[casi] News, 09-16/04/03 (2)

[Peter Brooke <pbrooke@DELETETHISukonline.co.uk>]

News, 09-16/04/03 (2)

FALL OF BAGHDAD (see also 'Saddam City')

*  Civilian casualties mount as US forces tighten grip on Baghdad
*  Smiles and flowers greet Marines
*  US troops fire on ambulance, two killed
*  Dictators' Collusion
*  US troops' anguish: Killing outmatched foes
*  Why drive to Baghdad was a textbook campaign, flaws and all
*  Civilians, US tank crew killed in attempt to destroy arms
*  Republican Guard commander cut deal with US forces
*  US soldiers hurt in guerrilla attack
*  Baghdad Area Proud to Resist US Forces
*  Iraq: the Dog That Didn't Bark? or Was It Muzzled?
*  U.S. seizes a veteran terrorist in Baghdad


FALL OF BAGHDAD

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/09_04_03/art20.asp

*  Civilian casualties mount as US forces tighten grip on Baghdad
Lebanon Daily Star, 9th April

BAGHDAD: US forces closed a vice on Baghdad on Tuesday, advancing street by
street and blitzing targets in the heart of the capital after trying to kill
Saddam Hussein and his sons with four huge bombs.

Consolidating the US stranglehold on the city of five million people,
Marines captured the Rashid Air Base in the southeast, 5 kilometers from the
center.

The US military said it did not know if the air raid on Monday evening had
killed the Iraqi president, but said his grasp on the country of 26 million
was fast disintegrating.

"We're not sure exactly who's in charge at this particular point in time,"
US Brigadier General Vincent Brooks declared at US Central Command in Doha,
Qatar.

Aircraft, tanks and artillery pounded the nerve center of Saddam's
administration in a thundering raid in central Baghdad that began at dawn,
meeting only scattered Iraqi return fire.

But Iraq's ever-defiant information minister said Iraqi forces would
"destroy" the invaders.

"They are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks," Mohammed Saeed
al-Sahhaf told reporters at the Palestine Hotel, minutes after it came under
US bombardment.

Sahhaf said Iraqi forces had cut off the US invaders from their rear
positions and Iraqi commandoes were preparing to "crush" them inside the
capital.

The Americans "are in a state of hysteria. They imagine they can terrorize
(people) by killing civilians," he said.

Air strikes late Monday also targeted the Al-Mansour neighborhood and left
at least 14 people dead.

Rescue workers dug through rubble Tuesday to recover bodies, finding two
bodies, one of a small boy and the other of a young woman. Another body,
that of an elderly man, had been pulled out Monday night. The young woman's
remains included a severed head and a torso.

A woman in her mid-40s wept uncontrollably and later collapsed when the
rescue workers brought out the remains of her 20-year-old daughter, Lava
Jamal.

The extent of the air strike was so extensive that steel beams from three
destroyed buildings could be found 100 meters or more away.

While rescue teams sifted through rubble in Al-Mansour, most Baghdad
residents were hunkered down in their homes and there was little traffic on
the streets.

North of the city, traffic built up as thousands of people fled the fighting
in all sorts of vehicles - buses, trucks, minibuses and pickup trucks - with
food, clothes, mattresses, blankets and kitchen utensils.

Some cars sagged under the weight and others were so battered they broke
down on the road, worsening the already bumper-to-bumper congestion.

Long lines formed at gas stations. Some ran out of gas and closed; others
were taken over by the military. Uncollected garbage piled up in some
sections of the city.

On the ground, rumbling US tanks moved to expand control of the city center
beyond a base in a presidential palace on the west bank of the Tigris River.

A tank crossed to the east side of a central Baghdad bridge, the first US
sortie over the river in the heart of the city.

On the 20th day of the US-led war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein,
the air attack was concentrated on an neighborhood between the Jumhuriya
Bridge and Iraq's Information Ministry.

Half a dozen blasts battered the area where Iraqi state-run television and
radio are also located. Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi television are there, too,
as is Shabad Television, owned by Saddam's son Odai. Iraqi state-run
domestic television and radio went off the air after the attack.

Ambulances rushed civilians wounded in the attacks to hospitals where
surgeons worked round-the-clock and anesthetics and other supplies were
running out.

"Supplies are running very low, particularly for emergencies. Nothing has
crossed the border into Baghdad since the conflict began. Even where there
were sufficient supplies, those have been given out to hospitals and are
being used up," said World Health Organization spokesman Iain Simpson.

At a presidential palace seized by American forces, US troops exchanged
machine-gun and artillery fire with Iraqi forces apparently trying to regain
the compound.

US tanks advanced under heavy fire from Iraqi positions outside the palace
compound. The tanks appeared to be moving toward other government buildings
to the north in an apparent bid to expand their control over the city
center.

US officers said the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, which has
entered downtown Baghdad, fought several skirmishes through the day near the
center.

"The 2nd Brigade enlarged its footprint in downtown Baghdad and attacked an
airport close to the Tigris, as well as destroying a special Republican
Guard headquarters," said Lieutenant Colonel Pete Bayer, operations officer
for the 3rd Infantry Division.

Speaking at Baghdad's main international airport, seized by US forces on
Friday, Bayer said American soldiers in central Baghdad had faced "numerous
counter-attacks."

"We repelled them all," he told reporters, adding the 2nd Brigade had killed
more than 200 Iraqi soldiers on Tuesday and destroyed an Iraqi T72 tank and
eight Iraqi armored personnel carriers.

Elsewhere, US warplanes bombed Iraqi positions in the northern oil hub of
Kirkuk, but US ground forces in northern Iraq reported slow progress.

An Iraqi soldier who surrendered after the US northern onslaught said morale
in President Saddam Hussein's army was at rock bottom.

