-Caveat Lector-

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/Primetime/iraq_main030321.h
tml


March 21, 2003

Ali Hassan al Majid earned the nickname Chemical Ali for using
chemical weapons to suppress the Kurds in northern Iraq. (Jockel
Finck/AP Photo)

‘Chemical Ali’ Dead
Three Key Iraqi Leaders Believed Killed; Explosions Shake Baghdad

B A G H D A D, Iraq, March 21 — Three top Iraqi leaders —
including Saddam Hussein's cousin, the infamous "Chemical Ali" —
are believed to have been killed in what would be a major blow to
the regime's defense against the U.S.-led onslaught, CIA officials
told ABCNEWS.

ABCNEWS' Brian Ross reported that the three critical Iraqi officials
— Taha Yasin Ramadan, Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, and Ali Hassan
Majid, known as Chemical Ali — are believed to have died in
Wednesday night's "decapitation attack," the opening salvo of the
war.

A spokesman said the CIA had no information to confirm the report
that the three men had been killed but government officials,
speaking on condition of anonymity, told ABCNEWS they had
reason to believe the three men were dead.

The officials said they reached this conclusion from analysis of radio
traffic and after watching who went where, and who didn't arrive
where they were expected.

"Chemical Ali," Saddam's cousin and governor of southern Iraq,
earned his chilling nickname by using chemical weapons to
suppress a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq in the late 1980s,
killing thousands.

Both Ramadan and Ibrahim were longtime advisers to Saddam.
Along with Saddam himself, the two men were the only surviving
plotters who carried out the coup that brought the Baath Party to
power in 1968.

The three men did not appear in a videotape of Saddam meeting
with advisers released today. Also absent was Saddam's eldest son
Odai. There are suspicions he also may have been killed, but this
could not be confirmed.

In Baghdad, sirens sounded another warning following hours of
U.S.-led bombings that pummeled the city, and bombs and missiles
continued to rain over targets across the country.

"This is much, much, more than anything we've had earlier,"
ABCNEWS' Richard Engel reported from Baghdad as attack aircraft
were heard over the Iraqi capital for the first time in this war. "It's
hard to even see the western side of the city through all the smoke."

Elsewhere, as many as 1,500 Turkish troops crossed over into
northern Iraq. The United States has told Turkey that it would not
welcome incursions into the Kurdish-dominated territory, but Ankara
fears a weakened Baghdad would encourage the Kurds to create
their own state.

Turkey also says the troops are also needed to control refugees.

Air War Under Way
While the string of devastating bombings appeared to have paused
over Baghdad, sirens soon blared again, and there were reports of
new explosions near the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk
and in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.

Defense officials said the air campaign would continue for 24 hours,
until approximately 1 a.m. ET Saturday, as a "continually rolling
operation" involving 1,500 total sorties by missiles and strike aircraft.

Meanwhile, in another major development, U.S. military sources
said the commander of Iraq's 51st Division and his top deputy
surrendered to U.S. Marines today. The 51st was the division
charged with defending Basra, a strategic city south of Baghdad. It
was the first time that the commander of an Iraqi division has
surrendered to allied forces.

Blasts Slam Western Baghdad
Engel said he "was sure" nearly all of the large government
buildings on the western side of Baghdad had been destroyed by
repeated hits and the ensuing fires. The Iraqi information minister,
appearing on al Jazeera television, said the Zahir Government
Palace had been bombed and destroyed.

At one point the bombs were so powerful that Engel said he could
feel a strong blast of hot wind against his face, even though he was
about a mile away from the site of impact.

He also expressed concern for his fellow journalists, many of whom
are staying at the Al Rashid hotel, which is located on the western
side of the city.

"I really hope my colleagues are OK," he said.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sought to
reassure those who feared today's bombings may have caused
massive collateral damage.

"The weapons being used today have a greater precision than any
used in prior conflict," he said.

The CIA believes that three top Iraqi leaders — including Saddam
Hussein's cousin, the infamous "Chemical Ali" — were killed. The
commander of an Iraqi division surrenders to allied forces for the
very first time.

The air war for Iraq begins as 1,500 bombs and missiles fall on
Baghdad and the key cities of Kirkuk, Mosul and Tikrit.

Two U.S. Marines die in combat and another dozen U.S. and British
Marines die in a helicopter crash.

A Turkish commando force of around 1,500 troops crosses into
northern Iraq but U.S. officials oppose a large incursion.

Iraq's U.N. envoy angrily condemns U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan for helping the United States take over Iraqi oil fields.

Array of Aircraft, Missiles Behind Assault
ABCNEWS' Martha Raddatz reported that more than 500 cruise
missiles have been fired on Iraq from aircraft and ships today and
100 more will be launched by the end of the assault. U.S. planes
were flying over Turkey to their targets, heralding the start of a new
agreement with that country.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard
Myers, said that "several hundred military targets will be hit over the
coming hours." Military sources said B-53 bombers, B-2 stealth
bombers, F-117 stealth fighter bombers and missiles would carry
out the estimated 1,000 strikes by night's end.

Myers said the bombings were aimed to destroy, among other
targets, the enemy's ability to communicate with its Republican
Guard, its special intelligence services and with its people.

Today was the third round of attacks on the capital. Both earlier
attacks have involved the use of cruise missiles.

