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(04/04/03 5:35am)
Army forces launched a nighttime attack on Saddam International Airport just outside Baghdad on Thursday and fought running battles with Iraqis along the city's southern fringes. "A vise is closing on the regime," President Bush told cheering Marines stateside.\nSome front-line units went on heightened alert against the threat of chemical weapons, ordered to wear rubber boots and suits despite temperatures that soared into the 90s.\nThere was fierce fighting in Kut, to the south, where desperate Iraqis armed with rifles charged tanks in a suicide raid. "We mowed down" the attackers, said Lt. Col. B.P. McCoy.\nTracer rounds lit the night sky and artillery boomed near the airport a few miles from the heart of Saddam Hussein's capital. Army units encountered little resistance along the airport road, their convoy passing dead Iraqi soldiers and piles of discarded military uniforms.\nAlong the city's southern edge, Army tanks and Bradley vehicles destroyed more than seven Iraqi armored personnel carriers and more than 15 Iraqi tanks in fighting that went on for more than four hours.\nTwo weeks into the war, American commanders reported a string of successes -- on the battlefield and within an Iraqi population initially reticent about embracing invading troops. Kurdish fighters in the north chipped in, when a top leader suggested they may agree not to seek control of the northern city of Kirkuk.\nDespite declarations that tough fighting lies ahead, the nation's top military official indicated there may not be an all-out battle for Baghdad. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested isolating members of the old regime in place -- cut off from the country -- with an "interim administration" in place to begin work on a postwar government.\nThere were battlefield setbacks, as well. Two Marines were killed and one injured in the close-quarters fighting in Kut. The Navy mounted a search for a pilot missing since his Hornet jet was lost to unknown causes on Wednesday.\nThe toll of American troops dead passed 50, and Bush traveled to Camp Lejeune, N.C., which has lost 13 -- more than any other installation. "He's in heaven," the commander in chief told the family of one fallen Marine in a private moment.\nTo the cheers of thousands earlier in a speech, he vowed victory, and said, "A vise is closing on the regime."\nIraq issued the latest in a series of exhortations in Saddam's name. "Fight them with your hands. God will disgrace them," it said, referring to invading American and British troops.\nBut the daily urgings seemed increasingly at odds with the military situation across the country.\nAs conventional units fought their way to the outskirts of the capital, officials said special forces had raided the Tharthar presidential palace near Tikrit, Saddam's hometown. Documents were seized at the site north of Baghdad, said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks at U.S. Central Command in the Persian Gulf, but no ranking members of the regime were found.\n"That's all right, he added, "there's other operations ongoing."\nTo the far north, U.S. special forces and Kurdish militiamen captured the town of Bardarash and a nearby bridge, one of few routes into the city of Mosul near government-held oil fields. Iraqis had held the town for 13 years.\nIn the country's southern regions, British forces penetrated closer to the center of Basra, a city of 1.3 million where Iraqi defenders have held out for days. And a private American company worked to extinguish the last two fires at oil wells in American hands since the early days of the war.\nAmerican officials cited continuing examples of Iraqis cooperating with invading troops. In Najaf, they said a prominent cleric under house arrest by the Iraqi government had urged the population not to interfere with the operations of American or British forces.\nDetails were sketchy on the attack on the airport in Baghdad. The facility has one 13,000-foot runway, according to intelligence monitoring organizations, as well as an 8,800-foot runway.\nFor the first time in the war, large parts of Baghdad lost electricity. The cause was not known, and Myers, the Joint Chiefs chairman, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that Americans had "not targeted the power grid in Baghdad."\nGround forces closed in on Baghdad from separate southern approaches, the Army from the southeast and Marines from the southwest, in advances begun Tuesday night.\nAmerican and British helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft bombed positions in Kut, and Marines and Iraqis lobbed grenades at close quarters.\nBetween 10 and 15 Iraqis armed only with rifles charged Marine tanks in the suicide charge. Two Marines died in the fighting -- and a medic who tried to save one of them sorrowfully buried his resuscitation equipment on the spot.\nArmy forces rolled past dozens of dead Iraqi soldiers and bombed-out hulks of Iraqi military equipment as they made their way toward Baghdad from the area around Karbala. Many more Iraqi soldiers surrendered to the overwhelming force of the Americans, and were shuttled to the rear.\nTheir tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles destroyed more than seven Iraqi armored personnel carriers and more than 15 tanks as they sought out units of the Republican Guard and regular Army troops guarding Baghdad's southern flanks.\nAt the same time they worried about chemical weapons attacks, Brooks disclosed that a special operations force in the southwestern desert had found a number of bottles "marked in strange ways." He said an investigation was underway.\nIn Palestine, W.Va., the parents of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the rescued prisoner of war, said she had undergone surgery at a military hospital in Germany and was scheduled for more. Gregory Lynch Sr. said doctors had found no evidence of gunshot or stab wounds.\nSeparately, officials said hostile fire was not the cause of the loss of an Army Black Hawk helicopter. Six soldiers were killed when the craft went down, also on Wednesday.
(04/03/03 6:06am)
American forces fought their way to within sight of Baghdad's skyline Wednesday and claimed the destruction of a pair of menacing Republican Guard divisions. An Army helicopter was shot down, killing seven of its 11 crew members.\nBombs shook the capital as Army and Marine armored columns took separate, converging paths toward the city from the south. "The dagger is clearly pointed" at the heart of Saddam Hussein's regime, said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks.\nThe rapid advances brought thousands of troops within the so-called red zone -- an imaginary line on the map near the capital where Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction is most feared. Troops in some lead Army units donned chemical protection suits, and Marine helicopter pilots were ordered to be prepared to do so.\nThe Army Black Hawk helicopter was downed by small-arms fire near Karbala, site of fierce fighting between the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and Iraqi troops, including Republican Guard forces. Seven soldiers were killed and four were wounded and rescued, officials said.\nThe military campaign unfolded as Pfc. Jessica Lynch, a 19-year-old prisoner of war freed in a daring nighttime rescue, was flown to Germany for medical treatment.\nBut the joy over her freedom was tempered by word that the special forces who rescued her also found 11 bodies. "We have reason to believe some of them were Americans," said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp.\nIncreasingly, there were signs that Iraqi civilians were eager for the arrival of invading forces.