"They are devastated, they are ruined psychologically," Haidar Hatan Khthair
told Reuters in the village of Pir Daud where he was being held by Kurdish
Peshmerga guerrillas.

Mam Rostam, who commands front-line positions held by Iraqi Kurdish forces
east of the government-held city of Kirkuk, said he heard regular air
attacks starting late in the evening on Monday andlasting until Tuesday
morning.

"There were heavy explosions coming from bombing of Iraqi positions in
Kirkuk," he told Reuters by telephone from Chamchamal, which lies some 35
kilometers east of Kirkuk.

He said his fighters were in positions in and around Qarahanjir, an Iraqi
barracks town recently abandoned by government forces and which is halfway
between Chamchamal and Kirkuk.

Kurdish officials have said peshmerga are within 10 kilometers of the
strategic oil city, but they have yet to launch a ground offensive.


http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=83780

*  SMILES AND FLOWERS GREET MARINES
Gulf News, 10th April

Reuters, Baghdad: Hundreds of jubilant Iraqis mobbed a convoy of U.S.
Marines yesterday, cheering, dancing and waving as American troops swept
towards central Baghdad through slums and leafy suburbs from the east.

Crowds threw flowers at the Marines as they drove past the Martyrs'
Monument, just three km east of the central Jumhuriya Bridge over the Tigris
river.

Young and middle-aged men, many wearing soccer shirts of leading Western
clubs like Manchester United, shouted "Hello, hello" as Marines advanced
through the rundown sprawl of Saddam City and then more prosperous suburbs
with villas and trim lawns.

"No more Saddam Hussain," chanted one group, waving to troops as they
passed. "We love you, we love you."

One young man ran alongside a Marine armoured personnel carrier trying to
hand over a heavy belt of ammunition.

An older man made a wild kicking gesture with his foot, saying "Goodbye
Saddam".

Women waved from balconies, girls threw flower petals at young Marines
leaning across gun turrets. One woman held her baby aloft.  Tank crews
picked the flowers from the tops of their fighting machines, smelt them and
grinned.

One man shouted to a soldier: "Is it over?".

"Almost," came the Marine's reply.

"To be honest, I'm happy it appears they're not going to fight. I was a
little nervous when the crowd was so exuberant, we've heard so much about
suicide bombings and drive-by shootings," said Captain Dan Rose.

"We are the lead regiment now. We are the furthest forward of anyone,"
Colonel John Toolan, commander of 1st Marine Regiment, told Reuters.

"I believe we are on the last leg."

At one point, the Marine convoy of over a dozen armoured vehicles halted,
spotting a blue flat-bed truck partly concealed behind a high brick wall.

Within seconds, U.S. heavy machineguns had taken it out causing a huge
explosion, sending up a fireball and scattering the crowds who ran for
cover.

Moments later, Marines came across four "ready to fire" SA-2 missiles
covered by tarpaulin by the roadside.

Earlier, U.S. tanks simply ran over any small arm weaponry they found and
destroyed abandoned heavy artillery pieces.

Lance Corporal Justin Cleaves, 26, having his photograph taken next to the
SA-2 missiles, said: "It was pretty crazy coming through all those people
throwing flowers. They were real happy to see us. "It looks as though the
(Iraqi) troops just dropped everything and ran," he said.

There were no Iraqi soldiers or police in sight. People in the crowds said
the troops had left on Tuesday.

Nearer Baghdad centre, people were everywhere, running across roads and down
narrow side streets carrying whatever they could lay their hands on.

Cars and trucks heaved and spluttered, piled high with furniture,
refrigerators, clothing, tyres ­ all apparently looted from shops and
government offices.

"I'm happy to be here, but a little disappointed there weren't more soldiers
to fight...still, it's a good feeling knowing people are that afraid of us,"
said 32-year-old Sergeant Brian Dow. "I kinda felt like Madonna there,
having flowers thown at me."

Kuwaiti television, meanwhile, trumpeted the joy of Iraqis after the fall of
Baghdad to U.S. troops, with a presenter saying it is a "slap in the face"
to those Arabs who sided with Saddam Hussain.

Other Arab media were more subdued about the U.S. military success in Iraq. 
Kuwait Television showed footage of an old Iraqi man using his shoe to hit a
poster of Saddam Hussain and screaming "This is freedom!"

The state channel's presenter voiced over the clip: "This is a slap in the
face to all those who believed Saddam Hussain could stay in power."

Kuwait has been heavily criticised in the Arab world in recent weeks for
being the only Arab country to openly back the U.S. invasion of Iraq and for
granting the United States use of its territory to launch the offensive.

"This is the day of great jubilation, the day of rebuilding Iraq," a member
of the London based Iraqi opposition, Faek Sheik Ali, told Kuwaiti
television.

Ali applauded Kuwait's media for their coverage of the war, saying Iraqi
dissidents were baffled as to why other Arab channels had supported a
dictator against his people.

Few Arab television stations outside Kuwait have hosted Iraqis who opposed
the rule of Saddam Hussain.

On Wednesday, the popular Al-Jazeera satellite channel reported that
American tanks had taken up position in front of the Palestine Hotel, where
foreign journalists are based and where Iraqi Information Minister Mohamm-ed
Saeed Al Sahhaf gave a press conference Tuesday.

"The surreal scene this afternoon was unthinkable until yesterday. Nobody
could dream of it. If someone had told me this, I would have told him
'impossible'," said Al-Jazeera's reporter Maher Abdullah.

Abdullah said the U.S. troops were "friendly ... there is a kind of strange
harmony between the invading force, now occupying force, and the citizens
... An unusual and unexpected calm."

At one point, Abdullah referred to a Saddam monument as a statue of "the
former president."

