[This story was updated on 03.21.2003 at 9:15 p.m. ET]
A fierce air strike marked day three of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and while damage was still being assessed Friday evening, the beginning of the "shock & awe" campaign appears to have rattled Saddam Hussein's administration.
Shortly after U.S.-led forces fired more than 320 Tomahawk cruise missiles on Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that "the regime is starting to lose control of the country." As the day went by, more and more Iraqi troops surrendered, including an 8,000-man division and a high-ranking officer.
At the same time, officials questioned whether Hussein was even alive, as reports surfaced early in the day that U.S. intelligence believes the Iraqi leader was in a compound hit by cruise missiles on Wednesday.
In an effort to convince the world that Saddam is still alive, Iraqi state television broadcast pictures of what it said was the Iraqi leader meeting with his son Qusay on Friday, although Rumsfeld said the U.S. had "no specific intelligence" as to whether Hussein was still in charge of the Iraqi military or if leadership had changed hands.
The Pentagon dubbed Friday (March 21) "A-Day," a reference to the more than 1,000 aerial attacks on hundreds of sites across Iraq, and warned of possible strikes late in the evening. Defense officials told Fox News that the U.S. is prepared to drop as many as 3,000 precision-guided bombs throughout the country.
When anti-aircraft erupted about 9 a.m. ET (early evening in Iraq), huge explosions capped off with mushroom clouds lit up the night sky. One of the bombs used was a new 2,000-pound bomb dropped from an F-117 stealth fighter. Hussein's palace on the Tigress River was among several buildings destroyed.
Rumsfeld stressed that despite the flurry of explosions seen on television, the strikes were as precise as have ever been in the history of warfare, and that Friday's surgical-strike weapons can hit targets as specific as a window in an apartment building.
The target of the attacks was not the Iraqi people, Rumsfeld reiterated, but the Iraqi regime that is in violation of the United Nations weapons sanctions. He added that while contact between regiments was taking place, the U.S. and Iraq were not in communication with each other. The "shock & awe" campaign is expected to last one or two more days.
While all pilots returned safely to their ships on Friday, the U.S. sustained two combat casualties in separate military actions in southern Iraq. That brings the total number of coalition casualties to 14, following Thursday's crash of a CH-46 helicopter that killed everyone aboard — eight British commandos and four U.S. soldiers. Mechanical problems were cited as the cause.
As was the case Thursday, Iraq attempted to retaliate but was not effective. A Scud missile, which the country had previously denied possessing, was intercepted over Kuwait by U.S. Patriot missiles, according to press reports.
Elsewhere on the ground, coalition troops took aim on the southern city of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, and overtook strategically significant sites all over Iraq, including two airfields to the west of Baghdad, near Jordan.
More than 200 M1A1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles advanced toward the capital of Baghdad from the north, destroying six or seven trucks and several Iraqi tanks along the way, according to CNN. (Click for a map of the battlefield.) Troops may enter Baghdad within two to four days, according to Fox News.
Targets were also hit in Mosul, located in northern Iraq, and Akashat, which is about 300 miles west of Baghdad, near Syria. Between 60,000 and 70,000 U.S. and British forces also seized control of the Faw Peninsula on the Persian Gulf coast, where Iraq's main oil pipeline terminals are located. The region is a vital port and escape route in the military campaign.
Military divisions first infiltrated Iraq through its southern border with Kuwait around 1 p.m. (ET) Thursday afternoon and assumed control of the port city of Umm Qasr.
To the north, Turkey began sending troops into Iraq to prevent an influx of refugees across its borders, according to CNN. A U.S. official said the Pentagon opposed the move.
Other key developments:
- Long-range B-52 bombers, capable of flying at high altitudes and carrying nuclear and conventional weapons, left Fairford Air Force Base in Britain early Friday morning ET. Their destinations were not known.
- Four CNN journalists were expelled from Baghdad by Iraqi authorities.
- Rumsfeld said 45 nations now comprise the "coalition of the willing" and support the military action in Iraq.
- Bush relocated from the White House to Camp David in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains.
- Protests continued in Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York and other major cities (see "Protesters Clash With Cops As Rallies Spark Across Country").
- Iraqi refugees moved into Jordan to the west and were confined to refugee camps there.
- Australian coalition forces captured an Iraqi tugboat apparently preparing to lay sea mines in the Persian Gulf, officials told CNN.
- A Gallup Poll taken Thursday showed 76 percent of Americans approve of President Bush's decision to attack even though the United Nations did not support the use of force.
- Iraq's news agency reported that Hussein had offered a reward of $14,000 to any Iraqi who kills an enemy soldier and $28,000 to anyone who captures an enemy soldier alive.
