Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=4/8/2003

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=IRAQ-U-S BRIEFING-AIRFIELD (S-O)

NUMBER=2-301928

BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON

DATELINE=DOHA

CONTENT=

INTRO: U-S forces have taken control of a military airfield in Baghdad, after seizing the Iraqi capital's international airport last week. As V-O-A's Roger Wilkison reports from Central Command headquarters in Qatar, a military spokesman also says U-S troops have pushed into Baghdad from the north, as well as the south.

TEXT: Brigadier General Vince Brooks, the Central Command spokesman, says U-S Marines captured the Rashid military airfield, five-kilometers southeast of downtown Baghdad, on Tuesday.

General Brooks says the airfield is militarily significant, but is also useful for another purpose.

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It is an area that provides some military advantage, and it also deprives the regime from being able to use it to depart.

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Last week, general Brooks said U-S control of Baghdad's international airport, which is located southwest of the capital, would prevent members of the Iraqi government from trying to flee the city by air.

The general also said U-S forces have entered Baghdad from the north, as well as the south, but he gave no details of the U-S military presence north of the city. On Sunday, the U-S military said it had encircled the Iraqi capital. (SIGNED)

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