A rchive Date
[ 24-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2003/03/23/49547-ap.html
U.S. troops captured in 'sharpest fight'
U.S. soldiers taken prisoner
By ROBERT RUSSO
Mon, March 24, 2003
WASHINGTON (CP) - A single gruesome image of the corpses of four U.S. soldiers strewn in a makeshift Iraqi morgue was beamed into American living rooms Sunday, bringing home the human cost of the war in Iraq.
The jarring image - U.S. networks refused to show video of the scene - and word that five other captured soldiers were paraded before Iraqi cameras outraged American officials and underscored stiffening Iraqi resistance. "The pictures were disgusting," said U.S. army Lt.-Gen. John Abizaid. A stunned silence fell over the international press centre at U.S. Central Command in Qatar as journalists caught sight of the report on a television screen.
He refused to comment on reports that two of those killed were executed with a single shot through the forehead.
Up to nine marines were killed and a further 12 taken prisoner in an ambush by Iraqi forces during a fierce fight near the city of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, far from the coalition's front lines.
British and American soldiers were still sprinting northwards and arrived within 160 kilometres of Baghdad, but the robustness of Iraqi defences was a surprise to coalition forces.
Gone were the confident predictions of being in Baghdad by Monday or Tuesday. There was no more talk of mass surrenders of Iraqi soldiers. The foe was fighting with unexpected ferocity.
"Clearly they are not a beaten force," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. "This is going to get a lot harder."
That point was driven home after a day that saw a British Tornado shot down by a U.S. Patriot missile and an American soldier killed and 15 servicemen injured in a grenade attack in Kuwait by a fellow-serviceman.
And, British defence officials in London reported early Monday that two British soldiers were missing after a mission in southern Iraq.
"Every effort is being made to find and recover the soldiers," the Defence Ministry said.
Footage of the dead and captured Americans could be particularly incendiary. The pictures may embolden Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's soldiers and reduce the aura of invincibility American soldiers might have been profiting from.
Saddam had offered a substantial bounty for the capture of any coalition soldier: about $7,500 US for a dead one and double that amount for anyone captured alive.
Very little video of Iraqis killed and wounded by coalition air strikes has been carried on U.S. television.
Images of dead American soldiers have played a powerful role in several wars.
Homegrown opposition to the Vietnam war grew exponentially once newscasts began to carry footage of American infantrymen being pinned down and killed by what was supposed to be a vastly inferior guerrilla army.
Former president Bill Clinton pulled U.S. forces out of Somalia almost immediately after an image of Somalis dragging the naked corpse of an American airman along a dusty street was shown in North America.
American casualties at Nasiriyah came after marines seized control of key bridges that could funnel U.S. and British forces towards Baghdad.
"United States marines defeated an enemy attack there while sustaining a number of killed and wounded in the sharpest engagement of the war thus far," Abizaid said during a U.S. Central Command briefing in the Qatari capital Doha.
Some of the U.S. soldiers were ambushed after a unit outside of Nasiriyah hoisted a white flag. The surrender turned out to be a ruse, and U.S. forces were fired on.
Those killed and taken prisoner, including a woman, were part of a group of military maintenance workers who took a wrong turn outside Nasiriyah while on a mission to carry out repair work when they were attacked.
They were travelling in a column of six vehicles that came under heavy fire. A number of others were wounded in the attack and evacuated by helicopter.
Video of those taken prisoner was shot by Iraqi state television and obtained by Qatar-based satellite network al-Jazeera.
The footage showed at least five dead bodies dumped in the back of a truck. Another body, apparently missing an arm, was filmed lying in the road next to a water truck coated in blood.
Two of the five captured prisoners, including a woman, appeared to be wounded. The others had fresh cuts and bruises on their faces.
The dead were dragged around the inside of a container truck to allow each to be filmed.
The prisoners, who appeared to be held by Iraqi forces in a small house, were questioned on air and gave their names, military identification numbers and home towns.
"Why did you come here?" they were asked by an Iraqi interviewer. "How do you see Iraqi people?"
A soldier from Kansas, who said his last name was Miller, replied: "I was told to come here."
At least some of the missing prisoners were from Fort Bliss, Texas, including Spc. Joseph Hudson, whose mother said she saw TV footage of him being questioned.
"It's like a bad dream, seeing your son get captured on TV," said Anecita Hudson, of Alamogordo, N.M.
As U.S. networks spent hours weighing whether to broadcast the PoW footage, the tape was aired by the three main networks in Canada.
British and American PoWs from the Persian Gulf War of 1991 were tortured and beaten.
U.S. President George W. Bush, who has kept a very low profile since the war began on Wednesday, appeared in the role of comforter-in-chief Sunday after learning that some of his troops had been taken prisoner.
"We expect them to be treated humanely just like we will treat any prisoners of theirs that we capture humanely," he said.
"If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals."
Meanwhile, U.S. troops have found a suspected chemical factory in Iraq and experts are trying to determine whether it was involved in making chemical weapons, officials said Sunday.
The plant is near the city of Najaf, which U.S. troops reached Sunday on a push to Baghdad.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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