BAGHDAD, (Reuters):
UNITED STATES forces pounded Republican Guard units around Baghdad from the ground and the air yesterday, but also killed seven Iraqi women and children in an incident certain to fuel anti-American sentiment in the Arab world and elsewhere.
The U.S. Central Command acknowledged firing on a vehicle near the central city of Najaf, after its driver ignored orders to stop and a warning shot.
"As a last resort, the soldiers fired into the passenger compartment of the vehicle. Inside the vehicle, they found 13 women and children. Seven of the occupants were dead. Two were wounded. Four were unharmed," a spokesman said.
President George W. Bush, speaking in Philadelphia, told Iraqis: "We are coming with a mighty force to end the rule of your oppressors ... We will not stop, we will not relent until your country is free."
On the military front, since charging through hundreds of miles (km) of Iraqi territory in the first days of the 12-day-old war, U.S. invasion units have been consolidating supply lines, carrying out equipment maintenance and resupply and probing Republican Guard brigades who stand between them and Baghdad.
"We're coming. Where the regime is, we're coming," Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said at U.S. Central Command in Qatar, adding that some élite Iraqi units were in serious difficulty after days of relentless attacks from an enemy that now has complete air dominance. There are now 100,000 U.S. and British troops inside Iraq.
