DEBKAfile - US-Iraq War Diary *

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US-Iraq War Diary *

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Stage One Ends Leaving Trail of Enigmas

April 12, 2003, 8:22 PM (GMT+02:00)

While sharing the joy of the people of Baghdad in their newfound freedom, official US spokesmen have rightly pointed out that the war is not over. Saddam’s statue may have been toppled but several hundred revelers in the streets of Baghdad do not mark the end of the fighting or even the complete stamping out of the regime in the country. Stage One has been completed with great success, but at least two more stages lie ahead before the coalition’s military mission is accomplished: A. Iraqi forces still remain to be subdued in these areas: the south, centering on the Faw Peninsula and around al Amarna; the center, in the Iron Triangle formed by Tikrit, Al Ramadi and Samarra; the north, in the oil regions and cities of Mosul and Kirkuk; and the west, in the strategic Iraqi-Syria border region of Al Qaim. In other words, half of Iraq – like half of Baghdad – is still in Iraqi hands.
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Baghdad Divided

April 10, 2003, 10:28 AM (GMT+02:00)

fl!JUMHU.jpg>Early morning Wednesday, April 9, Day 21 of the war, as US troops moved into central Baghdad from the west, northeast and south, it dawned on Baghdad’s roughly 6 million inhabitants that the Saddam regime was no longer visible. Very quickly, scenes of jubilation were mixed with riotous looting, first of government buildings - later, gunfire rattled from shops whose owners defended their property. Joyous crowds tore down symbols of Saddam’s iron rule, set fire to the Olympic Committee headquarters headed by Uday Hussein and sacked palaces. Dancing Baghdad citizens mobbed and threw flowers at a convoy of US Marines as they rolled into Tahrir Square at the heart of the city, later pulling down together the colossal statue of Saddam Hussein. These televised scenes ignited joyous outbursts in the streets of Kurdistan in the north.
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Is the War of Words over?

April 9, 2003, 7:34 PM (GMT+02:00)

By the end of Day 20 of the war, some of the creative dust dramatizing its progress had settled and some hard facts were surfacing. First, the true scale of the US thrust into the heart of Baghdad on Monday, April 7. The US 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, reaching its appointed sector 48 hours behind schedule, put up a floating span over the Diyala River and poured thousands of troops into eastern Baghdad under sustained artillery and mortar fire. Two Marines were killed and two were wounded. The unit’s tardy arrival cost one of the force’s senior commanders Col. Joe Dowdy his command despite his achievements in the fierce battles of Nasiriya. War commander Gen. Tommy Franks who demands the strictest adherence to his plan’s timeline relieved him of his post. The second fact was the takeover of three of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.
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Speed Kills the Enemy

April 9, 2003, 1:19 AM (GMT+02:00)

One of US war commander General Tommy Franks’ favorite aphorisms for his troops is that speed can kill the enemy. He was as good as his word Monday morning, April 7, when he sent an armored column made up of two brigades of the 3rd Mechanized Division in a lightening thrust from the Dora district in the south into the heart of Baghdad on the west bank of the Tigris River on what was first described as a mission to probe enemy defenses. Interviewed outside Saddam’s official Northern Palace, an American officer said his troops were securing the palace and moving on to additional government centers and symbols of Saddam’s regime. The real objective, according to DEBKAfile’s military sources, is not visible on the surface of Baghdad at all. It was carried out by the US 101st Airborne Division: to find a second entrance to the underground system of tunnels leading to Saddam Hussein’s command and control bunker fortress believed to be located about 20 km away to the west.
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Battle for Saddam’s Underground Regime Centers

April 7, 2003, 10:55 AM (GMT+02:00)

While the images of American tanks rumbling through the streets of Baghdad Saturday, April 5, made stunning footage – certainly meant to impress on the Iraqi people and army that further resistance is useless, notwithstanding Saddam Hussein’s walkabout the day before – DEBKAfile’s military sources report that their mission is not to conquer the city. Baghdad’s general population, thousands of whom are fleeing the city, will be left to its own devices. The invading US troops were given orders to focus on capturing Saddam Hussein’s control, command and communications centers, the nerve centers of his regime, which are buried in four vast underground palace complexes under Baghdad and its environs.
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