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Thursday April 17th, 2003.
Coalition special operations forces overnight captured Barzan Ibrahim Hasan
al-Tikriti, a half-brother of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, early Thursday, said Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks of
U.S. Central Command. Hasan, who is on Central Command's 55 "most wanted" former regime members, was captured alone in Baghdad,
based on information from Iraqis, Brooks said. The U.S. is sending a 1,000-person "Iraq Survey Group" into Iraq to begin the
next phase of looking for weapons of mass destruction, and conduct other intelligence tasks, Pentagon officials said. The
group, likely led by a U.S. general, will be made of up civilian scientists, government intelligence analysts, military personnel
and private contractors. It will be based in Iraq. Additional U.S. troops were arriving to help control the northern
city of Mosul. At least 10 people have died in two days of clashes with U.S. troops, who have taken over the governor's office
and infuriated residents, officials said. About 200 to 250 U.S. troops were in the city, but hundreds more are being brought
into an air base on the city's outskirts. At U.S. Central Command, Brooks said stability in Mosul remains "uncertain" because
there are still pockets of violence and lawlessness. Plunged into darkness two weeks ago during coalition airstrikes, electrical
power returned to Baghdad, if only for short periods of time and in scattered areas, a senior U.S. Marine source said.
Six small substations were being brought online. Elements of the 4th Infantry Division fought a brief firefight near Taji
Airfield north of Baghdad on, killing some Iraqi fighters and destroying several T-72 tanks. More than 100 Iraqi fighters
also were captured. Most of the 2,000 Australian troops involved in the war in Iraq are scheduled to begin withdrawing from
the Persian Gulf region next month, Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill said. The remaining units will fill special needs
like air traffic control and a team of specialists to deal with weapons of mass destruction, Hill said. While United States
officials say they have no definitive proof of Saddam Hussein's whereabouts, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card speculated,
"I think he is dead" in an online discussion. White House spokesman Adam Levine said Card was only offering an opinion. The
Baghdad zoo was not spared from the war as deserted animals were forced to fend for themselves, likely terrified from the
sound of gunfire. When U.S. forces came through, one soldier said it was hard to believe what they had found. U.S. forces
had their hands full with sporadic skirmishes and looting reported around Baghdad as well as Mosul and Tiikrit. U.S. forces
say situation tense in Mosul after two days of violence between U.S. forces and residents. Life begins to return to normal
in Basra. A riot broke out at a branch of the Al-Rashid bank after thieves blew a hole in the vault and dropped children in
to bring out fistfuls of cash. U.S. troops arrested the thieves and removed $4 million in U.S. dollars for safekeeping. U.S.
Marines backed by surveillance aircraft monitor border crossing to Syria. U.S. 1st Marines Division search for Iraqi irregulars
in Tikrit.
Friday April 18th, 2003.
U.S. intelligence analysts are examining a videotape and an audiotape message
said to have been made by deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on April 9, the day Baghdad fell to U.S. troops. Baath Party
official Samir abd al Aziz al Najim -- No. 24 on U.S. Central Command's 55 most wanted list -- was handed over to the coalition's
Special Operations forces by Iraqi Kurds last night, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said Friday. On the most wanted list, Najim
is listed as the party's regional command chairman for the Baghdad district and Brooks said he is believed to have firsthand
knowledge of party operations. Soldiers with the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division battled Iraqi paramilitary fighters as
the division was moving north between Taji and Samarra, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said during the Central Command briefing.
Eight technical vehicles -- civilian vehicles modified with military weaponry -- were destroyed and more than 30 prisoners
were captured, Brooks said. No remains have been identified at the site of an airstrike aimed at deposed Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein, Brooks said. As the fighting winds down, U.S.-led coalition deaths so far in this war with Iraq are far fewer than
those killed in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. 157 U.S. and British troops have died so far in the war, less than half the
358 coalition deaths in Desert Storm. The U.S. is sending a 1,000-person "Iraq Survey Group" into Iraq to begin the next phase
of looking for weapons of mass destruction, and conduct other intelligence tasks, Pentagon officials said Thursday. The group,
likely led by a U.S. general, will be made of up civilian scientists, government intelligence analysts, military personnel
and private contractors. It will be based in Iraq. As many as 1,600 shallow graves found on the edge of a military base
in Kirkuk could provide answers to the whereabouts of Iraqis who disappeared under the Hussein regime. Local residents exhumed
two bodies Wednesday in an effort to find out who is buried at the site. The residents said the graves are at least 12
years old. Seven U.S. soldiers waved and smiled from a balcony at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, their
first official appearance since U.S. Marines rescued them from Iraqi guards who held them as prisoners of war for three weeks.
