”Shock and awe” was unleashed on Iraq last night in the form of successive waves of aerial attacks on centres and symbols of Saddam Hussein’s power in an attempt to break the nerve of his regime.
Just after 9pm, Baghdad time, explosions erupted at a presidential complex on the west bank of the river Tigris, razing it in little more than 10 minutes.
The devastation was delivered by dozens of Stealth warplanes and cruise missiles launched from B-52 bombers, some dispatched from Fairford in Gloucestershire.
Air attacks were also targeted on the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk in the north, and on Tikrit, President Saddam’s home town.
As British and US marines approached Basra in the south-east, one of the main divisions defending the city surrendered. The divisional commander of Iraq’s 51st Division gave himself up to US marines and his estimated 8 000 men either surrendered with him, ran away, or simply stopped fighting.
Bombers and fighter planes took off continually throughout the night from 30 airfields in 12 countries and from five aircraft carriers in the Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean.
British Tornado GR4s and Harrier GR7s were among several hundred planes involved in the bombing, which was aimed at more than 1 000 targets across the country.
The Pentagon dubbed it ”A-Day”, start of the air war.
It had been slated to launch the battle for Iraq, but, according to the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, its full force had been withheld in the hope that commanders and officials in the regime would defect.
CNN reported yesterday that Iraqi exiles and CIA officials had met commanders of the Republican Guard in Iraq in recent days. British intelligence agencies are also in contact with senior Iraqi commanders, Whitehall sources said last night. But the discus sions have so far failed to persuade them to hand over President Saddam, his sons and his top lieutenants.
Rumsfeld said: ”Apparently, what we have done this far has not been sufficiently persuasive that they have done that.” He insisted, however, that the Iraqi power structure was unravelling. ”The regime is starting to lose control of the country,” he said.
Washington buzzed with speculation last night over what had become of President Saddam. US intelligence and military officials told journalists that they were convinced he had been in the building in southern Baghdad that was struck on Thursday morning by a volley of cruise missiles and guided bombs dropped by Stealth aircraft.
Meanwhile, British soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade were last night moving to the west of Basra. Other units from the 7th Armoured Brigade and US marines moved up to the east of the city. US troops and some British forces are aiming to sweep around Basra and continue north to the outskirts of Baghdad. In the western desert, US special forces captured two Iraqi airfields while the main armoured assault continued towards Baghdad.
Britain’s defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, said the capture of the al-Faw peninsula had prevented the sabotage of the Iraqi oil infrastructure. ”Any attempt by Saddam Hussein to release oil into the Gulf and create an environmental disaster has been thwarted,” he said.
Late last night the toll of coalition forces stood at 14 casualties: eight British and four US soldiers in a helicopter crash on Thursday, and two US marines during fighting in southern Iraq.
The White House conceded that a video released yesterday appeared to show President Saddam, and not an impostor, as had been suggested earlier by US intelligence sources.
Washington expressed dismay as 1 500 Turkish troops advanced into the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq. Earlier, Turkey’s government said it would deploy troops in northern Iraq to prevent ”terrorism”. The Kurds have vowed to fight them. – Guardian Unlimited Â