Steve Quayle News Alerts

March 25, 2003

"We're still, needless to say, much closer to the beginning than to the end." - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld

(CBS) The U.S. Air Force blasted Iraqi TV with an experimental electromagmetic pulse device called the "E-Bomb" in an attempt to knock it off the air and shut down Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine, CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports.

The highly classified bomb creates a brief pulse of microwaves powerful enough to fry computers, blind radar, silence radios, trigger crippling power outages and disable the electronic ignitions in vehicles and aircraft.

Iraqi TV did go off the air for several hours on Tuesday. It later returned to the air with a fainter, weaker signal.

In modern warfare, electronics underpin virtually every weapon more sophisticated than a rifle or hand grenade. For that reason, Air Force scientists have worked for decades on a practical way of producing powerful but brief pulses of microwaves that can incapacitate electronic equipment without damaging buildings or harming people.

Officially, the Pentagon does not acknowledge the weapon's existence. Asked about it at a March 5 news conference at the Pentagon, Gen. Tommy Franks said: “I can't talk to you about that because I don't know anything about it.”

The use of the secret weapon came on a day that saw intense action on the battlefield. Pentagon officials report 300 to 500 Iraqis have been killed in a major battle near the city of An Najaf in central Iraq. There are no reports yet of any American casualties, but some U.S. fighting vehicles have been damaged.

Elements of the 7th Cavalry Regiment were east of An Najaf when they suddenly came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades. The Iraqis were on foot and it was not clear whether they were from regular army units, paramilitary forces or the Republican Guard.

Some of the 7th Cavalry's equipment was damaged in the attack.

The 7th Cavalry is part of the Army force driving toward Baghdad. Some elements of the force are farther north, near Karbala, with only the Medina armored division of the Republican Guard between them and Baghdad.

Reports of the new battle came as a huge sandstorm held back U.S. Army and Marine forces, now within 50 miles of Baghdad.

In southern Iraq, Iraqi civilians apparently began an uprising in the country's second-largest city, Basra, after British troops began an effort to drive Iraqi resistance out of the key southern town. British also reported that Iraqi militia were using their own people as "human shields," making it impossible for coalition forces to fire on them.

In other major developments:
* A British military commander says two British soldiers were killed by friendly fire near Basra in southern Iraq. A British defense official said the two men died when their tank was mistakenly targeted by another British tank crew.
* President Bush said, "We cannot know the duration of this war, yet we know its outcome: we will prevail," as he requested $74.7 billion in supplemental funding for the war through June.
* U.S. ships in the Red Sea launched more than 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles in the most significant strike since Friday.
* An American F-16 mistakenly fired on a U.S. Patriot missile battery in Iraq after the battery's radar locked on the plane. Earlier, the U.S. military said an Iraqi missile aiming for Camp Doha in Kuwait was successfully intercepted by a Patriot. No casualties were reported in either incident.
* Central Command says coalition forces have destroyed six jammers — which Russian firms are suspected of selling to Saddam — that Iraq used to try to knock U.S. missiles off course.
* Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal says his country had contacted the United States and Iraq with a peace proposal. He did not describe the proposal.
* The World Food Program will request more than $1 billion to help feed Iraq for about six months. Some 60 percent of Iraq's 27 million people — about 16 million people — are totally dependent on food handouts.

CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts, traveling with the Marine 7th Regiment on the road to Baghdad, said the sandstorm reduced visibility down to about five feet. By that time the commanders sent out the order for all the vehicles to stop – tanks, armored personnel carriers, Humvees, trucks – all at a standstill because of the storm.

Despite the adverse weather, the U.S. still fired about 90 cruise missiles, and Navy and Air Force jets were scheduled to fly 1,400 missions.

American officials issued fresh cautions, as well, about the possible use of chemical weapons by Iraqi troops, although no weapons of mass destruction have yet been found by advancing American and British forces.

As the pace of combat quickened, American and British officials sought to prepare the public for something less than a quick campaign, and predicted difficult days to come.

Still, President Bush forecast victory during a visit to the Pentagon. The Iraqi regime will be ended ... and our world will be more secure and peaceful,” he said.

Not surprisingly, Saddam saw it differently. State television carried what it described as a message from him to tribal and clan leaders, saying, “Consider this to be the command of faith and jihad and fight them.”

A senior military official said the U.S. troops had hunkered down against a sandstorm when Iraqis — either Republican Guard or paramilitary Iraqi troops — opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades.

Some of the 7th Cavalry's equipment was damaged in the attack, the official said. The unit is pwart of the Army force driving on Baghdad. Some elements of the force are farter north, near Karbala, with only the Medine armored divisioin of the Republican Guard between them and Baghdad.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others have warned of a possible humanitarian crisis in the city. The International Red Cross said during the day that it had begun repairs at a war-damaged water-pumping station serving the city.

Thus far in the campaign known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, Americans said they had taken more than 3,500 Iraqi prisoners. There was no accurate death toll among Iraqi troops or civilians.

American losses ran to 20 dead and 14 captured or missing. The remains of the first two to die were flown overnight to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

A total of 20 British troops had also died, including two killed Monday by friendly fire.

The U.S. Central Command announced the capture of an Iraqi military hospital used as a military staging area. Officials said Marines confiscated more than 200 weapons and stockpiles of ammunition and more than 3,000 chemical suits with masks, as well as Iraqi military uniforms. The Marines also found a T-55 tank on the compound.

Elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division were about 50 miles from Baghdad and hit Republican Guard units defending the Iraqi capital with an all-night artillery barrage.

But some helicopters were grounded by the weather, and combat aircraft taking off from the USS Harry Truman returned a few hours later without dropping bombs on their targets.

Distant explosions could be heard in Baghdad, and efforts were underway to dig deeper defensive trenches around the city. Witnesses said Saddam's intelligence headquarters as well as a sprawling defense complex were hit in overnight bombing.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will confer with Mr. Bush this week at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., was at pains to prepare the British public for difficult days.

“There will be resistance all the way to the end of this campaign,” he said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld also made clear he didn't know how long the war would take. “We're still, needless to say, much closer to the beginning than to the end,” he said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/24/iraq/main541815.shtml