- BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters)
- President Bush warned Americans not to expect a swift end to the war
against Iraq, promising President Saddam Hussein would be toppled "no
matter how long it takes," and Baghdad came under intense bombing
early on Friday.
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- Huge explosions reverberated through central Baghdad
and blasts rocked the city for several hours as missiles targeted an area
close to key government buildings including the ministries of information,
planning and foreign affairs on the ninth day of the U.S.-led war on Iraq.
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- A large fire blazed on the west bank of the River Tigris
and U.S. Central Command headquarters in Qatar said air and Tomahawk missile
strikes took out a communications center and command and control facilities.
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- With U.S. troops slowed by tough resistance at key river
crossings and harassed by irregular Iraqi forces hitting their vulnerable,
drawn-out supply lines, Bush refused to be drawn into setting a deadline
for the end of the war.
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- "This isn't a matter of timetable, it's a matter
of victory," he said after meeting with British Prime Minister Tony
Blair on Thursday to discuss progress of the war.
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- "The Iraqi people have got to know ... that they
will be liberated and Saddam Hussein will be removed, no matter how long
it takes," Bush said.
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- The United States ordered 100,000 more troops to the
theater and a top general said stiff resistance, unanticipated Iraqi tactics
and overstretched supply lines pointed to a longer conflict than planners
first forecast.
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- "The enemy we're fighting is different from the
one we'd war-gamed against," Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander
of the U.S. Army's V Corps, told The Washington Post. He said Iraqi irregulars
were using guerrilla-style tactics.
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- Bush has increasingly scaled back popular expectations
of a quick war in the face of tough Iraqi fighters, some of them not in
uniform.
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- BATTLE OF BAGHDAD
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- Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed predicted
that the decisive battle for Baghdad could be a week to 10 days away, but
warned the invaders they would have to conquer the Iraqi capital street
by street.
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- "We set up our (main) defenses in Baghdad. It will
be no surprise that in five to 10 days they will be able to encircle all
our positions in Baghdad. They have the capability to do so," he told
a news conference.
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- "But they have to come into the city eventually
... God willing, Baghdad will be impregnable. We will fight to the end
and everywhere. History will record how well Iraqis performed in defense
of their capital," Ahmed said.
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- A battle to take Baghdad house by house and street by
street could cause high military and civilian casualties.
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- The United States and Britain launched the war to oust
Saddam and take control of his alleged weapons of mass destruction, none
of which have yet been found.
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- As dawn broke over Baghdad on Friday, the Muslim holy
day, Reuters reporter Samia Nakhoul said the explosions continued but sounded
further away, possibly on the outskirts of the capital where units of Saddam's
Republican Guard are believed to be dug in.
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- Earlier, a flurry of blasts was clearly audible during
a live interview given by Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Saeed al-Sahaf
on Iraqi TV.
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- The minister said his country would not be cowed.
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- "I think it will become obvious to the world that
they (U.S. and British forces) have entered (Iraq) with a kind of stupidity
based on a simple idea that 'shock and awe' will make Iraqis kneel,"
he said.
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- U.S. troops continued to build up about 50 miles south
of Baghdad, preparing for an anticipated critical battle with Iraqi Republican
Guards dug in around Kerbala in the next couple of days.
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- "Kerbala is shaping up to be a key battle,"
said Lieutenant Colonel Paul Grosskruger of the 94th Engineers' Battalion,
attached to the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division.
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- A full Iraqi brigade of around 6,000 men, including tanks,
had taken up position around the city on either side of the Euphrates river,
U.S. officers said. Some were from the Medina division of the elite Republican
Guard and others were regular army troops.
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- Three brigades of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, totaling
some 15,000 men, are surging north toward Baghdad.
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- MORE U.S. FORCES
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- U.S. officials said the Pentagon would double its forces
on the ground in Iraq to about 200,000 in the next month.
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- Thousands of additional U.S. forces would flow into Iraq
from Kuwait, including the 4th Infantry Division from Texas, 1st Armored
Division from Germany and 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Colorado.
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- Bush and Blair also called on the United Nations to resume
its oil-for-food program to help bring much-needed food, water and medicine
to Iraqis.
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- Diplomats said U.N. Security Council ambassadors had
reached broad agreement to free billions of dollars of Iraq's oil revenues
in an effort to avert a humanitarian crisis, although member nations still
had to agree the draft deal.
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- Iraq said the conflict had caused more than 4,000 civilian
casualties, including more than 350 dead. There was no independent confirmation
of these figures.
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- According to the latest official count, a total of 28
U.S. and 20 British troops have been killed and 18 U.S. and two British
soldiers are listed as missing.
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- In the north, 1,000 paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne
Brigade took over an airfield in Kurdish-controlled territory on Thursday
and CNN reported U.S. cargo planes were already using the air strip to
bring in equipment.
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- "This is the beginning of the northern front,"
a U.S. defense official said. But military experts said this could take
weeks and would require a massive airlift of armor.
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- tact Us
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