- CENTRAL IRAQ (Reuters) -
U.S. commanders have ordered a pause of four to six days in a northward
push toward Baghdad because of supply shortages and stiff Iraqi resistance,
U.S. military officers said on Saturday.
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- They said the "operational pause," ordered
on Friday, meant that advances would be put on hold while the military
tried to sort out logistics problems caused by long supply lines from neighboring
Kuwait.
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- Food rations have been cut for at least one frontline
U.S. unit and fuel use has been limited.
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- The U.S.-led invasion force would continue to attack
Iraqi forces to the north with heavy air strikes during the pause, softening
them up ahead of any eventual attack on Baghdad, they said. The officers
declined to be named.
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- "We have almost out-run our logistics lines,"
one officer said at a U.S. unit at the northernmost stretch of the advance
in central Iraq. Some units have advanced to within 80 km (50 miles) of
Baghdad, but are almost 500 km from Kuwait.
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- Some military units further to the rear were still pushing
forward, however, Reuters correspondents traveling with the troops reported.
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- At Central Command in Qatar, a spokeswoman declined comment.
"I don't have any information on that, because that would be considered
current and future operations," she said.
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- On Friday, Britain's Army chief, Mike Jackson, dismissed
suggestions that the campaign had become bogged down after a few days of
quick advances from Kuwait since the invasion started on March 20. But
he spoke of a need to pause.
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- "Armies cannot keep moving forever without stopping
from time to time to regroup, to ensure their supplies are up," he
told a London news conference. "It's a pause while people get sorted
out for what comes next."
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- In one frontline U.S. infantry unit, soldiers have had
their rations cut to one "meal ready to eat" packet a day from
a normal three until supply trucks can get through.
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- GAS USE CUT
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- The U.S. military officers said that use of gas-guzzling
armored vehicles had been restricted to save diesel. No resupply is expected
for 24 hours.
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- Items like batteries for radios are also limited and
soldiers and Marines have been told to conserve the ones they have. Fresh
water is not a problem.
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- Stiffer-than-expected resistance from Saddam Fedayeen
militias in towns along the advance lines has made running supply convoys
a real problem, particularly from the southern city of Nassirya northwards.
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- Convoys this week through Nassiriya have been ambushed.
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- President Saddam Hussein's government has played down
the apparently lightning advance by the U.S.-led forces, saying that most
of the gains have been across tracts of desert while skirting major towns
along the route.
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- Near the city of Najaf, the U.S. military is building
a desert airstrip able to handle C-130 transport aircraft to help bypass
the need to bring in new supplies by road. Najaf is 160 km (100 miles)
south of Baghdad.
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