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Coalition continues a punishing air assault against Baghdad and its defenders

Sunday, March 30, 2003

By James O'Toole, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

As coalition forces continued a punishing air assault against Baghdad and its defenders, the Iraqi regime responded yesterday with a deadly tactic novel to this war but familiar to the Middle East -- a car bombing that killed four American soldiers and the driver who lured them to his explosives-laden vehicle.

A column of smoke over Baghdad in this image from television captured explosions in the regime capital late last night and early this morning, many around the southern fringes of the city where the Republican Guard, Saddam Hussein's best-trained fighters, are thought to be dug in. (AP photo / Al Jazeera TV via CNN) RELATED STORIES Bombers hammer Republican Guard units near Baghdad Late-night blasts rock capital after daylight bombing Polls show support for war still strong Errant missiles lead allies to close airspace Basra standoff raises concern about Baghdad War games: Should there be rules when worlds collide? Real-time TV war coverage turning U.S. into a nation of armchair generals Generals see longer, costlier war Military planners re-think strategy; some say more troops needed Saddam spared no expense building his own bunkers Rumor mill, Pentagon spin cast pall of skepticism over news coverage U.S. makes broad use of little-known surveillance powers in fight against terror Code Red would trigger a virtual lockdown RELATED COMMENTARY Editorial: No instant victory / War in Iraq will take time and a human toll RELATED GRAPHIC Day 11: Allies reload, airstrikes go on You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file. RELATED PHOTOS Special gallery: Soldiers from the Pittsburgh region Pictures from the Associated Press MORE RESOURCES Latest updates War on the Web: Choosing Internet news sources War on the Web: Key Sites for staying connected The War in Iraq: Informational graphics for children Internet resources

Saddam Hussein's vice president promised more suicide attacks aimed at Americans. "We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land and we will follow the enemy in its land," Taha Yassin Ramadan said at a Baghdad news conference. "This is just the beginning."

Ramadan's warning came the day after a U.S. State Department official reported that American intelligence agents had broken up at least two planned Iraqi attacks against American targets in other Middle Eastern countries -- Jordan and an unidentified Persian Gulf nation.

The Iraqi official spoke from a capital reeling under the grim routine of coalition air strikes. Among them was a Tomahawk missile assault that severely damaged Iraq's Information Ministry near the center of the city. Elsewhere in the capital, mourners made funeral preparations for scores of civilians killed the previous day in the second deadly explosion in a Baghdad market.

Iraqi authorities blamed the deaths on coalition missiles or bombs. U.S. officials said the incident was under investigation and could have resulted from Iraqi surface-to-air missiles falling back to Earth.

American and British planes flew more than a thousand missions over Iraq yesterday, most of them aimed at Republican Guard divisions defending the approaches to Baghdad, said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations for U.S. Central Command.

"We believe it was a very successful attack," said Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart. "A number of tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery pieces, multi-purpose vehicles and some ... surface to-to-air radars were destroyed in that attack and the aircraft returned safely."

The suicide bombing began yesterday morning as a taxi, driven by man identified by Iraqi officials as Ali Jaafar al-Noamani, approached a highway checkpoint north of Najaf, a city surrounded by elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry. He reportedly waved for help and detonated the bomb after four soldiers from the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade approached to lend a hand.

Iraqi television said the bomber was a noncommissioned officer. His government posthumously decorated him and promoted him to the rank of colonel.

The names of the four American victims were not immediately released. Their deaths brought the total of American combat fatalities to 29.

Early today, U.S. Central Command announced the deaths of two Marines in separate Humvee accidents in South-Central Iraq. One died late Friday when he was struck by a Humvee during a firefight with Iraqi soldiers; the other drowned yesterday when his vehicle rolled into a canal.

Al Jazeera, the Arab TV station, reported that the suicide attack was the work of the pro-Saddam Fedayeen, the irregular forces blamed for many of the attacks against coalition forces in Basra and along the supply route north toward Baghdad.

