U.S. Marines captured a military airfield on the eastern outskirts of Baghdad on Tuesday after it was apparently abandoned by Iraqi forces, the U.S. military said.
Marines rolled tracked armored vehicles up the runway at the Rashid airfield some five kms from the center of the capital, while infantry kicked down doors of office buildings to search for any Iraqi troops.
"We are just securing it, making sure there are no enemy forces left in it that might be straggling behind," U.S. Captain Matt Watt of the 1st Marine Division's Lima Company told Reuters correspondent Matthew Green at the airfield.
At a briefing at Central Command headquarters in Qatar, U.S. Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said on the airfield "That's an area that provides some military advantage and also deprives the regime from being able to use it to depart."
He said the Marines had faced some resistance on the road leading to the airstrip and there was some fighting going on beyond it, but the airfield itself was seized with little problem. "The enemy threat has been estimated to be very minimal," Captain Watt said. "We are expanding our perimeter as we speak."
Meanwhile, President Bush said Tuesday that Saddam Hussein is losing his grip on power "finger by finger" and he may even be dead after a massive bombing strike. Looking beyond the war, Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair said the United Nations would play a vital role in Iraq's reconstruction.
At a joint news conference with Blair, Bush said it was unclear if Saddam were alive after a U.S. warplane dropped four-bunker busting bombs Monday afternoon on a western Baghdad restaurant where he was believed to be meeting with his sons. "I don't know whether he survived," the president said. "The only thing I know is that he's losing power," Bush said.
"The grip I used to describe that Saddam had around the throats of the Iraqi people are loosening. I can't tell you if all ten fingers are off their throats, but finger-by-finger it's coming off."
Talking to the Iraqi people, Bush added: "We will not stop until they are free. Saddam Hussein will be gone. It might have been yesterday." (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
