US issues fresh threat

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last night said an offensive more powerful than anything seen before was coming to Iraq and urged Saddam Hussein’s defenders to disobey orders and give up.

Just a couple hours after Mr Rumsfeld’s first news conference since the start of the war in Iraq, more bombs struck Baghdad and ground operations had reportedly begun inside Iraq.

“What will follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict,” Mr Rumsfeld said. “It will be of a force and scope and scale beyond what has been seen before.”

Following the opening salvo nearly 14 hours before, Mr Rumsfeld said a senior Iraqi leadership compound was struck and other officials said the main target was Saddam.

Mr Rumsfeld said a damage assessment, including whether Saddam had been hit, was being conducted by the Pentagon and made it clear more such targeting of the Iraqi leadership was coming.

“That was the first,” he said. “It will likely not be the last.”

US President George W Bush was to meet in the afternoon with his cabinet on the war and receive updates on the first offensive in his new policy of striking in advance enemies deemed to be a threat to America.

Congress struggled to smooth over bitter partisan conflicts to unite behind the war, despite many Democrats’ misgivings that it is premature or unnecessary. Both houses of Congress planned to take up resolutions supporting the troops and Bush.

“We may have had differences of opinion about what brought us to this point, but the president is the commander in chief and today we unite behind him as well,” said Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, whose criticism of Mr Bush’s diplomacy brought an angry response from Republican lawmakers.

In the face of the coming assault, Rumsfeld told Iraqi citizens to stay in their homes, away from military targets and listen to radio stations for instructions from the Americans and their allies.

He also told the Iraqi military to disobey orders, not attack civilians or destroy the nation’s oil fields.

“Following such orders would be to commit crimes against the Iraqi people,” Mr Rumsfeld said. “See those orders for what they are, the last desperate gasp of a dying regime”.

“The days of the Saddam Hussein regime are numbered,” Mr Rumsfeld said.

Saddam appeared on television after the first bombings to defiantly rally his people. But a senior US administration official said it was not clear whether the appearance was live or taped, or made by one of Saddam doubles.

A US official said there was “some information” Saddam may have been meeting with others on the outskirts of Baghdad. Asked if Saddam was the target of the first strikes, a British military official said: “Yes.”