WAR NOT YET WON?
US officials are trying to contain the optimism, according to Financial Times:
“I think it’s premature to talk about the end of this operation yet,” Captain Frank Thorp told Reuters at Central Command forward headquarters in Qatar.
“There may be many more fierce fighting days in front of us as coalition forces continue to move within Baghdad and within the country,” he said as jubilant crowds and hordes of looters took over Baghdad streets now empty of police and authority.
Thorp noted that the half of the country north of Baghdad had not been occupied by U.S.-led forces. That included Saddam’s home city of Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of the capital, where U.S. officials have said resistance could be stiff.
All evidence seems to point in the other direction, though.
