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29 March 2003

Coalition Secures Iraq's Southern Oil Fields, Pentagon Reports

(Daily briefing: U.S. also secures Iraqi airfield, says Clarke) (500)
Coalition forces have secured Iraq's southern oil fields and one of
three of Iraq's oil refineries, the Pentagon reports.
U.S. troops have also secured an Iraqi airfield in Kurdish territory
that will be used for food and equipment drops, said Victoria Clarke,
Pentagon spokesperson, briefing reporters March 29.
The coalition controls more than 600 oil fields in Iraq, Clarke said,
"saving them for the benefit of the Iraqi people."
The briefing included the airing of two video clips portraying the
brutality of the Iraqi regime. One described torture that a
16-year-old girl suffered after her teacher reported to police some
notes against the government she had written in school. The physical
torture was accompanied by the jailing of several relatives for months
and years and the killing of some.
The second video from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
described the 1988 attacks in northern Iraq, using chemical weapons,
that killed an estimated 5,000 Iraqi civilians." "Cancer and birth
defects have shot up since the war crimes and every home contains its
own horror story," the narrator said.
"While the enemy increases its inhumanity we increase our humanitarian
aid," Clarke said.
"The enemy mines ports and blocks the flow of aid. We remove the mines
and let the aid flow," she said. "The enemy poses as civilians to
deceive coalition forces and ambush them. They fake surrenders to
ambush them. They continue to place military assets in and around
civilians. They use human shields, deliberately destroy or attempt to
destroy the oil fields. And they use civilian vehicles, including
ambulances, to transport their military."
Clarke said the British ship Sir Galahad has unloaded more than 200
tons of humanitarian aid at the port city of Umm Qasr and two
humanitarian convoys have moved overland into the Safwan and Umm Qasr
areas. "Relief is now coming to thousands of impoverished families of
southern Iraq," she said.
Forty-nine countries now support operation Iraqi Freedom, Clarke said,
and approximately 12 more offer support anonymously.
Major General Stanley McChrystal, vice director for operations Joint
Staff, said at the briefing the United States flew more than 1,000
sorties over Iraq the on March 28. Since military operations began
U.S. and coalition forces have fired more than 675 Tomahawk missiles
and dropped 6,000 precision-guided munitions, he added.
More than 290,000 coalition forces are deployed to support Iraqi
Freedom combat operations, more than one-third of them inside Iraq,
McChrystal said.
The general said the coalition has claimed air superiority over most
of Iraq and flies "effectively" over Baghdad every day and night.
Decisions by Saudi Arabia and Turkey to not allow cruise missile
fly-over rights "won't have a big effect" on overall U.S. military
operations, he said.
The Tomahawk success rate is "very, very high" with more than 99
percent reaching their targets, McChrystal said.
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)