Allies attack Bagdad and southern Iraq
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    Allies attack Bagdad and southern Iraq

    Thursday, March 20, 2003

    BAGHDAD — Operation Iraqi Freedom is under way.





    Allied forces fired sea-launched Tomahawk missiles into the heart of Baghdad Thursday night, and a huge plume of smoke could be seen from the west bank of the Tigris.

    Explosions were heard near Saddam Hussein's palace, Iraqi intelligence buildings and Iraq's information ministry. Senior Defense officials said the missile strikes were aimed at Republican Guard strongholds in the capital.

    Iraqi radio reported that Saddam's family home had been bombed, but there were no casualties in the attack.

    Units of the U.S. Marine 1st Expeditionary Force have crossed from Kuwait into southern Iraq to begin securing positions for a large-scale coalition invasion.

    There have been reports that senior Republican Guard members are seeking to surrender in the South, and Pentagon officials tell Fox News that there are indications Iraq's military is "breaking from within."

    "So far, so very good," one U.S. official said.

    The Kuwaiti News Agency reported that allied troops from the south had seized the Iraqi border town of Umm Qasr, the only major seaport for goods to enter Iraq. But the Iraqi News Agency denied the report.

    Umm Qasr is 30 miles to the south of Basra, which coalition forces hope will be the first major Iraqi city to fall.

    Red and white tracers streaked across the night sky in Baghdad beginning several hours after sunset -- about 9 p.m. -- and the flash of explosions could be seen on the horizon.

    Anti-aircraft fire was constant as the explosions rumbled in the distance.

    F-14 and F-18 jets took off from the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the eastern Mediterranean, armed with missiles and bombs.

    And the heaviest bombing is yet to come. U.S. officials say these air strikes are not the start of the massive "shock and awe" air assault that the Pentagon plans to unleash soon.

    To the south, meanwhile, the ground war has begun.

    The U.S. 3rd Infantry Division's artillery opened fire Thursday night on Iraqi troops in southern Iraq, using Paladin self-propelled howitzers and multiple launch rocket systems in the first stage of the major assault designed to topple Saddam and liberate Iraq.

    GIs on the ground cheered as the sky lit up when cannons fired dozens of artillery shells. In the distance, explosions could be heard inside Iraq.

    A large explosion was seen in Basra, which allied forces hope will be the first city to fall as they march toward Baghdad.

    The Pentagon confirmed that Iraqi forces had set oil wells ablaze southwest of Basra. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said there were reports that "as many as three or four" oil wells were on fire.

    And reports that Saddam Hussein was wounded in America's pre-dawn "decapitation" strike on Baghdad turned out to be false.

    Baghdad, meanwhile, was hunkered down, bracing for the awesome assault that is certain to come. Air raid sirens blared intermittently in the night, and anti-aircraft fire lit up the sky.

    The capital took its first strike before dawn Thursday, when the United States fired dozens of missiles at "targets of military opportunity."

    A few hours after the strike, Iraq responded, sending what may have been Scud missiles toward allied troops stationed in Kuwait. There were reports that at least one was intercepted by American Patriot missiles.

    Rumsfeld, in a morning press briefing at the Pentagon, said the American missiles hit a senior Iraqi leadership position in the pre-dawn attack, and a damage assessment was pending.

    The assault "was the first. It likely will not be the last .... The days of Saddam Hussein are numbered," Rumsfeld said.

    He urged the Iraqi military to abandon their leader, and he issued this stern warning:

    "If Saddam Hussein or his generals issue orders to use weapons of mass destruction, those orders should not be followed."

    The "decapitation" attack targeted Saddam personally, and the barrage of cruise missiles and bombs was a prelude to a major invasion of Iraq.

    A senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said military intelligence was picking up signs and "circumstantial evidence" that Saddam and his senior leadership were either incapacitated or out of communication with battlefield commanders.

    "We are seeing no coordinated response to our first attack," the official said. "It's little things here and there. Some individual commanders are hunking down while others are launching small attacks and setting fires."

    Military officials "believe it is significant that there is a lack of coordination and significant resistance to what we did," the official added.

    Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said one person died in the U.S. strikes and that several others were injured. He said the missiles hit a customs office and some empty Iraqi TV buildings, among other targets.

    President Bush conferred with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice early Thursday on the initial strikes, as officials tried to determine whether the attack had succeeded.

    Bush called his Cabinet to the White House for a mid-afternoon war update, a day after he told a global audience that war in Iraq "could be long and more difficult than some expected."

    Wednesday night's strike was a "target of opportunity" run not out of the Pentagon but directly between the White House and U.S. Central Command in Qatar.

    Real-time intelligence on the whereabouts of the Iraqi leadership forced American leaders to abandon their original plans for the assault.

    CIA Director George Tenet came to Bush and his War Council late Wednesday afternoon with information that Saddam and other top Iraqi officials would be meeting in a heavily fortified bunker, which also contained sleeping quarters, underneath a private home in Baghdad.

    Sources told Fox News that U.S. intelligence had been tracking five high-ranking Iraqi officials for several weeks, including Saddam and his sons, Odai and Qusai.

    U.S. special operations forces have been inside Iraq picking out key targets.

    U.S. officials said other limited strikes could be launched before a larger offensive gets underway.

    The first missiles hit targets in Baghdad shortly before dawn Thursday, less than two hours after Bush's deadline of 8 p.m. EST Wednesday for Saddam to yield power.

    "These strikes are being characterized as a 'decapitation,' targeted at command and control nodes," U.S. spokesman Marine Colonel Chris Hughes told Reuters. "If successful, it will radically change the way we do things."

    Bush, in an Oval Office address, announced to the nation that war had begun, stating that the barrage was the opening salvo in a "broad and concerted" operation to "disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."

    "I assure you this will not be a campaign of half-measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory," the president said.

    Two hours after the cruise missiles hit, a subdued-looking Saddam appeared on Iraqi television in a military uniform and vowed an Iraqi victory.

    Calling the attack on Baghdad a "shameful crime," Saddam said, "We promise you that Iraq, its leadership and its people will stand up to the evil invaders. They will face a bitter defeat, God willing."

    U.S. officials were trying to determine whether the speaker was indeed Saddam and whether the broadcast was taped after the U.S. strikes or in advance of them.

    There was nothing in the tape that specifically referred to the strike, or other events, that would confirm that it was made after the strike. Even Saddam's reading of the date could have been pre-recorded, officials said.

    U.S. government analysts said this was the first time they know of that Saddam wore glasses for a televised address, and they have not made a determination as to whether the speaker was, in fact, the Iraqi leader.

    But officials said other foreign intelligence services conducted voice print and other analyses and concluded that, in fact, it was Saddam.

    Fox News' Rita Cosby, Rick Leventhal, Major Garrett, Carl Cameron, Bret Baier and The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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    News just in, the BBC have anounced that 40,and 42 Royal Marines Commando alongside the USMC Ist Marine expeditionary Force Have captured the Town of Umm Qasr which is about 30 miles From the City of Basra.Well done Marines.


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