On The Scene: Civilian Casualties

Iraqi Forces Have Paid A Heavy Price, But More Civilians Are Dying

(CBS)  CBS News Correspondent John Roberts is traveling with the U.S. Marines on the outskirts of Baghdad.

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With the battle for the capital raging all around them, Marines came under sniper fire in a Baghdad neighborhood. They race for positions maneuvering to get the sniper in view.

What they find is another wartime tragedy. A minivan simply on the wrong road, at the wrong time is riddled by American fire. The driver and a passenger are dead. Another is shot in the stomach. Marines prepare to medivac him to a military hospital.

They explain to another survivor why it happened.

"Somebody shot at us just as you came down the road. We are your friend," one Marine tells the Iraqi.

The majority of the combat power of the 1st Marine Division is now inside the city limits of Baghdad. The fighting has been fierce, but the resistance says one Marine commander, is crumbling.

"They are completely surrounded. To me it is absolutely pointless to keep resisting. I would hope at least the conventional forces would see that," says Brig Gen. John Kelly.

Iraqi forces have paid a heavy price.

But on one Baghdad street, it was more Iraqi civilians who were dying. Marines stop a car and find a man with single shot to the head. A medic bandages his wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Another Marine comforts his brother and a young boy who was in the car. There is little, however, the Americans can do.

With a mass of armor and Marines waiting to join the fight, it is certain there will be more civilians caught in the crossfire, but the Marines insist that their strategy to take Baghdad is designed to limit the risk to their forces and the Iraqi people.

Unlike the army, which has already pushed deep into the heart of Baghdad, these Marines plan in the next 48 hours to move ahead, slowly placing themselves in positions they say will draw Saddam's forces out where they can be either captured or killed.