humiliating to those prisoners.''

''There are, we believe, there are some American soldiers missing.'' He said there also could be captured journalists.

Rumsfeld characterized the progress of the five-day-old war as excellent, noting that ''there are periodic instances when the resistance is quite stiff. ... The fact that there is a firefight, someone ought not to be surprised.''

He said the fate of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein remained uncertain. The United States launched air strikes against Baghdad earlier than planned based on intelligence reports that gave U.S. planners hope that they could kill Saddam with an unexpected strike.

''There are reports in Baghdad and in Iraq that he may be dead or that he may be injured,'' Rumsfeld said. ''We'll just have to assume that he is alive and well.''

Rumsfeld said if it turns out that Saddam is dead, the United States would not conceal the fact. ''My personal view, I would say that the truth is the truth. If he's dead, he's dead.''

[Theresa]

I HAVE POSTED THIS SEVERAL TIMES, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO BE MORE CLEAR. THIS TOPIC IS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES, NOT FOR DISCUSSION. ALL "OPINION" POSTS ARE BEING DELETED FROM THIS THREAD.

[Theresa]

TIME's Jim Lacey has been traveling with the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. Over two weeks ago, they had set up camp in northern Kuwait just 20 miles south of the Iraqi border. Then the drama began:

It was 1:45 Sunday morning when I was awakened by the first blast—a boom 10 times louder than a car backfiring. Ten seconds later there was a second blast, and then soldiers started screaming, "Get out! Get out!" Someone had slipped two hand grenades into the tent housing more than a dozen of the brigade's officers. One woman in my tent, which was 10 yards away from the explosion, yelled, "I'm hit." A piece of shrapnel from the grenade had lodged in her leg.

I ran out of my tent into total chaos. The Scud alarms were sounding, and people were running for the bunkers we use during those alerts. Most soldiers were in uniform, but some were wearing the workout clothes they sometimes sleep in. Realizing the explosions were not Scuds, I walked over to the tent where the grenades had gone off and saw two very badly wounded soldiers—one bleeding from his leg, back and stomach. The medics had not yet arrived, so soldiers were bandaging wounds themselves. I noticed the chaplain trying to comfort the dozen or so who had been wounded. Sergeants were shouting orders to form a security perimeter. Some of the younger soldiers were looking on in a state of shock and had to be hand-led to their positions. Fifteen minutes later an ambulance drove up to take away the badly wounded soldiers. One died soon after.

Because a number of officers had been hit, no one knew at first who was in charge. Then two officers who were bleeding from wounds started giving orders.

Thinking there was a terrorist on the loose, a group of soldiers began assembling to conduct a manhunt. Other officers were inspecting the tents and bunkers to make sure everyone was accounted for.

One of those officers spotted a soldier, lying alone in a bunker near the explosions, who appeared to be wounded. The soldier, who has a Muslim name, had, according to military sources, recently been acting insubordinate; his superiors had decided not to bring him into Iraq.

Camp sources say he initially admitted responsibility. The officer drew his weapon and called for backup. Then they handcuffed the soldier, read him his rights and waited for criminal investigators to arrive.

TIME magazine