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<img src="https://www.world-of-digital.com/news_pics/saddam.jpg" align="left"> BASED ON information from an intelligence source on the ground in Baghdad, U.S. military officials were confident that Saddam and his son Qusay were attending a meeting in the neighborhood with other top Iraqi leaders, senior officials told NBC’s Carl Rochelle at the Pentagon and Andrea Mitchell at the State Department. They said they believed it was possible that Saddam’s other son, Uday, also was there.
The intelligence information was considered so reliable that it justified a massive attack in a residential area of the al-Mansour district of western Baghdad despite the administration’s declared emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties, diplomatic and military sources said.
Officials quickly called in an Air Force B-1B bomber to strike the location. At 2 p.m. (6 a.m. ET), the warplane dropped four GBU-31 Joint Direct Attack Munition weapons, the 2,000-pound smart bombs known as “bunker busters,” leaving giant holes in the ground, the officials said.The airstrike was confirmed by senior administration officials at the White House and military officials at U.S. Central Command forward headquarters in Doha, Qatar. The officials would not comment on the possible effect of the airstrike, but officials in Qatar said that the atmosphere at Central Command was one of “confidence” and that more information could be released in the coming hours.
Senior U.S. officials have told NBC News that Saddam’s likely successor, assuming Qusay Hussein was not available to take command, would be Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. The sources said Ibrahim was believed to be in Mosul in northern Iraq in recent weeks, not in Baghdad.
BUSY DAY FOR COALITION
The air raid in al-Mansour, a stronghold of Saddam’s Baath Party, blasted a 60-foot-deep crater, ripped orange trees from their roots and left behind a heap of concrete, mangled iron rods and shredded furniture and clothes.
• Some targets in the sights of bomber and missile crews.
Witnesses said nine Iraqis were killed. If Saddam was among them, U.S. military planners would have achieved one of their prime objectives in the war.
Coalition airstrikes have targeted top Iraqi leaders since the beginning of the war, which began ahead of schedule March 19 when President Bush authorized a strike on a suburban Baghdad compound where Saddam and his sons were believed to be staying.
It would cap a dramatic day in which U.S. forces established a foothold in one of Saddam’s palaces in Baghdad after swooping into the city the day before and moving to cut off escape routes from the capital.
The administration has said its campaign in Iraq was aimed at removing Saddam from power because of what it believes is his harboring of weapons of mass destruction. Earlier Monday, the military was led to a site in a city near Baghdad where suspicious chemical compounds were stored, but subsequent tests proved negative, military sources told Reuters.
Diplomatic officials and officials at the Pentagon told NBC News that they were highly confident that they killed most of the people at the meeting, but they said it could take a day or two before they knew for sure.
The intelligence information was considered so reliable that it justified a massive attack in a residential area of the al-Mansour district of western Baghdad despite the administration’s declared emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties, diplomatic and military sources said.
Officials quickly called in an Air Force B-1B bomber to strike the location. At 2 p.m. (6 a.m. ET), the warplane dropped four GBU-31 Joint Direct Attack Munition weapons, the 2,000-pound smart bombs known as “bunker busters,” leaving giant holes in the ground, the officials said.The airstrike was confirmed by senior administration officials at the White House and military officials at U.S. Central Command forward headquarters in Doha, Qatar. The officials would not comment on the possible effect of the airstrike, but officials in Qatar said that the atmosphere at Central Command was one of “confidence” and that more information could be released in the coming hours.
Senior U.S. officials have told NBC News that Saddam’s likely successor, assuming Qusay Hussein was not available to take command, would be Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. The sources said Ibrahim was believed to be in Mosul in northern Iraq in recent weeks, not in Baghdad.
BUSY DAY FOR COALITION
The air raid in al-Mansour, a stronghold of Saddam’s Baath Party, blasted a 60-foot-deep crater, ripped orange trees from their roots and left behind a heap of concrete, mangled iron rods and shredded furniture and clothes.
• Some targets in the sights of bomber and missile crews.
Witnesses said nine Iraqis were killed. If Saddam was among them, U.S. military planners would have achieved one of their prime objectives in the war.
Coalition airstrikes have targeted top Iraqi leaders since the beginning of the war, which began ahead of schedule March 19 when President Bush authorized a strike on a suburban Baghdad compound where Saddam and his sons were believed to be staying.
It would cap a dramatic day in which U.S. forces established a foothold in one of Saddam’s palaces in Baghdad after swooping into the city the day before and moving to cut off escape routes from the capital.
The administration has said its campaign in Iraq was aimed at removing Saddam from power because of what it believes is his harboring of weapons of mass destruction. Earlier Monday, the military was led to a site in a city near Baghdad where suspicious chemical compounds were stored, but subsequent tests proved negative, military sources told Reuters.
Diplomatic officials and officials at the Pentagon told NBC News that they were highly confident that they killed most of the people at the meeting, but they said it could take a day or two before they knew for sure.
