BAGHDAD – At first glance, the smiling faces of the Iraqi throngs who mobbed   the streets of Baghdad throughout Wednesday were cause for unadulterated   jubilation.   US and British forces, after 12 years, have finally arrived to liberate them   from the terror regime of Saddam Hussein.   The smiles on the faces of the pillaging mobs making…

BAGHDAD – A smiling burka-clad Shi'ite woman gave a big thumbs-up to the US   forces she passed as she walked along the road in southern Baghdad, dragging   a bathtub she had just looted.   'Go Bush! Yes America!' she called out.   Thousands upon thousands of Iraqi civilians took to the streets of Baghdad   yesterday, smiling and…

HIGHWAY 8, SOUTH BAGHDAD – At nightfall Monday US forces had taken over   footholds in large swaths of Baghdad. The 3rd Infantry Division's Second Brigade was located at the center of the   city. The 3rd Brigade was located in northwest Baghdad and the Marines were   located in the city's northeast. The 1st brigade was still securing the…

SADDAM INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT – US forces continued Sunday to destroy Iraqi   Republican Guard Units in and around Baghdad in their bid to overthrow   Saddam Hussein's regime. By the afternoon, 3rd Infantry Division and Marine   Corps units had enveloped some 90 percent of Baghdad.   The 3rd Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade destroyed a Republican Guard tank   battalion…

BAGHDAD AIRPORT – A call came over the radio at 2:30 p.m. Saturday: Two   truckloads of Iraqi civilians, displaced when the US Army took over the   Saddam Hussein International Airport in Baghdad late Thursday night, would   be moving through the lines escorted on either side by Army vehicles. The call was a warning not to shoot; the…

BAGHDAD AIRPORT – 'We are on an offensive-oriented mission. Our job is to   destroy the enemy. We defend the airfield by destroying the enemy around   us,' explained Lt. Col. Scott Rutter, commander of the 2-7 Mechanized   Infantry Battalion, at a command briefing to his officers Saturday   afternoon.   The 2-7 Battalion, together with the 3-69 Battalion…

I just finished my first 'Ranger pudding.' Sitting in the back of the   Bradley fighting vehicle, I followed the recipe instructions I received a   few days ago from one of the guys in the battalion: 'You take the cocoa   powder pouch in the MREs [combat rations], add a pouch of instant coffee,   fill the cocoa pouch…

About 30 minutes after a suicide bomber killed four soldiers from the 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion, Operations Officer Maj. Rod Coffey stood before the maps lying on the table of the battalion operation tent absentmindedly but violently smashing his plastic water bottle on the table.   Coffey managed the front-rear coordination of the operation to secure the checkpoint on Highway…

SOUTH OF BAGHDAD – The much awaited ground offensive toward Baghdad began at 2 a.m. Wednesday. By sundown, the US forces had decimated the Republican Guard   Medina Division's 14th Brigade and moved within 50 kilometers of the Iraqi   capital and into the 'red zone' defensive cordon, US military officials   said. US forces from the 3rd Infantry Division…

Air attacks target Iraqi artillery near capital SOUTH OF BAGHDAD – As I sat with US Air Force Master Sgt. J.B. Bruening in   the shade of his humvee, the voice of a special forces operative came over   his satellite radio calling in F-14 air strikes against a weapons cache and   artillery pieces in Karbala. Bruening, 36, a…