WASHINGTON April 11 —
Fierce fighting and air strikes have completely destroyed the
ability of Iraq's regular army and Republican Guard to mount
conventional fighting, and no major military forces remain in the
country, the Pentagon said Friday.
Though parts of forces and pockets of resistance remain, military
officials were detecting no indications of any command and control
ability on the part of Saddam Hussein's forces, nor any
communication between remnants of forces, a Defense Department
official said.
"There is no question the regime has lost control and that
represents a good turning point for the people of Iraq,"
presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "The regime is gone."
He cautioned, however, there may be tough fighting before Iraq is
secured. "There may be more wounded, more dead and that tempers the
president's reaction."
The assessment follows the Pentagon's aggressive targeting
Thursday of remaining Iraqi army units in the northern part of the
country.
"They are the last significant formations on the battlefield that
we're aware of," Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, vice director of the
Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference
Thursday.
He said the Iraqi forces' capability has dropped significantly
"both from casualties and from people just leaving the
battlefield."
On Friday, officials said that Ba'ath Party officials had either
fled or gone underground and that there were no clues on the
whereabouts of Saddam, his sons or any other regime leadership.
A Pentagon official said there were a few thousand Special
Republican Guard remaining in the north, including in the area of
Tikrit and Bayji some 25 miles north, but "no obvious significant
forces in Tikrit," Saddam's birthplace and a spot where some of his
remaining backers are believed to be taking refuge.
At U.S. Central Command headquarters in Qatar, officials said
they had evidence that broken units and stranded soldiers were
"coalescing" in the Tikrit area trying to make a last stand. Though
there is no major U.S. ground force in the north of Iraq, coalition
airstrikes have been pounding the area regularly and coalition
special forces have infiltrated the city, officials have said.
Meanwhile, U.S. military forces were working to cut off traffic
between Iraq and Syria, which Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
has accused repeatedly of helping Saddam's regime.
American special operations forces have set up roadblocks along
routes to Syria and are searching for fleeing members of the Iraqi
regime or fighters and equipment coming in from Syria, a military
official said. U.S. aircraft are also watching the routes, and they
attacked Iraqi positions near the Syrian border Thursday.
Rumsfeld has accused Syria of shipping night vision goggles and
other unspecified military equipment to Iraq and receiving fleeing
officials of Saddam's regime or their relatives. He warned Damascus
to stop doing both.
"Senior regime people are moving out of Iraq into Syria, and
Syria is continuing to send things into Iraq," Rumsfeld said
Wednesday. "We find it notably unhelpful."
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz echoed those sentiments
Thursday in an appearance before the Senate Armed Services
Committee.
"The Syrians are behaving badly," he told senators. "They need to
be reminded of that and if they continue then we need to think about
what our policy is with respect to a country that harbors
terrorists, or harbors war criminals, or was in recent times
shipping things to Iraq."
Syrian officials have denied sending military goods into Iraq but
they have been silent on whether they are helping Iraqi officials
escape. Syria, which joined in the coalition to eject Iraq from
Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, has strongly criticized the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq.
photo credit
and caption:
Iraqi civilians wave at United
States Marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines who
were passing by in an amphibious assualt vehicle Thursday,
April 10, 2003 through a neighborhood in Baghdad. The Marines
were looking to flush out any remaining pockets of resistance
and gather intelligence from local civilians on the location
of other Iraqi fighters. (AP Photo/Julie
Jacobson)
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