The United States launched surgical air strikes on Baghdad this past Wednesday after intelligence revealed that Saddam Hussein and his top officials were attainable targets.
Sources said that the strike which took place just over two hours past the 48-hour deadline were indeed earlier than originally planned.
President Bush’s Press Secretary Ari Fleischer did say shortly after the first strikes that it was believed Hussein was in the areas hit by cruise missiles launched from battleships off the coast of Iraq.
As of Tuesday, coalition forces were 50 miles from Baghdad with 12 American GI’s killed and seven captured.
As they approached Baghdad, Iraq forces were the hardest hit with 500 Iraqi soldiers killed in the past two days.
There has not been a major ground campaign since Vietnam which left the United States with heavy causalities.
Dr. Stephen Fritz, a World War II historian and ETSU professor, said, “The ground offensive in the Gulf War differed from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” because we were forcing Hussein out of Kuwait and not trying to capture Baghdad.”
There are as reported 7 POW0s as the ground invasion proceeds and Al-Jazeera television in Iraq showed the execution-style death of American GI’s earlier this week.
This treatment of U.S. POWs violates the Geneva Conventions; it is plural because there has been more than one convention held.
“The Geneva Conventions concern the treatment of POWs and basically how the captor is expected to treat the prisoners,” Fritz said.
He also said that POWs under the rules of the Geneva Convention were not required to do manual work unless they agreed to do so, and Red Cross medical care is supposed to be available, along with the shipment of letters from the GI’s.
The Geneva Convention’s originated from Henri Dunant’s viewing of the Italian battle for independence against Austria in the late 1800s where he saw the horrific deaths of those left to die in the Battle of Solferino.
The conventions met many more times but were totally changed after the massive amount of war crimes that took place during WWII.
On Tuesday afternoon a British journalist was reporting that the Shiites in Iraq’s second largest city of Basra had started an uprising against the pro-Saddam troops supported by British coalition forces.
Also Fox News reported that possible Republican Guard troops are dressing up as U.S. soldiers and accepting the surrender of Iraqi troops then executing them.
“It’s a tragic situation, Hussein has held onto power through terror” Fritz said regarding the dictator’s use of force on his own people.
Iraqi soldiers have been quick to surrender with the count being at 3,500 prisoners thus far in the war.
Fritz said he hopes the coalition forces are able to fight the Republican Guard outside of Baghdad for fear of more American casualties in urban warfare.
“Saddam does not trust the Republican Guard so he may keep them outside of Baghdad” Fritz said.
The last 72 hours have proven many answers to be true of Hussein’s regime as Scud missiles have been fired at coalition forces and torturous methods are being carried out on American POWs.
Interesting methods are also called upon in time of conflict as dolphins and sea lions are helping coalition forces by clearing out shipping lanes to avoid catastrophe at sea. There was an interesting picture along with the story of the dolphin with a camera strapped to its fin Tuesday on the Drudge Report.
Nevertheless war protesters are still protesting the war in Iraq even after 71 percent of the American people according to a CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll approve President Bush’s job in conducting the war.
Author and director Michael Moore, at Sunday’s Academy Awards, vocally opposed Bush in the war in Iraq amidst boos and criticism from the audience.
Dr. Fritz believes there is a connection between al-Qaeda and Hussein’s regime.
“If Saddam is not aiding terrorists then what is he doing producing chemical agents such as ricin? Why is Hussein providing terrorists training ground for Al-Quaeda which has been documented?” Fritz said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the coalition forces have done more in the past five days of the war than the first five weeks of the previous Gulf War as troops prepare to take over Baghdad.

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