Home >  Nation & World >  World News

Iraqi divisions outside capital under unrelenting attack

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

By James O'Toole, Post-Gazette Politics Editor

With artillery, renewed ground attacks, and both precision and carpet bombing, coalition forces attacked Republican Guard divisions surrounding Baghdad yesterday as Iraqi troops from the north were called to shore up the capital's defenses.

U.S. Army soldiers from A Company 3rd Battalion 7th Infantry Regiment watch an Air Force bomber as it flies high over the desert of central Iraq while making circling bombing runs near Karbala yesterday. (John Moore, AP photo) RELATED STORIES West Virgina's Pfc. Jessica Lynch rescued from Iraqi captivity U.S. gains upper hand in Najaf Explosions rock central Baghdad Baath Party still controls besieged Basra High-tech 4th Infantry arrives in Kuwait for war in Iraq Jordan arrests Iraqis in suspected plot to poison water for U.S. troops Satellites provide vital reconnaissance, communications to war effort 2nd Gulf conflict alters way news media cover war Four journalists held in Iraq are set free ON THE LOCAL FRONTHow a great war reporter mustered out of Pittsburgh RELATED COMMENTARY David M. Shribman: Expectations are the first casualty RELATED GRAPHIC Day 14: U.S. reinforcements arrive You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file. RELATED PHOTOS Photo journal, from the home front to the Mideast Special gallery: Soldiers from the Pittsburgh region Pictures from the Associated Press MORE RESOURCES Latest updates War on the Web: Choosing Internet news sources War on the Web: Key Sites for staying connected The War in Iraq: Informational graphics for children Internet resources

"Coalition forces are coming from the north; they're coming from the south, and they're coming from the west," said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. "And the circle is closing."

At the same time, details began to emerge of the dramatic rescue of West Virginia soldier Jessica Lynch who had been held captive by Iraqi forces in Nasiriyah.

Earlier yesterday and on through the night, Iraqi divisions in positions southeast and southwest of Baghdad were the targets of unrelenting attacks.

"The Medina, Hammurabi, Baghdad, and the al-Nida Republican Guard divisions are continually being struck by both our ground and air forces, significantly degrading their combat capability," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As he spoke at a Pentagon briefing, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division was located west of the Euphrates near the holy city of Karbala, where reporters described thunderous barrages from cruise missiles, artillery and B-52 bombers. Just hours later, the 3rd Infantry launched what appeared to be its largest attacks to date against the Republican Guard's Medina Division, positioned between them and the capital.

A Pentagon official told the Washington Post that the attack by the 3rd Infantry's 7th Cavalry Regiment began as an armed reconnaissance probing Iraqi lines but grew to "an all-out battle."

East of the Euphrates, and southwest of Baghdad, Marines reported heavy fighting and the deaths of more than 80 Iraqi soldiers in the course of an eight-hour battle near the crossroads city of Diwaniyah.

Using a fishing analogy, Lt. Col. B.P. McCoy told Ellen Knickmeyer, an Associated Press reporter traveling with his troops, that the defenders had taken the Marines' bait in standing and fighting.

"It was a chumming mission," McCoy said. "We threw some chum on the water and saw what came up. The Iraqis were pretty determined. We hit them pretty hard."

McCoy said that a battle in which there were no immediate reports of Marine casualties also had yielded 44 Iraqi prisoners of war, including several who were believed to be Republican Guard officers.

About 75 miles southeast of that engagement, other Marine units, heading toward the town of Kut, formed yet another vector of the forces converging on the Iraqi capital. A Marine spokesman said its defenders were the targets of heavy bombing yesterday, while Marines advancing toward it had secured an air base at Qalat Sukkar, on a road between Kut and Nasiriyah, the site of repeated clashes last week.

"I think there's bigger pushes that will be under way as soon as we're ready," Myers said.

Neither he nor briefers at Central Command headquarters in Qatar would say when that would be. The first three ships carrying the equipment of the 4th Infantry Division arrived in Kuwait yesterday, and one of its generals said the heavily armed unit could be on the battlefield "in a matter of weeks."

The 4th was originally to have advanced on Iraq through Turkey in the north. But when Turkey failed to allow it to cross its borders, the division was reassigned to an embarkation from Kuwait.

As U.S.-led forces tried to erode the effectiveness of the Baghdad defense, Myers reported that Iraq was shifting its troops as well.

"The two Republican Guard divisions that were in the north have both moved south," Myers said at an afternoon briefing.

In the southern city of Basra, British troops in the outskirts continued to batter regime loyalists within the city. Coalition planes dropped laser-guided bombs on what was described as an intelligence complex in the besieged city, Iraq's second largest.

The combat across the country was met by continued defiance in Baghdad.

Commenting on a call by a top member of the Saudi royal family for Saddam Hussein to step down to save his country further fighting, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, said, "Go to hell."

On Iraqi television yesterday, the government's information minister read an exhortation from Saddam, urging his countrymen to rise up against the coalition forces.

Underscoring the question marks about the Iraqi leader's fate, Rumsfeld said later that he found it "interesting," that Saddam had not appeared on television to deliver the message himself.

"Is Saddam alive?" Ari Fleischer, President Bush's press secretary, asked rhetorically during his daily briefing. "We do not know. The fact that he failed to show up for his scheduled appearance today raises additional questions."

While the preponderance of U.S. and British air power had shifted to the Republican Guard, Baghdad continued to be targeted.

At least six huge explosions boomed over the city early this morning. Smoke rose from The Old Palace, the ceremonial seat of government on the west bank of the Tigris, which also houses a Republican Guard camp. Targets of the previous day included an Air Force officers club and the Iraqi Olympic headquarters, which is reported to house a detention and torture center operated by Saddam's son, Uday.

Mohammed Saeed al-Shaf, the regime's information minister, charged that coalition forces had killed 56 Iraqi civilians yesterday, in separate attacks in Baghdad and in an attack by Apache helicopters on the town of Hillah, near Karbala.

Central Command officials said they were investigating the charges, but they added that no Apache helicopters had been operating near Hillah during the time in question.

In London, Foreign Minster Jack Straw cast doubt on earlier accusations that coalition bombing had been to blame for the deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad market.

"It's increasingly probable, that this was the result of Iraqi -- not coalition -- action," Straw said. "Yet when the story broke and we promised an inquiry, some chose to characterize our response as an admission of guilt. It usually takes time for the truth to catch up with the image."

Myers opened his public remarks yesterday by offering condolences to the families of at least seven Iraqi civilians mistakenly killed by U.S. soldiers at a roadblock near Karbala the previous day.

The general and his civilian boss also offered a heated rebuttal to the critiques of their war plan that have appeared in recent days, often based on the observations of retired U.S. military officers.

"My view of those reports ... is that they're bogus," said Myers.

Rumsfeld's Cabinet colleague, Secretary of State Colin Powel, was traveling to Ankara yesterday to reaffirm the administration argument against allowing Turkish troops to enter Kurdish-controlled regions of northern Iraq.

Today, Bush was to travel to Camp LeJeune, N.C., the home base of many of the Marine units fighting in Iraq.