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NUCLEAR
French strike cuts nuclear power output by 3,700 MW
Japan Defense Chief Mulls Attack Concerns
Stalinist state to buy missiles from Russia
North Korea Calls Missile Production an 'Indisputable Right'
Ukraine, EBRD restart troubled nuclear talks
Kerry Angers GOP in Calling For 'Regime Change' in U.S.
House and Senate Approve Bush's Wartime Spending Request
MILITARY
Taliban claim capture of three police posts
China and Russia eye new checks on US power
Military-themed toys with soft edge selling well
Iraq May Try Defensive Use of Chemicals, Experts Warn
Coalition, Iraqi firepower
Baghdad raid by U.S. meant to send message
Top cleric urges Shi'ites not to resist allies
Iraqi Man Risked All to Help Free American Soldier
Saddam shows himself as vise tightens
Saddam tours Baghdad neighborhood
Iraqi TV Video Suggests Saddam Survived
Car Blast Kills 5 Near Iraqi Checkpoint
Iraqi Official Warns of 'Unconventional Attack'
A Tightening of the Noose
Powell Proposes Interim Iraqi Government
Cluster bombs liberate Iraqi children
Israeli Army Strikes at Palestinians;
Israel captures Islamic Jihad commander
RUSSIA - 6 killed in bus blast in Chechen capital
British Consulate in Turkey Bombed
Sleeping Marine killed by his own gun
Pentagon Defends Use of Civilian Clothes
Arab Media Portray War as Killing Field
Images of Victory Overshadow Doses of Realism
Reporting War Under Eyes of Iraqi 'Minders'
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
News Groups Want Terror Case Documents
U.S. Charges 12 in Afghan Heroin Ring
Terrorism Task Force Detains an American Without Charges
ENERGY AND OTHER
US military seeks fuel for Western US, Bahrain
System in New York for Early Warning of Disease Patterns
ACTIVISTS
Dozens of Cuban Dissidents Face Trial for Subversion
Professor, recruiter face off at UMass
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- france
French strike cuts nuclear power output by 3,700 MW
REUTERS FRANCE:
April 4, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/20364/story.htm
PARIS - Striking French workers yesterday reduced Europe's top power exporter's nuclear generation by about 3,700 megawatts (MW), an official from the CGT union said.
The 24-hour strike, part of nationwide protests against pension reforms, started at 9:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) this week to cut production rates by 3,000 MW at state-owned Electricite de France's nuclear power plants, which have a nameplate capacity of about 62,520 MW.
"At 9:00 a.m. there was a reduction of about 3,700 MW, which we hope to maintain throughout the day," said the official from CGT, the largest union in EdF.
He could not comment on what levels EdF's nuclear production were operating at before the strike.
About 70 to 100 percent of the teams of 10 people that manage each of France's 58 nuclear power reactors were taking part in the demonstrations that include teachers and transport workers, he said.
A similar day of industrial action by workers from EdF and Gaz de France on March 12, reduced French electricity production by about 3,000 megawatts.
-------- japan
Japan Defense Chief Mulls Attack Concerns
April 4, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Defense-Chief.html
TOKYO (AP) -- Concerned about North Korea's weapons programs, the government is debating whether its constitution will allow it to launch a strike against a foreign power if an attack on Japan looks immenent.
Japan's leadership is scrambling to adopt emergency military guidelines and devise plans for defending itself against possible attack because of rising concerns over North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons program and development of long-range missiles.
Shigeru Ishiba, head of Japan's Defense Agency and a member of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet, told The Associated Press in an interview Friday that there is no clear evidence North Korea is on the brink of firing a missile at Japan.
But he stressed that Japan -- which has never had good relations with North Korea and which hosts a huge contingent of American troops -- has good reason to be cautious.
Ishiba, who has a reputation as a hawk in Koizumi's Cabinet, said North Korea has deployed more than 100 of its long-range Rodong ballistic missiles, which are capable of hitting Japanese shores.
Over the past two months, Pyongyang has test-fired at least two and possibly three short-range missiles. It launched a Taepodong ballistic missile over Japan's main island and into the Pacific Ocean in 1998, demonstrating that virtually any target in Japan was within its range.
Ishiba said Japan is now considering how to bolster its defenses against an attack, including the possibility of acquiring more advanced Patriot missiles from the United States that would be capable of shooting down incoming missiles.
``We need to discuss how much (the system) would cost and how they would fit in to the different services in the Self-Defense Forces,'' Japan's military, he said. He added that he ``aggressively'' supports strengthening Japan's missile defenses.
Japan currently has 27 Patriot anti-missile batteries deployed around the country, but they are only capable of shooting down missiles with a shorter range and slower speed than ballistic missiles.
Ishiba said that although Japan is strictly limited by its post World War II constitution from using its military for offensive purposes, it is not barred from defending itself.
``Japan's Self-Defense Law allows for Japan to mobilize forces when facing an urgent and unjust attack,'' he said. ``Japan may also mobilize forces when there is a threat of attack.''
But until it significantly upgrades its defenses, he admitted, any realistic response to an imminent attack would likely have to be left to the 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in this country.
``Japan does not have the ability to attack a foreign enemy base,'' he said. ``Japan entrusts the might of the United States to do that.''
In a step toward gaining a more independent defense capability, Japan last month launched its first spy satellites, primarily to gather intelligence on its reclusive, heavily militarized neighbor.
Moves to beef up the military are sensitive domestically. Memories of Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945 are still bitter among many here, and there is a strong pacifist undercurrent in public opinion.
-------- korea
Stalinist state to buy missiles from Russia
April 4, 2003
(Agence France-Presse)
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030404-1376333.htm
TOKYO - North Korea, locked in a nuclear standoff with the United States, plans to import leading-edge Russian missile and rocket systems via Syria to upgrade its ballistic missiles, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The Stalinist state is expected to use the hardware, including the high-tech tactical missile Iskandar-E and the multiple-launch rocket system Smerch, to upgrade the guidance system and other functions of its long-range missiles, the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun said.
North Korea and Syria have a secret deal on the trade, possibly based on an agreement on scientific and technological cooperation, the conservative daily quoted military sources as saying.
The science and technology accord was signed when North Korea's No. 2 official, Kim Yong-nam, the head of the Supreme People's Assembly, visited Syria in July last year.
At that time, Mr. Kim handed to Syrian President Bashar Assad a personal letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, calling for closer ties between the two countries.
North Korean missile engineers are already in Syria to prepare for the arrival of the Russian hardware, the report said. They are expected to arrange the further undercover shipment of the hardware by sea to North Korea.
The Russians have not been informed of the secret transfer deal, the report said.
In exchange for the shipment, North Korea will cooperate with Syria's development of ballistic missiles, the report said.
North Korea has ballistic No Dong missiles, which can strike almost all of Japan, and longer-range Taepo Dong missiles.
In 1998, Pyongyang sent shock waves around the world by test-firing a suspected Taepo Dong-1 missile, part of which flew over Japan's main island of Honshu and into the Pacific.
Five years earlier, North Korea launched into the Sea of Japan a No Dong-1 missile with a range of 810 miles after testing two types of crude Scud missiles.
According to South Korean Defense Ministry data, North Korea is currently testing Taepo Dong-1 missiles with a range of 1,550 miles and is also developing a longer-range Taepo Dong-2.
Some military analysts here have predicted that this year the North would test-fire a Taepo Dong-2, which could be capable of reaching parts of the continental United States.
North Korea has launched at least two short-range land-to-ship missiles off its coasts in recent weeks. It has angrily spoken of being eyed as the next target of a pre-emptive U.S. military attack to end its suspected nuclear-arms ambitions.
--------
North Korea Calls Missile Production an 'Indisputable Right'
April 4, 2003
The New York Times
By DON KIRK
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/asia/04CND-KOREA.html
SEOUL, April 4 - North Korea defied United States sanctions today on exports of missile technology that American officials fear could be a prelude to sale of nuclear warheads to rogue nations worldwide.
Pyongyang's Korea Central News Agency defended as "an indisputable right" the production and deployment of missiles to protect the country's "sovereignty and supreme interests."
The North Korean statement marked another step in escalation of the nuclear crisis in which the United States has demanded that the North abandon its program for building nuclear weapons. United States officials have said they believe the North may export nuclear warheads, or the technology to produce them, to some of the same Middle Eastern clients to which it has exported ballistic missiles for years.
North Korea responded with a torrent of rhetoric to the United States decision to impose trade sanctions on a North Korean state trading firm, Changgwang Sinyong Corporation, and a Pakistan firm, A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories, that has conducted research for production of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. The North, according to the State Department, shipped technology along with missiles capable of firing nuclear warheads.
The North Korean statement denounced the United States as "the main culprit of the state terrorism which is turning cities and villages into ashes and massacring civilians in Iraq."
And now, said the statement, the United States "is talking about sanctions against us."
North Korea issued the statement as the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, appeared in public for the first time in seven weeks, visiting a military medical university accompanied by his defense minister and several generals.
-------- ukraine
Ukraine, EBRD restart troubled nuclear talks
REUTERS UK:
April 4, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/20361/story.htm
LONDON - Ukraine and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have restarted stalled discussions over funding for two controversial nuclear power stations to replace the Chernobyl plant, EBRD President Jean Lemierre said yesterday.
"We are working on a sound basis and I hope that by the summer we may reach some conclusions," Lemierre told a press conference with Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.
Ukraine called off talks with the EBRD on a $215 million loan to help complete two nuclear reactors to replace Chernobyl after it deemed EBRD regulations on nuclear regulation in the country, establishing an independent safety body, and reform of the electricity industry as too stringent.
Instead Ukraine said it would investigate the cheaper possibility of using Russian reactors of the type used in Chernobyl which was the site of the world's worst nuclear accident.
The involvement of the EBRD has been controversial since the loans were first mooted, with some studies financed by the development bank saying Ukraine did not need the energy and the project has been dismissed by environmentalists.
-------- us politics
Kerry Angers GOP in Calling For 'Regime Change' in U.S.
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 4, 2003; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23490-2003Apr3?language=printer
Republicans jumped on Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday in the wake of reports that the Democratic presidential candidate had told a New Hampshire audience that "we need a regime change in the United States."
Kerry, who supported the resolution authorizing President Bush to go to war against Iraq but was sharply critical of the way Bush handled the diplomacy before the war, had largely refrained from criticism since U.S. troops launched their operations March 19. But according to newspaper accounts, the Massachusetts senator delivered a stinging rebuke Wednesday during a campaign trip.
Kerry said that, after talking to foreign diplomats and world leaders recently, he had concluded that "it will take a new president" to repair the damage Bush has done because other leaders are not "going to trust this president, no matter what."
"What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States," Kerry said.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) led the chorus of GOP critics who attacked Kerry for challenging Bush during wartime. "Senator Kerry's remark, equating regime change in Iraq with regime change in the United States, is not what we need at this time," Hastert said. "What we need is for this nation to pull together, to support our troops and to support our commander in chief."
Democrats pointed out that during the Kosovo air campaign, both Hastert and DeLay criticized President Bill Clinton. DeLay was quoted in an interview with The Washington Post as saying, "We have a president I don't trust, who has proven my reason for not trusting him: He had no plan. We have a civil war that was falsely described as a huge humanitarian problem, when in comparison to other places, it was nothing."
Kerry spokesman Robert Gibbs responded to GOP criticism by saying: "Clearly, Senator Kerry intended no disrespect or lack of support for our commander in chief during wartime, but the point of this campaign is, obviously, to change the administration of this government. And unlike many of his Republican critics, Senator Kerry has worn the uniform, served his country, seen combat, so he'd just as soon skip their lectures about supporting our troops."
----
PAYING FOR WAR
House and Senate Approve Bush's Wartime Spending Request
April 4, 2003
The New York Times
By DAVID FIRESTONE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/worldspecial/04COST.html
WASHINGTON, April 3 - Nine days after President Bush presented Congress with the first bill for the war in Iraq, the House and Senate approved the cost tonight, voting to spend nearly $79 billion on the war and related needs for foreign aid and domestic security. The Senate's vote was unanimous; the House vote was 414 to 12.