Iraqi exiles living in London stormed the former Iraqi embassy in the
capital.government in Baghdad.  The embassy has stood empty since Britain
ordered Iraq's last diplomat in London, who worked at a scaled-down mission
called an Interests Section under the umbrella of the Jordanian Embassy, to
leave the country last month.

"They had to force entry but it was a peaceful takeover," Zuhair Al Maher, a
member of the Iraqi opposition and one of the organisers, said. "There are
about 60 of us and our intention is to publicise our relief and jubilation
at the downfall of Saddam's regime.""

A spokeswoman for London police said they had made more than 20 arrests for
criminal damage but were still dealing with the incident in west London. "It
is still hard to take in but this is one of the happiest days in the history
of the Iraqi people," Al Maher said.


http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2261&version
=1&template_id=277&parent_id=258

*  US TROOPS FIRE ON AMBULANCE, TWO KILLED
aljazeera.net, 10th April

Two Iraqis are dead and three wounded Wednesday after US troops shot at an
ambulance in central Baghdad. Speaking to the AFP news agency, Belgian
doctor Geert Van Moorter said that the driver was wounded in the stomach
while the co-pilot had leg wounds.
 
"The American troops just mowed down the ambulance which was transporting
wounded people from the Saddam Centre for Plastic Surgery to another
hospital," he said.
 
The ambulance had been carrying three men wounded by exchanges of fire in
the city, he said, adding that two of them were among the dead.
 
Van Moorter, from the Belgian association Medical Aid for the Third World
slammed US troops involved in the incident. "This is completely
unacceptable, and when I went up to a US officer to denounce such behaviour,
he just said: 'The ambulance could contain explosives.'
 
Officials from CENTCOM in Qatar were unaware of the incident, and have yet
to comment.


http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=4/10/03&Cat=2&Num=017

*  DICTATORS' COLLUSION
by Parviz Esmaeili
Tehran Times, 10th April

Almost 10 days ago, there was a halt in U.S.-British operations in Iraq.
However, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the chief of the U.S.
Central Command, General Tommy Franks, in their interviews with the media
never elaborated on the issue, but instead tried to mislead world public
opinion in order to hide a greater secret decision from them.

Suspicions rose on the same day when U.S. troops, that had been stopped at
the Euphrates, immediately were able to advance toward the heart of Baghdad
without any significant resistance by Iraqi forces. Nobody asked why Tikrit,
that was once called the ideological heart of Saddam's government and the
last possible trench of the Iraqi army, was never targeted by U.S. and
British bombs and missiles. Or why when the elite Iraqi forces arrived in
eastern Iraq from Tikrit, the pace of the invaders advancing toward central
Baghdad immediately increased. Also, it has been reported that over the past
24 hours, a plane was authorized to leave Iraq bound for Russia. Who was
aboard this plane?

All these ambiguities, the contradictory reports about Saddam's situation,
and the fact that the highest-ranking Iraqi officials were all represented
by a single individual -- Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed al-Sahhaf --
and the easy fall of Baghdad shows that the center of collusion had been
Tikrit, where Saddam, his aides, and lieutenants from the Baath Party had
been waiting for al-Sahhaf to join them so that they could receive the
required guarantees to leave the country in a secret compromise with
coalition forces.

This possibility was confirmed by the Al-Jazeera network, which quoted a
Russian intelligence official as saying that the Iraqi forces and the
invaders had made a deal. The Russian official told Al-Jazeera that the
Iraqi leaders had agreed to show no serious resistance against the
U.S.-British troops in return for a guarantee that Saddam and his close
relatives could leave Iraq unharmed.

The question now is whether the U.S. would prefer Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein to be dead or wants him alive to be tried. There may even be a third
alternative that the White House is looking far. It seems that U.S.
officials would welcome a solution where Saddam was found, either dead or
alive.

First of all, the White House hawks and U.S. President George W. Bush would
definitely not be saddened to hear that reports claiming that Saddam was
killed, which were highlighted by the U.S. media on Tuesday after a missile
attack on an underground restaurant in Baghdad, have been verified.

This is because they do not want the Iraqi people to ever find out about the
secrets of the clandestine political cooperation between the U.S. and Iraq.
On the other hand, Saddam's death would mean that the weak Iraqi regime has
been completely defeated, and this may to some extent satisfy Washington's
feeling of militarism.

However, an inactive, defeated, and exiled dictator can definitely be
beneficial to the White House, provided that he is under Washington's
control. Look at what happened to Mullah Muhammad Omar and Osama bin Laden
in Afghanistan. Is there any sign that the U.S. is interested in finding
them and wiping them out? One should know that these two, as U.S. henchmen
over the past decade, provided enough pretexts for the White House to
dominate Afghanistan, even though they are still at large. This
automatically justifies the U.S. presence in Afghanistan.

Therefore, Washington benefits from its inability to find the Taleban and
Al-Qaeda leaders. The same holds true with Saddam, and the U.S. failure to
find Saddam, or Washington's efforts to withhold news of his death, provide
the best pretext to stay in Iraq.

Secondly, in the event that Saddam survives the U.S.-British attacks on
Iraq, the White House will have to devise new policies and approaches to
make the best use of this. There is no doubt that Saddam knows many of the
secrets of U.S. strategy in the region over the past three decades. If he
were put on trial in an international and open court, he might reveal much
evil about the U.S. that would expose the real image of the White House
hawks to the world. This is the reason why the Fox news network has taken
the lead in reminding the world that an international tribunal would lack
the authority to put the Iraqi president on trial, given that neither Iraq
nor the U.S. have joined the International Criminal Court. Fox has thus
proposed three alternatives to deal with Saddam in case he saves his skin in
the U.S.-led attacks: living underground, changing his identity, or
travelling to the beautiful beaches of Guantanamo!! Needless to say these
alternatives will make Saddam harmless for the White House, even if he is
not of any use to the U.S.