(04/02/03 5:36am)
Army ground forces attacked Republican Guard units Tuesday near Karbala, only 50 miles from Baghdad, part of around-the-clock combat pointing toward an assault on the capital. \nDefense officials said Army units attacked elements of the Medina Division of the Republican Guard, part of an elite Iraqi force targeted by heavy air bombardment over several days.\nSeparately, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks announced the rescue of an unidentified American POW rescued in Iraq. \n"Coalition forces have conducted a successful rescue mission of a U.S. Army prisoner of war held captive in Iraq. The soldier has been returned to a coalition-controlled area," he said in a brief appearance at U.S. Central Command in Qatar.\nOther officials said the prisoner was one of seven the Pentagon lists as captured since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 19.\nThe developments unfolded as huge explosions rocked Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's seat of power and the site of repeated bombing in the two weeks of the war.\nSaddam summoned his country -- via a spokesman -- to a "jihad," or holy war, against the invaders. American and British officials used the occasion to raise fresh doubts about the fate of a man seen in public only on videotape since the war began.\nThe attack on forces near Karbala marked the first major ground battle against Saddam's Republican Guard, and capped a day of aggressive American and British military actions.\nMarines staged a nighttime raid on Nasiriyah and found Iraqis had abandoned a huge, walled police compound.\nIn Basra, a city of 1.3 million, warplanes dropped 500-pound and 1,000-pound laser-guided bombs on an Iraqi intelligence complex in an effort to dislodge die-hard defenders who have kept British forces at bay for days.\n"What you're seeing today on the battlefield in Iraq is a continuation of prepping the battlefield for a major encounter with the Republican Guard," said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp.\nCommanders refused to say when that might come, or whether the attack near Karbala represented the beginning of a push toward the capital. But senior American officials said the ceaseless pounding on Saddam's elite Republican Guard was taking its toll. "Some of them have been degraded to pretty low percentages of combat capability, below 50 percent in ... at least two cases, and we continue to work on them," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the Pentagon.\nDespite the summons to jihad issued in Saddam's name, British officials said two would-be suicide attackers had turned themselves in to troops in Umm Qasr. "They didn't want to be suicide bombers any more," said British Col. Steve Cox. "We are accommodating them."\nOther British and American officials said there was a growing list of examples of Iraqi civilians shedding their initial reluctance to assist forces fighting Saddam's regime.\nTroops worked to win the trust of Iraqis, keeping in mind that many still recall promises of liberation in the 1991 Gulf War, only to find Saddam's forces returned unhindered when coalition forces withdrew.\nLights went on for the first time in weeks in the port city of Umm Qasr, which is firmly under British control. Some British forces in southern Iraq were wearing berets in public, shedding their more warlike helmets in areas deemed safe.\nThe American and British bombing was constant -- large explosions reverberated around Baghdad, punctuated by a series of small ground engagements in a sweeping arc to the south.\nA Marine official said heavy bombing was carried out around Kut, southeast of Baghdad, adding that ground forces have secured an air base further to the south, at Qalat Sukkar, that could be used as a staging ground.\nFurther to the southwest, Marines claimed to have killed at least 80 Iraqi soldiers and taken dozens of prisoners in fighting near Diwaniyah. According to reports from the field, troops on a reconnaissance mission found fortified Iraqi positions along a line leading several miles to the city.\n"They were shooting from buildings, from dugout positions, from holes, from everywhere," Cpl. Patrick Irish said of the Iraqis.\nMarines took no chances with prisoners, bulldozing a pit, then surrounding it with barbed wire. Before a POW was put inside, he was blindfolded and searched, one Marine pinning down his feet, another his arms, and a third pointing an M-16 rifle at his head.\nIn northern Iraq, U.S. special forces troops trumpeted their role in a successful joint effort with Kurdish fighters to rout Ansar al-Islam militants accused of having ties to al Qaeda terrorists.\nOne day after American forces killed at least seven civilians at a checkpoint, Iraqi officials said U.S. Apache helicopters attacked a neighborhood in the central Iraq city of Hillah, killing 33 people and injuring more than 300.\nThe U.S. Central Command said it was investigating, but said no Apache helicopters could have been involved in any such incident.\nAt the Pentagon, Rumsfeld and Myers, the nation's top uniformed officer, emphatically defended the American battle plan, which has sparked controversy.\n"Forces are coming (toward Baghdad) from the north, they're coming from the south and they're coming from the west, and the circle is closing" on Saddam, Rumsfeld said.\nMyers and Rumsfeld both said some Republican Guard units had been repositioned from north of Baghdad to offset losses suffered by units in the south.\nResponding to a suggestion from a Saudi official that Saddam step down to spare his country, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan replied: "Go to hell."\nAnd in a speech read in Saddam's name, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf urged Iraqis to wage a holy war against U.S.-led forces. "Strike at them, fight them. They are aggressors, evil, accursed by God the exalted. You shall be victorious and they shall be vanquished."\n"It does seem very strange that he hasn't appeared at this time," said a British spokesman in London.\nSaddam has been shown in a series of videotaped appearances on Iraqi television during the war, but has made no known public appearances since the night of March 19, when American missiles hit a complex in Baghdad where he and his two sons were believed to have been sleeping.
(03/28/03 5:24am)
American-led forces bombed Iraqi targets and battled troops across Saddam Hussein's slowly shrinking domain Thursday, battering the regime's communications and command facilities in Baghdad.\nU.S. officials began sending reinforcements to the region and reported 25 Marines wounded after a friendly fire incident around An Nasiriyah.\nThe Iraqi regime breathed defiance even as coalition troops encircled its capital city. "The enemy must come inside Baghdad, and that will be its grave," Defense Minister Sultan Mashem Ahmed declared.\nEight days after the launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom, President Bush met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and declined to set a timetable for the war. It will last "however long it takes" to win, he said, thumping the lectern for emphasis.\nBoth men said the United Nations could help rebuild postwar Iraq, but sidestepped tricky questions of who would create and run a new government once Saddam is toppled.\nAir assaults beginning before midnight in Baghdad delivered one of the strongest blasts felt there in days as allied forces zeroed in on one of Saddam's presidential compounds in the heart of the capital. Another round of powerful explosions followed, lasting half an hour.\n"Coalition air forces and Tomahawk missiles took out a communications and command and control facilities in the capital city during the night," said Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, a spokesman reading from a bulletin at the command center in Camp As Sayliyah.\nIn the war zone, sandstorms abated and the Americans and British reported flying 1,500 missions during the day as they exploited their unchecked air superiority. British forces reported destroying 14 Iraqi tanks near Basra -- their largest such take since World War II.\nWarplanes bombed positions in northern Iraq near Kurdish-held areas and hit Republican Guard forces menacing American ground forces 50 miles south of Baghdad. Thunderous explosions rocked the capital after nightfall in one of the strongest blasts in days, filling the sky with flames and thick smoke after one of Saddam's presidential palaces was hit.\nCombat aircraft dropped bombs "just about as fast as we can load them," said Capt. Thomas A. Parker, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf.\nCargo planes flew military supplies into northern Iraq after 1,000 American airborne troops parachuted in to secure an airfield. One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said additional personnel were being flown in, and that an early objective would be securing the northern oil fields near Kirkuk. Invading forces took control of southern Iraqi oil fields in the early hours of the ground war.\nSeveral miles away, Kurdish militiamen and villagers celebrated the fall during the day of a hilltop position where Iraqi forces had menaced civilians for years.\nU.S. forces had pounded the northern hills around Chamchamal over the past several days, and it appeared that the Iraqis abandoned their checkpoint and bunkers and retreated to the west.\nIn central Iraq, the first resupply plane landed on a restored runway at Tallil Airfield -- hastily renamed "Bush International Airport" by American forces who had secured it.\nStill, Iraqi resistance continued to slow the drive on the capital and kept American and British forces out of key cities such as Basra and An Nasiriyah. Its mines kept ships with humanitarian assistance from unloading their cargo at the southern port city of Umm Qasr.\nAfter eight days of fighting, Pentagon officials said close to 90,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq, and that an additional 100,000 to 120,000 were on the way. All were part of a military blueprint made up long ago, officials said, sensitive to criticism that commanders had underestimated the need for troops to quell stronger-than-expected resistance or protect long supply lines.\nBush and Blair met as anti-war protests flared anew in the United States. In New York, hundreds of demonstrators lined three blocks of Fifth Avenue and dozens more lay down in the street in a "die-in." At the United Nations, the U.S. ambassador walked out of a debate on the war after Iraq's ambassador accused the United States of trying to exterminate the Iraqi people.\nOne day after Iraq claimed more than a dozen civilians were injured in a missile strike in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said it was possible that an Iraqi missile was responsible. "It may have been a deliberate attack inside of town," he added.\nMore than 25 Marines were wounded in fighting near An Nasiriyah, one of the southern Iraq cities where irregular forces have put up far more resistance than American military planners expected. U.S. officials said some or all of them were hurt when one Marine unit mistakenly fired on another. No deaths were reported and no Marines were missing from that incident, officials said. Brooks said the battle lasted 90 minutes, and WTVD-TV of Durham, N.C., which has a reporter with the Marines in An Nasiriyah, reported the Marines had been wounded during fierce house-to-house fighting.\nTo the south, British forces continued efforts to gain control over Basra, but die-hard defenders of Saddam's regime have held positions inside the city amid reports of clashes with the local population.\nAdm. Michael Boyce, chief of the British defense staff, told reporters that British forces destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks that tried to leave the city during the morning. Historians said it was Britain's biggest such battle since World War II.\nIraqis accused U.S. and British forces of targeting civilians. They, in turn, were accused of seizing Iraqi children to force their fathers into battle.\n"They are targeting the human beings in Iraq to decrease their morale," Iraqi Health Minister Omeed Medhat Mubarak told reporters. Officials said about 350 civilians had been killed in the operation, and more than 3,500 others injured.