U.S. and British forces have released 887 prisoners of war since the beginning of the war because they were determined to
be non-combatants, Pentagon officials said. Roughly 6,800 Iraqi soldiers remain in coalition custody, according to U.S. Central
Command.
Saturday April 19th, 2003.
A C-17 cargo plane carrying seven U.S. soldiers held as prisoners of war by
Iraqi forces arrived at Fort Bliss, Texas, Saturday evening to a cheering, flag-waving crowd. The former POWs were rescued
by U.S. troops April 13 in Iraq after nearly three weeks of captivity, ( the full story of their rescue is on another page).
.S. forces have in custody another key member
of Saddam Hussein's former regime in Baghdad. Finance minister Hikmat Ibrahim Al-Assawi was No. 45 on the United States most-wanted
list. Now that Saddam's secular regime is gone, many Iraqi Muslims are demanding a new state based on religion. Western officials working on the reconstruction
of Iraq agreed that an interim authority in Baghdad could take over most government functions from the U.S. military in only
a few weeks. Four U.S. soldiers on patrol were wounded when an Iraqi girl handed them an explosive and it blew up, American
military officials said. They said they believed it was an accident. A girl, seriously wounded by a cluster bomb bomblet and identified as Tamara Hamze, 12, is transferred
to a bed at the Al-Shaheed-Adnan hospital in Baghdad on Saturday.
Sunday
April 20th, 2003.
Electricity is restored to parts of eastern Baghdad Sunday night, hours
before the arrival of the American head of Iraqs interim administrator, Jay Garner. Marines pull out and leave the Army in
control of Baghdad. The 1st Marine Division heads to police duty in southern Iraq. Iraqi Shiite Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi
proclaims himself mayor of Baghdad. Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi
calls for U.S. troops to stay in Iraq until elections, which could be years away. The war of words between the United States
and Syria softens as Damascus says its border is sealed and it hopes for constructive dialogue with U.S. leaders. A Russian
news agency says Moscow will insist on U.N. weapons inspectors declaring Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction before sanctions
against it can be lifted. The aircraft carriers Kitty Hawk and Constellation leave the Persian Gulf and head toward the Pacific.
The Nimitz, which arrived last week, remains in the Gulf. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier group remains on standby in eastern
Mediterranean. The pilots of the two U.S. Air Force F117 Nighthawk stealth fighters who flew the first strike mission
of the war in Iraq, targeting a leadership compound in Baghdad, each had to overcome on-board malfunctions, the Air Force
revealed.
Monday April 21st, 2003.
The American head of Iraqs interim administration, Jay Garner, arrives
in Baghdad. Much of the city remains without power and clean water. U.N. sends hundreds of tons of food into Kirkuk. Thousands
of anti-American marchers hit the streets, accusing U.S. troops of arresting one of their leaders, Muhammad al-Fartusi. U.S.-appointed
interim leader Jay Garner visits Baghdad's looted Yarmuk hospital. he war of words between the United States and Syria softens
as Damascus says its border is sealed and it hopes for constructive dialogue with U.S. leaders. Marines with the 26th Marine
Expeditionary Unit engaged in a firefight at Mosul airfield in northern Iraq after been attacked by unknown fighters.
One Marine was wounded before the attackers escaped, said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday he and other senior administration officials have had "zero discussion" about
the Pentagon maintaining access to Iraqi military bases and strongly disputed a story in The New York Times on Sunday that
said the Pentagon wants to use four bases in Iraq well into the future. An Iraqi health official Monday led U.S. forces to
three warehouses in Baghdad which contained enough medical supplies to keep all of Baghdad's hospitals stocked for the next
six to 12 months, according to the Pentagon. Coalition forces will provide security for Iraqi health officials to distribute
the supplies to Baghdad hospitals.
