US troops entered Baghdad today,claiming to be able to move in and out of the Iraqi capital at will,after fierce fighting reportedly left some 1,000 Iraqis dead.
A battalion of US tanks rumbled into Baghdad at dawn on the 17thday of hostilities, leaving the smouldering remains of dozens ofIraqi military vehicles in its wake.The attack appeared aimed not at seizing parts of the Iraqicapital but rather at showing the Iraqi people that President SaddamHussein no longer enjoyed absolute power.
After the incursion the commander of the US-led air campaignagainst Iraq proclaimed that the Iraqi military no longer exists asan organised fighting force.
"The Iraqi military as an organized defense in large combatformations doesn't really exist anymore," Lieutenant General T.
Michael Moseley said in a telephone press conference with Pentagonreporters.
Saddam responded to the military offensive by urging Iraqis toattack US and British forces across the country to relieve pressureon the besieged capital, in a speech read on state television byInformation Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf.
"The enemy has concentrated all its forces against Baghdad,which has weakened its power in other parts of Iraq... You must nowweaken them, deepen their wounds and deprive them of what they havetaken of your land," the minister quoted Saddam as saying.
But US President George W. Bush used his Saturday radio addressto praise the coalition roops and insist that the United States wasbringing "liberation" and "hope" to the Iraqi people.
In London, a Downing Street spokesman said units of Iraq's eliteRepublican Guard had suffered a "comprehensive defeat with veryheavy losses" as US tanks rolled into Baghdad.
The US battalion moved into Baghdad from the capital's SaddamInternational Airport after US commanders seized control of theairport and renamed it Baghdad International Airport.
A defiant al-Sahhaf claimed the coalition troops had been chasedout of the airport: "We have defeated them. In fact we have crushedthem.
We have pushed them outside the whole area of the airport."
But a US military spokesman scoffed at that claim, saying theonly Iraqi troops he had seen at the airport were "dead orcaptured".
US Major General Victor Renuart, speaking in Qatar, said USforces could now enter Baghdad at will. "We can move at times andplaces of our choosing," he told reporters at US Central Command inQatar.
But he acknowledged that "the fight is far from over inBaghdad".
A US commander said around 1,000 Iraqi troops had been killed inthe drive into Baghdad and an AFP reporter saw dozens of Iraqimilitary vehicles burning in the streets.
Infantry commander Colonel David Perkins said Iraqi bodies were"all over the streets", after US troops in and around Baghdadengaged in the fiercest fighting since the war began on March 20.
Surprised Iraqi forces, including members of the RepublicanGuard and the ruling Baath Party, put up fierce resistance, mostlywith AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), according toaccounts by officers and soldiers.
Although it was not the house-to-house fighting that someanalysts fear could yet bog down US forces, it was particularlyviolent and occurred in residential and business districts.
Soldiers said they knew of no civilian casualties, adding thatthey refrained from using heavy fire when they feared they werenearby.
A US tank commander was shot and killed and two other soldierswere wounded during the operation, a senior officer said.
"This wasn't a patrol - go in and come out," Navy Captain FrankThorp said at US Central Command in Qatar. He later told CNNtelevision: "We have coalition armoured combat formations right inthe heart of Baghdad."
However there were no signs of a US military presence in Baghdadlater Saturday.
The city seemed strangely normal, with Baghdadis out and aboutand cars and buses on the roads.
Soldiers and elite Republican Guard members and militiamen wereposted at a major intersection leading out of the city but appearedas steely nerved as ever.
The ground incursion came after US and British forces launched anight of heavy raids on the city, with fireballs lighting the nightsky and warplanes roaring overhead.
Colonel Perkins said the US forces had destroyed about 100pieces of Iraqi equipment, including air defence systems, tanks,rocket-propelled grenade launchers, recoilless rifles and guidedanti-tank missiles.Army Specialist Joshua Kinnison, his face smudged with dirt,said he was drained physically from the fight.Iraqi fighters were "lying all over the side of the road. Ican't even count how many. They were everywhere," he said.
US infantry commander Colonel Will Grimsley, said the dawn tankraid into Baghdad was a case of "let me poke you in the eye becausewe can and you can't do anything about it".
Further to the southwest, the US 101st Airborne Divisionlaunched an air assault to secure the central town of Karbala, amajor Shiite Muslim town less than 100 kilometres (60 miles) fromBaghdad.
Major Mike Slocum, the 101st Aviation Brigade's watch officer,told journalists helicopters had transported more than a battalion ofsoldiers into the outskirts of Karbala.
"Basically they are on the ground to go through and secure thehighways and supply routes and also they are looking to squelch anyparamilitary threat in the area," he said.
British forces in the south found 200 coffins containing humanremains stashed in bags at an abandoned military base near AlZubayr, 20 kilometres from the strategic southern city of Basra.
British Group Captain Al Lockwood told BBC radio from Qatar thatBritish forces on the outskirts of Basra would not be launching ashock assault on the city but would proceed "slowly, slowly".
Meanwhile US central command in Qatar said nine bodies recoveredduring a mission to rescue an army private held in southern Iraqwere believed to be those of US soldiers.
US officials said three US soldiers were killed in a vehicleaccident at Baghdad's airport, while two pilots were killed whentheir attack helicopter crashed in central Iraq early on Saturday.
In northern Iraq, Kurdish military sources said US specialforces and Iraqi Kurd rebels had cut off the southern exits from thestrategic oil city of Kirkuk. US-backed Kurdish fighters were alsoseen making a new advance towards the northern oil city of Mosul.
Kirkuk and Mosul are the Kurdish rebels' main goals.On the diplomatic front, Bush and Russian President VladimirPutin agreed in a telephone conversation on the need to continueRussian-American political dialog on the Iraq war, the Kremlinsaid.
An International Red Cross medical team that visited fourBaghdad hospitals on Friday saw several hundred wounded and dozensof dead from bombing and fighting, a spokesman said Saturday, addingthat the facilities were under considerable strain.
AFP