U.S. intelligence sources told ABCNEWS that the operational name
given to today's strikes was expected to be "Exemplary Destruction."
Saddam May Be Injured

Meanwhile, ABCNEWS has learned Saddam may have been hurt in
the first airstrikes on Baghdad.

Earlier today, U.S. intelligence sources told ABCNEWS that
witnesses at the site of a Baghdad suburban residential complex
told U.S. intelligence officials that Saddam was observed being
taken from the bombed complex on a stretcher, with an oxygen
mask over his face, on Thursday before dawn local time.

At news briefing in Baghdad today, Iraqi Information Minister
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said the first U.S. airstrikes had hit one
of Saddam's homes, but he said the Iraqi leader had survived and
was safe.

But U.S. intelligence sources said there had been a significant lack
of communication from the Iraqi leader to his government and
military structure since the bombing.

Allies Take Control of Southern Oil Fields
Reports of Saddam's possible injury came amid major gains by U.S.
and British troops rolling toward the Iraqi capital and the southern
city of Basra.

U.S.-led coalition forces in southern Iraq today encountered
hundreds of surrendering Iraqis and some resistance from the Iraqi
military before seizing control of the southern Iraqi oil fields.

In earlier ground assaults, U.S. and British forces seized the
strategic Al Faw peninsula in southern Iraq. It is Iraq's only access to
the sea and it was the first significant seizure of Iraqi territory in the
war.

"We're basically on our plan and moving toward Baghdad, but there
are still many unknowns out there," Myers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff
chairman, said today.

Myers said U.S. and British forces should secure all oil fields in
southern Iraq by later today.

U.S. Flag Raised and Lowered
ABCNEWS' Ted Koppel, embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division in
Iraq, reported that his unit was pushing to take an airfield outside
Nasariya in southern Iraq. He said the troops hoped to use the
airfield as a base for aircraft such as Apache attack helicopters as
they advance toward Baghdad.

"By daytime I will almost be within sight of it; I can see the lights, so
we are very close to Nasiriya," Koppel said from the field.

Other U.S. Marines encountered armed resistance as they seized
the strategic southern Iraqi port town of Umm Qasr. The American
flag and the flag of the U.S. Marines were briefly raised over the
strategic southern port, according to the BBC's Adam Mynott, who is
embedded with a Marine unit.

But a Reuters correspondent traveling with the U.S. Marines said a
brief while later Marines returned and removed the Stars and
Stripes. The Bush administration has maintained that U.S. forces
were in Iraq to "liberate," not occupy Iraq.

First Casualties
The dramatic gains, however, came with the first reports of U.S.
combat deaths. The first, a Marine from the 1st Marine Division,
died early this morning after leading his infantry platoon in a firefight
to secure an oil-pumping station in southern Iraq. The second
soldier was in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and was killed by
hostile fire in southern Iraq.

President Bush was informed of the U.S. deaths today and
expressed his regrets.

The combat deaths were reported just hours after four U.S. Marines
and eight British Royal Marines were killed in a helicopter crash in
the Kuwaiti desert. The British military said it was not taking fire
when it went down.

The official Iraqi news agency, the INA, further quoted a military
spokesman as saying a U.S. or British fighter jet had been downed
by anti-aircraft fire and crashed in Kuwait today.

The Pentagon denied the report.

In Kuwait City, officials report that Patriot missiles have so far
blocked seven incoming missiles, including two the Iraqis fired
today.

Seizures at Sea, in North
 U.S. and British forces have taken control of Umm Qasr in the
south, as allied troops in the north are pushing down toward the
Kirkuk oil fields. (Maps.com/ABCNEWS.com)

In the strategic Shatt al Arab — the waterway that connects the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the Persian Gulf near the borders of
Iraq, Kuwait and Iran — U.S. forces intercepted at least one Iraqi
barge loaded with 50 "contact" mines in an ongoing operation,
ABCNEWS has learned.

According to U.S. military sources, the barges were between Basra
and the Persian Gulf, headed for the Gulf. U.S. forces have secured
some of the barges, but it was unclear if it involved a fight.
The gains in southern Iraq were accompanied by significant
progress in the military onslaught in western and northern Iraq,
according to U.S. officials.

In western Iraq, U.S.-led forces seized two desert airfields overnight,
called H-3 and H-2, according to ABCNEWS' McWethy. And allied
forces in northern Iraq have been pushing towards the oil fields
around the strategic northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk after taking control
of a northern Iraqi airfield, said McWethy.

There were also several reports of oil wells on fire in southern Iraq.
ABCNEWS' Bob Woodruff, embedded with the 1st Marine
Expeditionary Force, said he had seen at least two oil wells ablaze,
one of which was a very large fire.

Clearing Air Paths
Adm. John Kelly, commander of a U.S. carrier task force in the
Persian Gulf, told reporters airstrikes from Gulf carriers had been
launched to degrade Iraqi defenses and support advancing coalition
troops continue around the clock.

"Folks, [Iraqi forces] on the ground realize their time is up and we're
coming," Kelly said. "We gonna win, we're gonna win it fast, and
their efforts [to ward it off] have increased."

ABCNEWS' Richard Engel in Baghdad, Ted Koppel, Bob Woodruff
and Mike Cerre traveling with the U.S. military, George
Stephanopoulos in Qatar, Mike von Fremd in Kuwait City, and John
McWethy and Martha Raddatz in Washington contributed to this
report.

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