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US ships and warplanes have attacked targets cross Iraq with 500 cruise missiles and several hundred precision guided weapons on Saturday, the Pentagon said.
Speaking at a news briefing at the Pentagon, Stanley McChrystal of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said 1,000 missions were flown from US aircraft carriers and air bases in the Gulf region to carry out the strikes, part of the so-called "Shock and Awe" air campaign unleashed on Friday.
McChrystal, vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said that US forces have crossed the Euphrates River using existing bridges and made their way 240 km into Iraq.
He said US special operations forces are searching for Scud missiles and weapons of mass destruction but have found no such weapons so far.
"We have found no caches of weapons of mass destruction to date," McChrystal said.
At the same news briefing, Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke claimed that a large number of Iraqi troops, including some of the leadership, have surrendered or defected in the past few days.
It is "only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed," she said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 23, 2003)
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