The broad consensus on finding money for the Iraq campaign, however, did not extend to supporting the administration's plans for domestic security and foreign aid. The votes were delayed into the evening by testy debates on aid to Turkey, which was opposed by a vocal group of conservative Republicans in the House, and on Democratic proposals to spend billions more on security aid to states and cities.
The $1 billion in assistance to Turkey was approved after intervention by the Bush administration, but late in the evening, the House voted to punish France, Germany, Russian and Syria for their opposition to the war by cutting them out of any federal contracts to rebuild Iraq.
Mr. Bush had originally asked Congress for $74.7 billion for the war and associated costs. By the time each chamber added its own projects, the House total had risen to about $78 billion, and the Senate bill - approved 93 to 0 - was about $78.7 billion. The differences between the bills will be resolved in a conference committee before a final vote by each chamber next week.
In each bill, about $63 billion goes directly for the war, and nearly half of that has already been committed getting the troops to Iraq and back. Should the war extend much beyond a month, the administration will have to return to Congress to request more money, as it will also have to do to pay for reconstructing Iraq.
There was little debate over the war itself as members scrambled to approve the money on a fast track. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio and a consistent opponent of the military campaign, proposed cutting the Pentagon's money and ending what he called an "unjust and illegal" war.
"This is an appropriate moment for us to stop and think whether or not aggressive warfare is consistent with the aspirations of this country," Mr. Kucinich, a presidential candidate, said. He withdrew his amendment after 15 minutes of discussion, which included strong disagreement from several prominent Democrats.
On the overall House vote, nine Democrats voted no, along with two Republicans and one independent.
Much of the House debate dealt with attempts to exact retribution from allies some members said were insufficiently supportive of the administration's war effort.
On a voice vote, the House agreed that no money from federal contracts to reconstruct Iraq should go to companies from France, Germany, Russia, or Syria, all members of the United Nations Security Council that opposed the war.
The State Department opposed the amendment, arguing that it would undermine its effort to build an international coalition to reconstruct Iraq, but proponents said the government should not reward countries that actively worked against American interests.
"This amendment sends a signal to our allies that we appreciate those who support us in our time of need and remember those that have sought to thwart coalition efforts to defeat Saddam Hussein's regime," said Representative George R. Nethercutt Jr., Republican of Washington.
The amendment may be deleted in the conference with the Senate.
The amendment to cut aid to Turkey was defeated 110 to 315, but only after a vigorous debate on Turkey's refusal to allow troops to pass through its territory toward Iraq.
"Do we reward Turkey, do we give them an incentive for turning their backs on the United States?" asked Representative Randy Cunningham, Republican of California. "Even though they are now opening up their borders with Colin Powell today, what they did caused American lives to be lost. There needs to be a message sent and a penalty."
But with Secretary of State Powell having just concluded talks with Turkey on helping the military effort, senior Bush administration officials worked to preserve the $1 billion in aid requested by the president to avoid a diplomatic incident.
"Turkey continued to grant overflight rights and has committed to enhanced cooperation on terrorist threats and possible refugee flows in the region," Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, wrote in a letter to the House. She said the aid would play a significant role in improving relations with Turkey.
Democrats in both houses chafed at the refusal of Republicans to allow more spending for domestic security, which the Democrats have made a passionate cause in lieu of criticizing the war effort. Republicans warned that the Democrats' demands threatened to turn emergency spending into a new form of revenue sharing or pork-barrel spending. The Senate agreed on a 66-to-31 vote to add $500 million for protecting high-threat urban areas like New York City and Washington.
Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska said that cities wanted to use the money to pay for emergency overtime for municipal workers. Pointing out that American soldiers in Iraq were not getting overtime pay, Mr. Stevens said Democrats were more interested in scoring political points than in holding down spending.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Taliban claim capture of three police posts
Hi Pakistan
April 04 2003
http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en21200&F_catID=&f_type=source
PESHAWAR: A famous Taliban commander claimed on Tuesday that his forces have taken control of three police check posts in Kandahar province along the Pak-Afghan border and talks were on with local pro-US commanders to surrender.
"Our mujahideen overran the Toro police and Alizo police posts near Spin Buldak while burning to ashes the US-run school in Loi Kariz in successful operations during the last two days," the Taliban commander Hafiz Abdur Rahim told The News on telephone.
Abdur Rahim shot to prominence after he engaged the US-Afghan forces in Spin Kariz and other parts of Kandahar province in a fierce fighting last month, in which the Kandahar administration claimed to have killed 19 fighters from Hafiz's side. The commander said that several vehicles belonging to the Kandahar administration as well as the entire building of the US-funded school have been destroyed and set ablaze.
However, he denied reports regarding killing of his 19 men and termed it part of the anti-Taliban campaign by the local administration. "They should come up with solid proof and show the bodies to the press, if any," claimed the 65-year-old commander, who said that Taliban fighters have not rested during the last 17 months, but were waiting for appropriate time and opportunity to hit the enemy and its installations. The commander said that his forces were in control of these places, which he said have been liberated from the enemy.
"Our forces now control some 15-kilometres area from Spin Buldak town towards Kandahar city. As many as 35 fighters from the Kandahar administration have surrendered to us including Commander Abdul Karim," he said, adding that all the check posts along the Kadahar-Chaman highway have been deserted by the Afghan forces loyal to Gul Agha Sherzoi and the Taliban fighters have captured a number of weapons during the operation. However, an official of the Kandahar administration told reporters in Kandahar that one of the police check posts came under attack by the remnants of Taliban and al-Qaeda, but the attackers have been beaten back.
The Taliban commander said that plans were being devised to launch attacks on Kandahar, as according to him, the US forces could only drop bombs, which Hafiz Abdur Rahim claimed, was running shot of bombs these days. It was also learnt from sources that as many as 2,000 US soldiers had been airlifted to Iraq from Afghanistan last week aimed at sending more and more fresh enforcements to fight against the loyalists of President Saddam Hussein. Commander Rahim claimed that the people of Kandahar and elsewhere in Afghanistan were with the Taliban and would rise against the US and its allies in a countrywide uprising in the near future.
Meanwhile, a Taliban spokesman Shabbir Ahmad claimed on the phone that their loyalists ambushed a convoy of the US and Afghan soldiers heading for Spin Boldak from Kandahar to retake control of the lost areas. He claimed that heavy losses were inflicted on the enemy and one of their military vehicles was seen on fire. The convoy was forced to retreat after a successful ambush by the Taliban. However, there was no independent confirmation of the report.
AFP adds: Three Afghan border guards, including a commander, were killed in an ambush by suspected Taliban in the southwest Afghan province of Nimroz, a local official said.
"Yesterday (Monday) at 9:30 in the morning five men armed with Kalashnikovs and machineguns attacked the car of a border commander who was on his way from Kang district to the centre of Nimroz," said Aminullah, secretary to the governor of Nimroz.
"Commander Najibullah himself, and two of his men were killed. He was head of a detachment of border guards in Kang district," he told this agency by telephone.
"The car was stolen and later found in the neighbouring province of Farah, but the attackers had fled," said Aminullah. "It is a political act, it is the Taliban or fighters of (former premier) Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who carried out this assassination," he claimed. Armed attacks have risen in recent days in south and southeast Afghanistan, homeland of the Pashtun tribes, from whom the majority of the Taliban came.
-------- asia
China and Russia eye new checks on US power
Friday April 04, 2003
Pakistan International News
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2003-daily/04-04-2003/world/w1.htm
PARIS: Having failed to block war in Iraq, China and Russia are retooling strategies to attenuate US dominance and ensure that Washington cannot override their interests with impunity in the future, experts say. Both states remain committed to closer relations with the United States, yet both were also deeply dismayed by Washington's handling of the crisis and are less inclined to pursue US ties at high cost to other national interests.
For China, this may translate into a more muscular assertion of its role as the dominant Asia-Pacific power while Russia can be expected to reiterate its geostrategic value as a nuclear power straddling several ancient civilizations. "China is above all keeping its eye on the consequences of Iraq for the Asia region," said Francois Godement, director of the Asia center at the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales (IFRI), a Paris think tank.
"China would like to consolidate relations with the United States, but is also very pragmatic and determined to defend what it regards as its own interests," Godement explained. This was evident the day hostilities broke out in Iraq: while predictably condemning the US-led war, Beijing also seized the occasion to fire off warnings to North Korea, Japan and Taiwan on how it expected them to behave.
A similar reaction occurred in Russia: after an expected blast of vitriol directed at the United States, Moscow said it was delaying ratification of a nuclear disarmament treaty and soon thereafter test-fired a strategic missile. Moscow said the timing of the missile test was unrelated to the Iraq crisis. But many see in these and other developments nascent and none-too-subtle policy recalibrations to remind Washington that other big players remain on the stage.
"For the United States, the Iraq crisis has been purely and simply about Iraq," said Steven Miller, director of the international security program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in the United States. "But for Russia, China and much of the world the crisis was at least as much about the United States, about what kind of role the United States would play in the world and whether the United States would play by the rules.
"Contending with American power is, I think they believe, more important than dealing with Iraq," Miller said. For China and Russia, as well as India, France, Germany and other powerful states, this contending with American power is producing new, "outside the box" foreign policy thinking that may influence the world for generations to come.
Writing Sunday in The New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman posited for example that a transformed NATO, where Russia gradually supplants France, would emerge as the guarantor of a western-oriented "World of Order" in years ahead. Experts say Moscow's hard line with Washington on Iraq is predicated by core interest in an orderly world, an interest that could be met by a NATO-like alliance provided Russia had a seat at any top table within it.
"The delay in ratification of the treaty was not so much to send a message to Washington as for internal reasons," said Viktor Baranovksy, deputy director of Russia's Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO). "Russia has an interest in a more orderly world. The current mechanisms for bringing this about are few and not very effective. If in the future NATO becomes that mechanism, that could be very good for Russia," Baranovksy said.
Though measurably more cautious in its official rhetoric, China is also on the lookout for new alliances or institutional mechanisms that would level the playing field more with the United States in managing global affairs. Tang Shi Ping, deputy director of the Center for Regional Security Studies at China's Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, voiced China's anxiety over US global power and called for a new "axis of restraint" to offset it, playing on US President George W. Bush's term "axis of evil."
-------- business
Military-themed toys with soft edge selling well
April 4, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20030404-10492040.htm
NEW YORK (AP) - Sales of military toys are getting a boost from the U.S.-led war in Iraq. And not just the conventional G.I. Joe.
Plush hamsters dressed in military garb from all four branches of the U.S. armed forces, made by Gemmy Industries, have also been selling rapidly, according to a spot-check of stores.
The Irving, Texas-based maker of the singing, dancing hamsters - first shipped to K-B Toys and Walgreens 10 days ago - is now sending them by air freight from China, and has also accelerated production, said Gemmy spokesman Jason McCann.
Military-themed computer games also have seen a boost in demand.
"There's definitely been an uptick," in interest in military-related toys, said Jim Silver, publisher of the Toy Book, an industry monthly, who interviewed retailers this past week.
In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, military toys saw an upswing about a month later when the United States invaded Afghanistan, Mr. Silver said. But the big seller that quickly emerged from the start was a line of rescue heroes from Fisher-Price.
Still, given polarized views of the war in Iraq, toy soldiers and the like have ignited some controversy in the United States.
Kmart Corp. spokeswoman Abigail Jacobs said Easter baskets stuffed with toy soldiers are "doing better in some regions than others." In fact, a few weeks ago, a woman dressed in a bunny suit was arrested after protesting such toys in a Manhattan Kmart store. Meanwhile, a group of consumers picketed outside a Kmart store in Grass Valley, Calif., resulting in the store's decision not to restock any Easter baskets with military toys, Miss Jacobs said.
Jennifer Hawkins, 36, who just bought a Pinocchio doll for her goddaughter, doesn't believe in buying military toys and is even more against them in times of war. She also thinks stores should emphasize more soothing toys like stuffed animals.
"There is a fine line between patriotism and having children recreate a war," the Manhattan resident said.
Enter the hamsters. Gemmy has a full line of dancing hamsters - from boxer Apollo Creed of "Rocky" fame to a handcuffed chief executive officer hamster in an orange jumpsuit and briefcase, presumably caught in the rash of corporate scandals. The company began making its armed forces hamsters just six months ago, shipping the first to stores last month.
