New Hampshire Health News Digest

News In this cat-and-mouse war, the sniper is king By Gethin Chamberlain, with the Black Watch, near Basra 31 March 2003 It was the tank crew who spotted them first, four men in civilian clothing jumping out of the back of a pick-up truck carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in the heart of Zubayr. Corporal Mark Harvey was the first of the snipers to react, dropping to his knee and fixing the man carrying the RPG in his sights, one shot, a moving target, the militia man dropping like a stone, dead before he hit the ground. A clean shot to the head. >> For the snipers, it was a rare moment of hand-to-hand fighting, the closest they had been to an enemy they normally only saw through the telescopic sights bound in dusty rags fixed atop their rifles, the long muzzles masked by more scraps of cloth, the better to prevent the glint of metal which would give their position away. Eight days of lying in the dirt, crouched on rooftops, waiting to pick off the mil...

Wow! I found this surprising. Guess they do have their uses afterall! The Command Post - A Warblog Collective Bob Arnot from MSNBC, embedded with I MEF, reports that the Marines are encountering success using their light armored vehicles (LAVs), of which, he says, the Fedayeen are terrified, referring to them as "the destroyers".

Posted on Mon, Mar. 31, 2003 U.S. Troops Risk Lives to Save Woman CHRIS TOMLINSON Associated Press By the end of this day, the Army would fight street to street, capture and kill scores of Saddam Hussein's troops, blow up a ruling party headquarters and destroy heaps of ammunition and mortars - and rescue one elderly woman from a firefight. It was a brief incursion, one of many probing attacks into territory controlled by the Republican Guard - deft strikes, seeking to determine the strength and positioning of opposing forces, while doling out punishment. They lost no men, but it wasn't easy. From the very beginning officers in the 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment described the mission as "hairy." One town, one battalion. "Yeah, hold a strategic bridge with one infantry company that has only two platoons, a hell of a mission," Lt. Col. Philip DeCamp, the battalion commander, said with a wry smile. He assigned a tank platoon to help th...

Marines Resume Their Northward Push Toward Baghdad Marines Resume Their Northward Push Toward Baghdad By DEXTER FILKINS ILLA, Iraq, March 31 � The main column of American marines set to attack Iraq's capital raced northward today, rolling on the country's main highway to within 70 miles of Baghdad and drawing only minimal resistance. The convoy, including dozens of tanks and some 14,000 combat troops, began its journey in the Iraqi desert and ended 40 miles away, along the newly formed front lines that Iraqi soldiers had retreated from just hours before. Advertisement Night fell here to sounds of American artillery bombarding the remnants of an Iraqi force that soldiers said had been decimated by an American advance team early today. Two Iraqi missiles streaked across the afternoon sky, fired from a few miles up the road. Otherwise, the Iraqi guns were silent. >> We're in bad-guy country," Col. John Pomfret said, surveying this newly captured ...

TCS: Defense - To Stop a Bullet Today, U.S. infantrymen and Marines are wearing the first truly bulletproof body armor, the so-called Interceptor system. It is also, at 16.5 pounds, the lightest weight system ever used. The Kevlar vest has detachable groin and neck guards and exceptional protection at the armpits - a frequent point of vulnerability in earlier armor vests. For increased combat protection, the vest has pockets front and rear in which the soldier can insert ceramic armor plates. These plates, much lighter than steel, also offer better protection. They can withstand a modern 7.62 mm. rifle round. In the hellish atmosphere of an infantry firefight, safety is a highly relative thing. And although the precarious game of gaining an edge in either offense or defense will continue as long as there is warfare, today's body armor gives soldiers an extra measure of confidence and protection with minimal impairment of their mobility on the battlefield.

TCS: Defense - The Mighty RPG The Mighty RPG By Ralph Kinney Bennett03/31/2003 TCS You're going to be hearing a lot about RPGs - rocket propelled grenades - in coming days. They are the weapons of choice for small Iraqi units that are resorting to creative guerrilla tactics because employing company size or larger units in open combat with coalition forces would be foolhardy and fatal. Just over a week ago, Iraqi troops from the Republican Guard's Medina division gave a little clinic in helicopter ambush, meeting a line of Apache Longbow copters with a well planned and executed wall of fire from machine guns, antiaircraft guns and RPGs. The Iraqis were dispersed along both sides of a street in a residential area near Baghdad, some firing from the rooftops of houses. The Iraqis badly damaged 30 of the Apache helicopters, foiled their attack on Republican Guard armor and sent them limping back home. They also disabled two Abrams main battle tanks - an unsettling ...

