GARRY OWEN BUMP!
Posted on 03/25/2003 5:38:36 PM PST by PoisedWoman
U.S. Reports Big Victory South of Baghdad
By Sean Maguire
SOUTHERN IRAQ (Reuters) - U.S. troops on Tuesday reported killing hundreds of Iraqi soldiers south of Baghdad without losing a man, as signs emerged of a possible uprising against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in the southern city of Basra.
In what appeared to be the biggest ground engagement since the war began last Thursday, a U.S. military official said 150 to 300 Iraqi forces were believed killed when they attacked the U.S. Seventh Cavalry near the town of Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.
"Apparently ground forces tried to hit some of our guys with rocket propelled grenades," the official said.
"They did damage a couple of pieces of our gear but we've had no reports of casualties on our side. But apparently there are some reports that we may have killed quite a few of them," he said.
"Estimates differ. Some say 200-300. Some say 150," the official said.
On day six of the war launched by President Bush (news - web sites) to depose Saddam and take control of his alleged weapons of mass destruction, planes again hammered positions of the elite Republican Guard defending Baghdad.
Meanwhile, British chief of staff Major General Peter Wall said there were indications that a revolt might be underway in Basra, Iraq (news - web sites)'s second biggest city.
'KEEN TO CAPITALIZE'
"We will be very keen to capitalize on it. We have a duty to reinforce that but we've got to make sure we do that in a sensible way and don't do anything hotheaded that we might come to regret," he told reporters at Central Command, battle headquarters for U.S.-led forces, in Qatar.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf denied reports of an uprising, which first came from British television reporters near the city.
To the south of Baghdad, U.S. armored columns were slowed by blinding sandstorms. Reuters correspondents with U.S. columns advancing on Baghdad said choking dust storms cut visibility to five yards in some places.
The Shi'ite people of Basra rose up against Saddam's Sunni-dominated government after the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites), but their revolt was rapidly smashed as U.S. forces stood aside.
U.S.-led forces had been hoping the Shi'ite south would welcome their invasion this time round.
Richard Gaisford, a television journalist with Britain's ITN reporting from just outside Basra, said British forces had bombed the ruling Baath Party offices in the city.
"They have completely destroyed the Baath party headquarters," Gaisford told Sky News. "They've dropped a 2,000 pound bomb on the building... It's totally destroyed it."
Earlier, Colonel Chris Vernon, a British military spokesman in Kuwait, told a news conference that British forces arrayed around Basra had attacked precise Iraqi targets during the day and had captured a top official of Saddam's Baath party there.
British forces south of Basra blocked an attempted breakout by up to 50 Iraqi tanks seeking to press southward from the edge of the city, a British naval commander said.
Two British soldiers were killed by "friendly fire" near the city on Monday and two others were seriously injured, when their tank was mistakenly attacked by another British tank.
With the humanitarian situation in Basra causing mounting concern, British naval officers said they had finally secured Iraq's only deep-water port of Umm Qasr. A British navy ship was expected to dock by Thursday, bringing the first seaborne aid for thousands of hungry civilians in southern Iraq.
IRAQI BODIES
As one Marine convoy pushed north, it passed the corpses of at least 30 Iraqis, apparently killed in an air strike that hit buses, trucks and cars.
All the dead were men, some of them wearing the black clothes of Iraqi irregular forces. Other men, many of them wounded, were taken prisoner by U.S. Marines.
Saddam urged Iraqi tribesmen to join the battle against U.S. and British forces, without waiting for further orders.
"The enemy has violated your lands and now they are violating your tribes and families," the Iraqi leader said in a statement read on his behalf on state television.
The United States said Marines seized more than 200 weapons, stockpiles of ammunition and over 3,000 chemical suits with masks at an Iraqi hospital which was being used as a "military staging area."
Central Command in Qatar said in a statement that Marines operating in the southern city of Nassiriya captured about 170 Iraqi soldiers at the hospital. They were not armed.
Since the Shi'ite are the majority in Iraq, a Shi'ite rebellion against Saddam's thugs is great news.
[Verse 1]
We are the pride of the Army
and a regiment of great renown,
Our Name's on the pages of History.
From sixty-six on down.
If you think we stop or falter
While into the fray we're going
Just watch the steps with our heads erect,
While our band plays GarryOwen. (Chorus)
"Chorus"
In the Fighting Seventh's the place for me,
Its the cream of all the Cavalry;
No other regiment ever can claim
Its pride, honor, glory and undying fame.
[Verse 2]
We know fear when stern duty
Calls us far away from home,
Our country's flag shall safely o'er us wave,
No matter where we roam.
"Tis the gallant 7th Cavalry
It matters not where we are going"
Such you'll surely say as we march away;
And our band plays GarryOwen. (Chorus)
[Verse 3]
Then hurrah for our brave commanders!
Who led us into the fight.
We'll do or die in our country's cause,
And battle for the right.
And when the war is o'er,
And to our home we're goin
Just watch your step, with our heads erect,
When our band plays GarryOwen. (Chorus)
Yes, that too. Najaf is closer to Baghdad than Basra, and one would hope that losses close to home would dishearten Republican guard defending Baghdad. If dishearten is the right word. do those creeps have hearts?
GARRY OWEN BUMP!
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