(03/27/03 7:04am)
Army airborne forces parachuted into northern Iraq on Wednesday, seizing an airfield for a new front against Saddam Hussein. U.S. and British warplanes bombed an enemy convoy fleeing the besieged city of Basra in the south.\nOne week into the war, the possibility of a major battle loomed within 100 miles of Baghdad as another convoy -- this one made up of elite Republican Guard forces -- moved in the direction of American troops aiming for Saddam's seat of power.\nJumping from low-flying planes into the Iraqi night, an estimated 1,000 paratroopers landed near an airstrip in Kurdish-controlled territory less than 30 miles from the Turkish border.\nHundreds of miles to the south, the unchallenged bombing of Iraqi forces leaving Basra raised hopes that ground troops could soon enter the city, feared at risk for a humanitarian crisis.\nThe military developments unfolded as the first humanitarian delivery of supplies rolled into southern Iraq, greeted at the border by hungry children.\nWith American and British forces massing to the south, west and now the north of Baghdad, the Iraqi regime kept much of the news from its own people. Instead, it emphasized a claim that two American cruise missiles had killed 14 civilians in Baghdad and wounded dozens more.\n"This war is far from over," President Bush said in a quick trip to the Florida headquarters of U.S. Central Command, which is overseeing the war. Still, he said victory was only a matter of time, adding, "There will be a day of reckoning for the Iraqi regime, and that day is drawing near."\nBush later flew to the Camp David presidential retreat for a meeting Thursday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his partner in the Iraq invasion.\nSwirling sandstorms hampered American units for a second day. The bombing campaign was crimped as well, but Baghdad television was knocked off the air for several hours, and explosions were heard, as well, near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in the north.\nLt. Col. Thomas Collins, spokesman for the U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, confirmed that paratroopers were on the ground, many of them elite Rangers.\n"I can only tell you yes, they've gone in. They're on the ground," he said.\nOther officials said tanks, other vehicles and supplies would be airlifted in behind them.\nAmerican commanders had hoped to move a large force into northern Iraq from Turkey. But the Turkish parliament refused to allow that, and the parachute drop was the beginning of an alternative plan.\nU.S. and British warplanes, as well as ground units, hit the column leaving Basra. A British military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the column included as many as 120 tanks and other armored vehicles.\nThe Pentagon's No. 2 general, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, said that Iraq has executed prisoners of war in the week since the war began. Pace, apparently referring to some of the U.S. Army troops captured Sunday by Iraqi forces in the city of An Nasiriyah, said Iraqis had engaged in many atrocities in the six days since the war began.\nIraq, in turn, accused U.S. and British forces of "kidnapping civilians, shackling them, and regarding them as POWs."\nIrregular Iraqi troops have prevented British troops from entering Basra, Iraq's second-largest city and site of a reported uprising by local civilians against Saddam's defenders. International aid officials have repeatedly expressed fears of an outbreak of disease, given the interruption of power and water supplies.\nDetails were sketchy as well about Iraqi troop movements to the north. Some officials said a huge convoy of perhaps 1,000 vehicles and members of Saddam's elite Republican Guard were moving south, in the direction of Marines making their way toward the capital.\nGen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a "few vehicles" were moving south toward Karbala, site of a major land battle on Tuesday. "They're being engaged as we find them," he said.\nU.S. officials blame the Fedayeen units for much of the resistance that has hampered the American-led advance through Iraq, accusing them of faking surrender only to shoot Americans and enforcing discipline among regular Iraqi army troops who may be less willing to fight.\nOne Defense Department official said commanders were surprised by the Fedayeen's capability and military commanders were changing their tactics.\n"We're going into a hunting mode right now," said Marine Lt. Col. B.T. McCoy in Iraq.\nIraqi officials said 30 civilians were injured, some badly, when two American missiles landed in a residential Baghdad neighborhood.\nAssociated Press Television News video showed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting in the back of a pickup truck and streets that had flooded after water pipes ruptured. Flames rose above burning buildings, mixing with smoke from fires Iraqis have lit to try to obscure targets for American combat pilots.\nAmerican military officials issued a statement saying that civilian damage was "possible" after an aerial attack aimed at nine Iraqi surface-to-surface missiles. "The missiles and launchers were placed within a civilian residential area," it said.\nThe first sizable relief convoy rolled across the border toward the southern port city of Umm Qasr, laden with water, boxes of tuna, crackers, sweets and other food.\nChildren greeted the trucks as they rumbled into Iraq from Kuwait. Among them was a boy of about 10 who pointed to his mouth and shouted "Eat, eat."\nIn the border town of Safwan, the arrival of a relief convoy from the Kuwait's Red Crescent Society triggered fighting among young Iraqis, some shoeless and dirty, over the white boxes of supplies.
(03/26/03 5:56am)
American infantry troops fought off a desert attack by Iraqis on Tuesday, inflicting heavy casualties in a clash less than 100 miles from Baghdad. British forces battled for control of Basra, a city of 1.3 million sliding toward chaos.\nDefense officials said between 150 and 500 Iraqis were killed in the battle near An Najaf, adding there were no immediate reports of American casualties.\nIraqis launched their attack on a day of howling sandstorms -- weather bad enough to slow the U.S.-led drive toward the Iraqi capital. After the sandstorm lifted in Baghdad, pre-dawn explosions struck the city.\nWarplanes bombed targets in the northern part of the country and briefly knocked government television off the air in the capital. And U.S. troops in control of a vast Iraqi air base sealed 36 bunkers, designated as possible hiding places for weapons of mass destruction.\nAmerican officials also issued fresh cautions about the possible use of chemical weapons by Iraqi troops, although none has yet been used in the 6-day-old war -- or even found by the invading troops.\nAs the pace of combat quickened, American and British officials sought to prepare the public for something less than a quick campaign, and predicted difficult days to come.\nStill, President Bush forecast victory. "The Iraqi regime will be ended … and our world will be more secure and peaceful," he said after receiving a war update at the Pentagon.\nIraqi leader Saddam Hussein saw it differently. State television carried what it described as a message from him to tribal and clan leaders, saying, "Consider this to be the command of faith and jihad and fight them."\nIf confirmed, the initial reports of fighting near An Najaf would make it the biggest ground clash of the war, as well as the first encounter between advancing American infantry and the Iraqi units guarding the approach to Saddam's seat of power.\nA senior military official said the U.S. troops had hunkered down against a sandstorm when Iraqis -- either Republican Guard or paramilitary Iraqi troops traveling on foot -- opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades.\nSome of the 7th Cavalry's equipment was damaged in the attack, the official said.\nThe unit is part of the Army force driving on Baghdad. Some elements of the force are farther north, near Karbala, with only the Medina armored division of the Republican Guard between them and Baghdad. Muslim clerics in Iran warned against military threats to shrines in Iraq. An Najaf is the burial place of Imam Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed.\nDetails of the situation inside the southern city of Basra, Iraq's second-largest, also were sketchy. British journalists reported that residents were staging an uprising against pro-Saddam forces and that Iraqi troops were firing mortars at them.\nBritish forces staged a raid on a suburb of the city, captured a senior leader of the ruling Baath party and killed 20 of his bodyguards.\n"He's sitting there in his little room thinking he's having a good morning and whap, we're in, whap, we're out," boasted Col. Chris Vernon, a British Army spokesman.\nThe Iraqis denied all of it. "The situation is stable," Information Minister Mohammed al-Sahhaf said in an interview with Al-Jazeera, an Arab satellite television network.\nUnited Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others have warned of a possible humanitarian crisis in Basra. The International Red Cross said during the day that it had begun repairs at a war-damaged water-pumping station serving the city.\nAnnan told Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, the United States is legally responsible for providing humanitarian aid to Iraqis in areas controlled by coalition forces. The United Nations cannot provide humanitarian assistance until security conditions allow the safe return of U.N. staff, Annan told Rice. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer blamed Saddam for slowing the flow of goods by placing mines near Umm Qasr.\nThus far in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Americans said they had taken nearly 4,000 Iraqi prisoners. There was no accurate death toll among Iraqi troops or civilians.\nAmerican losses ran to 20 dead and 14 captured or missing. The remains of the first two to die were flown overnight to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.\nTwenty British troops had also died, including two killed Monday by friendly fire.\nThe U.S. Central Command, which oversees the war, announced the capture of an Iraqi military hospital used as a military staging area. Officials said Marines confiscated more than 200 weapons and stockpiles of ammunition and more than 3,000 chemical suits with masks, as well as Iraqi military uniforms. The Marines also found a T-55 tank on the compound.\nSecretary of State State Colin Powell predicted that the coalition eventually will find weapons of mass destruction, saying "there will come a time, when the enemy has been defeated, to make a more thorough search."\nElements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division were about 50 miles from Baghdad and hit Republican Guard units defending the Iraqi capital with an all-night artillery barrage.\nThousands of other troops hastened -- as much as the sandstorms would allow -- to join them for the coming battle against Saddam's seat of power.
