March 22, 2003
Officials: Air campaign aims to be 'persuasive' By BRYAN BENDER WASHINGTON - The bombs fell Friday on the Old Palace, the historic government headquarters in Baghdad; on the modern studios of Iraqi television, Iraq's leading media outlet; and on the Iraqi information ministry, the regime's official spin center. And every flyover by a B-52, and every terrifying buzz of a cruise missile, carried what military leaders hope will be a clear message: U.S. attack aircraft can penetrate at will, breaking the back of Saddam Hussein's regime. U.S. commanders had hoped, right up to the last minute, that they wouldn't have to do this. They had thought, up until morning, that they might not have to pull the trigger on the "shock and awe" bombing campaign that was promised earlier in the week. But military officials acknowledged Friday that despite their progress in undermining the Iraqi leadership through pinpoint strikes and psychological warfare, the regime has not crumbled as quickly as some predicted, and a bigger jolt was necessary. "What we have done this far has not been sufficiently persuasive," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon just minutes after more than 1,500 bombs and missiles began dropping on "hundreds" of targets around Baghdad and across the country. Meanwhile, U.S. and allied ground units pushed deeper into Iraqi territory on at least three fronts. Using a mix of fighter aircraft and bombers, as well as more than 1,000 cruise missiles, U.S. forces delivered on their promise to pound military and other "leadership targets" in the capital, as well as in the northern cities of Mosul, Kirkuk, and Tikrit, and in Nasariya and Basra in the south. A Defense Department official said Friday night that bombs also were targeting suspected sites where weapons of mass destruction were being stored. "Every weapon used was a precision-guided munition," said the defense official, who asked not to be named. Despite the ferocity of the assault, Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that it would be "humane" and that military planners have taken care to strike only preselected targets. There are no plans for Vietnam-style carpet bombing over wide areas, they said. A-day, as Pentagon officials described the opening of the air campaign, caught up with the allied ground offensive that began a day earlier. Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. Central Command, ordered American and British ground forces to push out of Kuwait into southern Iraq earlier than expected. Iraqi attempts to strike at the troops at their camps in Kuwait prompted the early movement. As U.S. Army and Marines and British forces sped about 100 miles into southern Iraq, other forces took control of key airfields in the west and the north. They joined indigenous forces opposed to the Hussein regime who clashed with the Republican Guard on the outskirts of Kirkuk. Meeting little resistance, the multipronged ground offensive left in its wake thousands of Iraqi soldiers who abandoned their equipment and opted to surrender rather than fight. The surrenders enabled allied units to secure the two main oil pipelines on Iraq's Persian Gulf coast, near the town of Um Qasr and its key port, as well as a number of oil fields, including several set ablaze by Iraqi forces on Wednesday. Meanwhile, defense officials confirmed that U.S. and coalition ground troops were operating in the north, paving the way for a larger contingent in the coming days, and on the western edge of the country, working alongside Australian forces and special operations units of the Polish Army. Australian naval forces stopped and boarded three Iraqi ships in the northern Persian Gulf that were carrying sea mines. It was unclear, officials said, whether they had succeeded in placing any of the mines in the heavily traveled waterway. The Iraqi crews were taken as prisoners of war by U.S. naval forces. U.S. officials said the intent of the latest movements is to widen what appear to be fissures in the Iraqi regime. They hope to destroy the levers of power, leaving military units unable to talk to their commanders. At the same time, the United States will continue to pressure commanders to quit. "Those close to Saddam will likely begin searching for a way to save themselves," Mr. Rumsfeld predicted. "Those whose obedience is based on fear may well begin to lose their fear of him. Officers and soldiers in the field will increasingly see that their interests lie not in dying for a doomed regime, but in helping the forces of Iraq's liberation." Many were already complying. The commander of Iraq's 51st division, dug in around the key southern city of Basra, surrendered to allied forces, turning over 8,000 troops. Elsewhere, Iraqi dissidents working with the United States engaged in face-to-face negotiations with other army units, hoping to convince more military leaders that Mr. Hussein's regime is finished. "It's a very centrally organized government and a lot of people are waiting for orders they apparently aren't getting," said one U.S. defense official. Still, the optimism among military officials about the progress of the operation was tempered by worries that the toughest part of the battle may be in the coming days. "I'll be frank," said a senior military official. "The hard fight is ... when we're dealing with the Republican Guard," the senior military official said. "Wherever the Republican Guard is, they will be accorded full respect as tough fighters because they will fight to the death." Another senior Pentagon official said commanders are aware that Iraqi leaders may be "luring" allied troops into Baghdad. "We are on the lookout for that one big poke in the eye," he said. Mr. Hussein's regime may be dying, he said, but allied officials are still wary of an intense battle for Baghdad, or a chemical or biological attack. |
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