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Iraqi Leaders are losing control, US says
( 2003-03-22 10:30 ) (7 )

The United States said on Friday Iraq's leadership was losing its grip in the face of a withering air and ground war and defense officials said the commander of an Iraqi army division surrendered to American Marines.

But Washington remained in the dark over the fate of its No. 1 target, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he did not know whether Saddam was still in control of Iraq, let alone alive.

"The confusion of Iraqi officials is growing. Their ability to see what is happening on the battlefield, to communicate with their forces and to control their country is slipping away," Rumsfeld said. "They're beginning to realize, I suspect, that the regime is history."

Rumsfeld spoke at a Pentagon briefing soon after U.S. and British forces unleashed their fiercest air assault yet on targets in Baghdad, the ultimate objective of ground forces rolling northward from Kuwait.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said ground forces had advanced close to 100 miles into Iraq -- about one-third of the way to Baghdad -- in the first 48 hours of the invasion and met little resistance.

U.S. defense officials said the commander and vice commander of Iraq's regular 51st Division had surrendered to Marines in the southern desert. It was the first reported surrender by senior Iraqi military officers.

The New York Times reported separately from Kuwait the 51st had virtually 'melted away,' with most of its troops deserting. It was not clear how many troops the division had.

Rumsfeld, who has publicly called on Iraqi soldiers to disobey orders, said on Friday that contacts on the mechanics of surrender had intensified with individual units but no country-to-country dialogue was under way.

Uncertainty enveloped the fate of Saddam, the target with his sons Uday and Qusay of the opening strikes of the war by F-117A stealth fighters and cruise missiles.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said CIA analysts had concluded that the voice in a speech televised in Iraq soon after the strikes was Saddam's but they could not determine whether the videotape was recorded in advance.

Other U.S. officials said they believed the strikes, on a residence compound in the southern suburbs of Baghdad, had caused casualties, but they did not know if Saddam and his sons had been killed or wounded.

"You don't drop 40 cruise missiles and not hurt somebody," one official said. "We have a strong belief that there were casualties but I can't tell you what their names were."

Iraqi officials say Saddam is still alive.

"MAKING PROGRESS"

President Bush has staked his presidency on the success of the invasion, launched under a new American doctrine of pre-emptive action that asserts the United States has the right to attack countries it deems a threat.

With the military reporting U.S.-led forces already in control of most of Iraq's vital southern oil fields and the key commercial port of Umm Qasr, Bush told congressional leaders he was pleased with the progress.

We will stay on task until we've achieved our objective, which is to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and free the Iraqi people so they can live in a society that is hopeful and democratic and at peace in the neighborhood," Bush said.

Rear Adm. John Kelly, commander of the Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group and of all U.S. naval aircraft in the Gulf, predicted on Friday the war would be won swiftly.

The watchword in Washington was caution, however, with Fleischer warning against overconfidence. "I think it's important for the American people to remember this still can be a long, lengthy, dangerous engagement," he said.

Two U.S. Marines are known to have been killed in combat. Eight British and four U.S. soldiers were also killed in Kuwait early on Friday in the crash of a Marine helicopter.

PUBLIC SHIFTS BUSH'S WAY

U.S. forces and Bush as their commander in chief have obtained resounding resolutions of support from both chambers of Congress since the war began, despite previous criticism from Democrats of Bush's failure to win U.N. Security Council backing for the use of force to disarm Iraq.

Thousands of anti-war demonstrators protested across the America for a second day, with police saying they detained 71 people in San Francisco, but public opinion appeared to be swinging to Bush now that U.S. forces were engaged in combat.

A Gallup Poll taken late on Thursday for CNN and USA Today found 76 percent of respondents approved of Bush's decision to go to war, the newspaper said. That compared with just 47 percent in favor of striking without U.N. support as recently as last weekend, USA Today reported.