An Interesting Turn of Phrase Did Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations let something slip about Saddam's condition on "Meet the Press" yesterday? by Jonathan V. Last 03/31/2003 2:10:00 PM LOST IN THE CRIES of "Vietnam" and "quagmire" yesterday was this short but very interesting exchange between Tim Russert and Mohammed Al-Douri, the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations, on "Meet the Press": RUSSERT: Mr. Ambassador, is Saddam Hussein dead or alive? AL-DOURI: We start with that. I am here. I am in New York. I think that he is alive, of course, because we saw him several times on the TV. RUSSERT: But on the TV, it could be edited or outdated footage. Why doesn't he appear holding a daily newspaper so people know for certain he is alive? AL-DOURI: You know, anyway I think he is alive, but the question is not there because Iraq is Iraq and Saddam Hussein is the president of Iraq. Now we have to talk about ...

Agonist/Annex: Sit Map Here is the BEST map I have seen of the war in Iraq. I suggest saving it, then viewing it from "my documents", because then you can zoom in and see the details better.

Raid Finds Al-Qaida Tie to Militants (washingtonpost.com)By DAFNA LINZER and BORZOU DARAGAHI The Associated Press Monday, March 31, 2003; 6:16 PM A U.S.-led assault on a compound controlled by an Iraqi-based extremist Islamic group has turned up a list of names of suspected militants living in the United States and what may be the strongest evidence yet linking Ansar al-Islam to al-Qaida, coalition commanders said Monday. The cache of documents, including computer discs and foreign passports belonging to Arab fighters from around the Middle East, could bolster the Bush administration's claims that the two groups are connected, although there was no indication any of the evidence tied Ansar to Saddam Hussein as Washington has maintained. There were indications, however, that the group has been getting help from inside neighboring Iran.... Among a trove of evidence found inside Ansar compounds were passports and identity papers of Ansar activists indicating that up to 150 ...

Iraqis Welcome U.S. Marines in Shatra By Sean Maguire SHATRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Hundreds of Iraqis shouting "Welcome to Iraq" greeted Marines who entered the town of Shatra Monday after storming it with planes, tanks and helicopter gunships. A foot patrol picked its way through the small southern town, 20 miles north of the city of Nassiriya, after being beckoned in by a crowd of people. "There's no problem here. We are happy to see Americans," one young man shouted. The welcome was a tonic for soldiers who have not always received the warm reception they expected after U.S. and British leaders told them the Iraqi people were waiting to be freed from repression under President Saddam Hussein . "It's not every day you get to liberate people," said one delighted Marine...The ambushes have slowed the advance on Baghdad. This Marine unit retraced its steps back south down Highway 7 to Shatra after bypassing the Iraqi forces there in the...

Marines Build Ties With Iraqi locals in South NORTH OF NASIRIYAH, Iraq -- On Saturday, the Marines found a cache of weapons in a tiny village along the road to Baghdad. This morning they returned for lunch with the locals. In a model of how the Marines say they hope their relationship with the Iraqi people can evolve, the two sides struck a deal: the Marines agreed to escort some villagers to a nearby well to get clean water and help repair damage caused by the fleeing Iraqi army. The village leaders agreed to go house to house, rounding up rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons that could be used against U.S. forces. The bargain was sealed with a feast cooked up by the townspeople, featuring rice, bread and goat cooked over an open fire. Yummy! These are just the deals we need to make with every Iraqi village. Once the locals see that we're serious about protecting them from the Fedayeen, they'll help just like this. "I was concerned because of what we found...

toledoblade.com War on terrorism | Article published Sunday, March 30, 2003 Legendary U.S. units battle in Iraq (THE BLADE/JEREMY WADSWORTH) Army Maj. Robert Schaeffer is a former member of the 3rd Infantry Division. ZOOM 1 | ZOOM 2 View pictures of the day By GEORGE J. TANBER BLADE STAFF WRITER When the U.S. Army�s 7th Cavalry - the unit once led by George Armstrong Custer - goes marching into Baghdad, it won�t be on horseback. Rather, Abrams Battle Tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles will be the soldiers� travel mode. Members of the Army�s 101st Airborne Division won�t be parachuting into the Iraqi capital, as the division did in Normandy on D-Day. Rather, they will arrive by Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters. Sixty-one years after they fought at Guadalcanal in the South Pacific, Marines with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force are carrying the Stars and Stripes in a different battle, a new kind of war. Many of the divisions, brigades, battali...

fresnobee.com | Local News The 3rd Infantry and the 60,000-man 1st Marine Expeditionary Force are poised to attack two and perhaps more Iraqi Republican Guard divisions in the next few days, after Air Force planes and Army helicopter gunships have pounded the Iraqis' positions a bit more, according to senior U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. At the same time, the officials said, the 101st Airborne Division will move to block other Republican Guard divisions north of Baghdad from reinforcing the two divisions that are blocking the American advance from the south. Cargo 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.

After fits and starts, real war begins Conflict in Iraq becomes a more traditional battle than expected Sunday, March 30, 2003 BY JOHN HASSELL Star-Ledger Staff So far, the effects have not been debilitating. The Marines' 1st Expeditionary Force has been pressed into guerrilla-hunting missions that have prevented it from moving as quickly as planned against Saddam's eastern flank, and some advance troops have been forced to subsist on reduced rations. But military analysts say the shortages and stop-and-go movements have not altered the fact that coalition troops continue to move on Baghdad. "It's inevitable that supply lines will be hit," said Patrick Garrett, a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, a defense policy think tank in Alexandria, Va. "They are soft targets and a natural mark for guerrillas." But, he added, "supply routes are redundant systems, and there are multiple ways to get things to the front." Coalition fo...