(03/25/03 8:18pm)
British troops battled die-hard Iraqi defenders of Basra on Tuesday as warnings mounted of a humanitarian crisis for the city's 1.3 million residents. Blinding sandstorms plagued the American-led advance on Baghdad.\nDespite adverse weather in some parts of Iraq, U.S.-led warplanes bombed targets in the northern part of the country. And U.S. troops in control of a vast Iraqi air base sealed 36 bunkers, earmarked as possible sites of Saddam Hussein's elusive weapons of mass destruction.\n"We cannot know the duration of this war, yet we know its outcome," President Bush said after receiving an update at the Pentagon. "We will prevail. ...The Iraqi regime will be ended ... and our world will be more secure and peaceful."\nNot surprisingly, Saddam Hussein saw it differently. State television carried what it described as a message from him to tribal and clan leaders, saying, "Consider this to be the command of faith and jihad and fight them."\nWeather or not, the U.S.-led invasion moved ahead.\nElements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division were about 50 miles from Baghdad and hit Republican Guard units defending the Iraqi capital with an all-night artillery barrage.\nThousands of other troops hastened - as much as the sandstorms would allow - to join them for the coming battle against Saddam's seat of power.\nBut some helicopters were grounded by the weather, and combat aircraft taking off from the USS Harry Truman returned a few hours later without dropping bombs on their targets.\nDistant explosions could be heard in Baghdad, and efforts were underway to dig deeper defensive trenches around the city. Witnesses said Saddam's intelligence headquarters as well as a sprawling defense complex were hit in overnight bombing.\nIn the early hours of the invasion, military commanders had hoped that Basra's population would welcome the invading forces.\nInstead, resistance by irregular and other forces has kept British troops from securing the city and paving the way for the flow of relief operations.\nAnd in an about-face, a British spokesman told reporters, "We are seizing tactical opportunities as they occur on our terms."\nStill, the spokesman, Col. Chris Vernon, described a situation of enormous difficulty. "We are not firing into the center of the city because we cannot risk the collateral damage to civilians, even though we are being fired on by their artillery," he said.\nIn addition, Vernon said Iraqi troops are using the local population as human shields, marching them toward the British troops, then firing from behind them before retreating.\nThere were reports of clashes between forces loyal to Saddam and civilians in Basra, but U.S. Marine Maj. David C. Andersen said they were unsubstantiated. "We are closely monitoring the situation," he added.\nUnited Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others have warned of a possible humanitarian crisis in the city. The International Red Cross said during the day it had begun repairs at a war-damaged water-pumping station serving the city.\nBeyond the need for water and electricity, Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Program, said government food warehouses are "practically empty."\nBush, after receiving his war update, said U.S. forces were clearing the approaches to Umm Qasr of Iraqi-laid mines. "Coalition forces are working hard to make sure that when the food and medicine begins to move it does so in a safe way," he said.\nBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will confer with Bush this week at the presidential retreat at Camp David, was at pains to prepare the British public for difficult days.\n"There will be resistance all the way to the end of this campaign," he said.\nDefense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld also made clear he didn't know how long the war would take. "We're still needless to say much closer to the beginning than to the end," he said.\nThe war unfolded side by side with diplomatic maneuvering.\nSpeaking in Toronto, the American ambassador Paul Cellucci said Canada's refusal to send troops to the war effort has upset and disappointed the United States and caused a "bump in relations."\nIn Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said his country has contacted the United States and Iraq with a peace proposal, and was awaiting a response.\nHe did not disclose the proposed terms. The Bush administration said it was not aware of any Saudi peace proposal, and there was no response from the Iraqi government.
(03/25/03 5:38am)
Aiming for Saddam Hussein's seat of power, U.S.-led warplanes and helicopters attacked Republican Guard units defending Baghdad Monday while ground troops advanced to within 50 miles of the Iraqi capital. President Bush put a $75 billion price tag on a down payment for the war.\nThe helicopter assault marked the first known engagement between forces in central Iraq, and many of the American craft were hit by Iraqi groundfire. One went down behind enemy lines -- the cause was unknown -- and the Pentagon said the two-person crew had been taken prisoner.\nFive days into Operation Iraqi Freedom, resistance prevented American and British forces from securing the southern cities of Basra and An Nasiriyah and thwarted efforts to extinguish burning oil wells.\n"These things are never easy," conceded British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on the day his country suffered its first combat casualty of the war. "There will be some difficult times ahead but (the war) is going to plan despite the tragedies."\nSaddam sought to rally his own country in a televised appearance. "Be patient, brothers, because God's victory will be ours soon," he said, appearing in full military garb and seeming more composed than in a taped appearance broadcast last week.\nDespite Saddam's defiant pose, a military barracks in the northern part of the country was bombed, and Baghdad fell under renewed air attack by day and by night. Iraqis set up mortar positions south of the city and piled sandbags around government buildings and other strategic locations, in evident anticipation of a battle to come.\n"Coalition forces are closing in on Baghdad," Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters at the Pentagon.\nHe said U.S. Apache helicopters attacked Saddam's Republican Guard forces arrayed around Baghdad while another official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a "large portion" of the day's bombing runs were dedicated to hitting the same units.\nDefense officials at the Pentagon said the Apaches encountered heavy groundfire during their assault on the Medina armored division. One official said many Apaches were hit by fire, but managed to kill about 10 Iraqi tanks before cutting off their attack.\nAsked about ground forces, McChrystal said, "We have not gotten into direct firefights with Republican Guard forces."\nThat seemed a matter of not much time, though.\nThe Army's 3rd Infantry Division was within 50 miles of the capital, battling sandstorms more than Iraqi fire as it neared Baghdad.\nSome Iraqis waved or gave a thumbs-up as the convoy passed on its dash through southern Iraq, while others stood stoically.\nThe advance of long columns of thousands of vehicles was aided by heavy air protection that wiped out a column of Iraqi armor at one point and sent some of Saddam's outer defenses withdrawing toward the capital. The convoy passed bombed anti-aircraft guns, empty foxholes and berms dug for tanks that had been abandoned.\nPresident Bush invited senior lawmakers to the White House, and aides said he would ask Congress for nearly $75 billion. Of that, $62.6 billion would be in direct war costs, according to these aides, for 30 days of combat. The request was also expected to include up to $3 billion to guard against terrorist threats, as well as aid to Israel, Afghanistan and other U.S. allies, a down payment on humanitarian aid for Iraq and for rebuilding the country, and money to increase security for American diplomats.\nBush, scheduled to confer in Washington later this week with Blair, also talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone.\nPolls taken since the war began show growing support for the military campaign. But there were fresh anti-war protests across the United States and abroad. Police arrested more than 123 people in San Francisco, and at least 50 in Hartford, Conn.\nIn the world's first war with live broadcasts from the battlefield, news and images of American and British setbacks competed with pictures of military successes.\nIraqi television showed pictures of one American helicopter in a grassy field, men in Arab headdresses brandishing automatic rifles as they did a victory dance around the aircraft. Hours later, Iraqi television showed two men it said made up the crew.\n"We have a two-man crew missing," confirmed Gen. Tommy Franks, the U.S. war commander. But he denied Iraqi reports that the craft had been shot down by farmers, and that two choppers had been lost.\nFranks told reporters that 3,000 Iraqi prisoners had been taken. But he and other U.S. officials were more concerned with the fate of a handful of American POWs whose convoy was ambushed in the Iraqi desert over the weekend.\nAt the Pentagon, spokeswoman Torie Clark accused Iraqis of violating the rules of war by misusing white flags of surrender and other deceptions.\nIn London, the Ministry of Defense announced the first British combat death, a soldier who fell in fighting near Az Zubayr in southern Iraq, near the city of Basra.\nTwo other British troops were missing after their convoy was hit by continuing resistance in southern Iraq.\nIt was a fresh reminder that even in areas where American and British forces thought they had control, resistance continued to pop up.\n"This is not a video game where everything is clear and neat and tidy," said British spokesman Lt. Col. Ronnie McCourt. "Some enemy who feel that they want to carry on fighting will inevitably do so."\nBasra, Iraq's second largest city, provided evidence of that, as Iraqis battled British forces on the outskirts of town. Commanders held off storming the city, hoping its Iraqi defenders would give up, but they have held firm.\nThe bombing in the north was carried out against a military barracks close to the line that separates Iraqi-held territory from the Kurdish-held region.\n"People are evacuating, but not because of the bombing. They are afraid Saddam will respond with chemical weapons," said Ahmad Qafoor, a school teacher.\nThere was no evidence of that -- as yet.\nBut military commanders said American forces were still evaluating a plant captured by U.S. troops, and pursuing leads from captured Iraqis and documents in their search for weapons of mass destruction.
