200 Iraqis surrender; copter crash kills 12; missiles hit Baghdad

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SOUTHERN IRAQ — U.S. troops were advancing through the deserts of southern Iraq in armored convoys today, and Marines punched through Iraqi resistance blocking the main road to the key city of Basra.

Marines of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit help an Iraqi soldier in southern Iraq today. About 200 Iraqis surrendered an hour after the Marines crossed into Iraq from Kuwait. Other U.S. and British units reported dozens more Iraqis surrendered today. Associated Press

Iraq's capital was hit yesterday by a new wave of missiles and bombs that struck a presidential compound housing several government departments at the heart of Saddam Hussein's power.

The fighting marked a slow escalation of war meant to drive out Saddam and disarm Iraq. But officials in Washington said it was only a down payment on the intense airstrikes that might yet come from missiles, jet fighters, bombers and Stealth aircraft.

A Pentagon official said the United States had stepped up its psychological warfare campaign to persuade Iraqi forces to surrender. As one U.S. official reported some signs of disarray in the Iraqi army, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "We still hope that it is possible that (Saddam's regime will collapse) without the full force and fury of a war."

But if full-scale military operations become necessary, Rumsfeld said, they will be of "a scope and a scale that is beyond what has been seen before."

About 200 Iraqi soldiers surrendered to the U.S. 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit just over an hour after it crossed the border into Iraq from northern Kuwait.

One group of 40 Iraqis marched in formation down a two-lane road toward the Americans and gave up. They were told to lie face down on the ground and were searched by the Marines. At the same time, Marines cleared bunkers, emerging from one with two Iraqis with bound wrists. One had a dark gray uniform, the other was barefoot. Abandoned weapons and mortars were spread over a large area.

Elsewhere, U.S. troops met resistance from Iraqi units. The 7th Marine Infantry's 3rd Batallion apparently had to delay its foray into Iraq after — according to military radios — a large number of previously unknown tanks was sighted on the Iraqi side of the border.

The unit took small arms and artillery fire last night, and at one point a U.S. Cobra helicopter accidentally fired a missile at a U.S. M1 Abrams tank, injuring one soldier and forcing abandonment of the smoldering tank.

The United States and Britain suffered their first casualties in the war, as a U.S. Marine helicopter crashed in Kuwait. All 12 aboard the CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter were believed killed, a Defense Department official said.

The unarmed transport helicopter, with a four-person American crew, was carrying eight British troops back to Kuwait after a mission in Iraq, defense officials said. The crash was probably from mechanical problems, officials said.

Early today on the battlefield, hours after the invasion began, hundreds of allied military vehicles were backed up at the Kuwait-Iraq border. Marines waiting to enter Iraq could see a fire burning in the al Rumeila oil fields to the east.

Radio traffic indicated that a Marine detachment had been sent to take control of the oil field but it was unclear whether the effort was successful.

Earlier, units of the U.S. 1st Marine Division and British Royal Marine commandos crossed the border into Iraq from the south, and Kuwait's official news agency said they captured the border town of Umm Qasr, a main Iraqi seaport about 30 miles south of the city of Basra. Iraq denied it.

The Royal Marines were reported to be storming the Al Faw peninsula, which controls a key Iraqi oil-export route.

"Aim point is Baghdad," Col. Joe Dowdy said as Marines plus Navy SEALs and British commandos abandoned foxholes and other positions in northern Kuwait, climbed into a snaking convoy of thousands of armored vehicles and rumbled into Iraq.

Mortars and cannon shells screamed overhead — and U.S. infantry troops cheered. Army artillery and Apache helicopter gunships raked Iraqi positions. A Marine unit knocked out an Iraqi 1950s-vintage T-55 tank, eliciting lusty "hoorahs" from officers at headquarters.

At the same time, missiles and bombs struck Saddam's presidential compound in Baghdad, which the Iraqi president rarely uses. But several of the government departments at the center of his regime are on the grounds of the complex.

They include the Planning Ministry, which erupted into flames.

Reports in Baghdad said one of the buildings struck was the home of Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister of Iraq and one of Saddam's most influential and longtime allies. Aziz, the only Christian in Saddam's Cabinet, is a polished diplomat who strictly adheres to the policies of his boss.

A government spokesman said one person died in the bombing but did not say whether the casualty was an Iraqi official. The bombing occurred in an isolated area where Iraqi citizens are barred and foreign reporters were not allowed to visit.

Iraqi radio confirmed that the first wave of bombing, at dawn yesterday, struck "the home of the family of President Saddam Hussein and the home of the co-fighter Um Uday (his wife) and the houses of his two daughters."

Another target in the initial phase of bombing appeared to be the Rasheed military complex, south of Baghdad. Other explosions appeared to take place at a power plant in the area.

After the second wave of missile and bombing attacks, the streets of Baghdad were empty. Two tanks were parked a few blocks from the Al-Rashid Hotel. There were no large concentrations of troops.

The few troops in evidence appeared to be deployed to prevent civil unrest rather than to fight invading forces if they arrived. They included volunteers, activists in the ruling Baath Party, police officers and some soldiers. Three or four gathered about every 50 yards, at street corners and sand bags.

They were armed with light weapons.

To the south near the border with Kuwait, the Iraqis fired at least eight Scud and Chinese-made Seersucker missiles at U.S. encampments. They either fell harmlessly in the desert or were shot down before reaching their targets.

U.S. Patriot missile batteries destroyed two of the Iraqi missiles near Camp Thunder, an American base west of Kuwait City, two senior commanders said. No damage or injuries were reported.

Five Patriot missiles were fired from Camp Thunder and nearby Ali Al air base, where U.S. forces are stationed, the commanders said. Two of them destroyed incoming missiles launched from just outside Basra. Two Patriots landed in uninhabited desert. One malfunctioned and self-destructed, as designed, to avoid a harmful explosion.

In Washington, Rumsfeld said the Iraqis were believed to have set fire to three or perhaps four wells in the Ramallah oilfields, about 50 miles southwest of Basra and about two miles north of the Kuwait border.

Forces continued to mass near the border in northern Kuwait in the morning today, preparing to move into Iraq. The 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade pulled up to a tactical staging area.

"We're poised to do what the 101st does best — air assault," the brigade's commander, Col. Michael Linnington, said.