US troops seize Saddam’s palace in ‘show of force’

A US ARMOURED force punched into the heart of Baghdad yesterday and established a stronghold in one of President Saddam Hussein’s palaces, while troops in central Iraq found a cache of suspected Iraqi chemical weapons.

The US military said the assault on central Baghdad by more than 100 tanks and armoured vehicles was a show of force, designed to demonstrate that troops could enter the capital at will, rather than a final attack on the city of five million.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he did not know what had happened to Saddam or where he was but said he no longer ran much of Iraq and was running out of soldiers.