WASHINGTON March 28 —
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggested on Thursday that
U.S. forces bearing down on Baghdad might lay siege to the capital
and hope anti-Saddam Hussein citizens rise up against the government
before American troops have to invade the city of 5 million.
Rumsfeld also said the United States and its battlefield allies
would accept nothing short of total victory in Iraq.
"There isn't going to be a cease-fire," Rumsfeld told the Senate
Appropriations defense subcommittee. He said later, "It will end at
the point where that regime does not exist and a new regime is ready
to go in its place."
Rumsfeld appeared before two congressional committees Thursday
amid efforts by the Bush administration to counteract speculation
that the war effort is bogging down and that it underestimated the
need for armored forces to protect attacking U.S. troops' long
supply lines inside Iraq.
The defense secretary said there is a near-continuous flow of
fresh U.S. forces into the Persian Gulf, noting that 1,000
paratroopers from the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade jumped into
northern Iraq on Wednesday. He estimated that between 1,500 and
2,500 troops are arriving daily.
The total number of American forces in the Gulf region stands at
250,000. Close to 90,000 are in Iraq, a senior defense official said
Thursday. That's an increase of some 13,000 since Tuesday.
An additional 100,000 to 120,000 ground troops are in the process
of heading to the Gulf, including the Army's 1st Armored Division,
1st Cavalry Division and the 2nd and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiments.
Also, elements of the 4th Infantry Division left for Kuwait on
Thursday from Fort Hood, Texas, although the ships carrying the
division's equipment won't all be there until about April 12.
A senior U.S. military commander, speaking only on condition of
anonymity, said Thursday that U.S. special forces also have quietly
secured and cleared large areas of western Iraq, creating a crucial
buffer to ensure Saddam's forces cannot widen the conflict by
launching strikes on Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel.
U.S. and British warplanes flew about 1,500 missions Thursday,
many of them to pound Republican Guard positions outside Baghdad, a
military official said. Five hundred of the total were strike
missions. The rest were support missions like refueling and
reconnaissance.
A U.S. B-2 stealth bomber dropped two 4,700-pound,
satellite-guided "bunker-busting" bombs Thursday night on a major
communications tower on the east bank of the Tigris River in
downtown Baghdad, U.S. military officials said. Defense officials
said the strike was meant to hamper communications between Saddam
Hussein's regime and Iraq's military.
Iraq claimed to have downed an Army Apache attack helicopter and
a U.S. drone aircraft, but Pentagon officials confirmed only the
loss of a reconnaissance drone. They said footage of a downed Apache
shown on Iraqi state-run television was of an Apache that was lost
during fighting Monday.
After curtailing airstrikes because of to blinding sandstorms and
thunderstorms, allied planes intensified their attacks Thursday as
the weather improved. They flew more than 600 strike missions across
Iraq, with special focus on Republican Guard forces ringing Baghdad,
officials said.
Asked by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., what American ground troops
would do once they reached Baghdad, Rumsfeld answered by alluding to
what is happening at Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. British
forces there have laid siege, hoping for a successful uprising by
the city's Shiites.
Rumsfeld noted that both Basra and Baghdad have large Shiite
populations. "And they are not terribly favorable to the regime,"
Rumsfeld said. "They've been repressed, and they are in the present
time in Basra assisting us." He said that roughly half the Baghdad
population is Shiite.
"The regime has tended to be fearful of them and repress them,"
he said. Rumsfeld said he expected Saddam's loyalists to shoot any
Iraqi troops in Baghdad who try to surrender and those who might try
to assist U.S. forces.
"We will go through a period where we'll have to deal with that
problem," he said.
Rumsfeld did not say how long Gen. Tommy Franks, the war
commander, would wait before launching the final phase of the attack
on Baghdad. He left little doubt, however, that Franks has a plan
for fighting the 30,000 or so Republican Guard troops north, south
and east of Baghdad.
"I think it's only reasonable to expect that it will require the
coalition forces moving through some Republican Guard units and
destroying them or capturing them before you'll see the crumbling of
the regime," he said.
The Republican Guard are Saddam's best trained and equipped
military forces.
If the war reaches that stage, the large Shiite population in
Baghdad might feel emboldened to revolt, Rumsfeld said, obviating
the need for an invasion that could result in heavy losses.
The invading forces approaching Baghdad are led by the Army's 3rd
Infantry Division, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and the Army's
101st Airborne Division. Although more heavy forces are designated
for deployment from bases in the United States and Germany, none are
likely to reach their staging areas in Kuwait before April.
photo credit
and caption:
Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld listens to comments by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., at
the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing for supplemental
budgetary requests on Capitol Hill in Washington Thursday,
March 27, 2003. Rumsfeld asked for more funding for the
Defense Department for President Bush's Iraq war supplemental
package and the ongoing fight against terrorism. (AP
Photo/Charles Dharapak)
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