-------- chemical weapons
TACTICS
Iraq May Try Defensive Use of Chemicals, Experts Warn
April 4, 2003
The New York Times
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/worldspecial/04WEAP.html
As coalition forces push toward Baghdad, they are preparing for possible attacks by chemical weapons, which Saddam Hussein's forces are known to have used in the past. But experts say the ways his and other armies have dispersed chemical weapons - bombs, rockets and artillery shells directed at troops - are not the only means to deploy them.
In fact, they say, Iraqi forces might even use chemical agents in ways that could be viewed as defensive, not offensive. The distinction depends in part on the chemical properties of the agents, in particular how long they persist on the battlefield.
For example, two experts on chemical weapons, Elisa D. Harris and Jonathan B. Tucker, said at a Congressional staff briefing last week that Iraq might use chemical agents to contaminate terrain, creating a sort of no man's land.
In an interview, Dr. Tucker, a visiting senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, a research group in Washington that works on conflict resolution, said the nerve agent sarin was highly volatile, meaning it evaporates. So sarin's most effective use is offensive, against enemy troops. Used against the American-led coalition, with its extensive protective gear, he said, sarin would probably just slow an advance.
But other classes of chemical arms, Dr. Tucker said, including VX, another nerve agent, and a blistering compound known as mustard gas, might linger on the battlefield like pools of motor oil on the ground.
If Mr. Hussein were to order Iraqi artillery to lob shells full of these agents into the path of American troops, he could create a contaminated zone where few would want to venture, even in protective suits.
"These persistent agents can remain toxic for weeks," Dr. Tucker said, "so that could have a significant effect."
Even if coalition troops drove through such chemical wastelands in protected airtight vehicles, he added, they would later have to spend a good deal of time in decontamination. "They're going to want to avoid that," he said.
Dr. Tucker said that using chemical weapons to create a perimeter around a city under attack might be regarded as less drastic than attacking an advancing force. "It could be seen as defensive," he said.
Michael Eisenstadt, a military analyst at the Washington Center for Near East Policy, a research group, said that persistent chemical agents could also be used to block certain lines of advance and "force enemy forces into kill zones."
Iraq used a variation of that tactic in its final offensives in its war with Iran in 1988, analysts said. The Iraqis laid down mustard gas behind the Iranian forces, then bombarded the front lines with the short-lived but highly toxic sarin. The goal was to drive the retreating sarin-exposed troops into the mustard trap, Dr. Tucker and Timothy V. McCarthy wrote in "Planning the Unthinkable."
Iraq is not a signer of the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, which 150 nations, including the United States, have signed. The convention renounces the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical arms.
In the past, Iraq has admitted to producing several kinds of chemical weapons, including nerve agents that penetrate the skin and lungs to disrupt the nervous system and stop breathing.
Among the agents it has produced are tabun and sarin. Colorless and virtually odorless, these agents, developed by Germany in World War II, are up to 100 times as potent as the chemical arms of World War I. Iraq has also acknowledged making VX, an agent developed by British scientists in 1948 that is so potent that a drop on the skin can kill in minutes.
In addition to nerve agents, Iraq has made mustard compounds, oily substances perfected in World War I that cause burns and blisters. The compounds got their name from their smell, said to be like rotten mustard or onions.
United Nations inspectors could not confirm that Baghdad had destroyed all its chemical arms.
Mr. Eisenstadt said that Iraq has few delivery systems needed to create a chemical no man's land. "They have a limited ability to use air and artillery, and we can shut them down quickly," he said.
A more likely possibility, Mr. Eisenstadt said, would be hidden ground-based generators that could emit a fog of chemical agents. Coalition troops would unknowingly advance into the invisible clouds.
"It doesn't require them to reach out," he said. "We would come to them."
-------- iraq
Coalition, Iraqi firepower
A comparison of coalition and Iraqi firepower, as of March 11.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/094/metro/Professor_recruiter_face_off_at_UMass%2B.shtml
All numbers are estimates based on information from government officials and independent analysts.
Source: Associated Press, Center for Strategic and International Studies; GlobalSecurity.org; British Defense Ministry
SOLDIERS
Coalition
# More than 225,000 U.S. troops in region; more on the way
# 45,000 British troops
Iraq
# 389,000 full-time, active-duty military, including about 80,000 Republican Guard
# 44,000-60,000 paramilitary/security forces
# 650,000 reserves
ARMOR
Coalition
# More than 800 M1 Abrams tanks
# More than 600 M2/M3 Bradley fighting vehicles
# About 120 British Challenger tanks
# About 150 British Warrior armored vehicles
Iraq
# About 1,800 to 2,000 serviceable tanks, including 500-600 Soviet T-72
# More than 3,000 other armored vehicles
MISSILES
Coalition
# As many as 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles on U.S. Navy ships.
# Hundreds of Patriot anti-missile rockets.
Iraq
# Al-Samoud 2 missiles, which Iraq started destroying in February after U.N. officials determined they flew farther than the 93-mile limit. Iraq had destroyed more than 50 of more than 100 missiles by March 6.
# An unknown number of Ababil-100 rockets, which U.S. officials say fly beyond the 93-mile limit. U.S. forces struck an Ababil launcher in southern Iraq in February.
# Up to several dozen long-range Scud missiles hidden after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
HELICOPTERS
Coalition
# More than 700 helicopters, including:
# More than 100 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters
# More than 200 AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters
# More than 400 utility/transport helicopters, including UH-60 Black Hawk, CH-47 Chinook and CH-53 Sea Stallion
Iraq
# About 100 attack helicopters, all aging Soviet models. # About 275 utility/transport helicopters.
AIRPLANES
Coalition
# About 100 British planes, including Tornado, Harrier and Jaguar fighter/attack jets
# About 500 U.S. fighter/attack planes, including:
# 50-60 F-14s
# About 90 F-15s
# About 75 F-16s
# 180-220 F/A-18s
# At least 10 F-117s
# About 50 A-10s
# At least 36 heavy bombers, including B-52, B-1B and B-2s.
# About 60 Marine Corps AV-8B Harriers
# Thousands of bombs and missiles, including:
# More than 20,000 satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions
# More than 20,000 laser-guided Paveway II/III bombs
Iraq
# About 300 combat planes, including:
# 30-50 French Mirage F-1EQ fighters
# 10-17 Soviet MiG-29s
# 6-15 MiG-25s
# 35-60 MiG-23s
# 36-160 MiG-21s.
# 33-60 Su-17/20/22 ground attack jets
# 4-30 Su-25 ground attack jets
NAVY
Coalition
# 6 U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups underway or in the region
# 1 British aircraft carrier group
Iraq
# 2,000 men and 9 obsolete ships
# Unknown numbers of mines and Silkworm anti-ship missiles
----
Baghdad raid by U.S. meant to send message
By Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
April 5, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030405-033519-9079r.htm
WASHINGTON, April 5 (UPI) -- The fight for Baghdad is a two-front war, as American troops battle both to control the streets and to control the television images Iraq's citizens are shown.
U.S. soldiers made a daring and dangerous raid into the center of Baghdad Saturday during the day, an operation carried out not to gain terrain as is traditional in war time, but just to prove to the Iraqis that they could.
The Iraqi information minister said in an interview with Arab television that the American claims were false and the footage in the city was fabricated, CNN reported Saturday.
The procession "put a bit of an exclamation point on the fact that coalition troops are in fact in the vicinity of Baghdad, do in fact have the ability to come into the city at places of their choosing, and demonstrate to the Iraqi leadership that they do not have control in a fashion that they continue to say they do on their television. And I think we made that point," said U.S. Central Command Director of Operations Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart.
The heavily armored raid was conducted by two task forces of the Third Infantry Division. They began south of the city, then preceded north to the Tigris River that bisects Baghdad, and then swung wet out to the airport.
The raid featured dozens of both Bradley fighting vehicles and Abrams tanks. They battled Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard and irregular forces, fighting from infantry positions, with rocket propelled grenades and 23 mm and 57 mm anti-aircraft guns firing on the American force, according to Renuart.
Renuart said there was "intense fighting" against the convoy in some areas of the city, but the city's response seems mixed.
"On the other hand, in some areas, people were standing on the sidewalks waving to us. So clearly there is confusion in Baghdad," he said.
The daylight raid sent a critical message about U.S. power, he said.
"I think that it was very clear to the people of Baghdad that coalition forces were in the city. That image is important, and so I think being in the daytime was a very clear -- it was a very clear statement to the Iraqi regime as well that we can move at times and places of our choosing, even into their capital city," he said.
Renuart noted with some derision the thus far unfulfilled threat from Iraq's information minister of a bloody and unconventional attack that would be carried out on U.S. forces at the airport.
"He said yesterday that there would be this amazing new attack last night, and I don't know what that was -- unless it was the videos," Renuart said, referring to newly released videotapes of Saddam Hussein walking in the street surrounded by gun-toting admirers.
Similar probes are likely to continue, as the U.S. military tried to walk the careful line between routing the Iraqi forces from the city without being drawn into all out urban combat.
Urban fighting carries with it the possibility of massive casualties, on both sides and among Iraqi civilians, as well as tremendous damage to building and streets. A critical part of the U.S. strategy is to leave Baghdad intact and cause as few civilian casualties as possible, both of which will ease the way for a new U.S.-led interim government.
Renuart admitted the Untied States has had difficulty denying the Saddam Hussein regime access to the airwaves, a critical piece of the strategy to convince Baghdad the dictator's reign is finished. The longer Saddam Hussein is able to show his image on television, the longer it will take to convince the people he is gone and to switch their loyalty to the American invaders. The U.S. government is trying to find a way to prevent Iraq from getting access to satellite services.
"I can say that it appears that there are a number of satellite companies who have sold broadcast time to Iraqi National Television, and so we're trying to work in some way to encourage that not happen," Renuart said.
For the U.S. military's part, it is broadcasting on Iraqi Channel 3.
"We're trying to expand our ability for Iraqis (who support the United States) to broadcast on satellite television. And as we try to improve that capability and expand that capability, we will do so," Renuart said.
"We're beginning to see many more leaders in the communities of Basra and An Nasiriyah, As-Samawa, Najaf, even now towards Karbala, become much more supportive, openly supportive of the coalition forces as they see the threat from these other irregular troops go away. And some have expressed interest in helping to get that message out."
Despite the early success in Baghdad, Renuart warned the fight for the city and indeed for control of the country is not over yet.
Dozens of U.S. strike aircraft are continuously circling Baghdad waiting to provide urban combat bombing support for American soldiers, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Moseley told reporters at the Pentagon from his Saudi Arabian base Saturday. Some of the aircraft are equipped with precision 500-lb "inert" bombs, which can be targeted at individual buildings without inflicting much collateral damage on surrounding areas because they do not explode.
Baghdad's air defense are still intact but have been significantly degraded, Moseley said.
Air power has made a major dent in Iraqi ground forces, Moseley said.
"We are not softening the Republican Guard, we are killing them," he said.
The newly named Baghdad Airport is relatively secure but is coming under frequent artillery attacks from enemy forces without much success, Renuart said.
The airfield and a warren of underground facilities are being carefully checked for booby traps.
"But we feel like we can operate on the airfield with ease," he said.
One of the runways was destroyed by U.S. bombs to prevent Iraqi leadership from fleeing but a second, civilian airstrip is intact, albeit covered in mounds of dirt.
He said the airport is in good condition and the landing strip will be in use quickly. The airport's condition is an indication that the quick feint by the 3rd Infantry Division to the airfield rather than attacking Iraqi forces in Karbala was successful in gaining the edge of surprise, he suggested.
"It appears the rest of the infrastructure on the airport was intact, and I think the -- well, the Iraqi government still today says we're not there, so clearly they weren't expecting us, so they left the airfield in a fairly operable condition," Renuart said.
Renuart could not confirm reports there had been a suicide bomb attack at the airport.
"We've had a couple of reports of those activities that have been true over the last few days. The one today I tried to check just before I walked in. That has not come up on anybody's radar scope," he said.
Marines and Army forces launched attacks across central Iraq, seizing a vast munitions cache in Diwaniya, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, and attacking Karbala to the southwest of the capital. They took the headquarters of the Republican Guard's Medina Division, a unit the U.S. military declared largely destroyed on Thursday.
