DEBKAfile - US-Iraq War Diary *

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US-Iraq War Diary *

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Day Nine of Iraq War - March 27, 2003

March 30, 2003, 1:21 AM (GMT+02:00)

101st Airborne Steals March Though slowed down, Thursday, March 27, US forces were holding to their lines of advance in the face of billowing clouds of sand and dust and the harassment of the hit-and-run raids staged by Iraqi irregulars determined to halt their advance and cut their supply routes. The Iraqis are using fast-moving small pickup trucks fitted with four-wheel drives and equipped with light mortars, heavy machine guns, anti-tank rocket launchers or rocket-propelled grenades –RPGs. At every bridge crossing, they badger the rear of US forces, as happened near al Amarah in eastern Iraq and Nasiriya and Najef, in the center.
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Day Ten of Iraq War - 28 March, 2003

March 30, 2003, 1:15 AM (GMT+02:00)

Assad to Saddam’s Rescue DEBKA-Net-Weekly 103 reported exclusively that, In two covert operations this week, US special forces blew up the Iraqi-Syrian pipeline carrying illegal Iraq oil exports from Mosul and Kirkuk to the Syrian Mediterranean oil terminal on the Banias for sale overseas, as well as the Syrian-Iraq railroad that was Saddam’s only route for importing war supplies. Nevertheless, US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld found it necessary to issue a grave warning to Damascus on Friday, March 28. He said shipping war material and equipment from Syria to Iraq is seen as a hostile action and that of a combatant. He also cautioned Iran not to interfere in the Iraq war.
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Day Six of Iraq War - March 26, 2003

March 27, 2003, 12:26 PM (GMT+02:00)

Reverses 22:15 As night fell, Iraqi forces began pounding coalition troops around Nasiriya in central Iraqi with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The column of Iraqi military vehicles heading south appeared to be making for Najef, where a battle with US troops earlier Wednesday exacted heavy Iraqi casualties; most disturbingly, a huge convoy of Iraqi tanks and APCs rumbled out of Basra in the south and headed towards the Faw peninsula to recover ground lost to the coalition forces in the first days of combat. Allied jet fighters scrambled to the air and began strafing them as they moved forward.
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Day Five of Iraq War - March 25, 2003

March 26, 2003, 1:32 AM (GMT+02:00)

US Short of Troops for Baghdad Battle Three days of violent sandstorms and low clouds are forecast for southern and central Iraq from Tuesday, March 25. For the Iraqis, this means a couple of days’ respite; for the American and British, a scramble to shroud their tanks and equipment in canvas and tarp sheeting to protect them from the creeping grains. Not only are the tanks out of action until the end of the week, but grounded too, as DEBKAfile’s military source report, are the heavy bombers, the fighter bombers and the helicopters which fought their first skirmishes with the Special Republic Guards Al Madina Division near al Kut on the road to Baghdad – and lost an Apache. Its two pilots were captured and shown on Iraqi television Monday night.
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Day Four of Iraq War - March 23, 2003

March 24, 2003, 3:05 PM (GMT+02:00)

US Troops in First Encounter with Iraqi Republic Guards After a tough day of facing Iraqi resistance and setbacks - the first American troops were taken captive and 12 were killed – America’s Iraq War took an important military turn late on Sunday, March 23, as reported exclusively by DEBKAfile’s military sources: The first frontal engagements between US troops advancing on Baghdad and Saddam Hussein’s elite Special Republican Guards. They began near Al Amarah, a small town on the Tigris River, and at al Kut, some 100 km upriver to the northwest. Al Amarah is geographically the southern gateway to Baghdad. DEBKAfile Military Analysis of First 72 Hours Iraq war commander General Tommy Franks, in a news briefing Saturday, March 22, at his Qatar headquarters, declared that this war is unlike any other ever seen before as regards its scale, overwhelming force, surprise and shock, precision and flexibility. He stressed that the devastating bombardment over Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities Friday night was absolutely precise in reaching its selected targets and no other. That said, and with American armored columns slicing through the country to Baghdad for the their first real test of Franks’ strategy and his army’s mettle against elite Republican Guards Division forces, DEBKAfile’s military analysts singles out some of its manifestations thus far:
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