Massive Explosions Rock Baghdad, Rivals Saddam and Bush Hold War Councils

06/04/2003| IslamWeb

Massive explosions rocked central Baghdad overnight as US President George W. Bush held a "war council" and his Iraqi counterpart Saddam Hussein was shown meeting with his aides. The unusually powerful blasts began just after midnight Sunday (2000 GMT Saturday) and were still reverberating half an hour later, an AFP correspondent in the Iraqi capital said.
On the 17th day of hostilities Saturday, US troops rode tanks into Baghdad in a bid to show the Iraqi people that Saddam no longer wielded absolute power, with the Central Command claiming US forces could enter the capital at will.

US infantry commander Colonel Will Grimsley said the dawn tank raid into Baghdad was a way of saying, "Let me poke you in the eye because we can, and you can't do anything about it."

The White House said Bush conferred by teleconference with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Meyers and their deputies.

With Bush at his retreat in Camp David, Maryland, for the teleconference were the president's chief of staff Andrew Card, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and CIA Director George Tenet.

In Baghdad meanwhile, Iraqi television showed footage of Saddam chairing a meeting of top political and military advisers, including his two sons Uday and Qussay.

Saddam, wearing military attire, appeared at ease at an undisclosed location.

Besides Uday, who heads the Saddam Fedayeen volunteer paramilitary force, and Qussay, leader of the elite Republican Guard, the meeting included Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, Defense Minister Sultan Hashem Ahmad and Latif Nuseif Jasem, a member of the ruling Baath party's leadership.

The US-led coalition said Saturday it had bombed the residence of Saddam Hussein's cousin and top aide, Ali Hassan al-Majid, in the southern city of Basra, which is ringed by British troops. Al-Majid is known as "Chemical Ali" for the ruthless campaign he waged against the northern Iraqi Kurds in 1988.

The Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera reported 17 Iraqi civilians including nine children were killed in Saturday's air strikes on Basra.

Over Baghdad on Saturday, US fighter aircraft were stacked up round-the-clock, poised to use precision bombs to protect US ground troops moving through the streets of the Iraqi capital, the US general who commands the air war said.

Air Force Lt General T. Michael Moseley acknowledged that avoiding civilian casualties was "a tough problem" that US forces hope to overcome with precision strikes.

Saddam responded to the military offensive by urging Iraqis to attack US and British forces across the country to relieve pressure on the besieged capital, in a speech read on state television by Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf.
But Bush used his weekly radio address to praise the coalition troops and insist that the United States was bringing "liberation" and "hope" to the Iraqi people.

The US battalion moved into Baghdad from the capital's Saddam International Airport after US commanders seized control of the site and renamed it Baghdad International Airport.

A defiant Sahhaf later said the coalition troops had been chased out of the airport, with 300 of them killed in the process: "We have defeated them. In fact we have crushed them. We have pushed them outside the whole area of the airport,"
But a US military spokesman scoffed at the claim, saying the only Iraqi troops he had seen at the airport were "dead or captured".

US Major General Victor Renuart, speaking at the Central Command centre in Qatar, said US forces could now enter Baghdad at will. "We can move at times and places of our choosing," he told reporters.

But he acknowledged, "the fight is far from over in Baghdad" and refused to say where, if anywhere, US troops might still be in the city, shrugging off reports from correspondents that US forces could not be seen after the raid.

A US commander said around 1,000 Iraqi troops had been killed in the drive into Baghdad and an AFP reporter saw dozens of Iraqi military vehicles burning in the streets.

Iraqi forces, including members of the Republican Guard and the ruling Baath Party, put up fierce resistance, mostly with AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), according to accounts by officers and soldiers.

Although it was not the house-to-house fighting that some analysts fear could yet bog down US forces, it was particularly violent and occurred in residential and business districts.

However a US tank commander was shot and killed and two other soldiers were wounded during the operation, a senior officer said.

"This wasn't a patrol -- go in and come out," Navy Captain Frank Thorp said in Qatar. He later told CNN television: "We have coalition armoured combat formations right in the heart of Baghdad."

However there were no signs of a US military presence in Baghdad.

PHOTO CAPTION

Cheering Iraqi soldiers head to the front as they pass by Baghdad's Palestine hotel in Baghdad. (AFP/Ramzi Haidar)