Two Iraqi Republican Guard units are at half their original strength after US bombings, says gummint.
He also said there will be “bigger pushes that will be under way as soon as we’re ready.”
Forgot the link: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030401/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_us_military_398
He says 6,000 Arab volunteers have come to Iraq to fight America and more than half of them are suicide bombers.
Saddam did not appear in this address and instead his written statement was read by his Minister of Information, adding skepticism that he is even alive still.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030401/ts_nm/iraq_dc&cid=564&ncid=1473
Four ships carrying weapons of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division docked Tuesday at Kuwait City’s Shuaibah port, and maintenance crews began unloading Apache helicopters, Abrams battle tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, and Humvee armored vehicles. The equipment and troops are to be ready to join other coalition forces within weeks if needed.
Three missing U.S. journalists arrived safely in Jordan Tuesday. New York Newsday journalists Matthew McAllester and Moises Saman called their newsroom to say they were in Jordan and were fine, according to a Newsday spokesperson. They last contacted the paper March 24. With the Newsday journalists was U.S. freelance photojournalist Molly Bingham, her family said, who also had been missing in Iraq. There was no immediate word about why the three had been out of contact.
Coalition forces have not found any evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said at Tuesday’s Central Command briefing in Qatar.
In Kurd-dominated northern Iraq, Iraqi opposition forces took a town that was a suspected stronghold of the Islamic militia Ansar al-Islam. The group is a link between Iraq and al Qaeda, U.S. officials said. Kurdish fighters worked with U.S. Special Forces to destroy the operation, officials said, and they found equipment and documentation indicating the presence of chemical or biological weapons.
A large explosion produced plumes of smoke Tuesday evening (8:55 a.m. EST) in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. British forces said they have secured the western part of Iraq’s second largest city, where Iraqi paramilitary forces have been battling coalition troops for the past week.
U.S. forces shot and wounded a Kuwaiti army soldier driving too close to a U.S. military camp, a Kuwaiti Defense Ministry spokesman said. The soldier, who told interrogators he was taking a shortcut through the desert, was treated for a shoulder wound and released by a U.S. medical unit at Camp Sanders.
Intense coalition air raids subsided Tuesday in northern Iraq for the first time since hostilities began. With this abatement, five Shia recruits from southern Iraq surrendered to coalition forces along the northern front. One of the soldiers told CNN that Iraqi forces had “execution squads” to kill Iraqi deserters.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Tuesday praised journalists working in Iraq, while warning against “snap judgments based on television pictures.” Speaking at Great Britain’s Newspaper Society’s annual conference in London, Straw outlined a plan to rebuild Iraq, saying the United Nations would play a major role in the nation’s political and economic future.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/01/sprj.irq.war.main/index.html Under “Other Developments”
POW Jessica Lynch freed from an Iraqi hospital. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20030401-1705-war-us-pow.html
We are over the Tigris, and apparently going to lay siege a bit.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0304030336apr03,0,6090905.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Power is out in Baghdad.
US soldiers are in greater Baghdad.
US soldiers have begun attacking Saddam international airport.
A U.S. military spokesman said there are “credible signs” that Iraqi forces are on the verge of collapse.
Please don’t let them have gas.
if the Iraqi forces are on the verge of collapse wouldn’t they have just let loose with any sort of chemical or biological thing they had by now?
I would think this would be the time.
I hope I’m wrong.
Have any more high ranking military or Baathist members been captured?
Former CIA Director James Woolsey said Wednesday the United States is engaged in World War IV, and that it could continue for years.
The third world war was the Cold War and the fourth world war is against three enemies: the religious rulers of Iran, the “fascists” of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists like al Qaeda. Hopefully it will not last as long as the Cold War did.
All of Saddam’s TV appearances since the start of the war were done before March 19th, sez CIA.
US soldiers control part of Saddam International Airport.
Not that I’ve heard, medstar, but according to sources, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is naming names.
I was impressed today when I read that American troops were fired upon by Iraqis who were using Shiite mosques as cover. They refused to return fire as to avoid damaging the buildings.
The American position is that these sacred sites will not be targeted unless the soldiers are forced to fire in self defense.
What I found disturbing was the footage of the captured Iraqi jail, where there were cells fitted with hooks and electrical cables used to torture prisoners. They also found dozens of identity cards belonging Iraqi men; being that it is illegal to travel without papers in Iraq they surmised that these men were victims of the regime and were most likely dead.
I’m not sure which network had this piece of disturbing news, but remember March 19, when the bombing started? It turns out the CIA received intelligence from three Iraqi informants that Saddam Hussein would be in that area. I heard those three informants were discovered and executed; two by being shot, one had his tongue cut out and bled to death.
First US planes land in Baghdad Airport at about 8 pm local time on the western, military side of the airport.
The military side recieved some damage during Friday’s capture, but the plane landed safely anyways. Engineers are already working to rebuild the place.
It’s likely to relieve stress on the supply chain from Kuwait. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=564&e=13&u=/nm/20030406/ts_nm/iraq_airport_landing_dc
A dozen British tanks have moved into Basra again, the largest incursion into Basra for them yet.
CNN just claimed Basra was captured… again.
Iraqi leader sees a two-year stay for US military. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030406/wl_nm/iraq_usa_chalabi_dc&cid=574&ncid=1480
A list of key developments made lately:
U.S. warplanes struck a convoy of allied Kurdish fighters and U.S. Special Forces during a northern battle in one of the deadliest friendly fire attacks of the Iraqi war. At least 18 people were killed and more than 45 wounded, including senior Kurdish commanders, Kurdish officials said.
_ Marines pulled intelligence from a shattered Republican Guard headquarters after a night of fiery bombardments, and they searched a suspected terrorist training camp, finding the shell of a passenger jet believed to be used for hijacking practice.
_ In Moscow, the Kremlin said a convoy of Russian Embassy diplomats came under fire, and some were wounded, as they were evacuating from Baghdad and starting to drive toward Syria.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 Iraqi fighters were killed as the 3rd Infantry Division moved through southwestern Baghdad on Saturday, U.S. Central Command spokesman Jim Wilkinson said Sunday.
_ On the Tigris River south of Baghdad, U.S. Marines raided Salman Pak, a town that contained a suspected weapons of mass destruction site, U.S. military officials said. Marines also destroyed the headquarters for the Republican Guard Second Corps and a suspected terrorist training camp and seized a presidential palace.
Deafening explosions rocked central Baghdad early Sunday as Iraqi troops, members of President Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen militia and teenage soldiers patrolled streets to protect the capital from U.S.-led forces.
_ U.S. Marines attempted to take a bridge over a canal leading into Baghdad. Iraqi fighters had rigged the bridge with explosives and dug out the embankment under the bridge to weaken it. Marines said they now control the bridge but cannot cross it.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf on Sunday asked Iraqis to remain calm and not be taken by rumors. He also warned citizens against firing their guns for no requested reason.
_ British troops staged their largest military incursion into the southern city of Basra, rumbling into Iraq’s second-largest city with a column of 40 armored personnel carriers Sunday.
_ American POW Jessica Lynch was reunited with her family Sunday at a U.S. military hospital in Germany.
_ Coalition aircraft conducted strikes on the Basra residence of Ali Hassan al-Majid, a member of Saddam’s inner circle who once ordered a chemical weapons attack on Kurds, Central Command said. On Sunday, coalition forces sifting through the rubble positively identified the body of his bodyguard. It was still not known whether al-Majid also had been killed.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/war_developments&cid=540&ncid=1478