These stances clarify the fact that the rumor on the possibility of Saddam
seeking political asylum in Syria is only a red herring because any attempt
by the Iraqi president to flee the country without coordinating with the
U.S. is absolutely impossible. Therefore, if there had been any kind of
compromise between the U.S. and Saddam, the Iraqi president would take
refuge wherever the White House ordered him to.

Even dictators have to respect a hierarchy. A minor dictator like Saddam is
like a puppet that has danced for a lifetime to the tune of a certain major
dictator like the U.S. and cannot act on his own. Saddam did whatever the
White House wanted him to do for years. Therefore, the simple answer to the
question "Where is Saddam?" is nothing but "Wherever the U.S. desires!"


http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0411/p03s01-woiq.html

*  US TROOPS' ANGUISH: KILLING OUTMATCHED FOES
by Ann Scott Tyson
The Christian Science Monitor, 11th April

OUTSKIRTS OF BAGHDAD ­ Like blinding orange and white stars, US rockets and
missiles filled with deadly cluster bombs arced skyward, lending the evening
clouds an unnatural glow. Moments later, the munitions exploded on targets
around Baghdad, wiping out Iraqi artillery and killing scores of Iraqi
soldiers. So lethal was the past week's barrage ofartillery - using rockets
and missiles designed to demolish everything within a "grid square" (one
square kilometer) - that it left Lt. John Harrell of the 3rd Infantry
Division's 1-39 Artillery Battalion with virtually nothing else to attack.

"We don't have many targets left," said the lieutenant, whose multiple
launch rocket system (MLRS) battery is positioned near Baghdad's southern
edge. His battalion has shot 350 rockets, including 72 in a single onslaught
on Baghdad International Airport a week ago.

Yet even as US commanders cite dramatic success in the three-week-old war,
many look upon the wholesale destruction of Iraq's military and the killing
of thousands of Iraqi fighters with a sense of regret. They voice
frustration at the number of Iraqis who stood their ground against
overwhelming US firepower, wasting their lives and equipment rather than
capitulating as expected.

"They have no command and control, no organization. They're just dying,"
says Brig. Gen. Louis Weber, an assistant commander of the 3rd Infantry
Division. This week, the division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team killed at least
1,000 Iraqis by direct fire alone on a single raid into Baghdad, he said.

The decimation of the Iraqi military - once among the Middle East's most
formidable armed forces - exacerbates the power void that occupying troops
must fill to stabilize the nation, Army officers say. The combat strength of
most regular Iraqi Army and elite Republican Guard units has dwindled to
below 20 percent, according to US military estimates. Some 70 percent of
Iraq's artillery has been knocked out, along with hundreds of tanks and
other armored vehicles.

"We've destroyed a large majority of their military and they still need to
secure their country," says Lt. Col. Woody Radcliffe, who heads a 3rd
Infantry Division operations center. "It's an absolute shame. We didn't want
to do this. Even a brain-dead moron can understand we are so vastly superior
militarily that there is no hope. You would think they would see that and
give up."

Again and again, as battles raged in recent days and weeks, US officers
expressed puzzlement over Iraqi fighters' tactical ineptitude and seemingly
reckless disregard for their own lives.

"What are these guys thinking? It's suicide!" said Capt. David Roberts, a
military intelligence officer, monitoring a massing of Iraqi forces outside
Baghdad while the 3rd Infantry's combat brigades rolled in to cordon off the
city. "The sad thing is these guys are being led by people who don't know
what they are doing."

For example, Iraqis repeatedly attempted to block roads using vehicles
buttressed with loose sand. US forces either blew up the vehicles or drove
around them. "They're getting ... spanked again and it seems like they
haven't learned anything," says Capt. Kathy Cage, a signals officer with the
3rd Infantry.

As the 3rd Infantry quickly advanced north along the Euphrates and west
toward the capital, some soldiers began to describe the battles as almost
disturbingly unfair.

"At the Karbala Gap the Iraqis put up a good fight, but to no avail because
we had the firepower. It was way too easy," says Staff Sgt. Ira Mack, who
serves at the headquarters of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team. US commanders had
expected heavier fighting and the possible use of Iraqi chemical weapons as
the 3rd Infantry traversed the narrow gap, a stretch of land between the
Euphrates River and the Razzaza Lake.

Earlier, in a battle to isolate Najaf, US commanders called for airstrikes
partly out of an aversion to mowing down Iraqis with direct fire.

"There were waves and waves of people coming at them, with AK-47s, out of
this factory, and they were killing everyone," says Lieutenant Colonel
Radcliffe. "The commander called and said, 'This is not right. This is
insane. Let's hit the factory with close air support and take them out all
at once.'"

For some soldiers, trauma is already sinking in. "For lack of a better word,
I feel almost guilty about the massacre," says one soldier privately. "We
wasted a lot of people. It makes you wonder how many were innocent. It takes
away some of the pride. We won, but at what cost?"

Adding to the potential for post-war trauma, some officers suggest, is the
fact that many of the 3rd Infantry Division's troops are barely 20 years
old.

"The average soldier now is 19 to 21 years old," says Sergeant Mack. "You
have 21-year-old sergeants. They're not experienced enough to maintain
control over themselves or their soldiers in the heat of the battle. They're
just two years off the streets. We have WIAs [Wounded In Action] wearing
Purple Hearts who are 20 years old."

As the longest-deployed Army division in the region and the one that
provided the bulk of the Army's combat power, the 3rd Infantry Division is
not likely to serve as an occupying force in Iraq. Instead, it should be one
of the first arriving home.