More Iraqi fighters surrendering to U.S. troops By Meg Laughlin, Knight Ridder European edition, Monday, March 31, 2003 NEAR AN NAJAF, Iraq � As a U.S. Army Humvee made its way down a sandy route several miles south of here Sunday morning, seven Iraqis in dusty robes, trousers and sandals appeared on the side of the road. Army Command Sergeant Major D. Woods jumped out of the vehicle, pointed his M9 pistol at the seven men and motioned them to get down. Prone with their hands locked behind their heads, the men allowed Woods to search them. They had no weapons but carried military papers. Woods radioed the 101st Airborne to take them to a nearby POW holding camp. Throughout the day, the same story repeated itself time and again. Over the weekend, the number of POWs at the camp increased from 100 to about 1,000 as desertions by scared and hungry Iraqis contributed to the attrition of Saddam Hussein's forces. But the increased number of desertions also has made soldie...

Yahoo! News - Myers: U.S. Controls Terror Camp in Iraq U.S. and British forces now control the compound, which belongs to the group Ansar al-Islam, said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, describing it as a site "where Ansar al-Islam and al-Qaida had been working on poisons." "We think that's probably (from) where the ricin that was found in London came," he told CNN's "Late Edition." "At least the operatives and maybe some of the formulas came from this site." British police raided a London apartment in January and found traces of ricin, a powerful poison made from the beans of the castor plant. U.S. officials have said since shortly after that raid that they believed the poison and those arrested were linked to Ansar, which operated in a small enclave inside territory controlled by autonomous Kurdish factions in northern Iraq. U.S. officials said before the war that they had evidence that A...

NYPOST.COM Post Opinion: Oped Columnists: TRAGEDY OF THE ARABS By RALPH PETERS The most important thing for Americans to grasp about the impotent fury of the Arab world is that it isn't really about us. It's about their own internal demons. The absurdities broadcast and printed throughout the Arab world are symptoms of a once-great culture's moral desolation, of the comprehensiveness of Arab failure. The Arabian Nights have long since turned into the Arabian nightmare. The inability of the Arab world to compete with the West in any field of endeavor (even their efforts at terrorism ultimately fail) has been so devastating to the Arab psychology that they are desperate for someone to blame for what they and their grotesque leaders have done to their own culture. Without the United States - and, of course, Israel - as excuses for Arab political squalor, Arabs might have to engage in self-examination, to ask themselves, "How have we failed so badly?" ...

Marines make short work of Iraqi regulars Soldiers feel lucky they've not encountered more competent attackers By Matthew Fisher National Post Bravo Company was out playing possum Sunday morning, checking one of the many roads to Baghdad, when they were jumped by Iraqi forces holed up in mud-brick houses. As dogs slumbered and hens and chickens scurried about, the Marines got off the first shot after being surveyed by two truckloads of men in civilian garb who suddenly ducked into a building and began preparing their weapons to fight. The Iraqis responded to the Marines' fire with light and heavy machine guns and 120mm mortars. Though pummelled by the Marines' artillery, the Iraqis kept coming back for more. "They were just driving up to the fight in buses and taxis and jumping out," said Lieutenant John Voorhees. " One of those buses is now a terrain feature, because I promise you it is never going anywhere again." Several of t...

Yahoo! News - Troops Prepare for Possible Urban Warfare Marines Press 'Seek and Destroy' Missions: SOUTH-CENTRAL IRAQ - Thousands of U.S. Marines pushed north toward Baghdad in "seek and destroy" missions Sunday, trying to open the route to the Iraqi capital and stop days of attacks along a stretch that has become known as "Ambush Alley." Charging into previously unsecured areas, the Marines tried to provoke attacks in order to find Iraqi fighters and defeat them. A chaplain traveling with them handed out humanitarian packages to distrustful Iraqi civilians encountered along the way. In Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, the 101st Airborne division encircled the city Sunday, severing inroads and preparing to go door to door to root out paramilitary supporters who have waged stiff resistance for days. "This is our type of fight," said Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill. "This is probably the most dangerous part of combat, and that'...

story from rantburg, along with interesting comment from a reader 120,000 more US troops receive orders for Iraq war front 120,000 more US troops receive orders for Iraq war front US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the deployment of 120,000 more troops to the Iraq war battlefront, the European edition of the American military daily Stars and Stripes reported Friday. Once the soldiers arrive, more than half of the US army and Marine Corps will be stationed in Iraq. The reinforcements will not be ready for combat for at least three weeks. The new troop contingent include the first soldiers from the heavily armored Army 4th Infantry Division, parts of the 1st Armored Division and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment . US military leaders had to adjust their war strategy following the fierce resistance of Iraqi military forces. Posted by Fred Pruitt 3/29/2003 16:00|| E-Mail|| Comment|| Link|| Top|| 2ACR is an interesting unit. They have been built for the purpose of fighti...