(12/16/02 5:11pm)
WASHINGTON -- Breaking ranks, a veteran Senate Republican called Sunday for new leadership elections, saying Sen. Trent Lott has been so weakened by a race-based controversy that "his ability to enact our agenda" is in doubt.\n"There are several outstanding senators who are more than capable of effective leadership. And I hope we have an opportunity to choose," said Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the outgoing GOP whip.\nRepublican leader Lott, R-Miss., had no immediate reaction to the comments, which instantly added a new dimension to his struggle to survive the fallout from remarks that touched on racial segregation.\nA White House spokesman also declined comment.\nWhile Nickles has served with Lott in the GOP leadership for several years, they have been rivals as well as colleagues. Nickles' statement appeared timed to blunt a Sunday broadcast offensive by Lott's allies seeking to lay the controversy to rest.\n"I have a lot of confidence in him as the leader and as a senator. And I think we should not lynch him, we should give him an opportunity," Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said on CNN's "Late Edition."\n"I think he's going to continue to lead us, and I think he can be very effective as our leader in the Senate," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told ABC's "This Week."\nMcConnell, elected to succeed Nickles as the No. 2 Republican leader, added that he had confidence in Lott's ability to "move forward with the president's agenda in the new Congress."\nLott, 61 and in line to become Senate majority leader in January, triggered an uproar this month when he said that Mississippians were proud to have voted for Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1948 on the pro-segregationist Dixiecrat ticket.\n"And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either," Lott added in remarks at the 100th birthday for the retiring South Carolina senator.\nLott's most recent apology came Friday, when he strongly denounced racism and segregation at a news conference in his home state, and asked for forgiveness and forbearance.\nLott also arranged a 30-minute appearance on Black Entertainment Television for Monday, part of an effort to demonstrate his concern about issues of importance to African-Americans.\nBut Nickles' comments seemed likely to propel the Republican leadership drama into a new phase. A closed-door meeting of the 51 GOP senators in the new Congress must be called if five make a written request.\nSen. John Warner, R-Va., also suggested a meeting of the rank and file. "I feel we should come together as a group and make that decision and put to rest, once and for all, this controversy," he said on CNN.\nAlternatively, GOP senators are scheduled to meet privately on Jan. 8, the day after the new Congress is sworn in, and Nickles could raise the subject of leadership elections then.\nNickles' spokesman, Brook Simmons, said he did not know whether Nickles would run for leader if there were an election.\nSimmons said Nickles told the White House on Saturday night of his plans to speak out, and informed Lott early Sunday.
(11/07/02 11:13pm)
WASHINGTON -- Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt intends to announce Thursday that he will not seek a new term as House Democratic leader, senior aides said.\nThe expected announcement would clear the way for a succession struggle among Democrats, who have been in the minority for eight years and lost seats to Republicans in midterm elections on Tuesday.\nGephardt has long signaled his interest in running for president in 2004, but it was not clear whether he would address that race when he announces his plans Thursday.\nTwo senior Democrats, Reps. Nancy Pelosi of California and Martin Frost of Texas, have already indicated they would run for party leader if Gephardt chose not to, and jockeying broke out even before word spread of the Missouri lawmaker's plans.\n"The country moved to the right yesterday and House Democrats won't win a majority by moving further to the left," said Tom Eisenhauer, spokesman for Frost, attempting to depict Pelosi as too liberal to lead the party back into power.\nSpokesman Brendan Daly responded for Pelosi. "It's not a matter of ideology. It's a matter of drawing a clear distinction between the Democratic and Republican Party on issues that the Democrats are united about and that the American people strongly support," he said. He cited education funding and Social Security as examples.\nRank-and-file Democrats are expected to meet next Thursday to pick the party's leaders for the Congress that convenes in January.\nGephardt flew to the capital from Missouri earlier in the day, and aides said then that he would spend his time making a decision about his plans. "If he chooses to run for minority leader we're confident he'll win," said his spokesman, Erik Smith.\nAt the same time, two members of the rank and file publicly prodded Gephardt to renounce another term as leader.\n"It is now clearly time for him to step down," said one, Rep. Peter Deutsch of Florida.\nSaid Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn.: "If Mr. Gephardt, or Dick, decides to run again, he should be prepared to face opposition. I think the caucus deserves -- the Democrats in the House, that is -- deserve to hear an alternative and deserve to hear another set of ideas and what another approach would look like." He spoke on CNN.\nGephardt, 61, was majority leader when the 1994 landslide swept the GOP into power in the House. He was elected minority leader several weeks later, and spent the next eight years attempting to return his party to power.
(11/07/02 6:08am)
WASHINGTON -- President Bush and his party savored sweeping midterm election victories Wednesday and began sketching an agenda for a new, Republican-controlled Congress. Minority House Democrats jockeyed for position in the event Rep. Richard Gephardt steps down as party leader.\n"I'm excited to be able to be on offense," said Republican Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, the once and future Senate majority leader. He said GOP priorities will include a new Department of Homeland Security as well as targeted tax cuts to help the economy. He added that Bush's judicial nominees could expect speedier review.\nBush made no public remarks during the day, and aides said he wanted to avoid giving the appearance of gloating. "There's a lot more to do and the president looks forward to working with Democrats and Republicans to do it," said his spokesman, Ari Fleischer.\nRepublicans were assured of 51 seats in the new Senate, a gain of two. Democrats had 48, including one independent. One race remained in doubt, in Louisiana, where Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu will face Republican Suzanne Terrell in a December runoff.\nIn the House, Republicans had 227 seats -- a gain of four -- and led for one more. Democrats won 203, and led for three. There was one independent.\nThe elections marked a remarkable triumph for Republicans, who bucked history to gain seats in a midterm election in which they held the White House.\n"I think you have to give an awful lot of credit to the president of the United States," said Lott. "He put his prestige on the line and I think it made a huge difference in this election."\nOne Republican polling firm circulated the results of an election-night survey that made the same point, saying that late-deciding voters gave Bush higher approval ratings than the country at large -- and that support for the president was higher, still, among voters in the pivotal House districts where the battle for control was settled.\nDemocrats conceded the obvious. "This was one tough night," Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle said on the morning after, appearing on NBC's "Today" show.\nAnd some party activists grumbled about the party's leadership. "There wasn't any unified message," said David Worley, former chairman of the party in Georgia. "I think the national leadership did a miserable job of giving a theme to the election."\nEight years in the minority, now facing two more, House Democrats looked ahead uncertainly to leadership elections next week.\nWith Gephardt expected to decide on his plans within a day or two, a race to replace him was already shaping up between a California liberal, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and a Texas moderate, Martin Frost of Texas.\n"The country moved to the right yesterday and House Democrats won't win a majority by moving further to the left," said Tom Eisenhauer, spokesman for Frost. Pelosi ranks second on the current leadership ladder, one rung above Frost.\nGephardt, a likely contender for the presidency in 2004, flew back to the capital from his Missouri congressional district to decide his next step. The 26-year congressional veteran is "going to spend a day with his wife and family and talk to friends and advisers and begin making a decision about his future," said his spokesman, Erik Smith. "If he chooses to run for minority leader we're confident he'll win."\nEven so, one Democratic lawmaker suggested publicly it was time for a change.\n"It's obvious that we need some fresh faces and in some cases fresh ideas," Rep. Harold Ford, of Tennessee said on Don Imus' syndicated radio show. Rank-and-file Democrats are asking "some pretty tough questions about his leadership," Ford said of Gephardt.\nA nationwide survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, a GOP firm, found a "late surge to Republicans," much as was the case in the GOP landslide year of 1994. Interviews showed that "the handling of Senator Wellstone's memorial service and the way the ballot situation was handled in New Jersey was clearly a factor in helping drive Republican intensity this election," the firm said.\nThat was a reference to a memorial service in Minnesota for the late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone several days before the election. Many Republicans complained the event veered into politics, and Democrats had privately expressed concern about possible fallout.\nNew Jersey represented a political victory for Democrats, who prevailed in a court case to replace Sen. Robert Torricelli on the ballot even though the deadline for a switch had passed.\nDemocratic chairman Terry McAuliffe looked for a bright side to the elections.\n"It was an extraordinary night for Democratic gubernatorial candidates. Fifty-five percent of Americans woke up today having a Democratic governor," he said.\nDemocrats made gains in the governors' races, although if the election trend held, they would fall short of their goal of winning a majority of the nation's statehouses.
