- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S.
ground troops waged a "major battle" with the Iraqi Republican
Guard south of Baghdad on Tuesday after President Saddam Hussein issued
a statement urging Iraqis to wage a holy war against invaders.
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- On a day in which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made
clear that only an unconditional Iraqi surrender would end the war, a U.S.
military official said a big fight was under way near the southern town
of Kerbala, 68 miles southwest of Baghdad.
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- "This is the big battle," the U.S. military
official at Central Command forward headquarters told Reuters. Asked if
the fighting represented a much anticipated new push toward the Iraqi capital,
the official said: "It well could be."
-
- Late in the day, as U.S. planes returned to pound Baghdad
once again, the U.S. Central Command said its forces had rescued a prisoner
of war in Iraq. A family member confirmed the POW was Jessica Lynch, 19,
a member of the maintenance company which ran by mistake last week into
an Iraqi unit.
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- "She's alive and well," the family member told
Reuters from the family home in Palestine, West Virginia.
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- Reuters reporters traveling with invading U.S. and British
troops earlier said a pause of several days in their advance toward Baghdad
-- under heavy bombardment since the war started 13 days ago -- appeared
to be over and armor was moving again.
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- In Baghdad, in a statement attributed to Saddam read
out on state television, the Iraqi leader urged Iraqis to fight American
and British troops wherever they were. "Hit them, fight them. ...
Fight them everywhere," the statement said.
-
- Saddam, 65, did not appear personally. Rumors have swirled
since the war began that he may have been hurt in a U.S. air attack. He
has been seen several times on television but it was not known when those
appearances were recorded.
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- CENTRAL BAGHDAD BATTERED
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- In recent days, U.S. warplanes have subjected Baghdad
and Republican Guard forces around it to a tremendous battering as land
forces fought to within 50 miles of the capital. A Reuters witness in Baghdad
heard at least six massive explosions in central Baghdad early on Wednesday
local time.
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- Reuters correspondent Samia Nakoul said she saw at least
one blast at a presidential compound.
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- "The area that was hit is where there are many ministries,
many military buildings," she said. "One of them was a big explosion.
It looks like they hit an artillery position or ammunition store."
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- Saddam's message this time, unaccompanied by images of
the leader, was read out by Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.
Rumsfeld said the fact that Saddam "did not show up" in person
was "interesting."
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- Rumsfeld's use of the term "unconditional surrender"
was the bluntest statement yet of U.S. war aims, which are officially to
oust Saddam, his family and supporters, install a more representative Iraqi
government and destroy the weapons of mass destruction the United States
insists Saddam is hiding.
-
- So far, no such weapons have been found.
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- "There will be no outcome to this war that leaves
Saddam Hussein and his regime in power," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon
briefing. "Let there be no doubt, his time will end, and soon. The
only thing that the coalition will discuss with this regime is their unconditional
surrender."
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- But Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said he was
confident Iraq could frustrate Washington's war aims.
-
- "We are confident of victory. Victory how? Victory
is defeating aggression by preventing it from achieving its goals. This
is victory," he said in an interview with the Arab satellite channel
LBC.
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- Saddam's call for jihad followed more fighting in the
south, continuing air raids on the Iraqi capital and on the northern city
of Kirkuk and more civilian deaths in an air raid, deaths that have further
fired Arab anger.
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- REGRET EXPRESSED
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- U.S. commander Richard Myers expressed regret for the
deaths of seven women and children killed by U.S. troops at a checkpoint
on Monday. He said, "the climate established by the Iraqi regime contributed
to this incident."
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- U.S. troops have been nervous of possible suicide bombers
since a suicide attack killed four soldiers on Saturday.
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- Marines on Tuesday shot dead an unarmed driver and badly
wounded his passenger at a roadblock south of Baghdad.
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- The civilian deaths were bound to damage U.S. efforts
to win Iraqi hearts and minds. But White House spokesman Ari Fleischer
said "slowly but surely the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people are
being won over as they see security increase in their areas, as humanitarian
deliveries are stepped up."
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- Myers told reporters in Washington that the pummeling
from the air and ground had left two of Iraq's elite Republican Guard divisions
below 50 percent of their initial combat capability. While they had not
staged a retreat, he said U.S. officials had seen some troops disperse
into civilian areas.
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- Reuters reporters taken by Iraqi officials to a hospital
in the town of Hilla saw 11 bodies, apparently civilians. Residents said
they were killed when U.S. bombs hit the residential area. Sahaf said nine
of the dead were children.
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- "What has he done wrong, what has he done wrong?"
demanded the driver of the truck carrying the bodies, as he held the corpse
of an infant.
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- At a televised news conference on Tuesday, Vice-President
Taha Yassin Ramadan said 6,000 volunteer fighters had arrived in Iraq.
More than half were suicide fighters and "you'll hear about them soon."
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- The United States has downplayed the diplomatic fall-out
from the Iraq war so far, but Secretary of State Colin Powell left Washington
on Tuesday morning for a hastily arranged trip to Europe and Turkey.
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- Powell told reporters he sought a "spirit of accommodation"
and a Turkish pledge not to launch an incursion into northern Iraq, a move
Washington fears could undermine its war effort.
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