April 15, 2003

     The war to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ended in victory yesterday with U.S. Marines capturing the dictator's final stronghold of Tikrit, capping a lightning-fast military campaign that subdued Iraq in 27 days.

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     "That's why we've won, is thanks to the Pentagon," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday to a reporter's question about reconstruction.
     At the Pentagon, a spokesman said major battles are now over.
     "I would anticipate that the major combat engagements are over because the major Iraqi units on the ground cease to show coherence," Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said at a Pentagon press conference. "Tikrit was the last area where we anticipated seeing major combat formations, if in fact they were there."
     Operation Iraqi Freedom now shifts to two major objectives: destroying remnants of Fedayeen Saddam paramilitaries and non-Iraqi guerrillas, and rebuilding Iraq to nurture a new democracy.
     Other objectives include finding any weapons of mass destruction and key Saddam regime players, whether dead, hiding in Iraq or fleeing abroad.
     For example, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday threatened Syria with diplomatic and economic sanctions, accusing it of harboring defeated Iraqi leaders, developing chemical weapons and supporting terror.
     Also yesterday, U.S. defense officials said Army forces found 11 large trailers buried near Karbala with equipment inside that appears to be from Iraq's covert chemical- and biological-weapons program.
     Hunting down the fanatical Fedayeen fighters got a boost yesterday as the Army's high-tech 4th Infantry Division entered southern Iraq from Kuwait for what is expected to be a classic "mopping up" mission.
     The 4th Infantry was to invade from Turkey, but instead sat out the war when the Bush administration failed to get basing rights. Its tanks and armored vehicles were rerouted to Kuwaiti ports.
     "As major combat operations wind down, we'll still conduct minor combat operations, to include some sharp fights in areas, and then adjust our operations in each area," Gen. McChrystal said. "I'm not sure it will be so close that all of a sudden we proclaim we are moving from one kind of operation to the next."
     Saddam and his ancestral clan hail from Tikrit, and he lavished military protection and oil-financed homes, schools and medical clinics on the city of 250,000.
     But by the time Tikrit became a priority in the coalition ground war, Saddam's once-vaunted Republican Guard was routed by intense bombings and many Fedayeen had been killed.
     "There was less resistance than we anticipated," said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, spokesman at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar.
     Through the night, Marine M-1A1 tanks destroyed several Iraqi ground units in Tikrit, and Cobra helicopter gunships launched rockets at pockets of paramilitaries.
     By yesterday afternoon Iraqi time, the Americans occupied Tikrit's downtown and entered one of Saddam's luxurious palaces — replaying a scene at the fall of Baghdad on April 9.
     Where Iraqi soldiers once dug in, the Marines found abandoned uniforms and weapons. And even Saddam's hometown was no different from other Iraqi cities, where citizens seemed relieved to be done with the Ba'athist rulers.
     "It was a ghost town when we first arrived," said Brig. Gen. John Kelly, commander of the 1st Marine Division, which has 3,000 troops in Tikrit. "Then [residents] start sticking their noses out and approaching us and start pointing out where the Ba'athists are and the Fedayeen and the caches of weapons."
     Added Gen. McChrystal, "There were some sharp fights there, but not a coherent defense. So I think we will move into a phase where it is smaller, albeit sharp, fights."
     The Marines set up checkpoints at crucial bridges and highways to catch any senior regime leaders on a Central Command list of 55 most wanted fugitives.
     At the top of the list is Saddam. The Bush administration says it does not know the ousted leader's fate, although some officials believe he was killed in an April 7 air strike in Baghdad.
     Gen. Tommy Franks, the allied commander, said Sunday that Saddam's Ba'ath Party regime was history. Gen. Franks, a four-star Army officer, said he would not declare complete victory until Iraq is well on its way to a democratic government.
     But in terms of the battlefield, the allies can claim victory. They have seized all population centers. In most towns, the mission has shifted to humanitarian relief.
     The Pentagon reported that 117 American and 31 British troops died in the war. Of the 117 Americans, 105 were killed by hostile fire. More than 400 U.S. troops were wounded.
     In the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the United States suffered 148 battle deaths and 467 wounded.
     The air campaign that devastated Iraqi ground troops also is winding down. Coalition aircraft yesterday flew 700 missions, about one-third of their average daily sortie rate.
     Of the five Navy carrier battle groups in the region, Central Command is sending two out of the Persian Gulf, the USS Constellation and the USS Kitty Hawk.
     The Air Force has returned four B-2 stealth bombers, which were critical in the bombing of Baghdad, from Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean back to Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. Also being pulled back are the Air Force's F-117 stealth fighters.
     "The regime is at its end, and its leaders are either dead, surrendered or on the run," said Victoria Clarke, chief Pentagon spokeswoman.
     "Gone is the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein," Mr. Fleischer said.
     In Baghdad, more than 2,000 Iraqi police officers reported for duty. The unarmed Iraqis joined patrols with U.S. Marines to halt rampant looting since the capital fell and Saddam's Ba'ath Party officials fled.
     "Treat citizens as if they were your brothers, your friends," Iraqi Gen. Mohammed Bandar told his men. "The citizen must feel the change. Now we are in a democracy."
     The allies now control the site in the west Baghdad neighborhood of Mansur where an Air Force B-1B bomber dropped 8,000 pounds of ordnance April 7 on a building believed to hold Saddam and some top aides.
     U.S. officials either have begun or soon will begin inspecting the site for human remains, an official in Washington said yesterday. Gen. Franks said Sunday that the coalition has a sample of Saddam's DNA that would be used to identify his remains and those of his sons, Qusai and Uday.

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Updated at 8:30 a.m.