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Battle for basra { March 25 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,921784,00.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,921784,00.html
Battle for Basra intensifies
· Reports of Basra 'uprising'
· Sandstorms slow advance
· Umm Qasr finally secured
Staff and agencies
Tuesday March 25, 2003
The battle for Iraq's second city of Basra intensified today, with the British military reporting it had killed about 20 Iraqi fighters in the city and seized a senior politician of the ruling Ba'ath party in a nearby town.
Tonight brought reports that a popular uprising against the Ba'ath party had flared up, and that the Iraqi military had begun firing mortar rounds at the protestors. British reporter Richard Gaisford, with the Scots Dragoon Guards outside Basra, said British forces responded by firing heavy artillery at the mortar sites in support of the uprising.
Mr Gaisford said British forces had bombed the Ba'ath party headquarters in Basra, destroying it. However he said British forces did not intend to enter the city in support of the protestors until tomorrow, as it would be too difficult tonight to distinguish supporters of Saddam Hussein from those rising up against him.
Maj Gen Peter Wall, the British chief of staff at Allied Central Command in Qatar, confirmed there appeared to be an uprising in Basra. He said it seemed to be in its "infancy" and that British troops were "keen to exploit its potential".
The Iraqi information minister, Mohammed al-Sahhaf, denied any uprising in Basra.
British military spokesman Col Chris Vernon, speaking earlier in Kuwait, said that British forces had raided the local headquarters of Saddam Hussein's Baath party in Az Zubayr, about 16km (10 miles) southwest of Basra.
Troops with the British 7th Armored and 3rd Commando brigades have been battling at least 1,000 irregular Iraqi units outside of Basra for two days. The units inside Basra are believed to include members of Saddam's Fedayeen, the Ba'ath party paramilitary organisation, as well as President Saddam's elite Republican Guard units.
Col Vernon said no artillery was being fired in central Basra "even though we are being fired on from the centre by their artillery."
Bush: we will prevail
The US president, George Bush, today said he was certain of victory in Iraq but admitted he was not sure how long the war would last.
"We cannot know the duration of this war, yet we know its outcome: we will prevail," Mr Bush said in a televised briefing at the Pentagon.
"Our coalition is on a steady advance. We're making good progress," he added.
Mr Bush today asked Congress for $74.7bn to pay for six months of military action and humanitarian efforts in Iraq and elsewhere.
The White House said that $62.6bn of the funds will support US troops both in Iraq and other operations related to the broader war on terrorism. The rest - $12.1bn - will go to humanitarian assistance in Iraq, other foreign aid and homeland defence projects.
Today US Major-General Victor Renuart confirmed that coalition forces have not yet found any evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction - although troops will continue to investigate sites "that have raised suspicions in the past", he added.
In southern Iraq, US marines finally overcame Iraqi resistance to cross the Euphrates river at Nassiriya. They then ran into more enemy soldiers on the road north, despite an air strike that killed at least 30 Iraqis apparently heading into battle.
US paratroopers last night seized a desert landing strip and destroyed six Iraqi jamming systems aimed at disrupting coalition satellite positioning equipment, the US military revealed today.
Blair warns of tough resistance
Tony Blair today warned that coalition troops would face "resistance all the way to the end of this campaign" as British forces were again drawn into fierce fighting in southern Iraq.
Speaking at a press briefing in London, Mr Blair said that the push to Baghdad was of "vital strategic importance" to the campaign.
Despite recent setbacks and strong Iraqi resistance in some areas, the prime minister said that the coalition's war strategy was "unfolding exactly according to plan". He denied that more troops were needed, saying: "We have the forces we need to do the job."
He added that past failures by the west to back uprisings against Saddam Hussein probably play a part in the seemingly lukewarm reception US and UK troops are receiving in Iraq.
Blair: Iraqi mistrust 'understandable'
Planes bombard Republican Guard
Amid severe sandstorms, US-led forces today advanced to within 50 miles of Baghdad, and waves of coalition warplanes continued a heavy bombardment of Republican Guard units surrounding the city.
The weather slowed US and British forces to a crawl and thwarted some air missions as the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Richard Myers, today warned that "the toughest fighting is ahead of us".
Advanced coalition troops are said to be "taking and consolidating" positions around the city, where they will wait for support lines to be strengthened before launching a final attack.
A British military source told Reuters that there were no plans to accelerate the air campaign into carpet-bombing of Iraq for fear of killing civilians.
The source said that the lack of a northern front for US-British forces meant troops approaching Baghdad from the south would meet tough resistance.
Earlier, US television networks reported that Saddam Hussein's Republican Guards are preparing to unleash chemical weapons on coalition soldiers.
Pentagon officials believe that the Iraqi leadership has drawn a "red line" around the city, with Republican Guards authorised to use chemical weapons as soon as coalition forces enter Baghdad, according to CBS News.
Aid hopes grow as marines secure key port
Vital humanitarian aid from Britain is expected to arrive in Iraq tomorrow, after Royal Navy and US minesweepers cleared a route through to the key port of Umm Qasr.
RFA Sir Galahad will dock at 1100 GMT and offload 231 tonnes of food, medicines, blankets and fresh water.
Specialist UK troops have been waiting since Saturday to begin preparing the port of Umm Qasr for huge aid shipments, but have been delayed by fighting on the outskirts of the town, which lies on the border between Iraq and Kuwait.