With the Army entrenched on the west side of Baghdad, Marine units are operating on the east side of the city. Renuart said Marines have been engaged in challenging combat for the last 36 hours, some of it hand-to-hand combat with Iraqi forces.
"But that's basically infantry moving through positions on the battlefield. So I am certain that they probably had some very difficult engagements in that area," he said.
British forces continue to "destroy: the remnants of four regular army divisions around al-Amarah in southeastern Iraq.
The United States now has some 6,500 Iraqi prisoners of war. British and American forces control a "substantial" percentage of the southern oil fields.
Renuart trumpeted the logistical campaign supporting the nearly 200,000 American, British and Australian troops in Iraq. Some 2,500 support vehicles transit the 350-mile long supply route connecting Baghdad to Kuwait daily. The military has transported 65 million gallons of fuel thus far into Iraq, and trucks carry in the 1.5 million liters of water consumed daily by coalition forces. About two million tons of spare parts and support equipment are moved around the battlefield each day, and roughly 330,000 meals-ready to eat are consumed daily.
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Top cleric urges Shi'ites not to resist allies
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 4, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030404-16475617.htm
Iraq's leading Shi'ite Muslim cleric yesterday reversed course and urged his followers not to resist the U.S.-led effort to oust President Saddam Hussein, as U.S. forces in the central city of Najaf fought to secure a mosque sacred to the country's majority Shi'ite community.
In what U.S. military officials hailed as a milestone in the bid to undermine Shi'ite support for Saddam's regime, which is dominated by rival Sunni Muslims, Najaf's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a religious ruling known as a "fatwa" instructing his fellow Shi'ites not to oppose the U.S.-led invasion.
"We believe this is a very significant turning point and another indicator that the Iraqi regime is approaching its end," U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said in a briefing in Qatar.
Iraq denied that any such ruling had been issued.
The grand ayatollah, who had been placed under house arrest by Saddam's regime for more than a decade, had issued a fatwa in September calling on all Muslims to "stand toughly against U.S. threats" and to resist an invasion.
The battle for the loyalties of Iraq's Shi'ites, an estimated 55 percent to 60 percent of the country's population who have long faced discrimination and repression under Saddam, has emerged as a key front in the larger war in Iraq.
Shi'ite crowds in Najaf yesterday openly welcomed U.S. forces as they approached Iraqi troops inside the city's gold-domed Ali Mosque. The mosque is the burial place of Imam Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad and a spiritual leader for Shi'ites.
The reception was in sharp contrast to the reserved and even hostile reactions in Basra and other Shi'ite-dominated cities in southern Iraq.
In a sign of the sensitive nature of the public relations war, U.S. forces refused to fire back at Saddam partisans who shot at them from inside the mosque. It was not clear how many Iraqi fighters remained holed up in the shrine as U.S. forces secured large swaths of the city of 650,000 people.
Yitzhak Nakash, professor of Middle East history at Brandeis University and author of "The Shi'is of Iraq," said he considered the ayatollah's new fatwa "very good news" for the U.S. war effort.
He said Iraq's Shi'ites have complicated feelings about the coalition military action. They detest Saddam but have bad memories of the absence of U.S. support for past uprisings against the regime and a desire to avoid accusations of being "insufficiently nationalist."
Noting that he had not seen the text of the ayatollah's new ruling, Mr. Nakash said the fatwa appeared to be a shift toward urging neutrality for Iraq's Shi'ites in the war.
"I think that is as far as he could go in the context. It is too much to expect him to come out openly in support of one side or the other," he said.
U.S. military officials in Qatar yesterday warned that Saddam may be planning to bomb Shi'ite neighborhoods in Baghdad and blame coalition forces. More than a million Shi'ites live in a huge lower-class area of Baghdad known as Saddam City.
"The action would represent just the latest chapter in a long history of aggression against innocent Iraqis by a regime that uses violence, torture and hunger as tools of terror and control," said Jim Wilkinson, spokesman for allied commander Gen. Tommy Franks.
The charge that Iraq's regime may try to bomb its citizens and blame the allies comes soon after the coalition attributed scenes of carnage in a Baghdad market last week to Iraqi bombs, not to errant U.S. missiles as first reported.
U.S. intelligence assessments in the region and at the Pentagon said the damage at the market bombing could not have been caused by coalition munitions, although they did not detail how they reached that conclusion.
Saddam, who rose to power on the back of the secular Ba'ath Party, in recent years has attempted to appeal to Muslim sentiment, peppering his speeches with verses from the Koran and calling for a jihad, or holy war, against U.S. forces.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said in an interview with the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network that the country's Shi'ites remain loyal to the regime.
"As Muslims, their fatwa is to resist the American mercenary forces," he said. "They are evil, and they should be considered invaders to be resisted."
A further complicating factor in Iraq's religious divisions is the presence of a large armed faction of Iraqi Shi'ite exiles operating across the border with the support of Iran, the world's largest Shi'ite state.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last week issued a pointed warning to the Iranian-based exile group not to insert its militia forces into Iraq as the coalition campaign proceeds.
• Paul Martin contributed to this report from Qatar.
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Iraqi Man Risked All to Help Free American Soldier
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 4, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23979-2003Apr3?language=printer
MARINE COMBAT HEADQUARTERS, Iraq, April 3 -- Mohammed, a gregarious 32-year-old Iraqi lawyer, went by the hospital in Nasiriyah one day last week to visit his wife, who worked there as a nurse, when he noticed the ominous presence of security agents.
Curious, he asked around, and a doctor friend told him an American soldier was being held there. Something made him want to go see. The doctor took him to a first-floor emergency wing where he pointed out the soldier through a glass interior window -- a young woman lying in a bed, bandaged and covered in a white blanket.
Inside the room with her was an imposing Iraqi man, clad all in black. Mohammed watched as the man slapped the American woman with his open palm, then again with the back of his hand. In that instant, Mohammed recalled today, he resolved to do something. The next day, when the man in black was not around, Mohammed sneaked in to see the young woman.
"Don't worry, don't worry," he told her. He was going to help.
As he recounted the events today, that decision set in motion one of the most dramatic moments in the first two weeks of the war in Iraq. Five days after Mohammed located U.S. Marines and told them what he knew, Black Hawk helicopters swooped in under cover of darkness, touching down next to the six-story hospital, and a team of heavily-armed commandos stormed the building. With hand-scrawled maps from Mohammed and his wife, the commandos quickly found the injured Pfc. Jessica Lynch and spirited her away to safety.
Mohammed said he decided to save the 19-year-old soldier because he could not bear to see her beaten in the hospital. "My heart is cut," he recalled of his reaction when he saw her. "I decided to go to the Americans and tell them about this story."
Mohammed and his family were flown to this crude desert camp by helicopter today to stay the night before being taken to a refugee center in the southern port city of Umm Qasr. They were allowed to clean up in a makeshift "shower" fashioned out of a giant cardboard box and then given clothes to wear -- an MTV shirt for Mohammed's wife, Iman, and an oversized military T-shirt for his 6-year-old daughter. When Mohammed mentioned that he would love an American flag, the Marines rushed to find one.
"He's sort of an inspiration to all of us," said Lt. Col. Rick Long, who hosted the family in his trailer for a dinner of Meals Ready to Eat tonight.
If not for his help, the Marines said, they might never have been able to rescue Lynch. "The information was dead-on," said Col. Bill Durrett, who was helping process their refugee status to keep them safe from reprisals.
Lynch was part of a convoy from the Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company that made a wrong turn at the city of Nasiriyah on the banks of the Euphrates River on March 23 when it was ambushed by Iraqi paramilitary fighters. The U.S. invasion force was being attacked by Saddam's Fedayeen, a militia formed by President Saddam Hussein's son Uday.
Several of the soldiers were killed in the attack, and Lynch returned fire, according to the account given by U.S. officials. Lynch's family said today that she was not shot or stabbed, as early intelligence reports had indicated. Five soldiers were captured in the attack, while seven are still listed as missing in action.
In a German hospital, Lynch underwent back surgery today to repair a fracture that was pinching a nerve. She is suffering two broken legs and a broken arm. She spoke by telephone with her parents in Palestine, W. Va.
Mohammed, whose last name is being withheld at the request of the Marines, set off the chain of events that led to Lynch's rescue. Mohammed was born in Najaf, a holy city to Shiite Muslims like him. He displays an easy smile and is quick to say "welcome." He studied law and a little English in Basra in southeastern Iraq and became an attorney. He and his wife did what they could to make a decent life for themselves and their daughter; they had a house and a Russian-made car. But, as Mohammed told it, they longed for the day Hussein would fall.
So when he saw some Fedayeen in the hospital, he concluded they were up to no good. He said he knew some of them personally. Asked about them, he simply shook his head. "Very bad," he said, switching back and forth from English to Arabic. "Very, very, very, very bad. There's no kindness in my heart for them." Mohammed recalled that, after the war began, he watched them drag a dead woman's body through the street, apparently killed because she waved at a U.S. helicopter.
The same day he saw Lynch through the glass window, he said in an account vouched for by the Marines, Mohammed set out by foot to find the Americans. The Marines had been trying to secure a route on the eastern side of Nasiriyah to keep critical supply convoys flowing over a pair of bridges that took them across the Euphrates. Mohammed said he walked six miles out of the town center before he came across some Marines.
He said he approached them with his hands raised.
"What do you want?" a Marine asked.
"I have important information about woman soldier in hospital," he replied.
Mohammed was taking a chance, not only in defying Iraqi authorities but in approaching the Marines. Saddam's Fedayeen and their allies had been dressing in civilian clothes to get close to U.S. troops, sometimes even faking surrender, only to open fire at short range. U.S. troops have also fired on civilians at checkpoints.
But with the mention of a woman soldier, Mohammed got the Marines' attention, and he was quickly ushered in to talk with officers who began grilling him about the hospital and the soldier inside. At the same time, Mohammed instructed his wife to go stay with their family -- and none too soon. That night, friends told him later, the Fedayeen showed up at his house and ransacked the place, searching for something.
It was not enough to simply tell the Americans that one of their own was at Saddam Hospital. Twice over the next two days, he said, they sent him back to the hospital to gather more information. Just to get to the hospital was perilous, he said, because of the U.S. bombs that seemed to be falling all around Nasiriyah. Once in the hospital, he had to make sure he was not spotted by anyone who would inform on him to the Fedayeen.
As he skulked around, he counted the number of Fedayeen at the hospital, until he came to 41. He noted that four guards in civilian clothes stood watch at Lynch's first-floor room armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and radios. He traced routes through the building that commandos could use. He tried to learn what he could about the operations center they set up at the hospital on the first day of the war.
During his first return trip to the hospital, he learned the Iraqis were talking about amputating her leg, which had been injured during or after the attack. Mohammed said he urged his doctor friend to stop the amputation. He slipped in to see Lynch and reassured her, he said, though she mistook him for a doctor.
"A person is a human being regardless of nationality," he explained today. "Believe me, I love Americans."
After returning to the Marine base, he drew out five maps by hand, and his wife, who was brought there, drew one, too. The military planners took the scraps of paper and got to work.
In the end, a Special Operations force of Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and Air Force personnel swooped in early Wednesday morning, while Marines staged a fake offensive elsewhere around Nasiriyah to distract attention of the Fedayeen and their allies. It was one of the few times an American prisoner of war has been successfully rescued in the last half century.
Mohammed has given up the life he knew to help a woman he met only briefly. He and his family came to this Marine base with nothing but the clothes they were wearing and a blanket. But Mohammed smiled broadly and happily talked about his role. He expressed no doubts about his decision.
"She would not have lived," he said simply. "It was very important."
He knew the risks, he said. "I am afraid not for me. I am afraid about my daughter and my wife," he said, turning to them sitting quietly next to him. "Because I love much."
Mohammed wants to work with the Americans some more, maybe help them gather information elsewhere in Iraq. His wife could help treat injured soldiers, he offered. Maybe he will go to America. But eventually, he said, he wants to return home.
"In the future when Saddam Hussein is down," he said, "I will go back to Nasiriyah." He said he would not worry then about the Fedayeen. "When Saddam Hussein goes down, I'm sure they will go away."
