BAGHDAD, 23 March 2003 — Fires dotted a smoke-shrouded skyline in Baghdad yesterday after US and British forces unleashed a bombardment of unprecedented ferocity on its dazed residents.
Buildings across the Iraqi capital shook as the overnight pounding from bombs and missiles, which sent fireballs and mushroom clouds of smoke billowing skywards, extended into a daylight blitz for the first time in three days of hostilities.
“The first two nights (of war) were a joke compared to this,” said a hotel driver. “So this is what they meant by shock and awe. It is shocking and awesome. They meant what they said.”
Parents said their children trembled with fear at the onslaught and one resident of the city, home to more than five million people, said they were being used to test out America’s latest weapons.
“What have we done to deserve all this? We have been living in wars for over 20 years,” said Jihad Hashem, a technician. “We have paid dearly for something we haven’t done.”
Two explosions struck central Baghdad as dawn was breaking and less than an hour later a third blast echoed from the city’s outskirts. Air raid sirens wailed and ambulances raced through the streets. Shrapnel and glass littered the riverside Abu Nuwas Street, across the Tigris from a presidential compound targeted in the high-tech attack.
In the compound housing the headquarters of Qusay, the younger son of President Saddam Hussein charged with defending Baghdad, a building still smoldered. A small villa belonging to Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was destroyed.
Two other buildings, the Palace of Peace and the Palace of Flowers, were struck and fire engines were seen at the gates of the Jumhouriya (Republic) Presidential Palace, next to broken water pipes and other debris.
An air force center in Saadoun Street in central Baghdad was also hit by repeated cruise missile strikes that ripped through every floor of the building, witnesses said.
“War has started now for real,” said a receptionist at the Palestine Hotel. “God knows how the following night will be.”
The facade of one ministry close to Baghdad’s Rasheed Hotel was shattered and an intelligence service building was also hit, witnesses said.
Despite their apparent pinpoint precision, the scale of the attacks and the new daylight bombardment kept most residents at home yesterday, the start of the Muslim working week. Many of the targets, including government ministries, are situated at the heart of civilian areas in the sprawling, palm-dotted capital. Some soldiers with rifles were on the streets.
Shaken residents said despite the terrifying fury of the attacks, they would not take to the air raid shelters scattered around the city. Memories still linger of an attack that killed hundreds of people in a shelter during the 1991 Gulf War.
“We’d prefer to die at home than suffocate underground in a shelter,” said Suad Saleh. “I won’t go to the shelters”.
Iraq said yesterday 250 civilians had been wounded in the bombing. Speaking at a news conference, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf said Friday night’s raids alone wounded 207 civilians. The remaining casualties were caused by earlier raids.
