Allied forces draw ever nearer to Baghdad, finally engaging Iraq's elite Republican Guard units in heavy fighting roughly 60 miles from the capital city. One U.S. Apache helicopter has been confirmed shot down, with its crew missing. Officials could not verify Iraq's claims that a second Apache had also been brought down.
Elsewhere, the bloodiest fighting has occurred at Nasiriya, where U.S. commanders say they have taken the town, but at great cost: 10 Marines were killed and another 12 are missing, possibly among captured and dead POWs Iraq paraded on Arab TV.
Speaking of which, said Arab network Al Jazeera has just launched a website that offers a fascinating counterpoint to Western news reporting. Whom to believe?
Coalition troops have also made their first possible WMD (weapons of mass destruction) seizure, discovering and securing a chemical plant that may have been used to produce chemical weapons. Military specialists will soon begin investigating the site.
An F-14 Tomcat returns to the USS Harry S. Truman from a strike against Iraq, Monday, March 24, 2003. The Truman aircraft carrier launched strikes against Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. (Associated Press)
The Other Side - Analysis, angles and opinions on the Web.
Columnist Criticizes Iraq Coverage, Editor & Publisher - The inaugural practice of "embedded journalism" in this war has colored the news in a whole new way.
A curious sort of war, Canada.com - All sorts of peculiar paradoxes exist in the Iraqi conflict.
Of Iraqi Freedom, Democratic Contagion And Giant Mistakes, AllAfrica.com - Is America, like Sigmund Freud once said, a "mistake, a giant mistake"?
From Shock and Awe, to Aw, Forget It, BusinessWeek - A facetious look at the sometimes overenthusiastic and biased Western press.
Weapons Of Mass Delusion, OutlookIndia.com - The world is being "catapulted towards chaos" in this op-ed piece.
The Lords of Vengeance, LiberalSlant.com - Both the U.S. and Iraq will pay too high a price in the war, says this Boston teacher.
Avert a bloodbath at Baghdad's gates, Toronto Star - Should the U.S. try to leverage the Arab League into brokering a surrender?
US will ignore Turkey's gray wolves at its peril, Asia Times - According to a former Turkish ambassador, Turkey is just waiting to pounce on Iraqi territory.
Posted by uswarblog
at 10:23 AM EST
Updated: Tuesday, 1 April 2003 11:47 AM EST
