Daily News (New York) March 24, 2003
U.S. Strategy Still On Target
By Thomas M. DeFrank
WASHINGTON - Despite unexpectedly tough resistance and more U.S. combat deaths, the allied armored dash to Baghdad remains on track, U.S. officials said yesterday.
"The main forces that are closing on Baghdad are powerful and unstoppable," said Army Lt. Gen. John Abizaid at a Central Command briefing in Qatar.
"Despite our losses, the enemy remains in grave danger, and our victory is certain," added Abizaid, a deputy to Gen. Tommy Franks, the CENTCOM commander leading the war.
Although one military briefer called yesterday "a tough day of fighting for the coalition," a defense expert predicted that the mechanized 3rd Infantry Division's lead element, the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry, would reach the Iraqi capital as early as tonight.
"They're closer than the Pentagon is admitting," the analyst added.
The Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles of the division are streaking north toward Baghdad on both sides of the Euphrates River, avoiding major engagements with large concentrations of Iraqi divisions while focusing on the main prize.
A brigade of the 101st Airborne Division is also on the move north, creating a massive forward "gas station" for its Apache helicopters. Baghdad no-brainer "You can take all the other cities you want, but Baghdad is a course requirement," said Patrick Garrett of GlobalSecurity.org. "You can't win the war without it."
If U.S. forces can surround and eventually capture even a part of the city of 5 million, Bush administration officials believe that even the most loyal of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's soldiers will be demoralized and lose their will to fight.
"Seize the city and you totally discredit the regime," said Dan Goure of the Lexington Institute, a military think tank.
From Baghdad, coalition ground forces south of the city also could trap several Republican Guard divisions, whose escape routes to the south would be cut off by U.S. Marines and British forces.
U.S. war planners also want to use Baghdad as a jumping-off point for a ground and air offensive against Tikrit, Saddam's hometown north of the capital.
As heavy air strikes hammered Republican Guard divisions ringing the southern approaches of the capital to pave the way for the mechanized columns, U.S. and British troops encountered fierce resistance in several locations thought to have been pacified in the south.
By day's end in the south, the U.S. military was reported to control the Umm Qasr port, all approaches to Basra, a military airfield and bridges at Nassiriya.
Copyright © 2003, Daily News, L.P.