NY Daily News - World and National Report - Iraqis targeted W ranch Iraqis targeted W ranch Terror team tried to sneak into Texas through Mexico By JAMES GORDON MEEK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON - An Iraqi terror team armed with millions of dollars tried to get smuggled into the U.S. through Mexico to Crawford, Tex. - the site of President Bush's ranch, a law enforcement source said yesterday. The alarming attempt to infiltrate the country occurred this month, the source said. It is not known what the Iraqis planned to do in Crawford, but Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein tried to assassinate Bush's father, the former President George Bush, in 1993. The unidentified Iraqis wanted to hire smugglers to sneak them into the U.S. because they "wanted to get to the Crawford ranch," according to the well-placed law enforcement source. They also asked a Mexican doctor and a lawyer named Claudio to change about $100 million in Iraqi dinars into U.S. currency -...

nationalreview MAR. 29, 2003: BAD KARMA There is more, much more, than is being reported about the suicide bombing that killed four Americans earlier today. And from a very credible source, I have heard enough to convince me I had to correct something I wrote this morning. This suicide attack does represent an evolution of this war to something far uglier than we may be prepared to deal with. The suicider was not, as the Iraqi vice president announced, an Iraqi army officer. He was a member of Hamas--or possibly a Saudi--and one of many terrorists that are embedded throughout Iraq. This is no longer a war to remove the threat of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and liberate Iraq. Yes, those still are part of our objectives. But it is--much more--a war between our conventional forces and most of the terrorist world. For many years, Saddam paid a bounty to Palestinian terrorists or, rather, to their survivors. The going rate now is about $25,000 per bomber with bonus money f...

The Command Post - A Warblog Collective 10:18 PM EST | 6:18 AM Iraq | Saddam's Bodyguard Seen - Where's Saddam? Fox has shown recent Iraqi video showing Saddam's familiar bodyguard (normally seen standing behind him). However, the bodyguard is standing behind a different Iraqi official, and Saddam is nowhere to be seen. Intelligence sources were "stunned" to see this - they have never seen the bodyguard except in Saddam's presence. The mystery of Saddam's fate deepens.

USATODAY.com - Baghdad bombings continue as allied forces face 'dirty' tactics One overriding impression left on U.S. troops by the first week's combat is that the Iraqis have developed an elaborate set of "dirty" tactics to capitalize on Americans' reluctance to endanger civilian lives. According to troops here, Iraqi forces have: Forced women and children to act as human shields in buildings occupied by Iraqi troops. Located headquarters in schools, day care facilities and, in one case in Nasiriyah, a children's hospital. More than one Iraqi prisoner of war has told American troops they do not need to worry about bombing schools because the schools have all been turned over to Iraqi militia forces. Lured U.S. forces into an ambush by pretending to surrender. Positioned artillery in residential areas so that even when radar systems locate it, U.S. commanders won't pummel it. Used ambulances with the Red Crescent symbol � the equivalent of t...

Sunday Herald The Western press is currently fixated on the Fedayeen, and little wonder. Not only are its suicide squads, which are now claiming allied lives, the main tactic of Iraqi resistance, but this cadre of men -- who sometimes wear white jumpsuits and balaclavas, symbolising the death shroud they will wear when they martyr themselves for Saddam -- has carried out appalling atrocities against its own people. But the Fedayeen, despite the suicide squads it has now dispatched into southern Iraq, is just one of a series of Iraqi special forces, elite units and paramilitary irregulars who hold sway in Saddam's regime and are now forcing the coalition forces to redefine their combat strategy in the deserts and cities of Iraq. Jeremy Binnie, the Middle East editor of Jane's Sentinel Security Assessments, says: 'The Iraqi regime has surrounded itself with concentric circles of military, security and paramilitary units. Each one offsets the power of the other.

Yahoo! News - Iraqi civilians feed hungry US marines CENTRAL IRAQ (AFP) - Iraqi civilians fleeing heavy fighting have stunned and delighted hungry US marines in central Iraq (news - web sites) by giving them food, as guerrilla attacks continue to disrupt coalition supply lines to the rear. Sergeant Kenneth Wilson said Arabic-speaking US troops made contact with two busloads of Iraqis fleeing south along Route Seven towards Rafit, one of the first friendly meetings with local people for the marines around here. "They had slaughtered lambs and chickens and boiled eggs and potatoes for their journey out of the frontlines," Wilson said. At one camp, the buses stopped and women passed out food to the troops, who have had to ration their army-issue packets of ready-to-eat meals due to disruptions to supply lines by fierce fighting further south.

