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Iraqis inflict casualties { March 23 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=ZRPT1RAFETWBECRBAELCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=2433410http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=ZRPT1RAFETWBECRBAELCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=2433410
Iraqis Inflict U.S. Casualties, Take Prisoners
Sun March 23, 2003 10:43 PM ET
By Hassan Hafidh
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq paraded U.S. prisoners of war on television on Sunday and inflicted the heaviest casualties so far on U.S.-led invaders as resistance stiffened the closer they drew to Baghdad.
After three days of unbroken successes and minimal casualties, U.S. and British forces got a taste of what may await them in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government's best equipped and most loyal forces are concentrated.
U.S. warplanes again pummeled Baghdad early on Monday. Several huge explosions rocked the city center with no prior warning from sirens and no sign of anti-aircraft fire.
Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul said the blasts were among the biggest to hit the city since U.S. and British bombardments began on Thursday in a war to overthrow Iraqi Saddam and disarm Iraq of alleged weapons of mass destruction.
The toughest fighting on Sunday was in the town of Nassiriya, which commands two strategic bridges across the Euphrates River. There was also Iraqi resistance in the southern city of Basra.
Iraqi television pictures showed eight bloodied American corpses and five U.S. soldiers, including a wounded woman, captured in fighting near Nassiriya. Under questioning, they identified themselves and named their home towns.
Also on Sunday, U.S. forces found what they believe to be a "huge" chemical weapons factory near the Iraqi city of Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, according to an account from a reporter accompanying the troops.
Fox News and the Jerusalem Post, which had a reporter traveling with the U.S. forces, cited unidentified Pentagon officials as saying the facility was seized by the First Brigade of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division as they advanced north toward Baghdad.
About 30 Iraqi troops, including their commanding general, surrendered to U.S. forces as they overtook the installation, apparently used to produce chemical weapons. The United States launched the war arguing that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was still developing weapons of mass destruction.
'ALIVE AND WELL'
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said late on Sunday that Saddam was alive and well despite intensive U.S. and British bombing of his palaces.
"Mr. Saddam Hussein is very well, in good condition and he is leading our people and our fight against this colonial aggression," Sabri told reporters in Cairo ahead of a meeting of Arab foreign ministers on Monday.
U.S. Army General John Abizaid said 12 U.S. soldiers were missing in the Nassiriya area and fewer than 10 had been killed. Some news organizations put the death toll as high as 16. A number of other Americans were wounded.
"It's the toughest day of resistance that we've had thus far. We understand that there may be other tough days ahead of us but the outcome is still certain," Abizaid told a news conference at Central Command headquarters in Qatar.
President Bush demanded Iraq respect the Geneva Convention on prisoners and warned tough fighting lay ahead.
"We're on course and we're making good progress," Bush said in Washington. "This is just the beginning of a tough fight."
Abizaid said American resolve would not be weakened by what he called the "disgusting" film of the U.S. prisoners.
Among other setbacks, one U.S. soldier was killed and 15 injured in a grenade attack on a command post in Kuwait by a Muslim U.S. serviceman said to be angry at the war. George Heath, a spokesman for Fort Campbell in Kentucky, said the suspect had been named as Army Sgt. Asan Akbar.
A British Tornado jet was brought down by a U.S. missile in a case of "friendly fire." Both crew men died.
British military officials said on Monday that two British soldiers were missing after coming under attack in southern Iraq.
Financial markets began to take account of a longer battle to depose Saddam than had been expected. Oil prices jumped off four month lows and the dollar eased on Monday.
RESISTANCE "PATCHY"
British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said on Sunday Iraqi resistance to the U.S.-led invasion was patchy. "Some parts of their regular army appear to be surrendering. Other parts of what we might describe as their secret and security services are obviously putting up a fight," he said.
In Iraq, the U.S. Marines ran into a tough fight after they thought they had secured two bridges across the Euphrates river at Nassiriya.
After two days of racing unopposed across the desert and securing bridgeheads, the Marines were hit by a surprise counterattack by The Saddam Fedayeen militia at Nassiriya. They held up the advance for a full day with guerrilla tactics, U.S. officers told reporters near the town.
Abizaid said Iraqi troops were using "ruses" against U.S. troops, on one occasion dressing as civilians to ambush them, on another pretending to surrender before opening fire.
Armed groups of Saddam's Baath party militias were roaming the city of Basra in the south, U.S. officers said. And the commander of an Iraqi division, the 51st, which U.S. officials said on Friday had surrendered, told Al-Jazeera television that he and his troops were fighting on in Basra.
"There is fighting ... on the streets. It is terrible," said Hussein, a 24-year-old engineer who fled the city.
Also worrying for U.S. and British forces, who say they are on a mission to liberate Iraqis from Saddam despite widespread international criticism, was the mixed reception they received in the south, where the Shi'ite majority has been repressed.
Further north, two-thirds of the way to Baghdad, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division halted short of the holy city of Najaf, west of the Euphrates 100 miles from the capital.
U.S. armored infantry and tanks held the plain south of Najaf after an overnight battle of more than seven hours against Iraqis with machine guns mounted on pick-up trucks, which left the area littered with Iraqi dead.
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