But before that, officers stress, the soldiers must have time to decompress.
"The reality is, we've got a bunch of steely-eyed killers that have
destroyed all the enemy forces they've come into contact with," worries
Radcliffe. "The switch is on right now, and you can't just turn it off."


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=396401

*  WHY DRIVE TO BAGHDAD WAS A TEXTBOOK CAMPAIGN, FLAWS AND ALL
by Kim Sengupta in Baghdad and Christopher Bellamy
The Independent, 12th April

Iraq 2003 is a campaign "military historians and academics will pore over
for many years to come", according to Air Marshal Sir Brian Burridge, the
top British commander in the Gulf.

The rapid success of the military invasion can be traced to the combination
of American technological superiority, speed and firepower and the
disorganised defence mounted by the Iraqis.

Plan 1003 Victor, the Pentagon war plan, had two key principles: "inside
out" and "Baghdad first". It may not have been be quite as radical as some
are claiming, but it was extraordinarily successful.

>From the word go Baghdad, the Iraqi centre of gravity, was clearly the main
target. Everything else took second place. That is an old principle of war,
and one stressed by the Russians. Rigorous denuding of subsidiary sectors
and concentration of force on the principal and overriding objective.

Never was that clearer than in 3rd Infantry Division's audacious, almost
rash, drive for Baghdad. The principle was also stressed by General William
T Sherman in his drive through Georgia in the American Civil War, which
split the Confederacy in two.

"Our aim was to be aggressive and dominate and keep driving for the
capital," Colonel Bryan P McCoy of the US Marines said. "We had to be
innovative. On one occasion we did a 60-kilometre armoured reconnaissance
through threevillages. That way we made sure the enemy was always on the
back foot and we had the whip hand.

"When it came to Baghdad," Col McCoy continued, "we started doing it sector
by sector. But then we improvised, and we moved into the east bank. The idea
is to use our speed and our firepower, and ally it with our intelligence. We
use that to find out where the bad guys are and then we get them."

The overwhelming US technological superiority was vital to the rapid
success. Not so much in terms of smart bombs, but in terms of intelligence
and targeting. New intelligence means, including unmanned air vehicles ­
drones ­ fed intelligence back around the clock, through smoke and
sandstorms. It was imperfect. But it was still impressive.

In the words of one US analyst, Dr Stephen Cambone, the co-ordination of
intelligence and operations is "beginning to emerge as a new mission area in
its own right".

The crucial innovation in war in the past decade has been intelligence and
targeting. Not only being able to see what the enemy is doing, but analysis
beforehand to determine exactly which sinews to sever to stop the muscles
working. It is still messy, and there are still mistakes. Keyhole surgery
notwithstanding, you can't be a surgeon if you are squeamish.

Special forces have played a pivotal role. "Special forces have never been
used this extensively," Ike Skelton, the senior Democrat on the House Armed
Services Committee, said. Their role has been crucial not only in freeing
prisoners of war and attacking Iraqi leaders, but also in the north where
they have been the link with Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

A disadvantage of precision-guided weapons is that to be really effective
they require absolutely precise information. Over the past three weeks US
forces have operated to obtain and pass on that data.

The Special Operations Forces ­ the nearest America has to the SAS and SBS ­
spotted targets and quickly transmitted the information to warplanes
circling near by. Reconnaissance drones loitered over the battlefield,
showing US commanders Iraqi movements in real time. Back in Qatar, General
Franks had real-time pictures of numerous targets simultaneously visible on
large screens.

British and US casualties would unquestionably have been far greater and
progress slower if the majority of the Iraqis had fought better. We still do
not know how much the Allied air campaign over the past dozen years in
northern and southern Iraq and the strikes on Baghdad contributed to Iraqi
disorganisation and collapse.

The assault on Baghdad confirmed the value of the very flexible plan. After
largely defeating the four Republican Guard divisions ringing Baghdad, the
plan was to encircle the city and launch armed and armoured raids or feints
inside. US sources said they expected this phase to last about a week. But
after only three days, US troops were in the centre of the city occupying
vital government buildings, presidential palaces and prisons.

Buoyed by relatively weak Iraqi resistance, the 3rd Infantry Division
launched three big task forces ­ brigade strength ­ to infiltrate the city,
like water trickling into the cracks in a dam. "The tactics are armoured
raids and then exploit success, exploit opportunity," Air Marshal Burridge
said. "And it's very much a tactical battle."

The air marshal, who was formerly head of the UK Command and General Staff
College, made a vital point. The US plan 1003 Victor was very good at the
tactical level ­ battalions and brigades securing a foothold and then
spilling outwards, narrowing the space where top officials might be hiding.
It was very good operationally and at the military-strategic level, driving
for the centre of gravity ­ Baghdad ­ and eschewing other distractions.

But at the politico-strategic level it may yet prove flawed. If the aim was
to bring peace and liberation to Iraq, the political end-state needed to be
enunciated more clearly. There should, above all, have been a plan to fill
the "security gap" that has now opened up. The American forces are not well
equipped or trained to handle sporadic local resistance, widespread anarchy
and the collapse of law and order.

The British in Basra have proved much better prepared to handle this
problem, partly for historical and cultural reasons. Conversely, they could
not have moved three brigades and sustained them at the distance the
Americans have.

Military historians and academics will, indeed, pore over 1003 Victor for
many years to come. They will probably give it 90 per cent for military and
operational content, but mark it down for its conclusion. "The hard part is
to come," as a retired US colonel, Johnny Brooks, said. "We can easily win
the fight but lose the peace."

