US troops occupy Saddam’s palace in show of force

BAGHDAD: A US armoured force punched into the heart of Baghdad yestrerday and established a stronghold in one of President Saddam Hussein’s palaces, while troops in central Iraq found a cache of suspected Iraqi chemical weapons.

The US military said the assault on central Baghdad by over 100 tanks and armoured vehicles was a show of force, designed to demonstrate that troops could enter the capital at will, rather than a final attack on the city of five million. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he did not know what had happened to Saddam or where he was but asserted that he no longer ran much of Iraq and was running out of soldiers. “There are three possibilities: He’s either dead or injured or not willing to show himself,” Rumsfeld told a news briefing in Washington. Iraqi state-run television showed footage of Saddam, wearing military fatigues, and his son Qusay meeting top aides. It was not clear when the meeting took place.

As darkness fell, US troops remained in the presidential compound on the west bank of the Tigris river, apparently determined to stay the night and deliver a powerful message to citizens and Saddam loyalists that his time was almost done. US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers said Iraqi resistance was sporadic and not coherent, but he said tough fighting might still lie ahead. Still, the ability of the government to mount an organised defence seemed low. In Baghdad, hospitals battled with a constant stream of civilian dead and injured.

Doctors said they were running short of anesthetics and medical equipment. Nine Iraqis, including a baby, were killed when an air raid flattened two houses in a smart suburb of western Baghdad in what witnesses said was a US air raid. At the Kadhimiya hospital in the north of Baghdad, doctors said they had taken in 18 dead and 142 injured in two days, while the Kindi hospital had four dead and 176 injured.