Buffalo News - U.S. covert teams at work Lethal agents hunting Saddam loyalists By DANA PRIEST Washington Post 3/29/2003 Associated Press Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said it is "certainly within the president's power" to order assassinations. WASHINGTON - U.S. covert teams have been operating in urban areas in Iraq trying to kill members of President Saddam Hussein's inner circle, including Baath Party officials and Special Republican Guard commanders, according to U.S. and other knowledgeable officials. The covert teams, from the CIA's paramilitary division and the military's special operations group, include snipers and demolition experts schooled in setting house and car bombs. They reportedly have killed more than a handful of individuals, according to one knowledgeable source. They have been in operation for at least a week. The previously undisclosed operation suggests U.S. government efforts to destroy the government leadersh...

Yahoo! News - U.S. Orders 4-6 Day Pause in Iraq Advance-Officers U.S. Orders 4-6 Day Pause in Iraq Advance-Officers 1 hour, 58 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo! CENTRAL IRAQ (Reuters) - U.S. commanders have ordered a pause of four to six days in a northward push toward Baghdad because of supply shortages and stiff Iraqi resistance, U.S. military officers said on Saturday. They said the "operational pause," ordered on Friday, meant that advances would be put on hold while the military tried to sort out logistics problems caused by long supply lines from neighboring Kuwait. Food rations have been cut for at least one frontline U.S. unit and fuel use has been limited. The U.S.-led invasion force would continue to attack Iraqi forces to the north with heavy air strikes during the pause, battering them before any attack on Baghdad, they said. The officers declined to be named. "We have almost out-run our logistics lines,"

Historic change seems to be at hand in Iraq, where "the Shiites are going to have more power than at any time in the history of the nation," the Bush aide said. . The postwar upheaval, according to Gerecht, will enable the Shiites to gain "a political and military role that their numbers and social, cultural and commercial prominence have long warranted." . According to CIA statistics, Shiites account for at least 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, but Sunnis, comprising less than one-third of the population, have commandeered most of the controlling positions in the ruling Ba'ath party, armed forces, industry and media. . The prospect of seeing the Iraqi Shiites breaking the mold "makes a lot of people nervous in status quo nations in the Gulf," according to an Arab ambassador in Paris. . Among the world's 800 million Muslims, Sunnis outnumber Shiites by 10 to 1 - and they dominate every Arab country ranging from Morocco to Egypt...

Washington Post: One day the Marines found Iraqi paramilitary forces using a hospital in Nasiriyah as a base to stage their hit-and-run missions . "We went to a hospital and a doctor started to shoot at us," said Khalid Al Anzi, 34, a Kuwaiti working as an interpreter for the Marines. "The Marines don't shoot back, they talk and they call the other people to come out." In the end, after hours of patience surrounding the building, Marines took 170 Iraqis captive and found 200 weapons, loads of ammunition, 3,000 chemical protection suits and even a tank in the hospital compound, officers have said. The situation left Al Anzi fighting off tears as he sat in a recovery tent today with his friend and fellow translator, Duaij Mohammed, 32, who was sliced by shrapnel. "Bad, bad, bad situation there," Al Anzi said softly. "Believe me, if you see with your own eyes, you would cry." Woolhether saw it with his own eyes and could not believe ...

FOXNews.comProtesters Throw Stones at National Guardsman Thursday, March 27, 2003 MONTPELIER, Vt. � A group of Vermont teen-agers threw rocks at a uniformed female Vermont National Guard sergeant last week, in the latest example of a service member facing hostility in the United States. National Guard spokesman Capt. Jeff Roosevelt said the woman was not injured in Friday's incident, which took place in Plainfield, but said the woman had decided she would no longer wear her uniform outside of work.

Al-Qaeda fighting with Iraqis, British claim - War on Iraq - smh.com.au Al-Qaeda fighting with Iraqis, British claim March 28 2003, 9:41 AM Near Basra, Iraq: British military interrogators claim captured Iraqi soldiers have told them that al-Qaeda terrorists are fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein's forces against allied troops near Basra. At least a dozen members of Osama bin Laden's network are in the town of Az Zubayr where they are coordinating grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions, according to the Iraqi prisoners of war. It was believed that last night (Thursday) British forces were preparing a military strike on the base where the al-Qaeda unit was understood to be holed up.

NYPOST.COM Post Opinion: Oped Columnists: TRAPPED! By RALPH PETERS March 26, 2003 -- PERHAPS the craziest notion bouncing around the media is that Saddam Hussein is a brilliant military strategist. He may be a champion dictator, good at slaughtering, torturing, raping and starving his own people. But his military schemes are masterpieces of incompetence. Right now, the hand-wringers are warning that Saddam, in a stroke of genius, has deployed his Republican Guards in towns and villages, threatening us with deadly urban combat and inevitable destruction. What Saddam actually has done is to break his last, best armored divisions into little pieces. He'll never be able to put them back together. And we'll destroy them, piece by piece.

