Posted on 03/24/2003 11:29:32 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Blair predicts tough fight as war support grows
By Mike Peacock
LONDON, March 24 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned on Monday of tough fighting ahead in Iraq where the first British soldier was killed in combat.
He told parliament that U.S.-British forces sweeping north through Iraq were about to confront a regiment of elite Iraqi troops, a fight he billed as crucial. Nonetheless, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's fate was sealed, he said.
"Coalition forces led by the American 5th Corps are on the way to Baghdad. As we speak, they are about 60 miles (95 km) south of Baghdad near Karbala," Blair told parliament.
"It is a little way from there that they will encounter the Medina Division of the Republican Guard who are defending the route to Baghdad. This will be a crucial moment."
As he updated parliament for the first time since war was launched, the military said one of its troops had been killed in action between the southern Iraqi city of Basra and the Kuwaiti border -- the first British soldier to die in actual combat.
Two more are missing in action.
"There are of course difficulties that have arisen, tragedies and accidents," Blair said. "(But) we must achieve our objectives. Saddam will go, this regime will be replaced."
POLLS SHIFT
Blair, who took the biggest gamble of his political career in following his U.S. allies to war without United Nations support, has every reason to fear mounting casualties.
But opinion polls show previously war-wary Britons are warming to the campaign.
An ICM poll for the Guardian newspaper on Tuesday will show a massive swing in support with 54 percent now approving of military action. A month ago, that figure was just 29 percent.
That tallied with a Daily Telegraph poll on Monday which showed 56 percent of people thought Britain and the U.S. were right to strike compared with 50 percent a week ago.
Blair defied fears of military analysts who say the rapid charge through Iraq's deserts has left supply lines stretched and vulnerable to attack, saying the aim remained to reach Baghdad as swiftly as possible and topple Saddam.
"There are those closest to Saddam that are resisting and will resist strongly," he said. "There are bound to be difficult days ahead but the strategy and its timing are proceeding according to plan."
The prime minister admitted opposition in the southern corner of Iraq was hindering work to open up waterways to bring in food and supplies that aid agencies say are urgently needed to prevent a humanitarian crisis.
"Fiercely loyal security services" were resisting, Blair said. "They are contained but still able to inflict casualties on our troops and so we are proceeding with caution."
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said emergency aid supplies remained stuck at sea while the Royal Navy swept for mines, an operation which could take days.
And Britain's International Development Secretary, Clare Short, warned that the U.N.-backed oil-for-food programme, which 60 percent of Iraqis depend on for sustenance, had collapsed.
"If this programme is not reinstated, it would be very difficult to avoid a serious humanitarian crisis," she said.
On the home front, Queen Elizabeth visited a Royal Air Force base and then a naval base to meet families of those serving in the Gulf as reports of casualties stacked up.
The toll of British dead and missing has now reached 19, compared to 24 in the whole of the 1991 Gulf war.
Two Royal Air Force pilots died on Sunday when their Tornado fighter jet was shot down by U.S. troops in so-called "friendly fire" as they returned to base near the Kuwaiti border.
That loss followed helicopter crashes on Friday and Saturday in which 14 British troops died and news over the weekend that veteran ITN reporter Terry Lloyd had been killed in Iraq.
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