The port was finally declared secure this morning following sweeps by Royal Marine commandos - four days after initial military reports described the town as under coalition control.
Brigadier Jim Dutton, commander of the British Royal Marines' 3 Commando Brigade, declared Umm Qasr "safe and open".
He said: "We are beginning to deliver aid, or we will be shortly. We are finding out who the local movers and shakers are, so we can get things going."
Earlier, Iraq's trade minister, Mohammed Mehdi Saleh, accused the US and Britain of forcing the UN to stop a vital relief programme allowing the country's 25 million people to receive food and medicine in return for oil sales.
'500 Iraqi fighters killed'
About 500 Iraqis have been killed by US army infantry tanks and mechanised units as they swept through southern Iraq in the last two days, a top US commander said today.
The estimate came from Command Sergeant Major Kenneth Preston of V Corps, who oversees the 3rd Infantry Division.
Sgt Maj Preston said that US forces ran into "a lot" of Iraqi tanks and anti-aircraft weaponry and "thousands and thousands" of weapons around the city of Najaf.
"This could have been very ugly, but they're not very motivated," he said of the regular Iraqi army recruits. "I think a lot of them wanted to go home."
Many of the Iraqis appeared to have very low morale, he reported, adding that family members were seen to pick up dead soldiers and take them home for burial.
US troops were stopping civilian vehicles and interrogating people, he added.
Second British soldier killed in action
In southern Iraq, where British forces have been left to mop up pockets of opposition, sporadic outbreaks of fierce fighting continued, claiming the life of a second British soldier.
A soldier in the 1st Battalion of the Black Watch, he was killed in action last night in an operation near Az Zubayr, near Basra, according to British military officials.
His death was confirmed as the Ministry of Defence named the first British soldier killed in combat in Iraq as Sergeant Steven Mark Roberts, of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment.
Sgt Roberts, 33, and from Bradford, was shot on Sunday evening while trying to calm rioting Iraqi civilians at Az Zubayr.
Sixteen other British servicemen are known to have died since the conflict began. They were killed in two helicopter accidents and the downing of a British Tornado jet by "friendly fire" from a US Patriot missile battery.
Another two British soldiers have been missing since their convoy was hit in southern Iraq on Sunday.
Red Cross calls for more action over Basra
The International Red Cross today announced it had started vital repairs at a war-damaged water pumping station in Basra, southern Iraq, as British commanders vacillated over whether to go in and secure the stricken city.
A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said a two-member team from the agency had reached the Wafaa Al-Quaid water station but that more needs to be done to tackle a looming humanitarian crisis.
The ICRC had earlier been unable to gain access to the plant because of security risks in Basra, which has seen fierce fighting between Iraqi and coalition troops. Since the Wafaa Al-Quaid plant, Basra's main source of fresh water, was damaged in fighting over the weekend, the city's inhabitants have been rapidly running out of clean water.
British commanders today ordered artillery fire on strongholds of resistance in the city. British military officials had said several days ago that they would prefer to negotiate surrenders with enemy troops rather than move into Basra.
But the unexpectedly stiff resistance encountered there, and the desperate need to get humanitarian aid to the city's 1.3 million people, has led them to declare the town a military objective.
Officers are now considering calling in paratroopers and Royal Marine Commandos to use their expertise in urban warfare to secure the area in the face of fierce guerrilla-style tactics.
In Az Zubayr, close to Basra, where two British soldiers have been killed in action, British forces are trying to break the grip of ruling Ba'ath party militia and other forces loyal to Saddam Hussein.
British sources said that a party member was captured in a raid last night.
Iraq's plea for help from Arab 'brothers'
Iraq's vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan today issued an appeal to other Arab leaders to place diplomatic pressure on the US and Britain to stop the "brutal invasion against Iraq and the Arab nation".
In a televised address, Mr Ramadan suggested that Arab "brothers" could impose an oil embargo to halt the coalition's advance.
He called on other Arab states to force the US and Britain to close their foreign embassies and allow major public demonstrations against the war by their people.
Earlier, several Iraqi leaders, including Saddam Hussein, issued a defiant challenge to US troops to cross the remaining 50 miles to a showdown in Baghdad.
In a 25-minute speech, Saddam taunted US and British forces, and said they were in "in real trouble".
The deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, said that only one member of the Iraqi leadership was killed in the bombing that marked the start of the war.
Blair and Bush to meet at Camp David
Mr Blair will fly to the US this week to discuss the progress of the war with the president, George Bush, US officials said last night.
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, today told MPs that the two leaders will also discuss Israel, with Mr Blair urging the US president to push forward with the Anglo-American "road map" to peace in the Middle East.
The meeting is expected to take place at the Camp David presidential retreat on Thursday. It will be the leaders' first since war began.
Blair to press Bush on Middle East
More PoWs appear on Iraqi TV
Iraqi television has shown video of two pilots of a US army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, downed after running into ground fire during a combat mission south-west of Baghdad.
The two men, named as Chief Warrant Officer David Williams and Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Young Jr, appeared to be in good health. The soldiers did not say anything and were not questioned in the footage, unlike the five US soldiers captured on Sunday - a move that drew fierce criticism from Washington.
UK support for war surges
A clear majority of the British public now back the war against Iraq, according to the latest Guardian/ICM poll.
The percentage backing military action is now 54%, compared with 38% a week ago, the tracker poll found. At the same time, opposition to the war fell from 44% last week to 30% this week.
Support for war surges
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