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Can remove chemical suits Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030403/ts_nm/iraq_dc_1353Baker said U.S. soldiers had been told they could remove protective boots from chemical warfare suits they were wearing. U.S. and British leaders have cited Iraq's alleged possession of chemical and biological weapons as the reason for the war.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030403/ts_nm/iraq_dc_1353
Yahoo! News Thu, Apr 03, 2003
Top Stories - Reuters
U.S. Forces Near Baghdad, Set for Airport Battle
Thu Apr 3,11:15 AM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Luke Baker
NEAR BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. armored units thrust almost unopposed on Thursday to within six miles of the edge of Baghdad and planes pounded targets in and around the Iraqi capital in preparation for an assault on the airport.
Parts of four elite Iraqi Republican Guard divisions were moving south, U.S. officers said, setting up a potential showdown for the capital -- the key prize in the two-week-old U.S. and British war to topple President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
But U.S. and British political and military leaders said urban warfare in Baghdad could be prolonged and bloody and refused to be drawn on when they might authorize a final push to capture the city of five million people.
"Coalition forces at this point are outside of the Baghdad airport and are positioning themselves to engage that fight at a time of our choice," Captain Frank Thorp said at Central Command war headquarters in Qatar.
Reuters correspondents with U.S. troops quoted military sources as saying forward units of the 3rd Infantry Division were 10 km from the southern outskirts of the capital, which Saddam has vowed to defend street by street. Iraq (news - web sites) denied it.
Baghdad's Saddam International Airport is about 12 miles southwest of central Baghdad.
U.S. officers said they had met little resistance. "We're pushing on really fast," said Captain Kevin Jackson of the Engineer Brigade of the 3rd Division told Reuters. "There doesn't seem to have been much opposition so far."
At a briefing at Central Command, a U.S. commander said special forces were also active northwest of Baghdad, where they had raided a residence of Saddam some 56 miles from the capital and blocked the road to his hometown of Tikrit.
10 EXPLOSIONS
In central Baghdad, Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul reported more than 10 powerful explosions from the direction of the airport and later heard a new barrage of artillery fire and anti-aircraft fire from the area around the airport.
Baghdad and its outskirts had also been heavily bombed overnight.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf accused U.S. forces of killing 14 people with cluster bombs and said U.S. claims to be near Baghdad were "silly."
"Their allegations are a cover-up for their failure. They've not been able to control any Iraqi city. We're waging a war of attrition against this snake and we will be victorious," he told a Baghdad news conference.
The latest advances followed an abrupt punch forward on Wednesday, when U.S. forces surged past the towns of Kerbala and Kut and captured key bridges over the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, preparing the way for an assault on Saddam's stronghold.
U.S. military officials said the advance had in effect wiped out two of the six Republican Guard divisions guarding Baghdad.
Defense analysts said the U.S. forces would have to assess the extent to which they have destroyed the enemy before they can move on, adding that progress could be slow from now on.
"This latest advance does raise questions, chiefly: What has happened to the Republican Guard? Have they been wiped out, or have they withdrawn from circulation to regroup in Baghdad," French military consultant Colonel Jean-Louis Dufour said.
Have they pulled back into Baghdad to await our arrival? We'll have to take that into consideration and see if that is the case," Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told reporters at Central Command.
Although U.S. officials said on Wednesday front-line troops had crossed a "red line" into areas where Iraqi forces might be most likely to use poison gas, Reuters correspondent Luke Baker saw signs the threat was now perceived to be easing.
Baker said U.S. soldiers had been told they could remove protective boots from chemical warfare suits they were wearing. U.S. and British leaders have cited Iraq's alleged possession of chemical and biological weapons as the reason for the war.
Saddam denies having such weapons.
BLACK HAWK CRASHES
U.S. forces did not escape completely unscathed. A Black Hawk helicopter crashed near the city of Kerbala and a U.S. F/A-18 Hornet fighter-bomber also went down. But U.S. officials were not certain either incident was caused by hostile fire.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned of tough combat to come, saying Baghdad's Republican Guard defenders "will probably represent some difficult days ahead and dangerous days ... in terms of fighting." British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon also cautioned against thinking the war was nearly over.
In northern Iraq, Kurdish fighters, backed by small groups of U.S. soldiers, advanced toward the northern oil town of Mosul on Thursday but were met by heavy machinegun and rifle fire, Reuters correspondent Sebastian Alison said.
Alison said he was about 4.5 miles into what was Iraqi government-held territory and that Iraqi troops had fled positions on the demarcation line with Kurdish-held territory.
The U.S. advances led financial market investors to push European stocks higher and pull out of safe-haven investments. Oil prices were mixed, the dollar strengthened against major currencies and gold lost $4 an ounce.
Early on Thursday, U.S. planes pounded targets around Baghdad, continuing a relentless campaign of air strikes.
U.S. Central Command said planes dropped almost 40 "smart bombs" overnight on just one military storage facility in the Karkh district of Baghdad.
Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire said U.S. forces also bombarded Kut on the Tigris, about 105 miles south of Baghdad, on Thursday, consolidating their hold on the area.
Further south, U.S. troops edged forward in the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf, searching for paramilitary Fedayeen fighters, and tightened their grip on Nassiriya, where they appeared to be in full control of bridges over the Euphrates.
Central Command's Brooks said a prominent Shi'ite cleric in Najaf had issued an edict urging Iraqis not to hinder U.S. forces -- a potentially important blow in the "hearts and minds" campaign U.S. and British forces are trying to wage.
The majority of Iraq's population is Shi'ite.
In the far south, British forces surrounding Iraq's second city of Basra edged into the outskirts early on Thursday, capturing an industrial complex where Iraqi militia had spearheaded fierce resistance.
The United States lists 54 dead and 12 missing since the war began. Britain says it has suffered 27 dead.
Iraq has not given figures for military deaths, but Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said on Thursday more than 1,250 civilians have been killed. The figure could not be independently checked.
In Brussels, European Union (news - web sites) and NATO (news - web sites) foreign ministers looked ahead to the postwar period, telling Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) that Washington must make room for the United Nations (news - web sites) to help run Iraq.
Powell said NATO members had shown a willingness to consider a role in post-war Iraq if the need arose, but that the United and Britain had to play a leading role in the future of Iraq.
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