Rantburg: Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Blogs of War FOLLOWUP: from Washington Post... A thousand paratroopers from the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade jumped into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq today at a strategic airfield to open a northern front for U.S. forces. The operation is also aimed at discouraging Turkish troops on the border from crossing into Iraq in large numbers, a move that could precipitate fighting with Kurdish forces. "Americans are asking you to make the world a better place by jumping into the unknown for the benefit of others," Col. William Mayville, the brigade commander, told the paratroops before they boarded Air Force C-17 jets. "Paratroopers, our cause is just and victory is certain," Mayville added. "I want you to join me tonight on an airborne assault."

Telegraph | News | Fatal flaws in Saddam's gamble Fatal flaws in Saddam's gamble By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent (Filed: 27/03/2003) Saddam Hussein's decision to send out armoured columns of the Republican Guard is an extremely high-risk strategy. He is relying heavily on the cover provided by the sandstorms to ensure that Apache attack helicopters and the 101st Airborne Division cannot join the fight. But they should be the least of his problems. The conventional wisdom was that the Republican Guard had no choice but to remain dug in around Baghdad. If it broke out, it would be cut to pieces by the sheer weight of allied airpower.

ABCNEWS.com : Elite Iraqi Troops Likely to Take Advantage of Vicious Sandstorms and Reposition Their Tanks The Associated Press CENTRAL IRAQ March 26 � U.S. Marines heading north toward Baghdad were warned Wednesday about a huge Iraqi convoy moving south, putting allied forces on a collision course with Saddam Hussein's best-trained, best-equipped and most tenacious fighters: the Republican Guard. A military intelligence officer with the 1st Marine Expeditionary force ran from helicopter to helicopter, warning pilots that Republican Guard units in a 1,000-vehicle convoy were headed south on Highway 7, which runs southeast of Baghdad, toward the city of al-Kut. The Iraqi troops were likely taking advantage of the vicious sandstorms that have blunted U.S. air power for several days to reposition their tanks in response to U.S. forces approaching the outskirts of the capital.

US puts tactics before tanks with a fraction of Schwarzkopf's force By Ben Rooney, Defence Staff (Filed: 26/03/2003) When American ground troops take on the "might" of the Iraqi army, the attacking force may be less than one fifth the size of the forces that General Norman Schwarzkopf used to rout the Republican Guard in 1991. But, say Pentagon planners, it will still defeat them. General Tommy Franks, the allied commander, is planning to deploy his small force in a revolutionary new way, which, if successful, will transform the conduct of future battles. Nevertheless, should things not go to plan, and resistance from the Republican Guard prove more tenacious than expected, the Pentagon is also ready to fight a more traditional war. Concerns have been raised about the size of Franks's force, pointing to the fact that the 1991 liberation of Kuwait against only a part of Saddam's army took a force of more than 11 divisions, with some 2,000 tanks and around...

American planners have no intention, desire or any real capability to besiege an ancient Arab city of 5 million people, and no interest whatsoever in fighting for Baghdad block-by-block, house-by-house, as they think Saddam Hussein would prefer. Instead, American war planners foresee a swift, violent ground attack that will rely on accurate, up-to-the-minute intelligence from the very heart of the Iraqi regime. Relying on spies, electronic sensors and other intelligence to pinpoint Saddam and other top leaders, coalition special operations forces could infiltrate the Iraqi capital from all directions. Armor-tipped infantry columns would blast into the heart of Baghdad along several corridors and swiftly isolate key areas from the rest of the sprawling city. Company-size infantry units - Marines and light infantry from the Army's 101st and 82nd airborne divisions, supported by tanks - then would attack the areas where Saddam and others were hiding. One expert familiar with plann...

Ha'aretz - Article There has never been a war with such a high level of disinformation about what exactly is happening on the battlefield as the present conflict in Iraq, according to Israeli researchers and senior military officers. Most of those interviewed agree that, paradoxically, despite the unprecedented media coverage of the war, including the many correspondents who are embedded in fighting units, nobody knows what is really happening in Iraq. Yossi Peled, former GOC Northern Command, thinks the U.S. has shown great skill in its control of the media. "You have lots of television crews in the field, yet as someone watching TV you have no overall picture." Military historian Prof. Martin van Creveld goes further: "Everyone is lying about everything all the time, and it is difficult to say what is happening. I've stopped listening. All the pictures shown on TV are color pieces which have no significance." "There is a lot of disinfor...

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage Could U.S. Drive to Baghdad Mask Surprise Attack? Wed March 26, 2003 05:24 AM ET By Douglas Hamilton DOHA (Reuters) - In the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. commander General Norman Schwarzkopf presented a plan of attack so obvious that it was laughed out of the Pentagon as "Hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle." But on the night, he had the last laugh. Having fooled the Iraqis occupying Kuwait into believing that his main force would attack their main force head on, he surreptitiously moved an army 120 miles to the northwest at night to set up a famous "left hook" surprise. Could the United States and Britain now be telegraphing their intentions to conceal another shock for the Iraqis?... Tony Blair spoke this week of a "critical moment" to come when the U.S. 5th Corps meets the Republican Guard Medina Division on the approaches to Baghdad. By Wednesday morning, every U.S. television news anchor w...