Christopher Bellamy is professor of military science and doctrine at
Cranfield University


http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2369&version
=1&template_id=277&parent_id=258

*  CIVILIANS, US TANK CREW KILLED IN ATTEMPT TO DESTROY ARMS
aljazeera.net, 12th April

Many Iraqi civilians and a US tank crew died today when a huge explosion
destroyed around 20 houses in Baghdad, Al Jazeera channel reported.

The explosion was the result of US marines attempting to decommission Iraqi
munitions and rockets left by Saddam Hussein's army in the Atayfiyya
residential quarter of the capital.

Iraqi arsenal destruction kills US tank crew and many Iraqi residents

Our correspondent reports that a US tank was completely burned out with its
two crew members still inside, suggesting that when the munitions were
detonated, missiles launched in all directions, one slamming into the tank.

A local journalist, Aasim Jihad, who owns one of the houses destroyed by the
huge explosion says that the Marines came across a sizeable arsenal of
weapons in the Atayfiyya quarter and decided to destroy it immediately. Many
local residents of Atafiyya pleaded with the US troops to remove the
munitions far away from the district, fearing for their safety. However,
these calls fell on deaf ears and the US soldiers fired a shell on the
arsenal which exploded at once.

Jihad also explained to Al Jazeera that part of the arsenal contained over
200 missiles ­ Austrian in origin ­ and that the resulting explosion was
like an inferno, emitting a terrifying explosion. The number of dead was
increased by the fact that many other rockets flew off in all directions,
some landing on houses of local residents.

The number of dead and wounded  cannot be estimated at this time due to the
severity of the wreckage. There are no emergency teams available, nor can
ambulances and fire engines make their way to the fierce fires now raging.
Looting and general lawlessness have prevented any organized responses to
severe security and life threatening emergencies.

The explosion has also cut water to the residential quarter, adding to the
already numerous concerns of those living near the scene. Their electricity
had failed over a week ago.


http://www.jordantimes.com/Mon/news/news5.htm

*  'DEATH VOLUNTEERS' OFFER FINAL RESTING PLACE FOR BAGHDAD'S DEAD
Jordan Times, 14th April

BAGHDAD (AFP) ‹ Young "death volunteers" are searching the streets of the
Iraqi capital to collect the abandoned corpses of those killed in the
fighting and the bombardment and offer them a final resting place, with or
without an identity.

Hashem Kazem, a 34-year-old engineer, rummaged Sunday through the shell of a
car in the Al Zawara district near Baghdad's zoo and emerged with some
blackened bones.

He also grasped a passport photograph that miraculously survived the flames
of a chubby man with a ginger moustache.

Kazem, wearing plastic gloves and a surgical face mask, put the bones on a
stretcher covered in a white sheet and an Iraqi flag.

Further up the road, other volunteers found the burnt bodies of a woman
still hugging a child in a van. The ferocity of the fire had soldered the
remains to the vehicle.

On Sunday morning the small group went through the same operation five
times, extricating corpses from the furnaces in which they burned after
finding themselves on the wrong road at the wrong time as US troops were
shooting at anything that moved.

"On Monday in the Alawi area, I saw a police car with three people inside
machinegunned," said Salam Jassem.

"I went up to an American tank and asked the soldiers if I could bury them.
At first they said no but I insisted and they agreed," said the 22-year old,
also an engineer.

Along with Salah Mohammad, a tailor, the pair removed the bodies and set
aside their identity papers.

"We took the men to Karama Hospital where a file was opened with their
names," said Jassem, in the hope relatives can be informed.

That was the first operation by the "death volunteers" who have been joined
by several more people.

Each morning they gather at the Karama Hospital and set off across the
capital with three stretchers.

"Two days ago, in a street near the information ministry we found the body
of Nizal Al Azi, a senior figure in the Baath Party," said Hussein Kazem, a
37-year-old teacher.

"He was in a car and dogs had already eaten half of his face."

When the stretchers are full, they march off, a finger raised to heaven,
chanting: "There is no god but God and Mohammad is His prophet. Martyrs are
beloved of God."

On the streets, passers-by stop and place their right hand over their heart.
Women cry or shout and even looters come to a halt and lower their eyes.

The stretcher bearers head to the old Maruf Al Karihi cemetery.

Beside centuries-old tombs, lie 25 fresh graves bearing no names and
decorated with a palm frond.

Grave-diggers had been at work again before the volunteers arrived with two
more shrouds.

In one were the remains of a family of six and a note reporting them as
"unknown". In the second, the bones of a Christian named "Issam Kanael
Daniel."

"We are Muslims, but we make no difference between religions," said Karim
Magid, a labourer aged 32.

"Every man, whatever his beliefs or his nationality, has the right to a
grave. We would do the same for an American."

After uttering a prayer for the dead, the group set off again on their
gruesome rounds.


http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2627&version
=1&template_id=263&parent_id=258

*  REPUBLICAN GUARD COMMANDER CUT DEAL WITH US FORCES
aljazeera.net, 14th April

The mystery of what happened to the Iraqi Republican Guard defending
Baghdad appears to have been solved if a report in today's Le Monde is to be
believed.
 
The French daily reports that Maher Sufyan, Commander of the Republican
Guard reached an agreement with American forces in which he ordered his
forces to surrender in exchange for his transfer via an American Apache
helicopter to an undisclosed safe haven.
 
Quoting anonymous sources, Le Monde's correspondent in Baghdad said that
Sufyan ordered all Republican Guard forces to lay down their arms and go
home. Shortly thereafter an Apache helicopter escorted Sufyan from the Al
Rashid camp, east of Baghdad, to an unknown location.
 
