Allied Forces Covet Key Airfields

American forces seized important airfields in western Iraq, while U.S. Marines took most of the Iraqi city of Umm Qasr, including its port, military sources said.

CBS News reports Pentagon sources confirmed Friday that U.S. forces captured far western Iraqi air bases known as H-2 and H-3.

The airfields were taken without much resistance from Iraqi troops, defense officials said on condition of anonymity.

They are important partly because Saddam Hussein is believed to have Scud missiles there.

Likewise, in the south, troops have "passed through" the Rumeila oil field but it may be too soon to say they have secured it, one senior Pentagon official said.

A U.S. Marine with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was killed in a gunfight as his unit advanced on the oil field, officials said Friday.

Hours earlier, eight British and four American soldiers died in a U.S. Marine helicopter crash that a British military spokesman said was an accident.

In Umm Qasr, Marines are moving against pockets of Iraqi resistance, U.S. officials said.

"We've taken most of the port, and at least a couple of hundred prisoners," a U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity. "We're not done securing it at this time."

Umm Qasr, located along the Kuwait border, would give U.S. and British forces access to a port for military and humanitarian supplies and speed the clearing of Iraqi resistance in the south.

In a sign the war might be entering a new phase, eight B-52 bombers based at Fairford air base in western England took off Friday as night approached in Iraq. The first movement of the heavy bombers foreshadowed a third night of air strikes, which have been limited so far but apparently effective in shaking Iraq's leadership.

One U.S. official involved in military planning said the B-52s had been scrambled en masse, and said the air strikes would be bigger than anything seen thus far in the conflict. In the early hours of the war, the U.S. launched two rounds of cruise missile attacks against Baghdad, but sent only two Stealth bombers over the capital city. The B-52s have played a major role in bombing campaigns dating back to Vietnam.

The military plans for major air escalation going into the weekend, a second senior military official said.

An important part of the war plan laid out by the war's commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, was to drop special forces at sites around Iraq to seize sensitive facilities such as oil wells, airfields and suspected chemical and biological weapons sites.

The airborne assaults were planned to come nearly simultaneously with, and in some cases in advance of, the bombing campaign and ground assault.

The H-3 airfield, 240 miles from Baghdad, has been one of Iraq's primary air-defense installations. Allied pilots bombed it in September.

Retired Navy Rear Adm. Stephen H. Baker said at the time that destroying radar at H-3 "would allow allied aircraft mounting major raids on Iraq a clear route into the country."

American and British troops encountered both hostile fire and white flags in their sprint across the desert Friday, with some 200 Iraqi soldiers surrendering to the U.S. 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit just over an hour after it crossed the border from northern Kuwait.

Iraqi defenders offered stiff resistance in some pockets, firing intense artillery barrages that were answered in kind.

But in Safwan, just across the Kuwait border, Iraqis watched and in some cases helped as U.S. Marines rigged chains to giant portraits of the Iraqi president and tore them down. Townspeople mostly hid from the occupying force. Some patted their stomach to beg for food.

Maj. David "Bull" Gurfein, pumping his fist in the air, led a milling crowd of citizens in chants of "Iraqis, Iraqis, Iraqis!" A young man in a headscarf told Gurfein: "No Saddam Hussein. Bush!"

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said direct talks were taking place with Iraqi forces and it was possible the "full force and fury of a war" could be averted.

"There are communications in every conceivable mode and method, public and private," he said after meeting lawmakers Thursday night.

A Democratic lawmaker expressed similar optimism. "The behavior of those who've not surrendered would suggest that they might," Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., said after being briefed by military officials.

American officials said they had strong indications no one was in charge of Iraq's government and armed forces.

But a decree issued in Saddam's name offered Iraqis rewards for killing or capturing the invaders — the equivalent of $14,000 for killing one and $28,000 for taking one alive.

CBS News Radio Correspondent Barry Bagnato reports the Pentagon says defense military planners are considering operational strategies to deal with any flooding forced by the Iraqi military.

Officials say if water is released into the Tigris River from upstream reservoirs, extensive flooding between Baghdad and Al Kut could occur.

Thousands of Iraqis could be displaced, adding to congestion on roads and requiring extensive humanitarian support.

Bagnato reports Iraq's strategy could include releasing a small amount of water from major dams and canals to interrupt maneuvering units.

Meanwhile, Pentagon sources tell CBS News analyst and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Perry Smith the attack on the command bunker housing senior Iraqi leadership was not a highly planned mission and was pulled together very quickly at the last minute.

"Two air crews were literally grabbed out of the ready room and told to scramble," says Smith.

The two pilots were briefed on the mission in the cockpit of their F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack jets. The jets reached their target just as 40 cruise missiles launched from Navy ships and submarines in the Gulf and the Red Sea arrived.

The Nighthawks dropped their 2000-pound precision-guided bombs so that the cruise missiles made the initial hits and Bunker Busters could achieve deep penetration into the bunker.

The timing worked, Smith says, "demonstrating pilot flexibility to the max."