Ramadan, the Iraqi vice president, called the bombing a prelude to similar attacks against Americans and Britons by Arabs and Muslims throughout the world.

"And I say to the United States administration, that it will turn the whole world into people who are willing to die for their nations. The aggressors think that their B-52s can carry bombs of such weight that they are capable of killing an unlimited number of people. Do we wait until the Arabs can make bombs to counter that? No, all they can do is turn themselves into bombs. If the B-52 bomber can kill 500 people at one time, then I am sure that our operations by freedom fighters will be able to kill 5,000 people."

Renuart said the car bombing was "a symbol of an organization that's beginning to get a little bit desperate." He called the attack tragic, but said it will have "no operational effect on the battlefield."

In Basra, the southern city surrounded by British troops, F-15 Strike Eagle aircraft bombed a building reported to have housed some 200 militia members loyal to the Baath regime. Brooks showed videotape of the attack during a Central Command briefing and noted that no one was seen escaping from the rubble left by the attack.

In northern Iraq, Kurdish forces allied with the coalition yesterday exploited the vacuum left when Iraqi troops near the border of the Kurdish-controlled region moved south to help protect Baghdad. The Kurds marched closer to the key Kirkuk oil fields, Iraq's second most productive after the southern fields seized early in the war.

"They are getting ready for a last stand," Farhad Yunus Ahmad, a Kurdish commander, said of the Iraqis in an interview with The Associated Press.

Renuart was among several coalition and Bush administration figures who took pains yesterday to rebut suggestions that the coalition advance had paused or lost momentum.

"It would be unfair to characterize the fact that you don't see tanks rolling on every single day as any pause in the operation," he said. "We are 10 days or so into the campaign; I would not allow anybody to view those 10 days as too long, as us moving too slowly."

He acknowledged the sniping and flank attacks endured by the coalition forces over the past week, but argued that they should be viewed as relatively small hurdles.

"There have been some harassing attacks along the supply lines and they continue, but they have not stopped the movement of our logistics support forward," he said. "Those attacks have become fewer, with fewer forces, and they have been defeated with relatively minimal cost to our forces."

Pentagon officials dismissed scattered reports by reporters embedded with the troops of growing shortages of food, water and gasoline. David Willis, a BBC reporter traveling with U.S. Marines about 100 miles south of Baghdad, reported that some troops have had their rations cut to one meal a day in response to a supply crunch.

"The big answer is that there is no resupply problem," said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in a Pentagon briefing yesterday afternoon. "Water, food and munitions are getting forward in the quantities they need."

In a boost for coalition airpower, U.S. aircraft flew combat missions from Iraqi soil for the first time Saturday, when A-10 warplanes flew out of a captured Iraqi base to conduct strikes, CNN and Air Force Times correspondents at the base reported. From the base, which CNN said was south of Baghdad, the A-10s can roam longer over Iraqi territory to hunt for Iraqi forces.

As both sides tried to convince the court of world opinion that the other was employing inhumane tactics, Renuart said Army experts were on their way to Nasiriyah to investigate the discovery of the bodies of four American soldiers in a shallow grave. They were found near the site of an ambush last week in a which a dozen American troops were lost. Five were taken prisoner and displayed on Iraqi television. The rest are missing.

President Bush, in his weekly radio address, said, "In the last week,, the world has seen firsthand the cruel nature of a dying regime. ... Prisoners of war have been brutalized and executed. Iraqis who refuse to fight for the regime are being murdered."

Bush warned again that any Iraqi committing war crimes "will be hunted relentlessly and judged severely."

In response to a question in the regular Central Command briefing, Renuart said that coalition forces continued to seek stores of weapons of mass destruction held by the Iraqi regime. He said, however, that none had been confirmed so far.

The Washington Post, citing intelligence sources, reported today that 10 key sites seized so far in the war that were thought to contain chemical or biological weapons have turned up empty.

Coalition forces have pointed out several large-scale discoveries of anti-chemical suits and masks as evidence that could be linked to Iraqi plans to use chemical weapons.