The Scotsman - Top Stories - Missiles find in chemical plant Missiles find in chemical plant GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN AND PAUL GALLAGHER EXPERTS are examining suspected Scud missiles discovered by British soldiers searching a chemical plant outside Basra. A number of the grey-painted rockets, about 23ft long, were found in the Dirhamiyah petro-chemical plant close to Iraq�s second city. The discovery has raised suspicions that Saddam Hussein was planning to arm the missiles with chemical warheads. British officers say it is difficult to find an innocent explanation for storing missiles in a chemical plant. The find comes a day after soldiers with the Black Watch discovered a cache of weapons, including two Russian al-Harith anti-ship cruise missiles, at the Az Zubayr civilian heliport south of Basra.

NYPOST.COM Post Opinion: Oped Columnists: WINNING BIG By RALPH PETERS WINNING BIG By RALPH PETERS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 24, 2003 -- IN combat, the ideal leader is the man who remains calm and methodical under fire. Today's 24/7 broadcast news demands just the opposite: raised voices, an atmosphere of crisis and a rush to judgment. After declaring victory on Friday and Saturday, a number of media outlets all but announced our defeat yesterday, treating the routine events of warfare as if they were disasters. Nonsense. We're winning, the Iraqis are losing, and the American people have executive seats for what may prove to be the most successful military campaign in history.

CBS News | Saddam's Secret Weapon? | March 24, 2003�17:09:10 March 24, 2003 (AP / CBS) The Fedayeen report directly to Saddam's eldest son, Odai, a powerful figure in Iraq with a reputation for extravagance and violence. (CBS) Saddam Hussein's most trusted paramilitary militia, Saddam's Fedayeen, has assassinated the Iraqi leader's enemies, put down protests and ruthlessly cracked down on dissidents since its founding in 1995. Now, with U.S.-led coalition troops advancing toward Baghdad, the Fedayeen - whose name means "those ready to sacrifice themselves for Saddam" - are showing putting up stiff resistance and trying to prevent regular army soldiers from surrendering.

The Command Post - A Warblog Collective 08:56 PM | Lots of fighting around Basra Strangely enough, some of it is Iraqi against Iraqi. This Telegraph piece has lots of interesting information about fighting near Basra. The one element that was new to me was this. But the fighting in southern Iraq has not been restricted to British and Iraqi forces. Militia groups have been out to settle old scores after equipping themselves from raiding Iraqi arms dumps. Near the town of Mushrif, a squadron of the Queens Dragoon Guards intervened to stop a firefight between two groups, one of which appeared to be local Ba'ath Party members. The fighting had left one man with a gunshot injury to his head lying in a pool of blood, and another with a bullet wound in his leg, beside him an AK-47 rifle. "We are here to protect the oil refinery," the injured man said, although his van, loaded up with canisters seemed to suggest otherwise.

Secret weapon in US war against Iraq: the CIA | csmonitor.com Secret weapon in US war against Iraq: the CIA Intelligence works in unprecedented concert with Pentagon in both Iraq and Afghanistan. By Faye Bowers | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON � Less than one week into the US-led war in Iraq, it is already clear that the campaign involves an unprecedented level of involvement by the CIA. The shift was clear from the get-go.

Al Qaeda Near Biological, Chemical Arms Production (washingtonpost.com) By Barton Gellman Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 23, 2003; Page A01 Al Qaeda leaders, long known to covet biological and chemical weapons, have reached at least the threshold of production and may already have manufactured some of them, according to a newly obtained cache of documentary evidence and interrogations recently conducted by the U.S. government.

lgf: skiing through the revolving door of life UPDATE: LGF reader Michael points out that the UN �inspectors� have already visited An Najah in January(where US troops found a chemical factory hidden in desert)�and drove right past the hundred-acre, camouflaged chemical weapons plant surrounded by an electrified fence. Instead they visited a cement plant in An Najah to count their mining explosives!

FOXNews.com But at An Nasiriyah -- on the Euphrates River 233 miles southeast of Baghdad, near the ancient town of Ur, birthplace of the patriarch Abraham -- the allied juggernaut sustained its worst casualties so far. And in the face of that resistance, Marines officials said they expected to sidestep An Nasiriyah rather than fight to capture it -- the same strategy they employed in Basra. American authorities detailed two bloody battles: -- Marines encountered Iraqi troops who appeared to be surrendering. Instead, they attacked -- the start of a "very sharp engagement," said Lt. Col. John Abizaid, deputy commander of the Central Command. These were, Abizaid said, a combination of regular and irregular forces -- in fact, he said, it was one of the few times regular Iraqi soldiers have fought, instead of surrendering or deserting. In the end, the Americans triumphed, knocking out eight tanks, some anti-aircraft batteries, some artillery and infantry, Abizai...