(11/06/02 6:59am)
Republicans marched toward continued control of the House on Tuesday and Democrats fought to defend their slender Senate majority in midterm elections. President Bush's brother coasted to a new term as governor of Florida.\nRepublicans won two high-profile Senate races, Elizabeth Dole prevailing in North Carolina and John Sununu in New Hampshire.\nIn Maryland, Robert Ehrlich was elected governor -- the first Republican in more than three decades. In Illinois, Rep. Rod Blagojevich captured the statehouse for the Democrats for the first time in more than a quarter century.\nDemocrats needed to gain seven seats to win control of the House, and the trend was against them.\nRepublican Rep. Anne Northup won a new term in Kentucky, while Democratic Rep. Karen Thurman trailed narrowly in Florida. In Indiana, the Republican candidate led for a Democratic open seat, and the GOP retained an open seat in New Hampshire.\nAt the White House, Bush made a round of congratulatory telephone calls -- including one to his younger brother in Florida. The president campaigned in 23 states over the final five weeks of the campaign, hoping to elect congressional candidates who could advance his legislative agenda over the next two years and for gubernatorial hopefuls who could aid his re-election in 2004.\nHe and the Republicans battled history as well as Democrats in the congressional races.\nThe president's party had lost House seats in every midterm election except three in the past century, an average of 30 seats. The average midterm loss of Senate seats was four.\nBut the GOP had advantages, as well. These included a political landscape transformed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and a president whose approval ratings remained at enviable levels despite a sputtering economy.\nRepublicans also enjoyed financial superiority. A Federal Election Commission analysis said the Republican National Committee and its congressional campaign arms had outraised their Democratic counterparts by $184 million through mid-October.\nIn the last campaign of a free-spending era, all 435 House seats were on the ballot, as well as 34 Senate seats and three dozen statehouse races. Voters filled state legislatures and school boards, decided whether to legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana in Nevada, and settled countless ballot issues elsewhere.\nDemocrats, too, campaigned with one eye on the next election, none more so than Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, the party's House leader and a likely presidential contender in two years.\nEven the top gubernatorial races had presidential overtones. Democrats made defeat of the president's brother in Florida a top priority, seeking a victory in the state that was at the center of the nation's convulsive White House contest in 2000.\nIn all, Republicans defended 23 of the 36 governorships on the ballot, while Democrats were defending 11. Two seats were held by outgoing independents.\nThe GOP was defending 20 Senate seats, to 14 for the Democrats.\nBesides Dole, who succeeds a retiring Sen. Jesse Helms in North Carolina, Republican Lindsey Graham won the South Carolina seat of retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond. Lamar Alexander kept a Tennessee seat in Republican hands.\nSenators winning re-election included Democrats John Kerry in Massachusetts, Richard Durbin in Illinois; Jay Rockefeller in West Virginia, Joseph Biden in Rhode Island, Jack Reed in Rhode Island, Carl Levin in Michigan and Max Baucus in Montana.\nSen. Frank Lautenberg was elected to the Senate from New Jersey, two years after retiring, and less than a month after he replaced Sen. Robert Torricelli on the ballot.\nRepublican winners of new terms included Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, John Warner of Virginia, Pat Roberts of Kansas, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Susan Collins in Maine and Pete Domenici in New Mexico.\nDemocratic Sen. Tim Johnson battled Rep. John Thune in South Dakota, and Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan ran against former Rep. Jim Talent in a bid for the four years remaining on her late husband's term in Missouri. Embattled GOP incumbents included Sen. Tim Hutchinson, up against Mark Pryor in Arkansas; and Wayne Allard, in a Colorado rematch with Tom Strickland.\nIn Minnesota, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale sought a return to the Senate in a race against former St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman. Mondale took his place on the ballot less than a week before the election, following the death of Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone.\nAnd in New Jersey, former Sen. Frank Lautenberg replaced Sen. Bob Torricelli on the ballot in October.\nThe battle for House control came down to roughly 40 competitive districts, races scattered across the country where the parties spent millions in campaign advertising --much of it negative -- in search of an edge.\nSeveral were new seats, the result of redistricting mandated by the Constitution to adjust House districts for population shifts. Others were seats left open by incumbents who retired or sought other office.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
WASHINGTON -- President Bush summoned all nations to wage war on terrorism Thursday night and vowed "justice will be done" against those who killed thousands in last week's attacks. With warplanes and ships on the move, he urged an anxious America to be calm, "even in the face of a continuing threat."\nBush issued a series of demands -- not open to negotiation or discussion -- to Afghanistan's rulers to turn over Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the attacks, and his al-Qaida network.\n"The Taliban must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate," he said.\nBush spoke as American military personnel began moving out from bases around the country, fully aware they could soon be in harm's way. Fighter pilots and jets from Colorado, bombers and crews from Idaho; Marines from North Carolina -- all were called to duty.\nNine days after the suicide attacks that leveled the once-soaring World Trade Center and wounded the mighty Pentagon, Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and a nationwide television audience counted in the millions.\n"Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom," he said "Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution."\nSecurity concerns were high enough to keep Vice President Dick Cheney away from the Capitol. The 35-minute speech won robust bipartisan applause 30 times. And then, in a vivid display of national unity, the president stepped off the rostrum to embraces from the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate.\nA few hours before the commander-in-chief spoke, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani sharply revised the number of missing and presumed dead upward -- to 6,333 -- at the World Trade Center twin towers, destroyed by the impact of hijacked jetliners. An additional 189 are believed dead from a similar attack on the Pentagon, and 44 more perished when a fourth hijacked plane crashed in Pennsylvania.\nCompounding the nation's woes were concerns about the economy, and Bush pledged, without additional explanation, steps to "put our people back to work." Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said "much economic activity ground to a halt" after the attacks, and the country's main stock index suffered its third triple-digit loss of the week, down more than 300 points for the day. The cost of the response to the terrorism could reach $100 billion, possibly returning the nation to deficit spending.\nWith planes flying far below capacity and public confidence shaken, lawmakers and the administration labored through the day on economic relief for the airline industry, coupled with measures to limit their liability from lawsuits. House Speaker Dennis Hastert said he hoped for legislation by Friday, and Bush said he and lawmakers would find a way to stabilize a sudden vulnerable industry.\nThe extraordinary developments unfolded as a delegation of senators traveled by train to New York to view the rubble that once was the World Trade Center. "The magnitude of it, the horror of it," said Senate GOP Leader Trent Lott.\nMore than 200 miles west, Attorney General John Ashcroft visited the Pennsylvania crash site of another hijacked plane. A gash in the ground marked where the plane hit short of its presumed Washington target -- after what Ashcroft said was a heroic struggle waged by passengers against the terrorists on board. The widow of one of those passengers was Bush's guest Thursday night.\nBush's speech marked an occasion unlike any other in recent history. Security, normally high for a presidential address, was tightened considerably, as bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled the Capitol and barricades were erected on the streets outside.\n"Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution," he said. "Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."\nTo other nations around the world, he said, "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded...as a hostile regime."\nBush sought to reassure Americans at the same time he announced measures to improve its defenses against further terrorist attacks. He announced the creation of a Cabinet-level homeland defense office, charged with coordinating efforts to prevent terrorism, and named Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge to run it.\nCongressional Democrats passed up their opportunity to offer a televised response to Bush's speech. Instead, the Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and Lott spoke, one after the other, from the same microphone. "We are resolved to work together, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans," said Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat.\nAnd Army Secretary Thomas E. White, speaking from a Pentagon conference room 50 yards or so away from where terrorists inflicted their damage, said the Army is ready to conduct "sustained land combat operations."\n"I don't know if it will be dangerous, but if it is, that's what I signed on for," said Carl Townley, 38, a Navy reservist in Shreveport, La.\n"We will rally the world to this cause, by our efforts and by our courage," Bush said. "We will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail."\nHe called on Americans to recognize that this would be a war against terrorist extremists, not the Muslim faith.\nBush, who has met with nearly a dozen foreign leaders in the past nine days to build an international coalition, said he was asking for the help of "police forces, intelligence services and banking systems around the world."\nTo government leaders around the world, Bush stated: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."\nThe administration pressed its demand for the extradition of bin Laden throughout the day.\n"We want action, not just statements. He should not be given haven," said Secretary of State Colin Powell after Afghanistan issued a statement politely encouraging the suspected terrorist mastermind to leave the country.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
