March 20, 2003
IT MAY BE OVER:
US raids may "radically" change war -US spokesman (Reuters, March 19, 2003)U.S. air attacks against Iraq on Thursday were aimed at control and command centres and, if successful, might "radically" change the nature of the war, a U.S. spokesman said."These strikes are being characterised as a decapitation targeted at command and control nodes. If successful, it will radically change the way we do things," U.S. spokesman Marine Colonel Chris Hughes told Reuters.
U.S. bombs and cruise missiles hit Baghdad at dawn as the United States launched a war to topple President Saddam Hussein.
U.S. officials in Washington said earlier that the Thursday morning air raids were aimed at senior Iraqi leadership targets near Baghdad. They did not name the targets.
Hughes indicated that targets in the south of Iraq had also been hit. He added that he now expected a lull in the attacks.
The lull would be to allow the now leaderless Iraqi people to surrender. If you read between a lot of lines--that even Blair didn't know this was coming, that there were 5 to 7 guys in the bunker and that there are five key leaders we were targeting, that we're not following up immediately, etc.--it sounds just possible that Saddam and sons and fellow leaders gathered in one place, assuming we couldn't hit them in daylight, and then got bunker busted. Let's hope so. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 20, 2003 1:20 AM
I love the way the press is making it look like Blair is just along for the ride with no say in the matter. He may not have known about this strike until after it happened, but he knew about a potential strike on targets of opportunity. Please. Who's the enemy here?
That said, I'm praying for our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Two battles in two different countries at the same time! Didn't anyone tell them that the Democrats said that wasn't possible?
The Iraqis did put Saddam, or somebody purporting to be Saddam, on the air shortly after the initial strikes, but "Saddam's" speech was suspiciously unspecific and he looked rather different from the Saddam we've seen in recent weeks. In fact, there's even some serious question as to whether the address was live or taped.
Posted by: Joe at March 20, 2003 8:50 AMJoe:
If it was him wouldn't he have boasted of avoiding the attempt on his life?
Without a doubt. That's one reason I immediately became suspicious of the authenicity of the "Saddam" who was speaking. However, the fact that this is a double and a tape does not necessarily mean Saddam is dead. There are any number of possibilities, including that he's wounded or otherwise incommunicado (including being trapped in a caved-in bunker). In any case, I'm crossing my fingers, waiting for more solid proof of the strike's success, and basking in the fact that the Iraqi C3 network appears already to have been pretty thoroughly disrupted.
Posted by: Joe at March 20, 2003 11:57 AMDid you see the graphics that preceded it? I swear I thought Monty Python had taken Baghdad.
Posted by: oj at March 20, 2003 12:47 PM