The Sun Newspaper Online - UK's biggest selling newspaper Injured ... Saddam Hussein EXCLUSIVE SOS for Saddam surgeon By DAVID WOODING Whitehall Editor SADDAM Hussein�s henchmen last night pleaded with Russia to find them a top surgeon to save the tyrant�s life. They sent an SOS to Moscow as their leader lay badly wounded at a secret hideaway in Baghdad

Special Forces Arrive in Northern Iraq (washingtonpost.com) Later today, journalists watched as a convoy of three buses and three trucks carried about 100 U.S. troops into the Halabja Valley near the Iranian border, where two nights of airstrikes have targeted an Islamic extremist group associated with al Qaeda. The airstrikes, which a Kurdish official said may have killed more than 100 of Ansar al-Islam's 700 to 900 fighters, were scheduled to continue for at least one more night before ground forces move forward, officials said. U.S. troops will take part in the ground offensive, the Kurdish official said, but declined to say in what numbers. Before today, estimates of U.S. troops in the north ranged from 60 to 130. Most of the arriving U.S. forces are expected to steer toward the larger war against the government of Saddam Hussein, with Special Forces troops preparing the way for an airborne assault aimed at taking the strategic oil cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. This morning an...

U.S. Makes Some Gains, Suffers Setbacks (washingtonpost.com) On the least visible front of the war, in western Iraq where no journalists are "embedded" with the U.S. special forces who parachuted in and took control of two airfields, Myers said the troops "found a huge arms cache, millions of rounds of ammunition and some documentation that needs to be exploited." This was "some papers" that will be examined by units looking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, he said. "We have people set up to do that very, very quickly, because it might save thousands of lives if we can find out exactly where and what they have."

The Command Post - A Warblog Collective This is the best site for up to date war news period! People are posting news as soon as it happens, or they hear about it! This site is only a few days old and is now getting tens of thousands of hits a day! A Must Read!

FOXNews.com Meanwhile, State Department officials confirmed to Fox News that Russian technicians are currently in Baghdad helping Iraqis with jamming equipment -- technology that throws aircraft and missiles offcourse -- sold by Russian arms dealers. The United States has vigorously sought Russian government assistance to stop the sales but has met with "ridiculous responses," according to the officials.

Rumor has it they will be inserted behind the Republican Guard Long Sad Night With the 101st (washingtonpost.com) Another blue thread shows the 3rd Brigade Combat Team (BCT) of the 101st, the division's only major unit currently in Iraq. Once refueling bases are established, the rest of the 16,000 Screaming Eagles can join the fight, including 72 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters that are capable of obliterating an enemy armor brigade in 20 minutes. "Part of this," one officer says, "is to make the Iraqis sweat, to wonder where the 101st is with all those Apaches they've seen pictures of."

thepeople.com - homepage - News US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that without firm evidence of Saddam's death, he had to assume Iraq's leadership was in place. But he added: "The confusion of Iraqi officials is growing. Their ability to control their country is slipping away. "The strike on the leadership headquarters was successful. The question is, what was in there?" The CIA has a secret sample of Saddam's DNA so they can prove it is him if a body is found. They fear he might plant a lookalike's body in the rubble.

NATIONAL POST How rare, to ask the UN to go to war Andrew Coyne National Post Monday, March 17, 2003 In the history of the United Nations, only one country has ever asked the world's permission to go to war. That country is the United States.

COOL TECHNOLOGY ALERT Gregg Easterbrook has a fascinating piece about how information technology has made our forces incredibly more effective. In 1997, the Army conducted an "Advanced Warfighting Experiment" at its full-scale war-games facility at Fort Irwin, California. The experiment assumed that cheap new data links could allow everybody, right down to the individual soldier, to know almost everything going on in a battle. The war game showed that having everybody know everything made units far more effective, reacting quickly to problems or acting quickly to exploit enemy weaknesses. For instance, military units often travel close together--thus commanding less territory while making a more tempting target--in order to communicate. Members of close together units can see what other members are doing, use hand signals, officers can meet to confer, and so on. In the Advanced Warfighting Experiment, units were equipped with a tactical internet that dramatically improv...

Little-known pilot shaped U.S. strategy in Iraq Little-known pilot shaped U.S. strategy in Iraq Friday, March 21, 2003 By Jack Kelly, Post-Gazette National Security Writer The man who is perhaps most responsible for the U.S. military strategy in Iraq never wore a general's stars, and, during his lifetime, was despised by most who did. Robert Coram wrote the book on Boyd. Accolades from the brass, like medals awarded fallen soldiers, have arrived posthumously for John Boyd. "John Boyd is one of the principal military geniuses of the 20th century, and hardly anyone knows his name,"... The ruse the United States may have pulled in launching the war against Iraq with a cruise missile attack on Saddam Hussein and his high command could have come straight from Boyd's keep-'em-guessing playbook, Dugan said. According to Sky News sources, the CIA planted a false rumor with the British television network that Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz had defected,...