By ,
Published January 13, 2015
For now, no one knows whether Saddam Hussein is alive, dead or wounded.
One day after coalition forces staked out position less than 100 miles of Baghdad, Saddam issued another televised message, seeking to rally his people. In full military dress, he assured Iraqis "victory will be ours soon."
Dressed in full military uniform, Saddam tried to inspire his soldiers and made references to Umm Qasr and Basra, where coalition troops have recently faced resistance. But the address did not include telling details that might indicate whether the speech was being carried live or if it had been recorded recently.
Senior U.S. officials told Fox News that they believe it is, in fact, Saddam -- but that the message was likely taped before the war began, in part because Saddam praises troops who surrendered to coalition forces early on. Saddam also mentioned units that were not engaged in the fighting at all, or at least, not yet. There were also jump-cuts in the tape indicating some 67 edits were made, suggesting the video was edited, possibly to cut out references that were even more dated or off the mark.
Military analysts also said that due to the strategic placement of locations such as Umm Qasr, Saddam would have known for some time battles there were inevitable in the event of a coalition invasion.
"In these decisive days, the enemy tried not using missiles and fighter jets as they did before. This time, they sent their infantry troops. This time, they have come to invade and occupy your land," Saddam added, defiantly saying that Iraqi troops will make a coalition victory "as painful as we can."
Ultimately, both British Prime Minister Tony Blair and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer say there is no way to know when the tape was made.
Iraq on Monday also claimed to have shot down two U.S. Apache helicopters, and Iraqi television showed footage of Iraqi peasants surrounding one chopper. A U.S. defense official also confirmed on Monday that one Apache helicopter was down, as the Iraqi information minister claimed to have the two pilots as prisoners.
Earlier on Sunday, rallying Iraqi troops used tricks and tactics such as ambushes and even fake surrenders to kill and capture U.S. troops, inflicting the first significant casualties on the allied forces driving toward Baghdad.
Despite the setbacks, U.S. war leaders declared the invasion on target.
A senior Pentagon official confirmed to Fox News on Sunday that coalition forces have discovered a "huge" suspected chemical weapons factory near the Iraqi city of Najaf, which is situated some 90 miles south of Baghdad.
Coalition troops are also said to be holding the general in charge of the facility.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees the war in Iraq, said in a statement that troops were examining several "sites of interest," but said it was premature to call the Najaf site a chemical weapons factory.
A Fox News producer embedded with troops in the area reported Monday that a major battle is going on in the city of An Nasiriyah.
The Marines are stuck and have to decide whether to fight through to the city's bridges over the Euphrates river about 225 miles southeast of Baghdad, or go around the city, Reuters reported.
Earlier, up to nine Marines died and a dozen U.S. soldiers were taken prisoner in surprise engagements with Iraqis at An Nasiriyah, a southern city far from the forward positions of the allied force.
On the third day of the ground war, any expectation that Iraqi defenders would simply fold was gone.
"Clearly they are not a beaten force," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "This is going to get a lot harder."
Even so, the U.S.-British coalition fought to within 100 miles of Baghdad and tended to a growing northern front.
Early Monday, Baghdad was bombarded with what appeared to be its strongest airstrikes since Friday, even as a mosque blared "God is great" and "Thanks be to God," perhaps to boost Iraqis' morale.
Allied soldiers came under attack in a series of ruses Sunday, U.S. officials said, with one group of Iraqis waving the white flag of surrender, then opening up with artillery fire; another group appearing to welcome coalition troops but then attacking them.
Lt. Gen. John Abizaid of U.S. Central Command said a faked surrender near An Nasiriyah, a crossing point over the Euphrates River northwest of Basra, set off the "sharpest engagement of the war thus far." Up to nine Marines died before the Americans prevailed, he said.
Twelve U.S. soldiers were missing and presumed captured by Iraqis in an ambush on an army supply convoy at An Nasiriyah, Central Command said.
"We, of course, will be much more cautious in the way that we view the battlefield as a result of some of these incidents," Abizaid said.
Arab television showed what it said were four American dead in an Iraqi morgue and at least five other Americans identified as captured soldiers.
"I come to shoot only if I am shot at," said one prisoner, identified later by his family as Pfc. Patrick Miller of Park City, Kan., the father of two young children.
