KUWAIT, 24 March 2003 — The US-led invasion of Iraq is making more rapid progress than expected but resistance could still last a while, a US Air Force general said yesterday. “It’s going more rapidly than I expected,” Maj. Gen. Daniel Leaf told a news conference in Kuwait. “We’re making very, very rapid progress.” But he warned: “The initial resistance may last for some time or may melt away more rapidly.”
He said the allied forces were coordinating with the Peninsula Shield forces of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which are now in Kuwait to defend the emirate. “Coordination with the Peninsula Shield is significant to conduct allied operations in the right manner,” the general said in reply to a question from the Arab News correspondent.
Saudis form the largest contingent of the GCC force, which has been deployed close to the joint border of Saudi Arabia-Kuwait-Iraqi. Leaf said Iraqis were resisting because of terror and fear. “They are ruled by fear. It’s a terrorizing administration. That doesn’t just evaporate when you advance into Iraq. It will take a while,” he pointed out.
He said some 1,600 British and US aircraft had flown nearly 6,000 sorties since the war began four days ago.
They have struck at air defense, command and control centers, suspected weapons of mass destruction sites and leadership targets. They have located a number of surface missile launchers and destroyed several. The attacking planes have not met any Iraqi aircraft but have come under heavy Iraqi anti-aircraft and missile fire.
The Iraqis were “ingenious” in employing missiles, Leaf said, adding that most of the surface-to-air missiles were now concentrated in the region from Baghdad to Tikrit. Tikrit is 175 km northwest of Baghdad and is the home of President Saddam Hussein.
US armored columns are heading northward toward Baghdad and one British defense source said he expected the fight for the capital to begin tomorrow. Leaf refused to comment specifically on a British defense spokesman’s statement that a Royal Air Force plane missing yesterday had probably been shot down by a US Patriot missile. Leaf said “We do everything we can to minimize risk” but air-land-sea combat is a “very dangerous business.”
Referring to yesterday’s grenade attack in Kuwait, in which a US soldier was killed and 15 others were wounded, he said investigations into the incident have not yet been completed. The incident took place at Camp Pennsylvania, the Kuwait base for the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. There was chaos and carnage when the grenades exploded and the US soldiers thought they had come under Iraqi missile attack.
Asked if US and British forces had found any evidence of weapons of mass destruction — which US President George W. Bush accuses Baghdad of having — Leaf said: “Not at this time.” He said, however, that he believed such weapons would be discovered. Iraq denies it has any banned weapons.
Leaf insisted that US and British forces were doing all they could to avoid civilian casualties, despite using large numbers of 2,000-pound bombs in attacks on Baghdad. He said he could not confirm Iraqi charges that civilians had been killed.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf said yesterday that 77 civilians had been killed and 366 wounded in the southern city of Basra, most of them by cluster bombs.
Leaf expressed his sorrow over the Iraqi civilian casualties and pledged that the allied forces would do their best to avoid harming civilians in future operations. — Input from Agencies
