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Coalition Closing in on Baghdad

Aired April 03, 2003 - 15:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Coalition ground troops are so close to the heart of Baghdad they are within sight of the city's skyline. It's just after midnight in Iraq and it's more difficult to see that skyline. That's because the lights in the city went out a few hours ago, a first in this two-week-old war.
U.S. forces say they have not targeted Baghdad's power grid as troops press closer to the capital.

After days of pushing north through the Iraqi desert, coalition troops faced limited confrontations with Iraqi forces on their approach to Baghdad. Moving in two armored columns toward the capital, U.S. forces reportedly have launched an assault on Saddam Hussein International Airport. Pentagon sources say that's a key coalition target.

CNN's Walter Rodgers has been moving toward Baghdad with the Army's 3-7th Calvary. He filed this report on the resistance the troops faced along the way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Most of these soldiers appear to be in an Iraqi green uniform; that is to say the ones we've seen today are in green uniforms. They are not -- they give no evidence of being members of any elite units or even major organized units like the Republican Guard.

For those of our viewers who are familiar with war in the Middle East, often you get freelance gangs, what the Army is calling thugs of Iraqi soldiers. And those Iraqi soldiers will travel in groups of 10 to 20, often with a pickup truck with a machine gun on the back or some sort of armament too heavy to carry, and they ride around the countryside.

As I say, we have seen them digging in to some farmhouses. Again, the 7th Calvary has taken fire from farmhouses in the past 45 minutes. Additionally, they have taken up sniper positions along the road.

Again, the camera is focusing very tightly on an M1-A1 Abrams tank immediately in front of us. That tank has been engaged in action -- combat hostile action for at least the last half hour, as have most of these vehicles.

The reason we can't give you a bigger picture than that is because we are forbidden by the Pentagon of revealing the topography, the terrain through which the 7th Calvary is moving. Any disclosure of that topography would enable the Iraqis to come up with a fairly good estimate of where the 7th Calvary is, and, of course, that would perhaps draw out a much larger unit, a force-on-force unit. Fortunately that has not happened so far.

Again, you're looking at a tank which is the troop leader's tank of the Apache Troop of the 7th Calvary. The two soldiers aboard that tank, if you can see them, on the left is the tank loader, Mark Cushio Posey (ph). I know he's from Alabama. And on the right is Captain Clay Lyle (ph). He's the commander of the Apache Troop.

They have been firing pretty regularly, as I say, for 30 to 45 minutes on both sides of the road, and there are a goodly number -- I cannot be precise, again, for security reasons -- a goodly number of armored vehicles ahead and behind our position in this armored column.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Walter Rodgers, he's with the 7th Calvary, moving closer and closer toward the Iraqi capital.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.






Aired April 3, 2003 - 15:01   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Coalition ground troops are so close to the heart of Baghdad they are within sight of the city's skyline. It's just after midnight in Iraq and it's more difficult to see that skyline. That's because the lights in the city went out a few hours ago, a first in this two-week-old war.
U.S. forces say they have not targeted Baghdad's power grid as troops press closer to the capital.

After days of pushing north through the Iraqi desert, coalition troops faced limited confrontations with Iraqi forces on their approach to Baghdad. Moving in two armored columns toward the capital, U.S. forces reportedly have launched an assault on Saddam Hussein International Airport. Pentagon sources say that's a key coalition target.

CNN's Walter Rodgers has been moving toward Baghdad with the Army's 3-7th Calvary. He filed this report on the resistance the troops faced along the way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Most of these soldiers appear to be in an Iraqi green uniform; that is to say the ones we've seen today are in green uniforms. They are not -- they give no evidence of being members of any elite units or even major organized units like the Republican Guard.

For those of our viewers who are familiar with war in the Middle East, often you get freelance gangs, what the Army is calling thugs of Iraqi soldiers. And those Iraqi soldiers will travel in groups of 10 to 20, often with a pickup truck with a machine gun on the back or some sort of armament too heavy to carry, and they ride around the countryside.

As I say, we have seen them digging in to some farmhouses. Again, the 7th Calvary has taken fire from farmhouses in the past 45 minutes. Additionally, they have taken up sniper positions along the road.

Again, the camera is focusing very tightly on an M1-A1 Abrams tank immediately in front of us. That tank has been engaged in action -- combat hostile action for at least the last half hour, as have most of these vehicles.

The reason we can't give you a bigger picture than that is because we are forbidden by the Pentagon of revealing the topography, the terrain through which the 7th Calvary is moving. Any disclosure of that topography would enable the Iraqis to come up with a fairly good estimate of where the 7th Calvary is, and, of course, that would perhaps draw out a much larger unit, a force-on-force unit. Fortunately that has not happened so far.

Again, you're looking at a tank which is the troop leader's tank of the Apache Troop of the 7th Calvary. The two soldiers aboard that tank, if you can see them, on the left is the tank loader, Mark Cushio Posey (ph). I know he's from Alabama. And on the right is Captain Clay Lyle (ph). He's the commander of the Apache Troop.

They have been firing pretty regularly, as I say, for 30 to 45 minutes on both sides of the road, and there are a goodly number -- I cannot be precise, again, for security reasons -- a goodly number of armored vehicles ahead and behind our position in this armored column.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Walter Rodgers, he's with the 7th Calvary, moving closer and closer toward the Iraqi capital.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.