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Saddam shows himself as vise tightens
April 4, 2003
UPI
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030404-024609-5898r.htm
As U.S. troops took control of Baghdad's strategically important airport Friday, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein appeared on state TV urging resistance and another government official threatened soldiers at the airport with "non-conventional action" in the coming hours. That was later clarified to mean a threat of suicide attacks, not chemical or biological weapons.
In his message, the man who appeared to be Saddam urged the Iraqi people to resist the U.S. and British "invasion" of Iraq. He called on Iraq's citizens to "stick to your principles, your patriotism and the honor of men and women."
He also praised the Iraqi farmer who reportedly shot down a U.S. Apache helicopter with a rifle, an indication that the tape must have been made sometime after the start of the war.
On a day of fast-moving developments, officials reported the first death of an American journalist -- Michael Kelly, editor at large of the Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for The Washington Post. Kelly was a widely admired reporter who gained prominence covering the first Gulf War in 1991. He and an unidentified U.S. soldier died when their truck overturned.
Elsewhere Friday, a civilian car exploded near a military checkpoint in western Iraq, killing three coalition troops, and coalition forces seized control of Baghdad's international airport in overnight fighting, U.S. Central Command said.
U.S. and British officials have said Saddam may have been killed or badly wounded in the initial raid on March 20, which targeted a bunker where high-ranking Iraqi officials were believed to have gathered.
Saddam, who was wearing a military uniform, appeared to be in good health. The Iraqi president read from a prepared statement, in which he praised God and said Iraq would be victorious.
Later, Arab television showed video of what was said to be Saddam greeting a boisterous crowd of well-wishers. It was unclear when the video was taken and whether in fact it was Saddam.
Earlier Friday, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf read a message from Saddam on Iraqi television.
Al-Sahhaf also warned U.S. forces at Baghdad's international airport that as of late Friday "unconventional weapons" would be used against them. He later said the unconventional weapons would be suicide bombers.
The message said Iraqis were determined to defeat and destroy the "invaders" at the gates of Baghdad and in "the land of Islam."
It called on the Iraqis to "fight and hit" the advancing coalition forces "night and day."
The car explosion, about 11 miles southwest of the Hadithah Dam in Iraq, appeared to be a suicide attack, according to military officials. The driver detonated the bomb just as a pregnant woman began to scream and exited the car. The driver and woman were also killed, and two soldiers were wounded.
"Whether this woman was coerced or not, it is now impossible to say," U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks told reporters in Doha, Qatar.
"She clearly left the vehicle in distress and clearly showed signs of being pregnant. We are not surprised the (Iraqi) regime would do this, whether voluntarily or not."
Brooks said the soldiers were approaching the car when it exploded. "These kind of behaviors have been exhibited all over the battlefield. They are terroristic, that is the only way to characterize them. These are not military actions, they are terrorist actions."
Last week, a man posing as a taxi driver carried out a suicide attack at a military checkpoint near An Nasiriyah, south of Baghdad, killing four soldiers.
"We have seen a number of examples that provide us clear evidence this regime will take civilians, will take women, will take children and use them to lead an attack," Brooks said Friday.
Coalition forces Friday secured control of Saddam International Airport in overnight fighting. The airport is "the gateway to the future of Iraq," said Brooks. The airport is located 12 miles from downtown Baghdad. Brooks said troops have renamed the facility Baghdad International Airport.
In Baghdad, bombing began at around 2 a.m. Friday, the Muslim holy day.
CNN reported that Iraqis tried to prevent the coalition's advance using what the Army called "suicide buses" --- dump trucks, pickup trucks and buses carrying Iraqi soldiers firing their weapons as their vehicles advanced on U.S. troops. It said U.S. tanks easily destroyed the Iraqi vehicles.
Centcom also Friday said it was trying to confirm a report by U.S. Marines that about 2,500 Iraqi Republican Guard troops had surrendered southeast of Baghdad.
"We have not received any confirmation of 2,500 or any other number like that," said Brooks.
"We have encountered forces that have surrendered along the way. They are usually parts of units, not whole units, at this point. But we believe as the situation continues to unfold, that may change." Centcom has said it has more than 4,500 POWs in custody.
The two key concerns among U.S. military planners: that Republican Guard and other diehard supporters of Saddam may regroup for street fighting in Baghdad, and that the regime will use chemical weapons as a last-ditch defense.
"Things are progressing well. But I'd like to caution all that there still is much more work to be done," Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news briefing Thursday. "And there's no doubt that some of it's going to be very, very difficult."
"Let there be no doubt the most dangerous fighting may well be ahead of us," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the same briefing. But he noted troops have "now arrived near the regime's doorstep" and are closer to the center of the city than many American suburban commuters are to theirs.
President George W. Bush was met with rousing cheers from Marines Thursday at Camp Lejeune, N.C., however. He praised the service members at the base for their sprint across the Iraqi desert from Kuwait and told them: "A vise is closing and the days of a brutal regime are coming to an end."
(Reported by Martin Walker in Camp Doha, Kuwait; Richard Tomkins with the 5th Marines; Ghassan al-Kadi in Baghdad, Iraq; Pamela Hess at the Pentagon and William M. Reilly at the United Nations)
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Saddam tours Baghdad neighborhood
By Ghassan al-Kadi
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
April 4, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030404-053139-8859r.htm
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 4 (UPI) -- A self-composed and defiant Saddam Hussein apparently made his first public appearance Friday since U.S. forces bombed his bunker March 20. Iraqi TV showed pictures of him walking the streets of a Baghdad neighborhood where a throng of jubilant and enthusiastic residents greeted him.
The appearance was the culmination of several efforts Friday by the Iraqi president to rally his people against coalition troops poised just outside the Iraqi capital. The date of his actual visit was not definitive, however -- some nearby buildings showed possible bomb damage, but U.S. analysts noted the apparent lack of smoke that has hovered over most parts of Baghdad for days.
The television pictures showed a smiling Saddam in military uniform and black beret surrounded by people in what was said to be the al-Mansour area and a target of coalition bombardment.
"With soul, with blood, we redeem you Saddam," shouted dozens of bystanders. Women ululated while some of the men pushed through to kiss their leader's hand or cheeks. "May God protect you," shouted one man as more joined the crowd.
Saddam, his military men and armed bodyguards in a cluster around him, was then seen checking military reinforcements in the city and chatting with residents. Afterwards he stood to overlook the crowd and raised his fist to salute them.
The television then showed pictures from a driving car allegedly with Saddam aboard of many streets in Baghdad. Smoke clouds were seen in these pictures.
It was one of the very rare public appearances of Saddam. Mideast commentators called it an act of courage and a strong message to Iraqis and coalition alike that he was still alive, in control of the country and ready for confrontation.
The broadcast of his visit came less than two hours after he appeared on television to read a statement urging Iraqis to resist what he called the U.S. and British "invasion" of Iraq and to "hit them hard."
The date of the recording of the brief statement was also unclear, but Saddam did make mention of an Iraqi farmer who purportedly shot down a U.S. Apache helicopter last week. It was the first time during several recent appearances on television that Saddam made a definitive reference to an event after March 20, when some 40 cruise missiles and F-117A bombs were dropped on a bunker in which Western intelligence analysts said Saddam and other senior leaders were staying.
U.S. officials have not yet declared definitively whether or not they believe he survived the attack, but have suggested he was at least wounded.
"Come to jihad," said Saddam, according to a CNN translation. "Their dead are in hell and their living in humiliation. Our dead will be in paradise and our living in dignity."
He declared, "Whenever they approach you and try to attack you, depend on God and hold close to your principles. ... Dignity belongs to God and victory belongs to Iraq."
The traditionally secular leader has invoked religious tones in recent years and particularly in recent days, trying to unify the factions within his country and Muslims in general against the U.S.-led forces.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told the British Broadcasting Corp. Friday that the Iraqi leader was, in fact, alive. Indeed Saddam appeared to be in good health in both appearances, but in the past U.S. intelligence officials have noted that he has many look-alikes and doubles.
Large sections of Baghdad lost electricity Thursday as coalition forces drew within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the Iraqi capital and captured its airport. Nevertheless Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf launched a verbal offensive on Iraqi television by Friday morning, reading what he said was a message from Saddam.
The message said Iraqis were determined to defeat and destroy the "invaders" at the gates of Baghdad and in "the land of Islam." It also called on the Iraqis to "fight them and hit them day and night, and make the land of Islam a crematorium's fire under the feet of the invaders and their faces wherever they pass."
Al-Sahhaf also warned U.S. forces at Baghdad's international airport that "unconventional weapons" would be used against them within hours. He later clarified the term, saying the unconventional weapons would be suicide bombers.
The United States has long claimed that Iraq posses chemical and biological weapons, an accusation the Iraqis have denied.
"We are determined with God's will to defeat and destroy them at the walls of our cities as much as we are determined to smash their miserable armies and defeat them in every part of the land of Islam, the land of Iraq," the message said.
Al-Sahhaf concluded the message in the same fashion as previous ones attributed to Saddam: "Allah Akbar (God is Great). Glory for the struggling Iraqis and shame on the enemies of God and humanity. Long live Iraq ... Long live Palestine!"
(Dalal Saoud in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.)
----
Iraqi TV Video Suggests Saddam Survived
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
Associated Press Writer
Apr 4, 2003 3:18 PM EST
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WAR_SADDAM_MESSAGE?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
WASHINGTON (AP) -- References to a downed U.S. helicopter in Saddam Hussein's video message Friday suggest it was made after the strike aimed at killing him, a U.S. intelligence official said. The message provided some of the strongest evidence yet that the Iraqi president survived the attack.
The official stopped short of saying the video message, which was broadcast on Iraqi television Friday, provided conclusive proof he was still alive and in command of the Iraqi regime.
But Saddam's reference to a villager shooting down a U.S. AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter matched claims by other Iraqi officials, which first aired hours after the March 23 downing of an Apache in battle south of Baghdad.
In his address, Saddam said, among other things, "Perhaps you remember the valiant Iraqi peasant and how he shot down an American Apache with an old weapon."
Iraq claimed downing two helicopters that day but U.S. military officials said only one was lost. Whether the helicopter went down to hostile fire or a mechanical failure is unclear.
The two crew members were taken prisoner by Iraqis, and their pictures later aired on Iraqi television.
Also Friday, Arab television networks aired footage of a man they said was Saddam walking among excited crowds cheering, "With our blood and souls we redeem you Saddam."
The man identified as Saddam was dressed in a green-olive military uniform with a beret. He smiled, appeared relaxed and shook hands, kissed a baby and waved.
Al-Jazeera said the tape was made Friday. It was taken in daylight, but not broadcast until after nightfall.
Iraqi television has broadcast a number of speeches and messages from Saddam since March 20, when U.S. forces opened the war by striking at a residential compound where Saddam was believed to be sleeping.
But none of those messages contained the kind of specific references - akin to holding up that day's newspaper - that would confirm they were recorded after the war began. Intelligence officials said they had some information that Saddam prerecorded a number of speeches to air during the war.
The intelligence official, discussing the situation only on grounds of anonymity, said it was possible that even Friday's speech - including a precognitive reference to a downed helicopter - was recorded before the war, but acknowledged it was more likely recorded since March 23.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Friday that the tape does not confirm Saddam's status one way or the other.
"In the bigger scheme of things, It really doesn't matter because whether it is him or isn't him, the regime's days are numbered and are coming to an end," he said.
The whereabouts of Saddam and his sons, also key players in the Iraqi regime, are unknown to U.S. intelligence.
In the speech, Saddam also described the U.S. war strategy of bypassing most Iraqi towns and military units to bore straight in on Baghdad. But that strategy was not difficult to envision, even before the war, the intelligence official said. Fleischer noted that one part of the speech - that U.S. troops bypassed, instead of fought, Baghdad's defenses - differed from reality.
On Thursday, a U.S. defense official speaking on the condition of anonymity said some military intelligence analysts have concluded that all of Saddam's television appearances since the beginning of the war in Iraq were prerecorded, most likely before the fighting started. But the CIA said it had made no such determination.
