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Bombed maternity hospital Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030402-114022-1263rCentral Command is also investigating a report that coalition aircraft bombed a Red Crescent maternity hospital in Baghdad. An eyewitness told CNN said the bomb didn't directly hit the hospital. The maternity ward was empty at the time but there were injuries reported in other parts of the hospital.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030402-114022-1263r
U.S. forces 'destroyed' Baghdad Division
By Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
From the International Desk
Published 4/2/2003 5:52 PM
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WASHINGTON, April 2 (UPI) -- The Baghdad Division of Iraq's Republican Guard, dug in near al-Kut, has been "destroyed" and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force has crossed the Tigris River, putting it southwest of Baghdad, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Fighting continues around al-Kut, however.
"There's still sporadic fighting. But the elements, the coalition elements are still able to maneuver," meaning the U.S. troops continue to have the advantage on the battlefield, said Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Joint Staff vice director of operations, at a Pentagon briefing.
"I would say that the Medina and Baghdad divisions are no longer credible forces."
The military's definition of an enemy unit being "destroyed" is different from the common usage of the word.
"What it means is when a unit can no longer act as a coherent element on the battlefield, i.e., a Republican Guard division cannot maneuver as a division, cannot defend effectively, is not effectively able to counterattack, and that's what we're seeing with a couple of these divisions, McChrystal said.
"Clearly, there are pockets of resistance still capable within that organization.
"There's clearly command and control evident. There are maneuvers being conducted. There is some level of integrated air defense in the Baghdad area," he added.
U.S. forces have come within 30 miles of Baghdad, according to Pentagon officials. Some Iraqi forces are surrendering but not the tremendous numbers the Pentagon expected going into the war.
"We are seeing some surrender, but not in tremendous numbers. We are essentially able to move through. It's unclear what is happening to some of those elements," McChrystal said. "As people melt away, it's very difficult to stop very small groups of people."
He acknowledged that regular Iraqi army forces are reinforcing Republican Guard divisions that have been suffering from days of bombs and tank fights, but said it is a sign the Iraqi military is falling apart rather than operating effectively.
"Interestingly enough, we think that's a sign of weakness on their part. They would not normally match those formations," McChrystal said.
The U.S. Army's 5th Corps is engaged in combat with the Medina Division and some elements of the Nebuchadnezzar Republican Guard Division, which left Tikrit to reinforce the west side north of Karbala, said Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, a Central Command spokesman in Qatar on Wednesday.
"Their attacks are effective. And action continues in this case near Karbala along the Euphrates River," Brooks said, adding: "If I were to characterize the condition of the rest of the Republican Guard forces command, I would probably say, first, they're in trouble. Two, they're under serious attack right now, and those attacks will continue until we're finished with the task at hand."
The assault on the Republican Guard and then Baghdad will continue until the coalition topples Saddam Hussein, according to Brooks.
"The dagger is clearly pointed at the heart of the regime right now and will remain pointed at it until the regime is gone," he said.
Brooks acknowledged the regime may be trying to draw coalition forces into bloody urban warfare in the streets of Baghdad, where the U.S. technical advantage will be at least partially negated by the possibility of civilian casualties and the cover of buildings.
"We certainly know that the regime would like to do some defending in Baghdad and they would like to draw us in," Brooks said. "In some cases, we bypassed those lines of force. In other cases, we prevented their withdrawal. In other cases, we destroyed them as they tried to reposition.
"And so we believe we still have a considerable freedom of action ... That dagger does remain pointed. It remains firmly in our grasp and under good control. And when it's time to apply it further, it will be applied further."
A total of 67 Republican Guard troops surrendered to coalition forces during the last day's battle, according to Brooks. Ten of the soldiers surrendered to a psychological operations team that was playing a "surrender" message over a loudspeaker.
U.S. Army 5th Corps units also attacked paramilitary forces in An Najaf, Brooks said, and the Americans were "welcomed by thousands of citizens."
However, U.S. forces were fired on from within the Ali Mosque, an important Shiite Islam religious shrine. Coalition forces have not fired on the mosque in return, he said.
Details on the rescue of 19-year-old Pfc. Jessica Lynch by a joint special operations team remain shrouded in mystery, in part because her family needs to be briefed first and also because the Pentagon is hesitant to give out information that might complicate the potential rescue of other prisoners of war.
"I'm sure those details and information will come forward when people think it's the appropriate time," Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Wednesday.
