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Home > US Edition > The Gulf War II > Report
Iraqi regime starting to lose control: Rumsfeld
T V Parasuram in Washington |
March 22, 2003 21:53 IST
As the US-led coalition forces pounded "leadership targets" in Baghdad, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the Iraqi regime "is starting to lose control" and the military operation to disarm Saddam Hussein "is now fully underway."
He announced on Friday that coalition forces had taken control of the southern Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr.
"We are moving toward our objective," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers told reporters.
Myers said coalition aircraft have flown 1,000 sorties so far. The final outcome of a carefully orchestrated effort "is not in doubt," he said.
Rumsfeld said "a few hundred" Iraqi forces have surrendered so far and predicted that more officers close to Saddam Hussein would soon look for ways to save themselves.
Even as oil well fires burned in Iraq after being set afire by Iraqi forces, Rumsfeld said coalition forces were moving in to secure them so that this resource could be turned over to the Iraqi people.
Rumsfeld said some 10 oil wells have been damaged, several are on fire, and some are pouring oil out onto the ground. "So far, coalition forces have control over a non-trivial fraction of oil wells."
There have been cruise missile strikes against special Iraqi security organisations, Myers said, and additional strikes against intelligence forces and Republican Guard units. He reported sporadic resistance in some areas.
The air campaign, which began on Friday, followed what Myers described as "a quick strike on a leadership target" in Baghdad on the first night of the operation on March 19. Bomb damage assessment of that strike indicates it was successful, but it remains unclear who was actually inside the residence at the time it was attacked.
What is clear, said Rumsfeld, is that it is "too late" for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his two sons to remain in power.
Rumsfeld said the ongoing air campaign was being very carefully calibrated. The weapons being used embody a degree
of precision that "no one ever dreamt of" in the past.
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