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U.S. paratroopers prepare new front in Iraq War
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by Nadim Ladki
Thursday, March 27, 2003
BAGHDAD (Reuters) — U.S. paratroopers established a major beachhead in northern Iraq Thursday, paving the way for a new front in the war to oust President Saddam Hussein that appears to be proving harder to win than Washington expected.
Waves of explosions rocked Baghdad overnight as the Iraqi capital marked an end to the grim week since the start of a war launched by President Bush to preempt what he said was the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
More than 30 blasts were heard around the city in at least four rounds through the night, keeping sleep-deprived residents on edge. Up to 15 Iraqis were killed in a residential district Wednesday.
About 1,000 U.S. troops parachuted into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq Wednesday night and took control of an air base. The drop is believed to be the biggest such operation since 1989 when the United States invaded Panama to topple Manuel Noriega.
“This is the beginning of the northern front,” a U.S. defense official told Reuters. Officials, who would not give the precise location of the airfield, said tanks and other armored vehicles would soon follow.
The parachute drop heralded a new threat for the elite Republican Guard units defending Baghdad, who have been girding for battle against an armored column rapidly advancing from the south.
Wednesday, Bush hailed the progress made during the advance from Kuwait — more than 200 miles in three days — but he cautioned against expectations of a quick victory.
Addressing troops and their families at the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command near Tampa — home base for commanders in the Iraq war — Bush changed his prepared remarks at the last minute to drop an assessment that the campaign was “ahead of schedule.”
The U.S.-British invaders have suffered several setbacks, including helicopter crashes, friendly-fire casualties and guerrilla-style raids on their extended supply lines.
U.S. forces say they have more than 4,500 prisoners of war, but Iraqi troops have so far proved far more resilient than in the 1991 Gulf War.
One U.S. defense official said it was clear that the Iraqi military “went to school” and had learned lessons about how the United States fought in the Gulf War, against Somali militia fighters in 1993 and in Kosovo in 1999.
“So they are a learning adversary, and they have adapted to some things we’ve done,” the official said.
Brig.-Gen. John Kelly, among the Marines pushing toward Baghdad, said his forces were surprised at the level of resistance. “It wasn’t in their modus operandi in their last two wars,” he said, referring to Iraq’s 1980-88 war with Iran and the Gulf War.
U.S. commanders in Qatar said the campaign was “on plan,” but the Washington Post quoted U.S. military officials as saying the war was likely to last for months and would require considerably more combat power than currently on hand.
The United States also faces resistance on the diplomatic front, with Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov accusing the States of challenging “not only Iraq, but the whole world.”
Addressing parliament, Ivanov said, “It is already becoming clear how far removed from reality are their attempts to present military action against Iraq as a triumphant march for the liberation of the Iraqi people with minimal casualties and destruction.”
Russia, France and Germany led opposition at the United Nations to the U.S.-British war plan, saying the best way to ensure Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction was to persevere with U.N. arms inspections. Iraq denies having such weapons.
Fresh anti-American outrage was stoked among Arabs and other critics of the war on Wednesday by two explosions in a shopping and residential district of Baghdad, which witnesses blamed on U.S. missiles.
Reuters correspondents saw burned and dismembered bodies at the scene of the blasts, which caused the highest known civilian casualty toll for a single incident in the war so far.
A U.S. official acknowledged errant U.S. weapons might have been to blame but said the explosions could also have been caused by Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery or missiles.
British prime minister Tony Blair, Bush’s main ally in the war, met the U.S. president in Washington Wednesday night for a dinner which Blair’s spokesman said included discussion of the Middle East, a post-Saddam world and relations between Arab nations and the West.
Oil prices jumped and stocks and the dollar dipped in Asia Thursday as investors resigned themselves to the prospect of a prolonged war.