At least some of the missing prisoners were from Fort Bliss, Texas, including Army Spc. Joseph Hudson, whose mother said she saw TV footage of him being questioned.
"It's like a bad dream, seeing your son get captured on TV," said Anecita Hudson, of Alamogordo, N.M.
Military officials who viewed the video with Fox News believe that what they saw were U.S. personnel consistent with the region in which they were reportedly taken. They described the footage as "very disturbing."
U.S. and British officials said some of the stiffest resistance was coming from paramilitary forces known as the Fedayeen Saddam and from Saddam Hussein's personal security forces.
"These are men who know that they will have no role in the building of a new Iraq and they have no future," said Peter Wall, chief of staff to the British military contingent in the U.S.-led coalition.
President Bush kept his eye on the big prize -- the removal of Saddam's government and Iraq's eventual disarmament.
"I know that Saddam Hussein is losing control of his country," Bush said upon his return from the Camp David retreat in Maryland. "We are slowly but surely achieving our objective." He demanded that U.S. prisoners of war be treated humanely.
At a subdued Academy Awards show in Los Angeles, filmmaker Michael Moore used his Oscar acceptance speech to protest the war and declare, "Shame on you, Mr. Bush." He drew a mix of boos and applause from the crowd.
With allies closing in, Iraqi leaders appealed for a united Arab front to condemn the invasion but knew they wouldn't get it. "There is no hope in these rulers," Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said.
But Russia and Chinese foreign ministers reasserted their view that the invasion has no legal basis and asked for an immediate halt.
The State Department, for its part, protested that Russian companies sold sensitive military equipment to Iraq in the run-up to the war, maintaining some of the equipment could pose a direct threat to coalition forces.
A British warplane was shot down in a friendly fire attack by U.S. Patriot missiles, killing its crew of two, and a grenade attack in an Army base in Kuwait left a captain dead and a U.S. soldier as the suspect.
In addition, two British soldiers were missing after coming under attack in southern Iraq, British defense officials said Monday.
In the most notable gain for the coalition, soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade moved 230 miles in 40 hours, killing scores of Iraqi militiamen who engaged them with machine guns, to take positions less than a day's journey from Baghdad.
The brigade raced day and night across rugged desert in more than 70 tanks and 60 Bradley fighting vehicles. No American injuries were reported in that battle.
Iraqi Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmed expressed confidence his troops can hold the capital.
"If they want to take Baghdad they will have to pay a heavy price," he said.
U.S. ground forces began engaging the elite Iraqi Republican Guard that ring the outskirts of the city, launching helicopter attacks Sunday night against the Guard's Medina division, a senior military official said.
Several other allied units engaged in intensive gunbattles Sunday. In southern Iraq, a soldier from the 3rd Infantry Division died in a vehicle accident.
Efforts intensified to assemble forces in northern Iraq, where air strikes have gone after radicals linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist network but prospects for ground assaults have been limited because neighboring Turkey balked on becoming a staging ground.
A U.S. official said two Tomahawk cruise missiles malfunctioned Sunday and landed in Turkey. The missiles landed in unpopulated areas and no injuries were reported.
In Kuwait, U.S. officials investigated the attack at the 101st Airborne Division's command center, where an assailant threw grenades into three tents. Three of the wounded were seriously injured; Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert, 27, died.
The accidental downing of the British plane was another blow. The Tornado GR4, based in Marham, Britain, was returning from an operational mission early Sunday and was engaged by the missile battery, British officials said.
Near the Persian Gulf, Marines seized an Iraqi naval base Sunday morning at Az Zubayr. In the command center, Marines found half-eaten bowls of rice and other still-warm food.
Near Basra in the south, Marines saw hundreds of Iraqi men -- apparently soldiers who had taken off their uniforms -- walking along a highway with bundles on their backs past burned-out Iraqi tanks.
Allied forces have captured Basra's airport and a bridge. But commanders say they are in no rush to storm the city, hoping instead that Iraqi defenders decide to give up.
Although Iraq was getting little help diplomatically, many in the Muslim world expressed anger about the war.
Anti-war protests continued in many cities around the world, one of the biggest in Pakistan. Children in Lahore chanted anti-American slogans and other demonstrators carried portraits of Usama bin Laden and Saddam as more than 100,000 people joined in a peaceful rally.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/saddam-addresses-iraq-after-coalitions-toughest-day-of-resistance