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US-led coalition troops launched the war across Iraq on Friday night, with ground forces advancing in the south, airfields seized in the west and air strikes on two northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and the capital city of Baghdad.
At the same time, anti-war protests went throughout the world, denouncing US hegemony and praying for peace.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime is "starting to lose control of their country."
"The confusion of Iraqi officials is growing. Their ability to see what is happening on the battlefield, to communicate with their forces and to control their country is slipping away," Rumsfeld added.
However, Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed said his country's forces are strongly resisting American and British invaders, and acknowledged for the first time that US and British troops have crossed the borders into Iraq from Kuwait, attacked Umal-Qasser and headed toward Basra.
Protests, Criticism Against Iraq War Go Throughout the World
Iraq's Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammed Aldouri accused UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan of breaching the UN Charter by not criticizing the US-led invasion of his country and criticized him for withdrawing UN weapons inspectors before the attack.
Aldouri said Annan's behaviors would help the United States and Britain put Iraq's natural resources under "the control of the world American and Zionist oil mafia."
"It is a flagrant material breach of international law, the UN Charter and the Security Council resolutions relevant to Iraq," he said.
The Iraq war sparked one of the most widespread rounds of anti-war protests throughout the United States.
San Francisco was once again the scene of the largest anti-war protests in the country, with bands of demonstrators marching through the streets.
From demonstrations near the White House to a march through downtown Boulder, Colorado, from candlelight vigils to traffic disruptions, anti-war activities continued while the war is going on.
Tens of thousands of people are gathering in London and marching to the city's Hyde Park for a rally in protest against the ongoing US-led war aimed at toppling Iraqi President Saddam.
Anti-war groups said they were expecting half a million people to take to the streets of central London in the peace marches.
Further peace demonstrations are expected in cities across Britain and at US military bases in Gloucestershire in southwestern England and Yorkshire in northern England.
Anti-war demonstrations also took place in many cities across Canada.
Protesters blocked access to the British High Commission in Ottawa. They used bicycle locks to fasten themselves to gates and doors.
In the country's largest city of Toronto, thousands of protesters staged a sit-in in the city's main street, blocking traffic for several hours.
In three other major cities - Vancouver, Manitoba and Montreal, huge crowds of people turned out to protest against the war.
It is reported that anti-war rallies are planned all across Canada for Saturday and Sunday.
Iranian supreme leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned the US-led war on Iraq, saying this invasion marks the emergence of a new form of Hitlerism in world history.
Khamenei told large groups of people at the advent of the Iranian New Year in the eastern city of Mashhad that an attack by a sovereign state against another under any false pretext is abominable in the eyes of world public opinion.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi has termed the war as "unjustifiable" because it "has been launched in violation of UN rules and regulations."
Jordanian King Abdullah II on Friday called on his people to unite to overcome the repercussions of the war in neighboring Iraq.
Pope John Paul, in his first public comment on the Iraq war, said it threatened the whole humanity and that weapons could never solve mankind's problems.
"When war, like the one now in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is even more urgent for us to proclaim, with a firm and decisive voice, that only peace is the way of building a more just and caring society," he said.
Amnesty International said it was seeking urgent details from the United States about measures taken to avoid civilian casualties during ferocious bombing of Baghdad overnight.
The human rights group said the strikes on the Iraqi capital, described by the Pentagon as the start of a "shock and awe" air war, should be called off if the civilian death toll proves too high.
The Brazilian government announced that it was prepared, at the request of the United Nations, to receive war victims from Iraq if there was a humanitarian crisis.
The Brazilian government Thursday demanded respect for international humanitarian laws and for the protection of civilians, especially refugees.
Paraguayan President Luis Gonzalez criticized the United States for its unilateral military action against Iraq, saying such action has violated the basic rules of the United Nations.
"This war decision and the loss of human life are regrettable, "Gonzalez said in the Paraguayan capital, Asuncion. He added that the dignity of the United Nations had been "seriously weakened" with the beginning of this conflict.
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Durao announced that his government had turned down the US request to expel Iraqi diplomats and the Iraqi Embassy in Lisbon would remain open.
"We do not have the intention of closing the Iraqi Embassy and there is no reason to expel Iraqi diplomats from Portugal," Durao said.
The lower house of the Mexican Parliament condemned the use of force against Iraq and supported the pacifist position of the country in the UN Security Council.
The lawmakers said in a statement that they agreed to support the United Nations in its humanitarian assistance to victims of the Iraqi conflict.
(Xinhua News Agency March 22, 2003)
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