While a Marine unit nearby created a distraction by launching an attack on paramilitary units, Lynch was rescued late Tuesday from a hospital in An Nasiriyah that was also being used as a "military fortress." She was on her way to Landstuhl army hospital in Germany, according to Clarke.
Resistance to the rescue team was "light," according to a U.S. Special Operations Command official, but there was a gun battle outside the building while the rescue mission was getting both in and out.
A second team that remained behind recovered 11 bodies -- two from the hospital morgue and nine in a gravesite in town -- that are being tested to determine their identities. Some of them may be American troops from Lynch's unit, the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, which was ambushed March 23.
At least five of the missing remain official prisoners of war.
The rescue team also found ammunition, mortars, maps, a terrain model, "and other things that make it very clear that it was being used as a military command post," Brooks said.
On Monday, a Special Forces team seized Hadithah dam, a dam that could potentially flood the Euphrates River leading down toward Baghdad, and particularly in the area of Karbala, where U.S. troops are pushing northward, Brooks said.
"We prevented its destruction," he said.
On al-Faw peninsula, British forces captured five Styxx cruise missiles near the Ash Shuaybah airport. They also captured a motorcycle courier who was carrying maps that showed Iraqi artillery positions. British forces subsequently found and destroyed the artillery and three Ababil-100 missiles.
Coalition forces have fired more than 700 cruise missiles and used more than 10,000 precision-guided munitions since the war began two weeks ago.
U.S. aircraft bombed an Iraqi storage facility with 40 2,000-pound satellite guided bombs Wednesday around 2 p.m. EST in the al-Karkh district of Baghdad. The military storage site is used by the Special Security Organization and possibly the Special Republican Guard.
Coalition forces also used Joint Direct Attack Munitions to strike a farm used as a command and control facility in Radwaniyah immediately southwest of Baghdad at approximately 11:30 a.m. EST Wednesday.
Tuesday night saw the debut of a new anti-armor cluster munition called the Sensor Fuzed Weapon. Each of the six 1,000-pound bomb canisters dropped carried 10 bomblets, each with four independently targeted non-explosive projectiles that track infrared signatures to destroy "soft" and armored vehicles.
The facility was used by the Iraqi regime to relocate and maintain command and control authority of military and paramilitary forces, according to U.S. Central Command.
Brooks said he has found nothing to connect coalition bombing with the bombing of a market in northern Baghdad that reportedly killed 14 civilians last week. He had no information about a second market attack.
"We have examined our flights, our weapon systems that were used in the period of time associated with the explosion in the market. We've also examined imagery that we can get available to us, the best we can do to try to determine the size of some of the craters, the direction where some of the blast went, as indicated by surrounding buildings and what have you. And there's absolutely nothing that joins that to coalition action," Brooks said.
Late Tuesday, an Iraqi civilian was injured when a U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter fired on his vehicle near An Najaf. He was evacuated to a military field hospital and is in serious condition. The incident is under investigation, according to U.S. Central Command.
Central Command is also investigating a report that coalition aircraft bombed a Red Crescent maternity hospital in Baghdad. An eyewitness told CNN said the bomb didn't directly hit the hospital. The maternity ward was empty at the time but there were injuries reported in other parts of the hospital.
McChrystal said Iraq's air defense commander in Baghdad has been replaced, and suggested Iraq's own surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs, and anti-aircraft artillery falling back to earth could be the cause of some of the reported civilian casualties.
"We do have a report that the air defense commander in Baghdad was in fact replaced, reportedly for having so many munitions fall back on the city -- SAMs and triple-A guns -- which of course, could account for some of the civilian casualties in the city," McChrystal said.
Also Wednesday, Central Command reported that Marines found two al-Samoud 2 missiles Monday on a farm near al-Hillah in central Iraq. The al-Samoud's flight range exceeds U.N.-allowed limits of 150 kilometers, or 93 miles, but falls short of the range of a Scud-B.
Central Command is investigating a report that Iraqi civilians were fired on near al-Hillah as coalition forces move north toward Baghdad.
The city is shrouded in smoke from over 50 oil trenches on fire. They were lit by Iraqis to obscure targets, according to Brooks.
Two U.S. ships carrying more than 50,000 tons of wheat, enough to feed 4 million to 5 million Iraqis for a month, is set to arrive in southern Iraq in the next few days, according to the Pentagon.
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
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