Ready To Hit Baghdad From All Sides

America's battle plan for Baghdad is taking shape, with U.S. forces now in position to strike the Iraqi capital from nearly all sides — or to mount a siege and wait for Saddam Hussein's regime to fall to internal opposition.

Amid criticism that the Pentagon has not committed enough troops to Iraq, a new major buildup is underway, reports CBS News Correspondent Barry Bagnato at the Pentagon. The size of the coalition force is expected to more than double. Currently, 90,000 U.S. and British troops are on the ground. At least another 100,000 or so are being deployed. The fact that this reinforcement will occur over several weeks indicates Defense Department planners expect an extended war.

"We have our forces continuing to move, continuing to posture themselves, and set conditions to do what we said we were going do, which is take down this regime, and do away with the weapons of mass destruction that we all absolutely know are in that country," said Gen. Tommy Franks, in an exclusive interview with CBS News Correspondent Cami McCormick. "As I think many people have said, we're on the plan."

At a briefing at Central Command headquarters in Qatar, U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks denied the coalition had underestimated Iraq.

"There will always be things that occur on the battlefield that are not precisely as you calculated them in your design," he told reporters. "The strength of a plan is the ability to adapt it to the reality of the circumstance, while still remaining focused on what it is we seek to do."

A senior administration official Friday morning said President Bush has a "level of frustration with the press corps" over repeated questions about the war timetable, reports CBS News White House Correspondent Peter Maer. The official said Mr. Bush believes the questions about the duration of the war are "silly." The official insists "the war is going well. The war is on track."

About 90,000 U.S. troops are inside Iraq, a senior defense official said Thursday, adding that was an increase of about 14,000 in just two days. More than 250,000 U.S. troops are in the region, including thousands aboard Navy ships at sea, on air bases in surrounding countries and at headquarters encampments.

Another 100,000 to 120,000 ground troops are expected to begin arriving in Kuwait in coming days, including the Army's 4th Infantry, 1st Armored and 1st Cavalry divisions.

While awaiting the additional troops, the American game plan is simple: bombs, bombs and more bombs.

U.S. and British aircraft are pounding some of the estimated 30,000 Republican Guard forces arrayed around Baghdad and striking inside the capital against Saddam's levers of power and modes of communication.

Because Iraqi leaders have maintained their ability to communicate with forces in the field despite constant coalition targeting of so-called "command and control" facilities, the coalition military early Friday rolled out new weapons — two 4,700-pound, satellite-guided "bunker busting" bombs were dropped from American B-2 bombers on a major communications tower on the east bank of the Tigris River in downtown Baghdad. The bombs were twice the size of the bunker busting bombs that were being used before.

The bombing attack, aimed at disrupting communication between Saddam and his military leaders, gutted a seven-story telephone exchange, leaving the street strewn with rubble.

Powerful explosions rocked the capital during the night and Friday morning aircraft swooped low over the city. Anti-aircraft fire was intermittent.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al Sahaf said the overnight air strikes killed seven people in Baghdad and wounded 92.

The U.S. military Friday said it has found and destroyed an Iraqi missile battery near the border that is believed to have been launching missiles into Kuwait since the start of the war, reports CBS News Correspondent Steve Knight in Kuwait City. This would be welcome news to people in that nervous city, who have been subjected to air raid alerts too numerous to count. U.S. and Kuwaiti Patriot missile batteries near the city have destroyed seven incoming Iraqi missiles in the past eight days.

While the coalition war plan is flexible and certain to shift with events, U.S. leaders say they are operating on three rock-solid certainties: They won't lose. They won't set a timetable. And they won't let up until Saddam is gone.

"There isn't going to be a cease-fire," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told lawmakers on Thursday.

Rumsfeld also raised the possibility of a siege of Baghdad rather than a quick strike into the heart of the city.

Asked by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., what American ground troops would do once they reached Baghdad, Rumsfeld answered by saying Baghdad had to be isolated before it was taken.

He also alluded to what is happening at Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. British forces there have laid siege, hoping for a successful uprising by the city's Shiite population.

Rumsfeld noted that both Basra and Baghdad have large numbers of Shiites. "And they are not terribly favorable to the regime. They've been repressed," Rumsfeld said.

American Army and Marine infantry forces are arrayed to the south of Baghdad, some within 50 miles of the capital. They are led by the Army's 3rd Infantry and 101st Airborne divisions and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

Coalition special operations forces are working both in western and northern Iraq, and the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade has secured an airfield in the north with 1,000 paratroopers. And more are on the way.

The movements suggest a strategy to encircle Baghdad with U.S. troops much as Saddam has ringed the city with his best trained and best equipped Republican Guard forces.

Iraq's defense minister said Friday that American forces could encircle "great parts of Baghdad" in as little as 5 to 10 days, but that the ensuing battle could last as long as two months, perhaps longer, The New York Times reported. He predicted a street-by-street defense of the city.

"For us, Baghdad will become the cemetery where the enemy will be buried," the defense minister, Gen. Sultan Hashim, said at a hotel news conference. "We will teach the United States and the British and their allies a lesson they will never forget."

Special forces have cleared large areas of western Iraq, creating a crucial buffer to ensure Saddam's forces cannot launch missile strikes on neighbors such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel, a senior U.S. military commander said.