Tuesday April 22nd, 2003.
France proposes halting U.N. sanctions on Iraq, going against Russia, which
insists that U.N. arms inspectors first verify that Iraq no longer has weapons of mass destruction. Power is restored to central
Baghdad after two dark weeks.
Jay Garner, the U.S. head of the interim Iraqi administration, visits northern Iraq in his
four-day tour of the country and is received with cheers and flowers. An interim Baghdad police chief takes command of hundreds
of Iraqi police already patrolling the streets. Nearly a thousand protesters congregate outside Baghdads Palestine Hotel,
the headquarters of many Western media outlets, to demand the release of Shiite leader Sheikh Mohammed al-Fartusi, arrested
a day earlier. Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims converge on Karbala in a pilgrimage that was restricted under Saddams
reign. Muhammad Hazmaq al-Zubaydi, No. 18 on U.S. Central Command's list of the 55 most-wanted members of the Hussein regime,
has been taken into custody in Iraq, according to Central Command. A former prime minister and Saddam's central Euphrates
regional commander, he is the "queen of spades" in Central Command's deck of cards listing the most-wanted regime members.
Coalition troops have secured the eastern section of the Iraqi capital and about 25 percent of the area west of the Tigris
River, said Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division commander. Blount said troops are providing security
at 110 locations in Baghdad, mostly banks and museums. Coalition forces are under a ceasefire in Iraq with a group of pro-Saddam
armed Iranian dissidents known as the People's Mujahedeen, Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said at the U.S. Central Command
briefing. The group has been operating inside Iraq, engaging in numerous firefights with coalition forces, and is labeled
a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Myers also said that U.S. special forces discovered a very large weapons
cache south of Kirkuk containing a variety of munitions, including multiple-rocket launch rockets, artillery rounds and 50
SA-7 hand-held surface-to-air missiles. The war in Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime has been widely praised by military
analysts, who say it could offer a blueprint for future operations.
Wednesday April 23rd, 2003.
Three U.S. Marines were killed and seven others injured when a rocket-propelled
grenade launcher malfunctioned during a practice exercise, Central Command said Wednesday. The Marines killed and injured
in the incident, which occurred Tuesday night local time, were from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Central Command said.
No other details of the incident were given. A Pentagon official said that intelligence reports received in the last
few days indicate an unknown number of Iranian backed agents have moved into southern Iraq to promote Shiite and Iranian interests
within the Shi'a community. The reports indicate the Iranians are operating around Najaf, Karbala and Basra. Some of them
may be members of the Badr Brigade, an Iranian-backed militia group based in Iran, this official said. The fierce fighting
between coalition forces and Iraqi irregulars was not what U.S. ground commanders fully expected during the U.S.-led war with
Iraq, according to the U.S. commander in charge of all coalition land forces. Paramilitary forces that attacked U.S. troops
in urban areas in southern Iraq were not the most likely option that the U.S. war-gamed against, according to Lt. Gen David
McKiernan, the commander of coalition land forces under U.S. Central Command. Muhammad Hazmaq al-Zubaydi, No. 18 on U.S. Central
Command's list of the 55 most-wanted members of the Hussein regime, has been taken into custody in Iraq, according to Central
Command. A former prime minister and Saddam's central Euphrates regional commander, he is the "queen of spades" in Central
Command's deck of cards listing the most-wanted regime members. U.S. soldiers have secured the eastern section of Baghdad
and about 25 percent of the area west of the Tigris River, said Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division
commander, on Tuesday. Power should be restored in 80 percent of the city on Wednesday and the rest of Iraqi capital within
four or five days, he said. Touring Iraq to assess its post-war needs, Jay Garner, the retired U.S. general who will run Iraq
until a new government is established, received warm welcomes for a second day in the Kurdish north. Garner, who heads the
Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, was greeted Wednesday by Kurdistan Democratic Party leader
Massoud Barzani. Crowds of Shia Muslims Wednesday chanted and danced in the streets of Karbala on the final day of a pilgrimage
long suppressed under Saddam Hussein's rule. Many expressed gratitude to the United States for their newfound freedom but,
in the same breath, they warned their liberators to leave Iraq and not divide their country.
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