Ground War Starts, Airstrikes Continue As U.S. Keeps Focus on Iraq's Leaders

Tonight's movement of M1 Abrams tanks, M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and other military hardware across the sand berms that separate Iraq and Kuwait had had an appearance of inevitability for months. U.S. commanders have steadily assembled more than 250,000 troops in the Persian Gulf region but found their war plans complicated by the Bush administration's failure to win U.N. backing and Turkey's refusal to permit U.S. forces to mount a northern front from its soil.

Restrictions imposed by the U.S. military barred reporting precise numbers or locations of the advancing forces. But officers have made clear in the preceding days that the legions of U.S. soldiers who entered Iraq, along with hundreds of thousands of troops still in Kuwait, intend to fan out across the desiccated landscape of southern Iraq over the next few days and push north to Baghdad to capture or kill Hussein -- unless air attacks get him first or spark a coup d'etat by his military.

If they succeed in changing the Iraqi government, the ground forces will face the challenge of winning over a population deeply skeptical of U.S. motives, rebuilding a war-torn country of 23 million people and holding together a society riven by religious, ethnic and tribal differences.

After the withering artillery barrage, the ride "across the line" began for several thousand soldiers in the Army's 3rd Infantry Division when they got the all-clear to head through an Iraqi minefield cleared first by engineers: "Objective cleared. No enemy," came the word from a Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

And with that, the division's 2nd Battalion plowed into Iraq, through the deserted demilitarized zone left over from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Although there was little resistance, units of the division's 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment reported one Iraqi soldier killed at one observation post and five at another.

Marines from the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance unit of the 1st Marine Division also crossed the border at 8 p.m. and headed north, the first of a wave of Marines moving into Iraq. By 9:48 p.m., the Marines had their first reported contact with the enemy as they engaged a unit of Iraqi infantry and armor. Officers reported that the Marines destroyed a T-55 tank and were maneuvering to hit another.