Edition: U.S. / Global

Bush Orders Start of War on Iraq; Missiles Said to Be Aimed at Hussein

Published: March 19, 2003

WASHINGTON, March 19 — President Bush declared war against Iraq tonight, ordering the 200,000 American forces massed on the country's southern border to begin a long-awaited invasion to disarm the country and depose Saddam Hussein.

Speaking to the nation from the Oval Office at 10:15 p.m. Eastern time, about 45 minutes after the first attacks were reported against military installations in Baghdad, Mr. Bush said "These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign."

He warned that the battles in the days ahead "could be longer and more difficult than some predict."

Mr. Bush's speech came about two hours after the expiration of his 48-hour deadline for Mr. Hussein to leave Iraq, an ultimatium dismissed with disdain by the Iraqi leader.

The president ordered American forces to strike Baghdad after American officials received fresh intelligence that suggested a gathering of senior Iraqi leaders.

According to two senior military officials, they launched a "few dozen" Tomahawk cruise missiles as part of an apparent effort to kill Mr. Hussein, his two sons or other senior members of the Iraqi leadership. This initial attack was described as limited in scope.

"This is not the start of the air campaign," one senior official said in Washington.

The first signs of the attack in Baghdad, which began just before first light at 5.35 a.m. local time, were an air raid siren followed by antiaircraft fire and loud explosions over the city that appeared to be bombs. The antiaircraft fire appeared to be ineffective, striking at low altitude over the city.

At least one impact was visible about a half mile from the Rashid Hotel in central Baghdad, throwing a great cloud of dust into the air.

The initial round of explosions took place over about 10 minutes and was followed by a lull. The first traffic of the day racing down the highway appeared to be drivers fleeing the attack.

With his four-minute address to the nation, delivered after he finished a quiet dinner with his wife Laura in the White House residence, Mr. Bush embarked on one of the country's most ambitious military ventures since Vietnam, and on a war his administration began planning over a year ago.

He did so without the sanction of the United Nations Security Council, where he could not assemble the nine votes necessary for a specific authorization to go to war, and with significant military support from only a handful of nations led by Britain.

But he argued on Monday, and again tonight, that Mr. Hussein posed a grave threat to the United States, and would attack the country or its interests whenever he gained the weapons and the strength.

Mr. Bush tonight described Mr. Hussein as "an enemy who has no regard for the conventions of war and the rules of morality."

"The opening stages of the disarmament of the Iraqi regime have begun," Mr. Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said about 10 minutes after the first explosions.

Mr. Bush addressed much of his brief speech to the American men and women in the Persian Gulf, telling them that Iraqis "will witness the honorable and decent spirit of the American military." He contended that America had no visions of empire in the Middle East.

"We have no ambition in Iraq," he declared, "except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people."

Earlier in the day, Mr. Bush formally informed Congress, and then world leaders, that he was ready to depose Mr. Hussein by force. In a seven-page message to Congress, he argued that force was now the only way to "adequately protect the national security of the United States" and that topping the Iraqi government was "a vital part" of a broader war against terrorism. The message was required under a statute passed last fall explicitly authorizing war against Iraq after the president determined that a diplomatic solution was impossible.

As the deadline passed tonight, Mr. Bush's dinner was interrupted by a call from Andrew H. Card, the White House chief of staff, Mr. Fleischer said. The president asked Mr. Card if there was any evidence that Mr. Hussein had left Iraq. There was none, Mr. Card told him — hardly a surprise after Mr. Hussein's two days of defiant claims that he would stay in place, and defeat the invading army.

There had been doubt earlier in the day that the invasion would start this quickly. As punishing sandstorms swirled around the Army troops massed in Kuwait, the engineering battalions that will be in the vanguard of the invasion force — breaching berms and clearing minefields — were already on the move. Special Operations forces were reportedly already deployed inside Iraq, shaping the battlefield for the larger invasion force to come.

American and British warplanes flew bombing missions tonight against a dozen Iraqi artillery and surface-to-surface missile positions in southern Iraq, wiping out placements that could threaten advancing troops.