The defense official said that an in-depth analysis of various aspects of the video images has led some analysts to believe the tapes were recorded before the war. The official declined to provide details.
But the CIA, which has analysts with long experience of studying speeches and appearances by foreign leaders, previously had no conclusive information that suggests when the videotapes were made, officials said. It is possible, but not certain, that they were recorded before the war, they said.
The difference in the military and CIA assessments underscores how many eyes, from a number of government agencies, are trying to determine the status of Iraq's president.
Previously, the most puzzling videotape was the one that aired hours after the strike on Saddam's compound. In it, an unusually disheveled Saddam appeared on Iraqi television, reading what appeared to be an impromptu speech from a pad. But nothing in the speech proved that it was not prerecorded.
Recent statements from some Bush administration officials also appear to be attempts to goad Saddam into showing himself.
----
Car Blast Kills 5 Near Iraqi Checkpoint
April 4, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Car-Explosion.html
CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar (AP) -- A car exploded near a coalition checkpoint in western Iraq, killing three coalition soldiers, a pregnant woman and the car's driver, U.S. Central Command said Friday.
A Central Command spokesman said it appeared to be a suicide attack and occurred 80 miles east of the Syrian border and northwest of Baghdad.
In a statement, Central Command said the incident occurred Thursday evening about 11 miles southwest of the Haditha Dam, when a civilian vehicle approached a coalition checkpoint.
``A pregnant female stepped out of the vehicle and began screaming in fear,'' a statement said. ``At this point the civilian vehicle exploded, killing three coalition force members who were approaching the vehicle and wounding two others.''
It said the woman and the driver also were killed.
Jim Wilkinson, spokesman at U.S. Central Command, said the incident showed the Iraqi leadership was using desperate measures to remain in power.
Earlier this week U.S. officials have said a man posing as a taxi driver staged a suicide attack that killed four soldiers at an Army checkpoint.
``The more desperate the regime gets, the more desperate their tactics become,'' Wilkinson said. ``This is just the latest tragic example.''
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Iraqi Official Warns of 'Unconventional Attack'
April 4, 2003
The New York Times
By DEXTER FILKINS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/worldspecial/04CND-MARINE.html
OUTSIDE BAGHDAD, April 4 - American marines advanced to the Baghdad city limits today, meeting scant resistance, and stopped at the brink of entry, awaiting orders.
Overnight and early today there was a shattering bombardment of what remained of the Nida division of the Republican Guard, with artillery shelling Iraqi tanks from as much as 20 miles away and B52's firing from above.
The reports from 155-milimeter guns were so powerful that they blew off the tarps and broke the windshields of nearby American military vehicles, officers said.
The First Marine Division raced behind the Nida division, whose burnt-out tanks littered the roadside. Local residents cheered the Americans, as they did on Thursday.
Two captured members of the Medina group of the Republican Guard said today that under intense bombardment on Thursday, hundreds of their fellow soldiers gave up the fight, slipping away from the guard. Many tore off their triangle insignias, the two said.
Today's advance left the marines about 10 miles from downtown Baghdad and across town from the Third Infantry Division, which took control of the city's airport, on its west side. The dual positions put the city in a powerful vise.
Iraqi television broadcast another address today from President Saddam Hussein in which he called on Iraqis to continue to resist against the United States-led invasion.
"Let the criminals lose," he said.
Although Mr. Hussein made one topical reference during the broadcast - the capture of an Apache helicopter in central Iraq on March 24 - it was uncertain when the broadcast was taped or whether it was actually Mr. Hussein or one of the doubles that he has used from time to time.
Iraq's information minister, Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf , today said that Iraq would use "unconventional" tactics to fight the coalition's advance on Baghdad.
Asked whether he meant the use of chemical or biological weapons, he replied: "No. that's not what I said. What I meant are commando and martyrdom operations in a very new, creative way."
The United States Central Command said today that three American soldiers were killed at a checkpoint late Thursday night in a suicide car bombing near the Haditha Dam, which is northwest of Baghdad and about 80 miles east of the Syrian border.
The driver of the vehicle and a pregnant woman who was with him were killed in the explosion, according to Central Command.
"These are not military actions," Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations for Central Command, told reporters today at the daily briefing in Qatar. "These are terrorist actions."
With strong momentum, the Americans might wish to enter the city, but generals must decide whether the risk of street-by-street fighting and chemical attack argues in favor of holding back.
The bulk of the First Marine Division crossed the Tigris River on Thursday from the southeast, and wheeled northward, pausing to do battle with several hundred Iraqi soldiers who decided to stand and fight.
As the marines pushed northward during the day Thursday, thousands of Iraqi civilians were fleeing Baghdad and its surrounding cities, some of them going south, cheering and encouraging the troops as they passed.
It was one of the first signs of a large movement of people out of Baghdad since the American bombing began two weeks ago, and one of the warmest receptions the Americans have gotten to date.
The Iraqis crammed into buses, cars and taxis, piling out of a city they said was no longer safe. One man drove himself and his family south on a motorcycle and sidecar, another in a 1954 Dodge pickup. A third man, standing in the bed of his pickup, raced down the highway shouting the only words in English he knew.
"George Bush!" he cried, whizzing past.
The cars and buses carrying southbound Iraqis were so jammed that even some Iraqi soldiers jumped abroad, hoping to make an escape. Many Iraqis, fearful of the convoy streaming past them, waved white flags, some fashioned out of bed sheets and T-shirts. One woman waved a pair of boxer shorts. Today's advance came after waves of civilians streamed out of Baghdad and its surrounding cities on Thursday.
That exodus continued today. The Associated Press quoted some witnesses as saying that there were lines of vehicles bumper to bumper extending up to six miles.
The outpouring by the Iraqis marked a break with days past, when the reception offered by townspeople had often been more muted. For days, as American troops swept through the country, Iraqis often refrained from offering their opinions, fearful of reprisals, some said, especially if the Iraqi president survived.
But on Thursday, as the goal of the American military effort became apparent, Iraqis seemed to feel little urge to keep their emotions in check.
--------
MILITARY ANALYSIS
A Tightening of the Noose
April 4, 2003
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/worldspecial/04STRA.html
CAMP DOHA, Kuwait, April 3 - The main Iraqi force facing American troops on the outskirts of Baghdad is now the Iraqi Army's Special Republican Guard and internal security units that are charged with defending the interior of the city - all told, a force of about 15,000 to 20,000.
An unknown number of regular Republican Guard and other Iraqi Army soldiers are also believed to have drifted back into the city. But American commanders are not certain whether they are an organized force or are simply troops looking to escape the battlefield. A hodgepodge of Iraqi soldiers are still deployed on the outskirts of the capital, but they have been weakened and will be targets for American warplanes in the days ahead.
The American strategy at this point is to maintain the military momentum and the psychological pressure on Saddam Hussein and his forces. To take on the Iraqis the Americans can be expected to isolate the city and cut off the routes from the capital.
Aerial reconnaissance and probes will be conducted to identify the whereabouts of members of the government and its defenders, intelligence gathering efforts that American commanders hope will be aided by opponents to the Iraqi government.
American light infantry and engineers will carry out thrusts into the city's interior to attack remaining political and military targets, according to Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, the V Corps commander. American Special Operations forces, which raided several places near Baghdad today, will have an important role.
Air power will be critical, too. The Iraqis are believed to still have considerable antiaircraft artillery in and around the capital. They have been launching surface-to-air missiles, but they have been unguided firings as the Iraqis are afraid that turning on their fire-control radars will invite destruction from the radar-seeking missiles from American warplanes.
The Americans plan to use laser-guided bombs to attack targets inside Baghdad more than satellite-guided JDAM's, according to Air Force officials. American officials believe there is a better prospect of limiting unintentional damage within the capital if soldiers or airmen observe the target area and then guide the bombs to their targets themselves instead of simply punching in satellite coordinates.
The United States also has a large inventory of 500-pound laser-guided bombs. The American JDAM satellite-guided bombs come in 1,000- and 2,000-pound versions, which would create more damage.
At the same time, the United States military has begun an intensive psychological operations campaign, with the capital's population as its target. The message is that Mr. Hussein's government is finished and that the United States has no interest in negotiating with the remaining Iraqi authorities.
The Army and Marines are reinforcing on the outskirts of the capital. American commanders are also rushing to get the Army's Fourth Infantry Division ready so at least some of its forces are available for the Baghdad battle.
That division was redirected to Kuwait after Turkey refused to allow its territory to be used to open a northern front. But American military officials say it is not necessary to wait for the Fourth Division to proceed with its offensive inside the city.
Several factors have propelled American forces to the gates of Baghdad. First, the American air campaign has been relentless. The Medina and Baghdad Divisions of the Republican Guard were major targets for the bombing campaign before Army and Marine forces engaged them.
The American advantage in the air made it difficult for the Iraqi forces to maneuver and also weakened them. American commanders estimate that more than 1,000 of Iraq's 2,500 tanks have been destroyed. Many Iraqi soldiers have deserted or abandoned their equipment.
Second, G.I.'s and marines exploited their success to continue their thrust deep into Iraq before the defenders could react.
Another important factor is that the United States military demonstrated its ability to take casualties and adapt to shifting battlefield conditions.
When American supply lines were attacked by Iraqi paramilitary units, the Army and Marines counterattacked inside Nasiriya, Najaf and other southern cities.
Mr. Hussein hoped to frighten the Americans with the prospect of urban warfare, but in the south the Americans appear to have risen to that challenge. American casualties were not great and fear of them does not appear to have deterred Army and Marine forces from chasing the paramilitary forces out of their urban sanctuaries.
The battle of Baghdad will present new dangers. American officials say an urgent intelligence report on Wednesday that Republican Guard forces had been ordered into the city was based on a misinterpretation about where forces from the Nida Republican Guard Division were being ordered to relocate.
Units from several Republican Guard divisions, like the Hammurabi and Nida, are weakened but still defending positions to the west, north and east of the capital.
But these Iraqi units will be hard pressed in the face of overwhelming American air power. To boost its striking power in central Iraq, the Air Force has taken over the former Iraqi air base at Tallil and it used it to refuel its A-10 tank-buster planes.
Operating inside a vast city of 4.5 million residents could still be difficult, especially since it will constrain the Americans' ability to conduct airstrikes or use its tanks, and will preclude the use of artillery. Still, American planners have been mapping the city, studying its streets and its ethnic composition.
American troops must also still deal with isolated groups of troops they have already bypassed and that might try to attack supply lines: "stay-behinds" in the argot of the Americna military.
The threat of chemical weapons is also still present.
Nobody is saying the war is over. But American commanders seemed more confident than ever. The storming of the airport today was an important military and psychological blow because it had been a well-defended target.
The American planners have already come up with a new name for Saddam International Airport, calling it Baghdad International Airport. It's a name they have been using and one they plan to use from now on.
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Powell Proposes Interim Iraqi Government
April 4, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Postwar.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell proposed on Friday that an interim administration be set up quickly in Iraq with exiled Iraqis playing a prominent role but also including ``those inside'' who opposed Saddam Hussein.
``We are anxious to move quickly,'' Powell said after a meeting at the White House with President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security assistant.
``The day of liberation is growing near,'' Powell said at a news conference at the State Department. ``We are almost in control of their country, and we'll be in complete control soon.''
Whether Saddam is alive or not ``is not going to affect our efforts,'' Powell said about new speculation that the Iraqi president probably was still alive and trying to rally resistance to the deadly coalition onslaught.
The structuring of the interim authority is a subject of debate within the administration and between the United States and European nations.
According to U.S. News & World Report, Rumsfeld sent two memos to Bush suggesting that Iraqi and Kurdish expatriates, with some experience with democracy, were better equipped to take over the country than Iraqis living under Saddam.
But White House aides, confirming that account on Friday, said Bush had rejected Rumsfeld's suggestion. In a nod to Rumsfeld, the president left open the possibility of setting up the interim authority in parts of Iraq while coalition forces pressed for control of the whole country.
Asked what sort of mix he thought should be in the interim authority, Powell said, ``We want to include those who were in the external opposition who have worked so long and so hard and with such determination for the liberation of Iraq, but also individuals inside.''
``We are now putting together plans to structure that approach and in due course we will make it known to everyone,'' Powell said. ``We want an interim authority that is representative of all the groups who are interested in the future of Iraq.''
