Here is another story on the bombing:
Strike targets Saddam
By Rowan Scarborough and Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A U.S. military official told The Washington Times that the allies bombed the al Saa restaurant block at 3 p.m. Baghdad time yesterday on information from a "sensitive intelligence source."
The source said that Saddam and senior Ba'ath Party leaders were meeting with 30 intelligence officials in a facility behind or beneath the restaurant.
The bombing raid was the second direct attack on a suspected Saddam hide-out based on specific information that he was inside.
On March 19, the war's opening night, two Air Force F-117A stealth fighters bombed one of Saddam's homes in south Baghdad. After much speculation that he was killed, intelligence agencies now believe that Saddam survived.
The military source said the site bombed yesterday is used by the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS), or Mukhabarat. It is the same al Mansur neighborhood where Saddam made a highly publicized street walk Friday, greeting jubilant supporters. The video was played on Iraqi TV. He also delivered a taped address on Iraqi TV, referring to a downed Apache helicopter.
The official said the tape's background views of Baghdad, and the intelligence source, provided information on Saddam's whereabouts.
Another U.S. official said intelligence agencies did not know last night who was killed in yesterday's bombing, which created a huge crater and destroyed the al Saa restaurant. A reporter on the scene said at least 14 persons were killed.
The military source said the IIS may have picked the spot to meet because it did not believe the allies would bomb a commercial block. The allies have stated their objective to avoid civilian casualties.
The U.S. official said intelligence agencies have concluded that both of Friday's videotapes do in fact show Saddam, not a double, and that they were "more than likely" made after the March 19 bombing attack on one of his residences in south Baghdad.
As the Army secured a parade ground and knocked down a 40-foot statue of Saddam on horseback at the New Presidential Palace, U.S. Marines used a pontoon bridge to cross the Diyala, a Tigris River tributary, for the first time and seize ground on the city's east side.
The Americans met sporadic resistance but no organized counterattack, leading some Pentagon officials to suggest that Saddam's regime is near collapse.
"His regime is running out of real soldiers," said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at a Pentagon press conference. "Soon, all that will be left will be the war criminals."
Gen. Richard B. Myers, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, said the Republican Guard, the defenders of Baghdad's outer ring, no longer could fight effectively. He said they have a "couple dozen" tanks from a prewar arsenal of 800.
"I think the command and control of the Republican Guards is at the point now where the most they can do are sporadic attacks from very, very, very small units," Gen. Myers said at the press conference. "Our forces have been very successful in ... destroying the Republican Guard."
Army soldiers from the west and Marines encountered sporadic resistance as they carved out land in the city in an apparent plan to take the city, piece by piece, until the regime collapses.
Soldiers entered Saddam's sprawling Tigris palace, the target of continuous bombings, but did not capture any senior Iraqis. At one point, tanks of the 3rd Infantry surrounded the Ministry of Information building and the Rashid Hotel, but no soldier entered.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf denied that Americans had invaded the city.
"There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad, at all," he told reporters yesterday.
U.S. Central Command ground rules do not always allow broadcast of missions in progress. But it let embedded reporters for Fox News and Britain's Sky News broadcast live 3rd Infantry elements entering Baghdad and seizing ground. The military strategy: make sure Iraqi leaders understand they are losing control.
The 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry, which seized Saddam International Airport on Friday, made two previous armed reconnaissance incursions into the city but then withdrew. But last night, soldiers dug in around the opulent palace, apparently there to stay a while, protected by tactical drones and A-10 Thunderbolts armed with cannons and Maverick missiles.
"Today we killed between 600 and 1,000 Iraqis," said Col. David Perkins, referring to the Saddam Fedayeen guerrillas. "We have had a lot of suicide attackers today."
An Associated Press reporter estimated the 2nd Brigade force inside the city at 3,000 soldiers, 70 M1-A1 tanks and 60 Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
The report said the New Presidential Palace, one of 48 family palaces dotting the Iraqi landscape, featured marbled floors, French baroque furniture, swimming pools and gold-painted Arab glasses.
As Colin Brazier of Sky News described it: "It's an extraordinarily decadent structure. There is Italian marble and gold gilt everywhere. It's about as opulent as you could possibly imagine."
In Basra, British troops consolidated their victory and contended with sporadic looting.
British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said there are "strong indications" that an allied bombing attack Saturday in Basra killed Lt. Gen. Ali Hassan al Majid, a Saddam cousin nicknamed "Chemical Ali" for his gassing of the Kurds.
Saddam put al Majid in charge of southern defenses. Once his home was bombed, resistance collapsed.
"We have some strong indications that he was killed in the raid conducted Friday night, but I can't yet absolutely confirm the fact that he is dead," Mr. Hoon said in London. "But that would be certainly my best judgment in the situation."
British troops took a tour of exclusive Ba'ath Party members' neighborhoods.
"It's fairly striking, the rich-poor divide, particularly having just driven through the outskirts of Basra and seeing the extraordinary poverty there," Capt. Oliver Lee, operations officer with 42 Commando, told Agence France-Presse.
Gen. Tommy Franks, the overall allied commander, emerged from his Doha, Qatar, headquarters on the war's 20th day and took a Black Hawk helicopter ride to visit troops in southern Iraq.
Gen. Franks enjoyed mingling with the troops, posing for group photos, eating an MRE ? meals ready to eat ? and receiving progress reports.
He talked with British 7th Armored Brigade, the Desert Rats, in Basra and then went north to talk to 101st Airborne Division soldiers in Najaf.
At the Pentagon press conference, Mr. Rumsfeld made note of his critics.
"Despite the dire predictions about the forces and the plan, coalition forces have come a long way in a short time," he said. "But there is dangerous and difficult work ahead."
Asked if all of Iraq was near the "tipping point" ? military jargon for collapse ? Mr. Rumsfeld said, "It may happen to an individual. It may happen to a cluster of individuals. It may happen to an army unit. It may happen to a village, the bulk of a village. It's unlikely to happen, you know, instantaneously across a country, because the facts on the ground are so different in different parts of that country today that I think it would be unlikely."
