Allied
Forces Jolted By Setbacks
By James Harding, Victor Mallet and Charles Clover
US and British forces in
Iraq were jolted by series of setbacks on Sunday that vividly illustrated
the formidable task facing them as they pressed on towards Baghdad and
a reckoning with Saddam Hussein's regime.
With Baghdad and other targets around the country under aerial bombardment
for the fourth day, armoured units of the US army's 3rd Infantry Division
continued to close on the capital, reaching the outskirts of Najaf,
just 100 miles south of the capital.
But after a day of incident
in the field, president George W Bush repeated warnings that it would
"take a while" for the US to achieve victory.
"This is just the beginning
of a tough fight. It is important to tell the American people that that
the war has only just begun," he said.
He was speaking shortly after
pictures of the bodies of at least four US soldiers and five US prisoners,
including a woman, were shown on television across the Arab world, the
first American troops to be seized in the four-day-old campaign.
They were almost certainly
among 12 soldiers the US said were were missing after a supply convoy
was ambushed near Nasiriyah. They said an unspecified number had been
killed and wounded in another battle in the same area, which they described
as the biggest fight of the war so far. The news came as bombing resumed
in Baghdad.
Iraqi forces also appeared
to put up spirited resistance around Najaf and on at least two other
battle fronts.
Elsewhere, a US soldier was
killed and 15 injured when a Muslim fellow serviceman threw grenades
at sleeping members of his own unit in Kuwait and a British warplane
was mistakenly downed by US Patriot missiles.
Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary
of defence, insisted the incidents did not pose any threat to the overall
advance on Baghdad and the ultimate defeat of the regime.
"We'll be at it until
it is over," he said. "Nothing that can happen can change
the outcome." But he acknowledged: "There have to be tough
days ahead." The resistance offered at Najaf, Nasiriyah, and further
south at Basra and Umm Qasr, the vital Gulf port, deflated some pre-war
expectations of a wholesale collapse by Iraqi forces and a lightning
victory.
Mr Rumsfeld warned of the
possibility of stiffer resistance and increased dangers as US forces
got closer to Baghdad. The city is believed to be defended by some 100,000
troops of the Republican Guard, Mr Hussein's most loyal fighting force.
Mr Rumsfeld said there was a growing threat that they would use chemical
and biological weapons. "It grows as we get closer to Baghdad,"
he said.
In Baghdad, the authorities
promised a hard fight when US forces approached the capital.
"We have allowed them
to cross the desert," said Taha Yassin Ramadan, the Iraqi vice-president.
"I tell you, we wish and beg that they come to Baghdad so that
we will teach a lesson to this evil administration and all who co-operate
with her."
Mr Rumsfeld said the US was
working on the assumption that the Iraqi leader was "alive and
well" - despite reports from senior US and British officials saying
they believed he had been badly wounded in an initial missile strike
on Baghdad early on Thursday.
Washington hopes that the
sheer weight of its air and ground attacks, and its use of precision
strikes on the leadership, will provoke the collapse of the regime and
prevent the need to lay siege to Baghdad.
US officials said they had
established lines of communication to many Iraqi commanders and were
seeking to persuade them to give up or turn on the regime. This is set
to be tested in the next few days as Washington seeks to surround Baghdad.
On Sunday, airborne US troops
were reported to have landed at several airbases in Kurdish-held northern
Iraq where special forces have already been active.
The US says special forces
already hold key Iraqi airbases in the west of the country, helping
to pave the way to Baghdad.
This article originally appeared
on Ft.com
23 March 2003