At the White House, Rice said Bush wants exiles and Iraqis currently living in the country to be in the interim authority.
``We will help Iraqis build an Iraq that is whole, free and at peace with itself and its neighbors,'' she said.
On Thursday, in Brussels, Belgium, Powell met with foreign ministers of NATO and the European Union and reaffirmed the administration's view that ``the coalition has to play the leading role'' in the interim between Saddam's regime and a new Iraqi government.
``But that does not mean we have to shut others out. There will definitely be a United Nations role, but what the exact nature of that role will be remains to be seen,'' he said.
Powell continued those discussions Friday at the State Department with Javier Solana, the senior diplomat of the European Union, and he talked by telephone to Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general.
``We are at the beginning of a process of dialogue, pragmatic dialogue, to determine what the appropriate role of the U.N. should be,'' Powell said.
``The U.N. will be a partner in all of this. Everybody understands that. There's no disagreement about that.''
At the joint news conference, Solana said, ``We have to continue talking, discussing the subject.'' But, he said, ``the U.N. will have, as the secretary has said, a major role to play.''
France and Russia, which opposed the war in the first place and wanted to extend U.N. searches for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, insist that reconstruction should be guided by the United Nations, not the United States or Britain.
``We must stabilize Iraq and the region,'' French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Thursday in Brussels. ``The United Nations is the only international organization that can give legitimacy to this.''
But Rice, like Powell, said Friday, ``The coalition naturally will have the leading role for a period of time to ensure the provision of essential services to the Iraqi people.''
And Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the United Nations should not be ``the managing partner.''
``That role remains for the United States for a period of time,'' he said.
--------
Cluster bombs liberate Iraqi children
By Pepe Escobar,
Apr 4, 2003
Asia Times Online
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED04Ak07.html
AMMAN - The horror. The horror. And unlike Apocalypse Now, there are real, not fictional images to prove it. But they won't be seen in Western homes. The new heart of darkness has emerged in the turbulent history of Mesopotamia via the Hilla massacre. After uninterrupted, furious American bombing on Monday night and Tuesday morning, as of Wednesday night there were at least 61 dead Iraqi civilians and more than 450 seriously injured in the region of Hilla, 80 kilometers south of Baghdad. Most are children: 60 percent of Iraq's population of roughly 24 million are children.
Roland Huguenin-Benjamin, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Iraq, describes what happened in Hilla as "a horror, dozens of severed bodies and scattered limbs". Initially, Murtada Abbas, the director of Hilla hospital, was questioned about the bombing only by Iraqi journalists - and only Arab cameramen working for Reuters and Associated Press were allowed on site. What they filmed is horror itself - the first images shot by Western news agencies of what is also happening on the Iraqi frontlines: babies cut in half, amputated limbs, kids with their faces a web of deep cuts caused by American shellfire and cluster bombs. Nobody in the West will ever see these images because they were censored by editors in Baghdad: only a "soft" version made it to worldwide TV distribution.
According to the Arab cameramen, two trucks full of bodies - mostly children, and women in flowered dresses - were parked outside the Hilla hospital. Dr Nazem el-Adali, trained in Scotland, said almost all the dead and wounded were victims of cluster bombs dropped in the Hilla region and in the neighboring village of Mazarak. Abbas initially said that there were 33 dead and 310 wounded. Then the ICRC went on site with a team of four, and they said that there were "dozens of dead and 450 wounded". Contacted by satphone on Thursday, Huguenin-Benjamin confirmed there were at least 460 wounded, being treated in an ill-equipped 280-bed hospital.
Journalists taken to Hilla from Baghdad on an official tour on Wednesday talked of at least 61 dead. The Independent's Robert Fisk described the mortuary as "a butcher's shop of chopped-up corpses". The ICRC is adamant: all victims are "farmers, women and children". And Dr Hussein Ghazay, also from Hilla hospital, confirmed that "all the injuries were either from cluster bombing or from bomblets that exploded afterwards when people stepped on them or children picked them up by mistake".
Iraqi journalists on site and later an Agence France Presse (AFP) photographer say that they have seen debris equipped with small parachutes characteristic of cluster bombs - which release up to 200 bomblets. Mohamed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Information Minister, has not volunteered details yet on the Hilla massacre. US Central Command in Qatar only admits it has used "six cluster bombs in the center of Iraq" - and against a tank column: these would be the CBU 105, the so-called "intelligent" cluster bombs which compensate for wind. The Pentagon line remains that there are "no indications" that the US dropped cluster bombs in the Hilla region.
Widely used in Afghanistan, cluster bombs are vehemently denounced by human rights organizations: they compare their deadly effects to anti-personnel mines, which are outlawed by the Ottawa Convention (not signed, incidentally, by either the US or Iraq). Cluster bombs are far from being smart. Most of its bomblets hit the ground without exploding. The small yellow cylinders remain deadly weapons threatening civilians - especially children. Human Rights Watch, in vain, has tried to persuade the Pentagon not to use cluster bombs, stressing that "Iraqi civilians will pay the price with their lives". This is not the first incident of mass civilian deaths. The Independent newspaper of London claims that it has conclusively proved that an American missile was responsible for the devastation at the Shu'ale market in Baghdad last Friday, with at least 62 civilians confirmed dead. The missile - either a high speed anti-radiation missile (Harm) or a Paveway laser-guided bomb - is manufactured by Raytheon in Texas. Raytheon is the world's largest manufacturer of so-called "smart" weapons - including Patriots and Tomahawks.
A piece of fuselage shown by a Shu'ale resident to the Independent's Robert Fisk reads the number 30003-704ASB7492, followed by a second code, MFR 96214 09. An investigation by the Independent determined that "the reference MFR 96214 was the identification or 'cage' number of a Raytheon plant in the city of McKinney, Texas. The 30003 reference refers to the Naval Air Systems Command, the procurement agency responsible for furnishing the US Navy's air force with its weaponry." Many defense analysts have agreed that what happened at the Shu'ale market was almost certainly due to a Harm - which carries a warhead designed to explode into thousands of aluminum fragments. The Bush administration, Downing Street and the US Central Command continue to blame the civilian massacre in Baghdad on misfired Iraqi missiles.
Al-Mustansariya University in Baghdad - the oldest in the world - has been bombed. A Red Crescent maternity hospital has been bombed. In al-Janabiy, in the southeast of Baghdad, Patrick Baz, a veteran AFP photographer who stared horror in the face in Beirut in the 1980s, stumbled into a farm pulverized by missiles with at least 20 dead inside, including 11 children.
Iraq may not be totally united behind the renewed call of the Saddam Hussein regime, which is a complex mix of Arab nationalism and jihad invoked to rally every citizen to a war of liberation. But the terrible images of the civilian massacre in Shu'ale and the civilian massacre in Hilla, coupled with the Pentagon's denials, have turned the Iraqi nationalist struggle into a volcano. Iraqi exiles in Jordan confirm that people who wouldn't dream of picking up a Kalashnikov to defend Saddam are now committed to defend their families, their houses, their cities and their homeland. Anglo-American soldiers may barely disguise their perplexity, but the fact on the ground is they are now fighting the very people they were supposed to "liberate".
Most, if not all, images of death from above raining over Iraqi civilians are being shown non-stop on al-Jazeera, Abu-Dhabi TV, al-Arabiya or the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. The anger over the Arab world must surely be growing. Even "moderate" regimes are being touched. The semi-official al-Ahram, Egypt's premier newspaper, sums it up in an editorial, "The 'clean war' has become the dirtiest of wars, the bloodiest, the most destructive. Smart weapons have become deliberately stupid, blindly killing people in markets and popular neighborhoods." Jordan's King Abdullah was forced to publicly denounce what he termed the "invasion of Iraq" and vigorously register his "pain and sorrow" with the "murder of women and children ... as we see on our television screens the growing number of martyrs among innocent Iraqi civilians. As a father, I feel the pain of every Iraqi family, of every child, and every father."
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli Army Strikes at Palestinians;
7 Are Shot to Death
April 4, 2003
The New York Times
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/middleeast/04MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, April 3 - In a series of military strikes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians today, and soldiers blocked more than 1,000 Palestinian men and boys from returning home for a second day as the army scoured a refugee camp for wanted men.
And on the outskirts of East Jerusalem, sending up clouds of dust, the Israeli authorities used jackhammers and backhoes to crush more than a dozen Palestinian homes and other buildings that they said lacked permits. Palestinians said the permits were prohibitively expensive and difficult to obtain.
In the refugee camp, in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, the army said that on Wednesday it summoned all male residents between the ages of 15 and 45 to appear in the camp's center, where they were detained and interrogated one by one.
Those deemed innocent were placed on trucks and sent to another camp, where they were released and instructed not to return home for three days, the army said.
The action came after a suicide bomber from a village near Tulkarm struck the Israeli town of Netanya on Sunday, killing himself and wounding three dozen others.
The army said the action would help it screen wanted men from the innocent. "If they didn't come forward, they probably have something to hide," Maj. Sharon Feingold, an army spokeswoman, said today.
Palestinians in Tulkarm said today that as many as 3,000 men and boys as young as 13 had been rounded up. They said soldiers had threatened them with punishment if they did not appear at the collection point, a girls' school.
Ramzi Abu Atiyeh, 20, said that after being interrogated, he was loaded onto a truck with about 50 others and dropped near the other camp, Nur Shams. "They dropped us there and told us not to return for three days," he said. "We didn't know what we were going to do."
He said strangers in the camp had given him a place to sleep. He and other Palestinians said roads back into their own camp had been blocked by barbed wire or soldiers.
Another man staying in Nur Shams, who gave his age as 35, said he had been forced to leave behind six children, aged 3 months to 11 years, as well as his wife, sister and mother. "My body is here, and my mind is there," he said. "My kids need their father."
He said he was reluctant to give his name for fear of Israeli reprisal, but then identified himself as Muhammad Tawfiq.
"This is a nightmare," he said.
The army said it had made no provision for those without places to stay. It said the soldiers had arrested 13 Palestinians in the Tulkarm camp.
The United Nations agency that administers Palestinian refugee camps said Israeli forces had broken into and used one of its girls' schools to detain Palestinians. Peter Hansen, the commissioner general of the agency, called the move "a violation of international legal norms." The army did not immediately respond.
The operation in Tulkarm, which was still under way tonight, was one of several unfolding throughout a violent day in the West Bank and Gaza.
At the southern edge of the Gaza Strip before dawn, Israeli tanks and bulldozers supported by helicopters raided the Rafah refugee camp in what the army described as an effort to find and destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels. The army said its forces had come under attack and had shot back.
Palestinians in Rafah said that four men had been killed, but that only one had been armed. Rami Zanoun, 19, who was recovering today from shrapnel wounds to one leg, said a helicopter had fired a missile at him and three friends as they sat outside observing the raid.
Four soldiers were wounded when a bomb burst beneath a tank. The forces did not find any tunnels, but demolished at least four houses. The army has destroyed dozens of homes in Rafah, saying they are used to hide entryways to tunnels or as sniper positions.
Later in the day and farther north, Israeli soldiers opened fire on two Palestinians who the army said had entered an off-limits area and appeared to be planting something that might have been an explosive. Palestinian authorities said the men were farmers picking vegetables.
The army said soldiers had called on the men to halt, then shot into the air as they ran, and then shot them when they still failed to stop.
No explosives were found. The army said the men had been wounded but still alive when they were turned over to a Palestinian ambulance, but a doctor at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said later that one of them had died. He identified the man as Eyad Elyan, 26.
In the West Bank city of Qalqilya, soldiers on an overnight search late Wednesday for a man planning a suicide bombing shot and killed a 14-year-old boy who opened his door to watch them, Palestinians said. The army said the boy had tried to run away and ignored calls to stop and warning shots before soldiers fired at him.
The army said that in the last 24 hours it had stopped three would-be suicide bombers, including the one in Qalqilya.
In Nablus, in the West Bank, soldiers shot and killed Khaled Rayyan, 28, a local leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas. His wife, Salam, told The Associated Press that Mr. Rayyan had been killed when he tried with a pistol to attack the troops who were pursuing him.