Maher Sufyan is not included on the infamous "deck of cards" created by US
defence officials to highlight the most wanted individuals from the Saddam
Hussein government. Iraq's popular Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed Al
Sahaf, Naji Sabri, Iraq's Foreign Minister and Oumid Medhat Mubarak, the
minister of health are also not included on the list.


http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2538&version
=1&template_id=263&parent_id=258

*  US SOLDIERS HURT IN GUERRILLA ATTACK
aljazeera.net, 14th April

Six US soldiers were wounded, two of them seriously, in a surprise grenade
attack near Baghdad on Sunday, heightening fears that the Iraqi resistance
could now predominantly take the form of sudden hit-and-run attacks.

And tonight small arms fire broke out in Baghdad early on Monday close to
the Palestine Hotel, home to foreign media covering the US-led war on Iraq,
a Reuters correspondent reported.

Correspondent Edmund Blair said he heard several minutes of shooting and
that flares went up to light an area near the hotel. There was then a period
of silence followed by more shots and another flare.

The Marines arrested three men after the shooting. One had an AK-47 assault
rifle and another had a pistol, they said.
  
US Captain Mike Roche said the men had fired at the Marines from a building
about 100 metres (yards) away.

In today's grenade attack an anti-US resistance fighter is suspected to have
lobbed the munition and fled while the US soldiers were removing mortars
from a weapons cache south of Baghdad.

"It's a typical terrorist strike and we are determined to combat them," said
spokesman of the US central command in Qatar David Luchett.

Soldiers from the 101st Airborne division were carrying mortars into the
coutyard of a building in Mahumudiya, about 25 kms from Baghdad when the
Iraqi stepped out of a car, tossed the grenade and then sped away.

The attack was organised with US troops coming under simultaneous fire from
three separate positions.

The US troops are reported to have fired back and helicopter gunships were
deployed within minutes. But the attackers escaped.

Coming close in the heels of a huge haul of black leather vests packed with
explosives and intended for 'human bomb' attacks, Sunday's grenade attack is
being viewed seriously.

US troops patrolling various cities across Iraq are already on edge
following several attacks. In the latest carried out in a Baghdad
neighbourhood a couple of days ago, an Iraqi drove a car laden with
explosives close to a US checkpoint, before detonating it. Four US marines
and a medical corpsman were wounded in the attack.

Several other US soldiers have been killed elsewhere in Iraq in explosions
triggered by 'human bombs'.

Adding to the US worries is the chance recovery of a letter from group of
men, offering rewards for killing US soldiers. US defence secretary Donald
Rumsfeld claimed the men were travelling in a bus with $650,000  on them
when they were intercepted by a US army patrol.


http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=25240

*  BAGHDAD AREA PROUD TO RESIST US FORCES
Arab News (Saudi Arabia), 15th April

BAGHDAD, 15 April 2003 ‹ More than 20 "martyrs" are buried under the olive
trees outside the Abu Hanifa Mosque, the name of each slipped into Pepsi
bottles stuck in the ground. The Aadhamiyah neighborhood, resident Faisal
Sayed Jafar noted proudly, did not give a warm reception to US troops.
"We're the only part of Baghdad that didn't welcome the American soldiers
with flowers," he said with a smile. "Of course, we paid a price."

Aadhamiyah, in the northwest of the capital, was the scene of a daylong
battle Thursday that, according to residents, pitted US troops, fresh from
their triumphant tour of central Baghdad the day before, against a dedicated
mini-army of Iraqis and Arab volunteers. Caught in the crossfire, the Sunni
mosque of Abu Hanifa bore the scars. The minaret was nearly cracked in two
from the tank fire, inside columns barely remained standing and the inner
courtyard had gaping holes that could have been the work of attack
helicopters.

Residents here said the head cleric at the mosque, Sheikh Watheq Al-Obeidi,
was taken prisoner with his two sons by US troops. Jafar, a former trainer
for the national swimming team, refused to accept that many Baghdadis
welcomed US troops.

"One mustn't be fooled by people's smiles. Inside, our hearts are bleeding,"
he insisted. "We refuse to accept the occupation and collapse of our
country."

Neighbors said that among the dead were some civilians and Iraqi troops but
also "fedayeen," or "patriots," from Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

"The fedayeen came from outlying neighborhoods because they knew people here
would be more supportive," said Riyad Abdullah, a spice merchant.

But the Arab volunteers failed to understand their guns and grenades were no
match for US firepower. Estimates are that up to 30 people died here
Thursday. "We were pleased to see the neighborhood resist, but we suffered,
and many didn't stay here because of the airstrikes. Now we've got to return
to normal," Abdullah concluded.

With chaos engulfing much of Baghdad due to a leadership vacuum, Aadhamiyah
quickly organized a 30-strong army of volunteers ‹ some armed with
revolvers, others simply with chunks of wood ‹ to protect the neighborhood
from looting.

At Friday prayers, "a doctor came to tell us that hospitals had been looted
and some patients had left their beds. The imam said one shouldn't take what
belongs to everyone," Abdullah said. In the absence of police and other
authorities, the neighborhood committee has been making rounds to clear
trash and carry out other basic municipal functions.

"For 300 to 400 years we've taken pride in our neighborhood," said another
resident. "This is where the mother of Caliph Harun Al-Rashid is buried," he
said, referring to the fabled Abbasid ruler who died in 809.

Life has returned somewhat to normal. Men chat, play dominoes and sip tea
behind the blown-out windows of a coffeehouse. But in the neighborhood's
alleyways, debris from the battle still blocked traffic.

Children briefly came up with a game: exploring the inside of an abandoned
US tank. But to their disappointment, troops came back Sunday and hauled it
away.

Hamid Mohammad Ahmed's family saw the wall of their house blasted in by tank
fire during last week's fighting.