WASHINGTON -- The administration ordered new security checks for airline workers Monday and granted mortgage relief to thousands of reservists called to active duty as part of the coming war on terrorism. The stock market rallied after last week's plunge. \n"We'll come out of this and we'll come out of it strong," said President George W. Bush, as he sought to coax investors and consumers to open their wallets. Despite the impact of this month's terror attacks on the economy, he said, "The fundamentals for growth are very strong." \nFrom halfway across the globe, Osama bin Laden rallied Pakistani Muslims to "give everything they own" to combat what he called "a Christian-Jewish crusade (against Islam) led by the big crusader Bush under the flag of the cross." \nIdentified repeatedly by administration officials as the lead suspect in the attacks, he said those who died in Pakistan protesting the United States' response were martyrs to Islam's cause. \nBush met privately at the White House with relatives of those who died aboard a hijacked plane that crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside Sept 11. Neither he nor those he met with spoke publicly afterward. \nThe plane hit the ground after what officials have described as a heroic struggle in which passengers prevented the terrorists from flying into a high-profile target in Washington. \nThree other planes were hijacked that day; two were piloted into the World Trade Center twin towers in New York, the other into the Pentagon in Washington. In all, more than 6,000 people died in the worst terrorist attack on American soil in history. \nA CBS-New York Times poll released during the day underscored the extent to which the attacks had galvanized public opinion and also disclosed a broad anxiety about potential terrorist threats. \nBush's handling of the issue drew the support of 90 percent of those surveyed, and 92 percent expressed backing for American military action in response. At the same time, 78 percent said they believed another terrorist attack was likely in the United States. The survey questioned 1,216 individuals between Sept. 20-23 and had an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Gradually, the administration was disclosing details of what Bush has called a "different kind of war," announcing some steps that were offensive in nature, others designed to protect the nation from further terrorist attacks. \nIn a letter sent to Congress under the War Powers Act, Bush said he had ordered the deployment of "various combat-equipped and combat support forces to a number of foreign nations" in the Middle Eastern, Asian and Pacific regions of the world.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
WASHINGTON - Delta Air Lines announced thousands of layoffs Wednesday in a jarring prelude to a new administration bid to restore confidence in air travel following the terrorist attacks. Pakistan reported broad agreement with the U.S. military on a plan to strike Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. \nWith an American armed forces buildup in motion, a crowd of thousands stormed the abandoned U.S. Embassy compound in Afghanistan's capital, burning President Bush in effigy and chanting words of support for bin Laden. \n"I consider bin Laden an evil man," Bush said at the White House, referring to the person the administration has named the leading suspect behind the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. A man "so dominated by evil," he added. \nThe largest investigation in FBI history led to the arrest of nine people in three states Wednesday on charges of fraudulently obtaining licenses to transport hazardous materials. The arrests in Missouri, Michigan and Washington state followed FBI warnings that terrorists may strike next using chemical or biological weapons. \nAlso, a federal magistrate ordered a Virginia man, Mohamed Abdi, held without bail. Prosecutors said Abdi's name and phone number were found in a car registered to one of the 19 suspected hijackers.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
WASHINGTON -- Moving swiftly, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle pledged Thursday to seek passage of sweeping legislation to rewrite campaign spending rules "the minute we receive it" from the House. He said any filibuster was doomed. \n"This is the year we're finally going to pass campaign finance reform," Daschle, D-S.D., said at a combination news conference and celebration arranged by jubilant supporters of the measure less than eight hours after the House approved it. \nWhite House spokesman Ari Fleischer did not respond directly when asked whether President Bush would sign the bill designed to reduce the influence of money in political campaigns.\n"The president will wait to be declarative until he sees what the final bill is," Fleischer said, although supporters and opponents alike have predicted for days that Bush's approval was assured. \nThe developments unfolded as the Senate's principal opponent of the measure, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he wanted to study the House-passed bill before deciding on a strategy. Either way, he seemed resigned to passage, telling reporters he would be the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit to be filed if the bill became law. \nAt one point, Daschle and McConnell participated in a few moments of scripted Senate theater during the day. The majority leaders sought formal permission to begin work on the bill as soon as the papers arrived in the chamber. McConnell, noting the legislation had cleared the House after 2 a.m. Thursday, objected. \nAn earlier version of the campaign finance bill, backed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., passed the Senate last year on a vote of 59-41. One lawmaker who voted in opposition then, Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., issued a statement indicating he would support it when it came to the floor. At the same time, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, disclosed he was withdrawing his support -- meaning it was not clear whether supporters had 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. \n"If I were a Republican up for re-election in the Senate, I'd ask myself, 'Do you want to be part of a continuing filibuster?'" McCain said. \nSupporters say the legislation would help clean up the nation's political campaigns by banning soft money, the unlimited donations that unions, corporations and individuals make to political parties. The bill also would curtail late-campaign "attack ads" that have proliferated in recent years, by prohibiting the use of soft money to pay for them to be broadcast. \nRepublican critics argue the bill is unconstitutional as well as biased in favor of Democrats. \nJohn Feehery, a spokesman for Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said the formal paperwork probably would go out from the House in a few days, probably after the start of a week-long congressional recess beginning Friday. \nUnder the Senate's rules, opponents have at least two opportunities to derail the bill by forcing supporters to come up with 60 votes, and final passage could consume roughly a week. \nDaschle's announcement of his intention to move as quickly as possible came on the heels of a 240-189 vote in the House at 2:30 a.m.. \nThe final roll call came at the end of a 16-hour marathon session in which a bipartisan coalition bent, but never broke, in the face of a series of politically appealing amendments by the GOP leadership. \nThe closest call for the bill's supporters came on a proposal to lift all advertising restrictions on commercials relating to the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Supported by the powerful National Rifle Association, the amendment failed narrowly, 219-209 following aggressive lobbying by House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., as well as Republican supporters of the measure. \nMcCain, too, spent hours on the House side of the Capitol, monitoring developments and talking with Republican lawmakers from an office one floor beneath the House chamber. \nIronically, he worked from a room just across the hall from a leading House opponent of the bill, Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, the GOP whip. \nThe thrust of the legislation is to dramatically reduce the amount of money coursing through political campaigns. \nThe two political parties and their various campaign committees raised more than $500 million combined in soft money in the two years that ended in 2000 and have continued to raise money in large amounts in the months since. \nWhile banning soft money to the national committees, the legislation would permit such donations to state and local parties, so long as the funds were not used in connection with federal campaigns. \nCritics of the bill say that a soft-money ban to the national parties is futile and that outside interests would find another avenue for exerting their influence on campaigns.
