BAGHDAD, March 20 Kyodo The Unite...

BAGHDAD, March 20 Kyodo

The United States and Britain forward Thursday launched air strikes onward Baghdad as the U.S.-set deadline for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to leave the political division expired, with Iraq reportedly responding through firing missiles at Kuwait.

U aircraft and missile-firing ships fired a barrage of precision-guided missiles before dawn, hitting targets in the outskirts of the Iraqi capital.

''American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to at liberty its people and to plead the world from grave danger,'' U President George W Bush said in a televised address about couple hours after the U.S. ultimatum expired. ''This will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no issue but victory.''

Bush said the first strikes were against ''selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war.''

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Sa'eed al-Sahhaf told a pres discourse that the attacks killed the same Iraqi and wounded several others in Baghdad. The missiles hit chiefly empty buildings belonging to television and radio stations, a customs office and civilian districts, he said.

Iraq reportedly rejoined by firing two missiles that struck northern Kuwait. No casualties were reported.

The information minister denied the reports, adding Iraq has no scamper missiles.

CNN television reported that air raids sirens were heard in Baghdad at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday about 90 minutes after the US-set deadline expired.

The attack, involving F-177A stealth fighters and multiple cruise missiles from U warships, was a ''decapitation attack'' to take abroad Saddam, CNN quoted Pentagon sources as saying.

Explosions continued for more than an hour in the capital.

Iraqi officials could not give the exact number of missiles that hit the capital, however many witnesses reported hearing around 38 explosions.

Witnesses also said the Dora mineral oil industrial area was one of the targets, adding that part of a nearby highway was hit from a missile that created a 3-meter wide crater.

The Information Ministry was arranging a guided visit for foreign journalists to what common official said is one of the ''civilian targets the U aggressors destroyed''

In his address, Bush said the attack is the exordium to large-scale strikes according to the U.S-led forces.

''These are opening stages of what will be a broad and designed campaign,'' he said.

The president also asked U citizens for patience.

''A campaign forward the harsh terrain on a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than near predict,'' he said.

Les than three hours later, Saddam went onward national television in Iraq, vowing to win the war with the U and calling forward Iraqis to be unafraid.

''Do not be afraid...we will resist the invaders and win the war with the United States,'' he said.

The Iraqi president also charged Bush had ''ignored an faithful call for peace'' and accused the U of committing ''humanitarian crimes'' against Iraq with the attack early Thursday.

In Washington, initial television reports said that the first bombing and cruise missile strikes -- from bunker-buster bombs and 40 missiles -- were aimed at the Iraqi leadership, including the president, not forward the country as a whole.

Television reports from the Kuwait-Iraq border, where U and British multitudes are massed for possible invasion of Iraq, said those companys are ''ready and eager'' to advance but so far no mental action across the border had begun.

Bush issued the ultimatum that Saddam and his son must leave Iraq after the U Britain and Spain gave up Monday onward putting to a suffrage a resolution that would have authorized the use of force against Iraq. The three countries allowed the resolution to die rather than risk the UN Security Council (UNSC) rejecting it after UNSC members failed to narrow their differences in succession the process of disarming Iraq.

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