"There was a huge noise and we ran out screaming," said the grandfather.
"Sorry, sorry," the US troops said, according to Ahmed. The family,
terrified, understood them to be saying, "Souri, Souri," which means
"Syrian, Syrian" in Arabic. "They were looking for Fedayeen," he said.


http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=focusIraqNews&storyID=2571402

*  IRAQ: THE DOG THAT DIDN'T BARK? OR WAS IT MUZZLED?
by John Chalmers
Reuters, 15th April

DOHA, Qatar: There were no chemical weapon attacks, there was no "war within
a war" between Turkey and the Kurds, no refugee crisis, no mass destruction
of oil wells, bridges or dams and there was no "Stalingrad" urban bloodbath.

Was Iraq the dog that didn't bark?

With U.S. Marine chemical warfare experts in Baghdad now turning
decontamination kits into hot showers for the troops, the worst-case
scenarios predicted before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq less than a month
ago look ridiculously overblown.

And yet U.S. military planners say that were it not for the lightning speed
of their push forward and the potent combination of arms -- from devastating
air power and disruptive special forces to intelligence and psychological
operations -- those scenarios might well have come to pass.

War commander General Tommy Franks applied many of the lessons learned in
the Afghanistan conflict of 2001 to Iraq. Among these was the extensive use
of special operations forces, teams of 10 or 12 people who -- according to
one source -- waged "a guerrilla war of their own."

"The special operations raids early on destroyed command and control
centers, they seized oil infrastructure, they took airfields, they began to
establish a presence inside of Baghdad and get the targeting information
we've used..." said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution.

He told a briefing on the war in Washington that the juxtaposition of
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's ideas for "innovation and special
operations" with the military's preference to go in big and strong and
conventional had worked.

The command structure of now-deposed President Saddam Hussein's giant
military machine was modeled along Soviet lines: it was one where divisional
commanders waited for orders and were not expected, perhaps not trusted, to
take initiatives.

And so by quickly ripping Iraq's command and control capability to shreds,
the U.S.-led forces reduced the chances that orders to use weapons of mass
destruction or blow up bridges, dams and oil wells would ever reach its
front lines.

Planners believe their leafleting campaign may also have made Iraqis decide
against torching oil heads or destroying bridges, many of which they say
were rigged with explosives.

Some Iraqis captured in the southern oil fields were reported to have told
U.S. forces they had been persuaded by air-dropped exhortations not to
squander their country's wealth.

The disintegration of Iraq's command and control meant that the U.S.-led
forces were always 48-72 hours ahead of their enemy, which never had a
real-time picture of the battlefield.

And so Saddam, if he was still alive, was probably astonished to find U.S.
troops at the gates of Baghdad so quickly.

Brookings Senior Fellow Kenneth Pollack says the Iraqis made the same
miscalculation in the 1991 Gulf War.

"The Iraqis plan for a certain kind of war and they always expected to have
more time to make decisions and shift forces than was actually the case," he
told the Washington briefing.

Lacking direction and battered from the air and ground, the formidable line
of Republican Guards with which Saddam had hoped to defend the southern
outskirts of Baghdad collapsed and pulled back in disarray to set up hasty
defenses within the city.

Pollack said U.S. forces saw that Saddam's elite troops were on a back foot
and, instead of digging in for a siege, they dashed into the capital before
the Iraqis could prepare an urban battlefield.

Military officials boast that Franks's readiness to look for opportunities
like this to press forward rather than stick to rigid timelines -- another
lesson from Afghanistan -- paid off.

In the north, the Kurdish militia's grab of Kirkuk stoked concerns that
Turkey would send its forces across the border to put down a possible push
for independence.

But a combination of strong diplomatic pressure on Ankara to hold off and a
tight rein on the Kurdish militia meant the "war within a war" scenario was
never a serious threat.

As for predictions that the war would unleash huge flows of refugees from
Iraq, they too turned out to be wrong.

"It seems that the early allied military strategy of bypassing major cities,
selective bombing of military targets and warnings to civilians to stay at
home and off the main roads have limited the number of civilians on the
move," the International Institute for Strategic Studies said in a paper.

U.S. Central Command said Tuesday that its forces had found 80
surface-to-air missiles as well as extensive caches of modern weaponry since
the fighting died down.

Analyst Paul Beaver told BBC World the finds were chilling.

"If they had had their command and control in place, if they had had the
will, they could have actually delayed this conflict and made it a very long
and drawn-out affair," he said.


http://www.iht.com/articles/93424.html

*  [U.S. SEIZES A VETERAN TERRORIST IN BAGHDAD]
by James Risen and David Johnston
International Herald Tribune, from The New York Times, 17th April

[.....]

In other intelligence-related developments, CIA officials said Tuesday that
their analysts believed Saddam's government collapsed so rapidly last week
in part because many of his top aides had become convinced that he was dead.
Intelligence officials say they still are not certain whether Saddam is
dead, but they say that the belief within the ranks of the Iraqi government
that he had been killed in a bombing raid appears to have spread swiftly,
prompting many Iraqi officials to desert their posts.

After the raid on April 7 destroyed a building where Saddam was believed to
be meeting with some of his closest aides, the government quickly collapsed.
Within two days, U.S. troops had occupied central Baghdad. After the fall of
Baghdad, U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted communications between
mid-level members of the deposed government discussing how they were
convinced that Saddam had been killed in a bombing raid.

American officials said Tuesday that analysts were leaning toward an
assessment that Saddam is dead. The fate of his two sons, Qusay and Uday,
remained uncertain, however. The CIA and the Pentagon have received
conflicting reports about both.

Saddam's removal was considered so crucial to the outcome of the war that
President George W. Bush altered the Pentagon's war plans at the last minute
to launch a strike against a bunker where Saddam was believed to be staying.
Some U.S. officials say it is possible that Saddam died in that first
strike.




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