US says 8700 bombs, missiles launched at Iraq

10.00am

WASHINGTON - More than 8700 bombs and missiles have been launched by US-led forces in the war on Iraq, the Pentagon says, including escalating strikes against Republican Guard divisions protecting Baghdad.

"We are seeing significant degradation of those forces" arrayed around the Iraqi capital, said Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, adding that 3000 precision-guided bombs alone had been dropped since Friday in the air and ground assault that began nearly two weeks ago.

"We are seeing some movement in the Republican Guard formations as well. What we think we see them do is move to reinforce," he told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

In Qatar, a US military official said there had been some fighting between US ground troops moving within 80km south of Baghdad and the Republican Guards. But that official and McChrystal declined to be more specific.

"We flew about a thousand sorties over Iraq yesterday, mostly against the Medina, Hammurabi, Baghdad and al Nida divisions" of the Republican Guard, the general told reporters in Washington.

He said US warships had fired more than 700 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and Western jets had dropped more than 8000 precision-guided munitions since "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to depose Iraq's President Saddam Hussein began.

But McChrystal, deputy director of operations on the US military's Joint Staff, also told a briefing that more than 100,000 American and British troops on the ground in Iraq had not yet found any chemical or biological weapons.

The Bush administration has repeatedly accused the Iraqi government of holding stockpiles of the deadly arms, an accusation denied by Baghdad.

"We still believe very strongly that the regime has the capability and potentially the intent to deploy those weapons," McChrystal said.

He said US forces are being very careful in targeting sites where chemical or biological weapons may be stored in order to avoid releasing them into the air.

"But I would remind you that when chemical and biological weapons ... are disseminated they can be put in fairly small, difficult-to-predict areas. They can be delivered by everything from a garbage truck to a car bomb, as well as, of course, conventional artillery," McChrystal said.

With fighting raging near the site of ancient Babylon and at various other points along the Euphrates river, advance units of the US and British invasion army were 80km from Baghdad -- their closest point to Saddam's power base since the war started 12 days ago.

"We're coming. Where the regime is, we're coming," Brigadier Gen. Vincent Brooks said at US Central Command in Qatar, adding that some elite Iraqi units were in serious difficulty after days of relentless attacks from an enemy that now has complete air dominance.

However, Gen. Richard Myers, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was no rush to storm the city. "We'll be patient," he said in Washington.

President Bush, speaking in Philadelphia, said: "Day by day we are moving closer to Baghdad. Day by day, we are moving closer to victory."

He told Iraqis: "We are coming with a mighty force to end the rule of your oppressors ... We will not stop, we will not relent until your country is free."

Iraq remained defiant. Iraqi television showed film of Saddam alongside his two sons. It was the first time that his eldest son Uday had been seen on video since the war opened on March 20, but it was not clear when the footage was taken.

Three huge explosions shook the centre of Baghdad in the afternoon. One hit a presidential palace used by Saddam's second son Qusay, who commands the Republican Guard, sending a mushroom of white smoke from the battered complex. More huge explosions followed in the early evening.

The strikes came after what sounded like a big artillery barrage on the city's southern edge. Jets screamed low through anti-aircraft fire. Explosions echoed from the south and west.

US officers said Iraqi militia and Republican Guard units suffered heavy losses in fierce fighting near the towns of Hindiya and Hilla on the approaches to Baghdad. At least one American soldier died in the daylong clashes. The Republican Guard constitute some of Saddam's best trained, toughest and most loyal defenders.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri hurled insults at US and British troops.

"With every passing day, they are sinking deeper into the mud of defeat and their losses are increasing," he declared.

In the north, US planes bombed targets in and around the city of Mosul. Elsewhere, Brooks said US special forces were "denying freedom of movement throughout the western desert."

At Hindiya, Iraqi prisoners taken in fighting included an officer who said he was from the Nebuchadnezzar Division of the Republican Guard, thought to have been based much further north. Brooks said this might indicate that the Iraqis were bringing in reinforcements or replacing losses.

The death of a US soldier near Hilla raised the US toll in the war to at least 46 with another 17 missing.

Britain has lost 25 dead, one more than in the 1991 Gulf War. Only five have been killed in action, while 15 have died in accidents and five by "friendly fire."

Iraq has said nearly 600 Iraqi civilians have been killed and over 4500 wounded. It has not listed military casualties.

Marines raided the town of Shatra north of the key city of Nassiriya on Monday. Hundreds of Iraqis shouting "Welcome to Iraq" greeted the Marines as they entered the town.

The glowing reception was a tonic for soldiers who have not been greeted with the warmth they had expected after US and British leaders told them the Iraqi people were waiting to be freed from repression under Saddam.

Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire, travelling with the Marines, said they were targeting Iraqi officials commanding lightly armed forces which have attacked US supply convoys.

Among those sought in Shatra was Ali Hassan al-Majid, or "Chemical Ali," who is commanding the southern sector but there was no sign of him in the town. As night approached with the town not fully under their control, the Marines pulled back.

Majid, a feared cousin of Saddam, earned his nickname for overseeing the use of poison gas against Kurds in 1988.

With humanitarian aid just starting to trickle into Iraq, British troops opened the taps on a hastily built water pipeline in the southern port of Umm Qasr -- one of the few Iraqi towns the invasion force controls.

Although, the UN food aid agency made its biggest purchase for a humanitarian operation in 10 years, civilian aid workers in Kuwait said it was still too dangerous for them to enter Iraq.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war