21 soldiers killed or captured; Saddam addresses Iraqis
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Iraq used ambushes and even fake surrenders to kill or capture up to 21 American troops yesterday, inflicting the first significant casualties on the allied forces driving toward Baghdad. U.S. war leaders declared the invasion on target despite the bloody setbacks.
Iraqi TV via Associated Press
Up to nine Marines died and as many as a dozen U.S. soldiers were taken prisoner in surprise engagements with Iraqis at An Nasiriyah, a southern city far from the forward positions of the allied force.
In a speech broadcast by Iraqi television, President Saddam Hussein praised his troops for fighting coalition forces invading Iraq. Saddam mentioned battles at Umm Qasr and Basra in an attempt to show that the address was not a previously made videotape.
In a speech today (late last night, Hawai'i time), Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the invading allied forces had underestimated the resistance of Iraqi fighters and made a specific reference to fighting at Umm Qasr.
The speech also mentioned other aspects of the war, suggesting Saddam survived the initial strikes on Baghdad. However, there was no information on whether the speech was live or taped, nor was there confirmation that the speaker was Saddam, who has previously used look-alikes.
The speech referred to fighting in the south at Umm Qasr and Basra and identified the commanders leading the resistance, indicating Saddam wasn't killed when a home in southern Baghdad was hit by a cruise missile as U.S. forces tracked the leadership last week. Bombing was heard in the capital as today's speech was aired.
Saddam appeared to be trying to rally his people as U.S. and British forces are advancing toward Baghdad. He said the allies were "trying to avoid engaging our forces" — a reference to the U.S. strategy of avoiding having to enter provincial cities — adding that "in most cases they are using their warplanes to attack our troops without engaging them in fighting."
"These decisive days, oh you Iraqis are in line with what God has ordered you to do, to cut their throats," he said.
On the third day of the coalition ground war, any expectation Iraqi defenders would simply fold was gone.
Associated Press
"Clearly they are not a beaten force," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "This is going to get a lot harder."
U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division soldiers secured a field near Najaf, Iraq, at sunrise yesterday. Coalition troops met tougher resistance from Iraqi forces yesterday, prompting Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, to say, "Clearly they are not a beaten force."
Even so, the U.S.-British coalition fought to within 100 miles of Baghdad and tended to a growing northern front.
Early today, Baghdad was bombarded with what appeared to be its strongest airstrikes since Friday, even as a mosque blared "God is great" and "Thanks be to God," perhaps to boost Iraqis' morale.
Allied soldiers came under attack in a series of ruses yesterday, U.S. officials said, with one group of Iraqis waving the white flag of surrender, then opening up with artillery fire; another group appearing to welcome coalition troops but then attacking them.
Lt. Gen. John Abizaid of U.S. Central Command said a faked surrender near An Nasiriyah, a crossing point over the Euphrates River northwest of Basra, set off the "sharpest engagement of the war thus far." Up to nine Marines died before the Americans prevailed, he said.
Twelve U.S. soldiers were missing and presumed captured by Iraqis in an ambush on an army supply convoy at An Nasiriyah, Central Command said.
"We, of course, will be much more cautious in the way that we view the battlefield as a result of some of these incidents," Abizaid said.
Arab television showed what it said were four American dead in an Iraqi morgue and at least five other Americans identified as captured soldiers.
U.S. and British officials said some of the stiffest resistance was coming from paramilitary forces known as the Fedayeen Saddam and from Saddam 's personal security forces.
"These are men who know that they will have no role in the building of a new Iraq, and they have no future," said Peter Wall, chief of staff to the British military contingent in the U.S.-led coalition.
Associated Press
President Bush kept his eye on the big prize — the removal of Saddam's government and Iraq's eventual disarmament.
A U.S. Marine is carried to a waiting ambulance after being seriously injured in an attack yesterday near the city of Nasiriyah.
"I know that Saddam Hussein is losing control of his country," Bush said upon his return from the Camp David retreat in Maryland. "We are slowly but surely achieving our objective."
With allies closing in, Iraqi leaders appealed for a united Arab front to condemn the invasion but knew they wouldn't get it.
"There is no hope in these rulers," Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said.
Russian and Chinese foreign ministers reasserted their view that the invasion has no legal basis and asked for an immediate halt.
In the most notable gain for the coalition, soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade moved 230 miles in 40 hours, killing scores of Iraqi militiamen who engaged them with machine guns, to take positions less than a day's journey from Baghdad.
The brigade raced day and night across rugged desert in more than 70 tanks and 60 Bradley fighting vehicles.
Iraqi Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmed expressed confidence his troops can hold the capital.
"If they want to take Baghdad they will have to pay a heavy price," he said.
U.S. ground forces began engaging the elite Iraqi Republican Guard that ring the outskirts of the city, launching helicopter attacks last night against the Guard's Medina division, a senior military official said.
Several other allied units engaged in intensive gunbattles yesterday. In southern Iraq, a soldier from the 3rd Infantry Division died in a vehicle accident.
Efforts intensified to assemble forces in northern Iraq, where air strikes have gone after radicals linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network but prospects for ground assaults have been limited because neighboring Turkey balked on becoming a staging ground.
A U.S. official said two Tomahawk cruise missiles malfunctioned yesterday and landed in Turkey. The missiles landed in unpopulated areas and no injuries were reported.
Near the Persian Gulf, Marines seized an Iraqi navy base yesterday morning at Az Zubayr. In the command center, Marines found half-eaten bowls of rice and other food.
Near Basra in the south, Marines saw hundreds of Iraqi men — apparently soldiers who had taken off their uniforms — walking along a highway with bundles on their backs past burned-out Iraqi tanks.
Allied forces have captured Basra's airport and a bridge. But commanders say they are in no rush to storm the city, hoping instead that Iraqi defenders decide to give up.
Although Iraq was getting little help diplomatically, many in the Muslim world expressed anger about the war.
