Biggest Bombs of War Dropped on Baghdad

The biggest bombs dropped on Baghdad so far - two 4,700-pound ``bunker busters'' - struck a communications tower Friday in an intense U.S. bombardment aimed at cutting off Saddam Hussein's command from his forces.

Iraqi officials said allied forces would suffer if they assault the capital; U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggested a siege might be preferable to an all-out assault.

U.S. and British troops continued to battle Iraqi regulars and paramilitary units in the south. A U.S. Marine was killed in one battle, at a cement plant near An Nasiriyah.

British officers said hundreds of Iraqi civilians tried to leave the southern city of Basra, which is encircled by British troops, but were chased back by mortar and machine-gun fire from Iraqi paramilitary forces. The British had no details about casualties, but said their troops were prepared to rescue and aid wounded civilians.

``Here perhaps are the first pieces of evidence of Iraqi people trying to break free... and clearly the militia don't want that,'' said Col. Chris Vernon, a British spokesman.

Even with the continued action in the south, a showdown over Baghdad was clearly drawing closer. With a new front opened by paratroopers in the north, U.S. forces are now poised to move on the city from multiple directions.

Wary of engaging the better-armed allies in open desert warfare, Saddam Hussein's government has been goading them to send ground troops into the capital city.

``The enemy must come inside Baghdad, and that will be its grave,'' said Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed. ``We feel that this war must be prolonged so the enemy pays a high price.''

Rumsfeld, briefing congressional committees in Washington, suggested American troops might lay siege to Baghdad rather than invade, in hopes its citizens would rebel against the government. Rumsfeld drew comparisons with the southern city of Basra, where encircling British troops have delayed an assault in hopes Iraqi defenders give up or are toppled by anti-Saddam civilians.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, back in London after talks with President Bush on strategy and postwar plans, said unseating Saddam will be ``tough and difficult.''

``When you've had a whole series of security services repressing the local people, it was never going to be a situation these people were simply going to give up power and go away,'' Blair said in BBC radio interview Friday.

The Army's senior ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace of V Corps, told reporters of The New York Times and Washington Post on Thursday that unexpected tactics by Iraqi fighters and stretched supply lines were slowing down the campaign. ``The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against,'' the papers quoted Wallace as saying during a visit to the 101st Airborne Division headquarters in central Iraq.

In one of the areas where resistance has been unexpectedly tough, U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces exchanged tank and artillery fire Friday in the strategic southern city of An Nasiriyah. Several buildings, including the power plant, were ablaze.

An Nasiriyah, located on the Euphrates River near a junction of roads that lead from Kuwait to Baghdad, has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Near the south-central city of Ad Diwaniyah, one Marine was killed and another injured in fighting with Iraqi irregulars at a cement plant in what one Marine officer, Lt. Col. B.P. McCoy, described as ``blue-collar warfare.'' Two other Marines were killed when a vehicle ran them over while they slept.

In Baghdad, smoke drifted across the city - from fires started by authorities to conceal targets as well as from sites struck overnight in one of the heaviest allied air assaults of the war.

U.S. officials said bombs and Tomahawk missiles struck several communications and command-and-control facilities in the city, including the tower hit by two ``bunker-busters'' dropped from a B-2 bomber. One of Baghdad's main telephone exchanges - a seven-story building - was hit and gutted, but phones were working Friday in many parts of the city.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf told reporters that 75 civilians had been killed and 290 wounded in U.S. and British bombardments Thursday.

Sahhaf also rejected allied contentions that Iraq planned to use chemical weapons - speculation that arose after advancing forces found chemical weapons protective suits and gas masks left behind by retreating soldiers. Sahhaf said having such equipment is standard for any army.

Nine days into the war, Pentagon officials said close to 90,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq, with 100,000 to 120,000 more on the way. Some will be deployed in northern Iraq, joining 1,000 airborne troops who parachuted in Wednesday night to secure an airfield.

A paramount U.S. objective in the north is to seize the valuable oil fields near the city of Kirkuk, about 80 miles from the airdrop site.

``Kirkuk is key,'' said Maj. Mike Hastings of the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade. ``The Iraqis want it, the Kurds want it, the Turks want it.''

At the United Nations, the Security Council reached agreement Thursday on a plan to restart a humanitarian aid program for Iraq that uses Baghdad's oil revenues to get in medical supplies and food.

The resolution aims to hasten delivery of aid by giving Secretary-General Kofi Annan control for 45 days over the oil-for-food program. The program had provided food to 60 percent of Iraq's 22 million people but was halted last week before war erupted.

At the United Nations, the Security Council reached agreement Thursday on a plan to restart a humanitarian aid program for Iraq that uses Baghdad's oil revenues to get in medical supplies and food.

If anybody needed any additional evidence that the UN Security Council is a completely useless organization. Iraq is in the middle of a war, and the UN is tinkering with the time limits and the chain-of-command of the Oil for Food program. Yo! Kofi! As long as the Iraqi regime is in place, nobody is shipping any oil anywhere in Iraq. And after the Iraqi regime is gone, is the UN going to maintain it's stranglehold on the Iraqi people?

The biggest bombs dropped on Baghdad so far

Emphasis added on the most important two words in this article... Let's take comfort in the latest Dick Morris poll (American's support the use of more extensive bombing if it saves American troop lives), dust off and then load up the MOAB, and LET'S ROLL!

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