(10/23/01 5:34am)
WASHINGTON -- Two postal workers at a site that handles mail for the Capitol died Monday, likely from anthrax, officials said, and two more remained hospitalized with the life-threatening disease as the nation\'s bioterror casualty count mounted. \n"The mail and our employees have become the target of terrorists," said Postmaster General John Potter. \nHealth officials also expressed concern about as many as nine other Washington-area people who have exhibited symptoms consistent with the disease, and issued an urgent appeal for hundreds more postal workers at the facility to undergo testing. \n"Anyone who was working in that back postal area during the last 11 days, you must today immediately come here ... to receive prophylactic medication and to be evaluated," said Dr. Ivan Walks, a city health official. About 2,000 employees work at the Brentwood facility, and many had already submitted to tests or lined up to comply. \nHomeland Security Director Tom Ridge told reporters at the White House the deaths of the two men were "likely due to anthrax." \nThe disclosures came as Congress struggled to return to normal after the discovery of an anthrax-laced letter last week in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. The Capitol itself was reopened after weekend testing, with the House and Senate expecting to meet on Tuesday. \nThe sprawling office buildings on both sides of Capitol Hill remained closed for additional testing, and officials said at least some of those structures would remain shut down until Wednesday at the earliest. Two sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said House leaders were trying to arrange for alternative office space for lawmakers and staff unable return to work. \n"The Capitol of course has been safe and we have ample reason to believe that within the next few days we\'ll be able to open up the other buildings as well," said Daschle, D-S.D. \nNearly six weeks after the terrorist airliner attacks that killed thousands in New York and Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would use money from the federal Superfund program to help decontaminate the American Media Inc. headquarters building in Boca Raton, Fla. One employee of the tabloid publishing firm died of the inhalation form of the disease more than two weeks ago, and a co-worker is hospitalized undergoing treatment. \nIn New Jersey, the FBI sought the source of least three anthrax-tainted letters that went through a mail facility in the Trenton area. The three included the letter delivered to Daschle\'s office, as well one sent to NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw and another one that turned up at The New York Post. \nNearly three weeks into the nation\'s bioterrorism scare, the roster of anthrax victims stood at: \n— One confirmed death of inhalation anthrax, the Florida tabloid employee, and two other fatal cases in which the disease is believed involved. \n— Three other cases of inhalation anthrax, the two postal workers hospitalized in suburban Virginia and a newspaper mailroom employee in Florida; \n— Six confirmed cases of the less dangerous skin form of the disease, including two who worked at the postal facilities in the Trenton, N.J. area. The other victims have connections to the national news media, including NBC, ABC, CBS and the New York Post. \n— Twenty-eight confirmed cases of anthrax exposure in the Capitol complex, following the delivery of the letter to Daschle\'s office. They include two Capitol police officers; two aides to Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and the balance employed by Daschle. \nBeyond that, investigators seemed to be discovering a trail of anthrax spores in Washington, from the city\'s Brentwood mail facility, to a Capitol Hill central mail processing site about a mile from the Capitol, and from there to the House and Senate central mailrooms. \nThere, anthrax has been found on two mail-processing machines, one of them known to have handled the letter that was sent to Daschle. Authorities have not yet announced finding any other tainted letter, meaning they haven\'t yet accounted for the presence of spores in the facility that handles mail for House members. \nNo mail has been delivered to any congressional office since the letter to Daschle was opened a week ago. \nCongressional officials have been far less forthcoming with information than local officials in Washington, where Walks stepped before microphones to announce a dramatic increase in the number of known and suspected cases of inhalation anthrax, a disease last seen in the United States in 1978. \nAuthorities had disclosed over the weekend that Leroy Richmond, a 57-year-old worker at the Brentwood facility, was diagnosed with the inhalation form of anthrax. \nIn addition, Walks said a second Brentwood employee, whose identity he did not disclose, had been diagnosed as suffering from the same illness, and is undergoing treatment at the same hospital in suburban Virginia as Richmond. \nBeyond that, he said, the two other employees from the same facility had died of symptoms that raised suspicions of anthrax. He did not identify them. \nLess than two hours later, Satcher said on CNN, "It does seem highly probable that those two deaths were related to inhalation anthrax." \nInhalation anthrax can look like the flu at first, health officials emphasize, and is curable only if antibiotics are begun early in its course. \nWalks provided no additional information about the details of the other confirmed or suspected cases.
(10/19/01 4:07am)
WASHINGTON -- A CBS employee who opens Dan Rather's mail and a postal worker in New Jersey were added Thursday to the troubling roster of Americans infected with anthrax. As many as three more people reported telltale skin lesions that may signify additional cases. \n"Our labs are working around the clock to try and get clarity," said Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. \nThe disclosures brought the number of confirmed cases of anthrax nationwide to six since Oct. 4 and complicated the Bush administration's effort to reassure an anxious nation it was working aggressively to combat bioterrorism and other threats. \n"Our antennae are up for all conceivable risks," said Tom Ridge, appointed the nation's first director of homeland security in the wake of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed thousands in New York and Washington. \nStanding by Ridge's side at a news conference, Surgeon General David Satcher said stockpiles of antibiotics are sufficient to respond to the anthrax threat, and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced a $1 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the culprits behind a spate of anthrax-tainted mail. \nEven apart from the new cases of anthrax, there was ample evidence of inconvenience, dislocation and perhaps worse as the government struggled against a lethal spore so tiny it is invisible to the human eye. \nCongressional activity was largely shut down, the House officially, the Senate in session but its sprawling complex of three office buildings closed. Officials said they had received laboratory results for hundreds of people, but no additional reports of positive tests for anthrax exposure beyond the 31 disclosed on Wednesday. All were linked to a letter opened earlier in the week in the office of Majority Leader Tom Daschle. \n"At this time, there is no evidence of contamination in the ventilation system" of the building that houses his office, said Daschle, D-S.D. \n"We know we've got a hot zone in the Hart Building, probably in the Dirksen Building," said House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt. "The remaining question is, are there hot zones in other areas of other buildings?"\nIn Vermont, officials recommended a 60-day course of antibiotics for 60 people aboard a Northwest Airlines flight that landed in Burlington on Monday night. Dr. Jan Carney, state health commissioner, said preliminary tests of a powdery substance found on the plane "showed no evidence of spores, but further tests have shown growth of a bacillus or rod-shaped bacteria of the same genus as the bacteria that causes anthrax."
(10/08/01 5:50am)
WASHINGTON -- American and British forces unleashed a punishing air attack Sunday against military targets and Osama bin Laden's training camps inside Afghanistan, striking at terrorists blamed for the attacks that murdered thousands in New York and Washington. \n"We will not waver, we will not tire," said President Bush, speaking from the White House as Tomahawk cruise missiles and bombs found targets halfway around the globe. "We will not falter and we will not fail." \nOfficials said the strikes conducted under a campaign dubbed "Enduring Freedom" would last days or longer. \nBush ordered the strike less than four weeks after terrorists flew two hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center twin towers and a third into the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside after an apparent struggle between passengers and the terrorists. \nBesides the Sept. 11 death toll, estimated at more than 5,000, the attacks dealt a shuddering blow to Americans' feeling of security. \n"I know many Americans feel fear today," Bush said in his nationally televised announcement from the White House Treaty Room. In a fresh reminder of the potential for renewed terrorist attacks, officials took Vice President Dick Cheney from his residence to an undisclosed secure location, stepped up security around the Capitol and placed government nuclear weapons labs on higher alert. \nThe initial strike involved 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles, launched from American and British ships. Gen. Richard Myers said 15 bombers and 25 strike aircraft, both sea and land-based, also were involved. The strike came at 12:30 p.m. EDT — nighttime in Afghanistan. \nMyers, sworn into office as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff less than a week ago, said the attacks included B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers as well as ships and submarines that have been deployed in the region in the days since Sept. 11. \nThe B-52s dropped dozens of 500-pound gravity bombs on al-Qaida terrorist training camps in eastern Afghanistan, one official said. \nDefense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the strikes were designed to eliminate the Taliban's air defenses and destroy their military aircraft. \nAfghan sources in Pakistan said the attack had damaged the Taliban military headquarters and destroyed a radar installation and control tower at the airport in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. \nBush said the military strike would be accompanied by the delivery of food, medicine and other supplies needed to sustain the people of Afghanistan. \n"We did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it," he said. \nBush said Canada, Australia, Germany and France have "pledged forces as the operation unfolds," and numerous other countries have granted air transit or landing rights.\n"We are supported by the collective will of the world." \nTo help sustain the coalition, officials said Bush was sending Secretary of State Colin Powell to Pakistan and India in the next few days. \nBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair offered strong support in a speech to his own nation. "They were given the choice of siding with justice or siding with terror. They chose to side with terror," he said of the Taliban.