In Sur Bahir, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, earth-moving machines arrived at dawn and, under military guard, worked until dusk destroying more than a dozen houses and other buildings, some of which appeared to be new or under construction.
The Israeli authorities accuse Arabs of building hundreds of illegal homes in Jerusalem. Arab residents of Jerusalem accuse Israeli Jews of seeking to drive them out of the city.
Nidal Ali Atoun, 31, a laborer, said he had spent more than $62,000 and was still working on his new two-story house when the wrecking crew arrived without warning today.
"They don't give permits here," he said, as the clattering machines pancaked his house. "It's hatred."
----
Israel captures Islamic Jihad commander
By Joshua Brilliant
April 4, 2003
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030404-035955-3136r.htm
TEL AVIV, Israel, April 4 (UPI) -- Israeli troops Friday captured a local Islamic Jihad commander and four associates from the Tulkarim refugee camp after expelling as many as 1,500 Palestinian males from the area.
The Israeli army said the group was planning a car bomb attack and a suicide bombing inside Israel.
Military sources who spoke on condition of anonymity told United Press International the curfew and sweeping searches they have been conducting in Tulkarim since Wednesday were designed to catch the Islamic Jihad commander, Anwar Elian, and his men.
In the course of the search, the soldiers rounded up as many as 1,500 Palestinian males and sent them out of the Tulkarim refugee camp.
Soldiers surrounded Elian's hideout in the camp Thursday night. Friday morning, "We called him to come out and said that we'll go in if he doesn't, and he gave himself up," a military source in the West Bank told UPI.
"He surrendered without a fight," another military source said.
On the basis of information gleaned from interrogating the militants, the Israelis went to the village of Denabeh, near Tulkraim, where they found a laboratory with 80 pounds of explosives, 45 pounds of fertilizers used to make bombs, gunpowder, and metal balls to increase injuries, a military source claimed.
Soldiers also took as prisoners the commander of the Fatah Tanzim in Tulkarim, Abdel Hani Hamshari, and some 20 other suspects, a military source said.
Israeli troops subsequently left town and the people who had been forced out were able to return, a military spokesman said.
-------- landmines
RUSSIA - 6 killed in bus blast in Chechen capital
World Scene
April 4, 2003
Combined dispatches and staff reports
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030404-99672222.htm
ROSTOV-ON-DON - A bus was blown up by a land mine yesterday in the Chechen capital of Grozny, killing at least six persons, emergency officials said. The remote-controlled land mine was hidden in a pile of trash on the side of the road, an official at the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said. A Chechen Justice Ministry official, however, said eight persons died and eight were injured.
-------- mideast
British Consulate in Turkey Bombed
Thursday April 3, 2003
(AP)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2530703,00.html
ISTANBUL, Turkey - Bombs exploded within hours of each other Thursday at the British consulate and outside a UPS office in Istanbul, causing damage but no injuries.
In the first blast, an assailant hurled a bomb at the consulate, shattering windows and damaging a gate and walls of the building in the downtown Beyoglu district, police said.
Police gave no details of the explosion at the United Parcel Service office in Istanbul, but the Anatolia news agency said it blew out the windows of two nearby shops.
It was not clear if the two attacks were linked. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the consulate attack, which came hours after Turkey's 2-0 defeat by England in a Euro 2004 soccer qualifier in England.
Resentment toward Britain and the United States has been running high in this predominantly Muslim country because of war in Iraq, which borders Turkey.
More than 90 percent of Turks are against war and images of civilian casualties repeatedly broadcast on Turkish television stations are fueling the anger.
In London, Britain's Foreign Office said the consulate blast caused only superficial damage.
-------- us
Sleeping Marine killed by his own gun
World Scene
April 4, 2003
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030404-99672222.htm
DOHA, Qatar - A sleeping U.S. Marine was killed by his gun in central Iraq when the weapon accidentally discharged, the U.S. military said yesterday. The Marine's M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon fired one round into his chest, U.S. Central Command said. The accident took place Wednesday night near the city of Kut. The soldier's name was not disclosed, but Central Command said he was with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force's 1st Marine Division.
--------
Pentagon Defends Use of Civilian Clothes
By PAULINE JELINEK
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Friday, April 4, 2003
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=War%20Civilian%20Clothes
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon on Friday defended the use of some civilian clothes by U.S. special operations forces, a tactic used to help them blend in with the local population.
Alleging war crimes, Bush administration officials complained bitterly last week that Iraqi paramilitary forces dressed as civilians, faked surrenders and used other battlefield ruses to kill American soldiers.
Asked at a Pentagon press conference why it is OK for American commando troops to take off their uniforms, but a crime when the Iraqis did it, Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said she thought American forces wear something that distinguishes them from civilians, but deferred the question for a later answer.
The issue is a subject of disagreement among Pentagon legal advisers and policy makers. Some officials have said for some time that it is a gray area that needs to be settled as a policy, another defense official said on condition of anonymity.
Special operations forces are often allowed what the military calls "relaxed grooming standards."
In the fight against Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, for example, special forces wore long hair and beards to blend in with the local Muslim population.
Many wore only parts of their uniform - for instance camouflaged pants with a T-shirt and baseball cap or a camouflaged jacket with an Arab head wrap or scarf.
At the press conference with Clarke, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the war crime is determined by what the soldier does as well as what he wears.
"I'm not a lawyer, so I might get part of this wrong, but part of it is ... what you do when you're not in uniform," he said. "If a force is going to engage in combat, it's going to fight, it must wear a uniform or some kind of uniform - law of land warfare says arm bands or some distinctive marking that allows combatants to be identified from civilians."
After the press conference, officials said U.S. special forces in Iraq "are wearing uniforms," but declined to say if they are full uniforms or modified.
The discussion came as an Army legal official told a House panel that Fedayeen militia members captured in Iraq would likely not be entitled to the protection of prisoner-of-war status. That would mean they could face criminal charges for attacking American soldiers.
W. Hays Parks, special assistant for law of war matters for the Army's Judge Advocate General, said that to get POW protections, fighters must meet certain criteria, such as having a formal association with a government, carrying arms openly and wearing distinctive clothing.
He said that among the examples of Iraqi violations of the Geneva convention have been the broadcast of videotapes of dead and captured U.S. soldiers, the use of white flags to fake surrenders and then attack Americans, and the dressing of forces as civilians to lure invading troops into ambushes.
-------- propaganda wars
MIDEAST COVERAGE
Arab Media Portray War as Killing Field
April 4, 2003
The New York Times
By SUSAN SACHS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/worldspecial/04ARAB.html
CAIRO, April 3 - It was a picture of Arab grief and rage. A teenage boy glared from the rubble of a bombed building as a veiled woman wept over the body of a relative.
In fact, it was two pictures: one from the American-led war in Iraq and the other from the Palestinian territories, blended into one image this week on the Web site of the popular Saudi daily newspaper Al Watan.
The meaning would be clear to any Arab reader: what is happening in Iraq is part of one continuous brutal assault by America and its allies on defenseless Arabs, wherever they are.
As the Iraq war moved into its third week, the media in the region have increasingly fused images and enemies from this and other conflicts into a single bloodstained tableau.
The Israeli flag is superimposed on the American flag. The Crusades and the 13th-century Mongul sack of Baghdad, recalled as barbarian attacks on Arab civilization, are used as synonyms for the American-led invasion of Iraq.
Horrific vignettes of the helpless - armless children, crushed babies, stunned mothers - cascade into Arab living rooms from the front pages of newspapers and television screens.
For Arab leaders and Arab moderates, supported by Washington, the war has become a political crisis of street protests, militant calls for holy war and bitter public criticism of their ties to the United States.
They had hoped for a short war with a minimum of inflammatory pictures of Iraqi civilian casualties. Instead, the daily message to the public from much of the media is that American troops are callous killers, that only resistance to the United States can redeem Arab pride and that the Iraqis are fighting a pan-Arab battle for self-respect.
"The media are playing a very dangerous game in this conflict," said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. "When you see the vocabulary and the images used, it is actually bringing everybody to the worst nightmare - the clash of civilizations."
Sensationalism has not gripped all media. Some mainline government-owned newspapers like the staid Al Ahram in Egypt and two of the privately owned international Arabic papers based in London, Al Hayat and Asharq Al Awsat, have reported the war in neutral language. They show bandaged victims in Iraqi hospitals but not the gory pictures of ripped bodies that fill the pages of their competitors.
Government control of the media is not the issue in any case, since nearly all newspapers in the Arab world, including those with the most savage coverage of the American invasion, publish at the pleasure of the governments.
In most countries, the government appoints all newspaper editors, including the so-called opposition press. Even a privately owned paper like Al Watan in Saudi Arabia must toe the government line in reporting on domestic politics and personalities.
The biggest influence on much of the media coverage has come from the satellite news channel Al Jazeera, which started broadcasting from Qatar in 1996. It made its name with on-the-spot coverage of the Palestinian uprising that gave viewers an unblinking look at bloody and broken bodies.
Many governments, aware that Al Jazeera is widely considered by Arab audiences to be credible, have allowed their own stations to run Jazeera footage of the war to demonstrate their own anti-war credentials. (On Wednesday, Al Jazeera announced that it was suspending its reporting from Iraq after the Iraqi government barred two of its correspondents in Baghdad.)
The rage against the United States is fed by this steady diet of close-up color photographs and television footage of dead and wounded Iraqis, described as victims of American bombs. In recent days, more and more Arabic newspapers have run headlines bluntly accusing soldiers of deliberately killing civilians.
Even for those accustomed to seeing such images from Arab coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the daily barrage of war coverage in newspapers and on hourly television reports has left many Arabs beside themselves with anger.
"He is `Shaytan,' that Bush," shouted Ali Hammouda, a newsstand operator in Cairo, using the Arabic word for Satan and pointing to a color photograph in one of his newspapers.
The image, published in many Arabic papers, showed the bodies of a stick-thin woman and a baby, said to be victims of American shelling in central Iraq. They were lying in an open wooden coffin, the baby's green pacifier still in its mouth.
"Your Bush says he is coming to make them free, but look at this lady," Mr. Hammouda exclaimed. "Is she free? What did she do? What did her baby do?"
Fahmi Howeidy, a prominent Islamist writer in Cairo, says the reactions are not necessarily pro-Saddam. "Of course we think Saddam Hussein will not continue in power, but if he resists for weeks, at least he will defend his image as a hero who could resist U.S. and British power," Mr. Howeidy said.
"If this happens, we can expect chaos in the Arab world, because we don't know how the people who already criticize Arab regimes will express their anger after that," he added.
"Maybe there would be an extremist group or a single person who would do something against the government. We don't know about the army, but maybe there are people who feel humiliated."
Since the war began, much of the Arabic press and the private Arab satellite stations have displayed no squeamishness about what they show. War is carnage, the editors have said, so why mute the screams or hide the entrails of the wounded and dead?
"Arabs, like anybody else, don't like the sight of blood or pictures of corpses, but it's a matter of principle that we have the right to know what's happening," said Gasa Mustafa Abaido, an assistant professor of communications at Ain Shams University in Cairo. "What we see in the media is an indirect way for the governments and the public to reject the war."
The images, however, are not presented as fragmentary evidence of the evils of war but as illustrations of a definitive black-and-white view of the war and the United States. The way they are presented, and the language that accompanies them, amplifies their impact.
President Bush, in one Egyptian weekly newspaper, is shown on each page of war coverage in a Nazi uniform. American and British forces are called "allies of the devil." Civilian casualties are frequently reported as "massacres" or, as another Egyptian paper said, an "American Holocaust."
A popular Arabic Web site, one of many to display the most gruesome images of the war, showed a picture of a little girl bleeding from her eye, the same image that was used by many newspapers in the region. The caption reads: "My dead mother is liberated and so am I."
Al Manar, a satellite channel run by the Muslim militant group Hezbollah, broadcasts pictures of wounded children in tandem with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's declaration that American weaponry is the most precise in the history of warfare.
The Arab media's reporting of the war may also drown out the more moderate voices that avoid brutal imagery and metaphors of endless victimization.
"In the longer run, these images can breed a certain type of people, not the ones who are looking to develop our societies but those who think how to sacrifice themselves," said Dr. Sa