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