The Iraqi regime has "shown its true colors" in recent days with brutality and disregard for international rules of warfare, a U.S. Central Command official said today.

Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations at CENTCOM's deployed headquarters in Qatar, said Iraqi forces are repressing the Iraqi population and deliberately endangering protected sites.

In the southern city of Basra, Brooks said, coalition forces have seen "a significant degree of violence" done to the civilian population by Iraqi paramilitary forces.

He noted Iraqi forces have fired mortars at civilians and that British troops have been working in the region to cut off any Iraqi reinforcements from entering the town. U.K. forces are also firing on Iraqi positions that are attacking the town.

He said these and other actions of Iraqi paramilitary forces -- sometimes in uniform, sometimes not -- are "more akin to the behaviors of global terrorists than they are to a nation."

"It's clear to us that the people of Basra have had about enough of what the regime is doing to them," Brooks said, adding, "We remain committed to their liberation, not their destruction."

In an earlier briefing in recent days, Brooks had shown photographs of Iraqi MiG fighter jets parked in cemeteries. Today, he showed images of military communications equipment located "right beside" 2,000-year-old ruins on the banks of the Tigris River 20 miles southeast of Baghdad.

"We remain committed to preserving the rich culture and heritage and the resources of the Iraqi people," the general said. "The regime continues to put them at risk."

Brooks said he couldn't confirm media reports that an errant American bomb killed 14 Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad market. Once officials can confirm what happened in Baghdad, they will release that information, he said. Brooks added that coalition forces "do everything physically and scientifically possible to minimize secondary effects" on both people and civilian structures.

Operationally, coalition forces "remain on plan" and are confident of their objectives. "We're unified in purpose and in our commitment to achieving our aims," he said.

Direct attacks against regime command and control assets, communications sites and the integrated air-defense system continued during the past 24 hours. Coalition forces also struck several targets of opportunity.

U.S. forces from the Army's V Corps, deployed from Germany, "sustained a few damaged vehicles and in turn inflicted significant damage on the Iraqi force" southeast of An Najaf, Brooks said.

Near An Nasiriyah, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force secured a hospital that was being used as a paramilitary headquarters. Brooks said Marines found 200 weapons, Iraqi military uniforms, a tank, 3,000 chemical protective suits, and auto-injectors filled with nerve agent antidote.

Maritime components cleared the Khor Abdullah waterway "all the way up to the port of Umm Qasr." Brooks noted this would allow coalition forces to begin delivering humanitarian supplies.

He spoke briefly about Iraqi missile attacks into Kuwait. He said the Iraqis have fired 10 missiles, "all of which have been oriented toward Kuwait." All missiles that were threatening were knocked down by Patriot missiles.

The general said it was "interesting" that several of the Iraqis' Ababil-100 and Al Samoud missiles have flown beyond the 150-kilometer limit imposed by the United Nations. "One missile flew extremely long and went into the north Arabian Gulf," Brooks said, noting that missile fell into the water after flying about 190 kilometers.

He also mentioned that coalition forces have taken more than 4,000 Iraqi prisoners of war.

Downed Apache crew missing

Jim Garamone/AFPS

Two American Apache helicopter crewmen are missing in action as coalition forces continue to pound Iraqi Republican Guard units ringing Baghdad, Army Gen. Tommy Franks said today in Qatar.

Franks, the combined forces commander, said coalition forces are operating throughout Iraq and that "progress toward our objectives has been rapid and in some cases dramatic."

News reports said that the British also have personnel missing in action. Franks would not comment.

"I won't talk about the Brit potential missing troops any more than I would talk about the specifics of our helicopter pilots or of the youngsters in this maintenance company," he said. "I will say, and I've seen speculation in a number of places, that a coalition like this would take action, where action is appropriate, to secure the release of people who are taken prisoners."

He said fighting in rear areas now is the result of a conscious decision. "We have intentionally bypassed enemy formations, to include paramilitary and the Fedayeen," he said. Franks said he expects clean-up operations to continue for several days.

The Fedayeen -- irregular Iraqi troops -- may create difficulties for coalition forces. "I can assure you that contact with those forces is not unexpected," Franks said.

Brig Gen. Vince Brooks, the deputy operations chief at U.S. Central Command, spoke about the contributions special operations forces are making to Operation Iraqi Freedom. He said U.S., British and Australian special operations personnel continue to conduct numerous missions throughout Iraq.

"They are actively hunting for weapons of mass destruction and also looking for ballistic missile systems," Brooks said. "And they are on track, and they are doing exactly what they need to be doing at this point."

Brooks said the land component continues to expand its territory in Iraq. This includes continuing the advance beyond An Nasiriyah and an aviation attack against Republican Guard forces near Baghdad. It was during that attack that the Apache attack helicopter was downed. "All the other helicopters involved in the mission did accomplish the mission and returned safely to base," he said.

Ground units also secured Basra Airport, all of the Rumailah oil field and an ammunition storage area near An Najaf, Brooks said.

Journalists embedded with the unit that took An Najaf reported that there might be chemical weapons at the site. Franks could not confirm this.

He said the coalition is concerned about taking down Saddam Hussein's regime and about ridding the nation of weapons of mass destruction. "It's a bit early for us to have an expectation of having found them," he said.

The search for the weapons is called "sensitive site exploitation," Franks explained. "We will do some sensitive site exploitation as we go along, and we'll do other sensitive site exploitation a bit later in the campaign," he said.

Franks also spoke about possible Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction. "There is a school of thought that says as the compression becomes tighter and tighter and tighter, the pressure will be greater and greater to use these weapons," he said. "We don't know whether the regime will use these weapons." His advice to the Iraqi soldiers who would actually fire the weapons is: "Don't do it."

He said the maritime component of the command is clearing the waterway leading to the port city of Umm Qasr. There are ships full of humanitarian supplies waiting in the Persian Gulf. The main beneficiary right now will be the people of Basra, Iraq's second largest city, who will "have more access to food and more access to water than they have had in decades."

President demands humane treatment of POWs

Jim Garamone/AFPS

Some U.S. soldiers in Iraq are "unaccounted for," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told CNN today.

Iraqi television videotape purports to show U.S. service members captured by Iraqi forces. Al Jazeera – a satellite news network based out of Doha, Qatar – broadcast the tape.

"Whether the ones that are being shown … are those individuals, I'm not in a position to say," Rumsfeld said.

"Under the Geneva Convention it's illegal to do things with prisoners of war that are humiliating to those individuals," the secretary said earlier in the day on NBC's Meet the Press.

"And the United States, of course, avoids showing photographs of prisoners of war. We have thousands of Iraqi prisoners that are in POW camps that we brought along and have erected in-country. But we do not – we avoid showing photographs of them."

The U.S. Army is sorting through the confusion. Officials will notify the families of those missing, and as more information becomes available, they will release it, DoD officials said.

The United States does not humiliate prisoners, the secretary said. "Television networks that carry such pictures are doing something that is unfortunate."

The secretary emphasized the possible capture will have no effect on the prosecution of the war on Iraq. He said the United States has more than 2,000 Iraqi prisoners of war.

"The course of this war is clear, the outcome is clear: The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone; it's over; it will not be there in a relatively reasonably predictable period of time," he said.

"The people in Iraq need to know that it will not be long until they are liberated. The leadership in the military in Iraq need to know they should act with honor and stop defending a regime that will shortly be history."

If Iraq has American prisoners, the leaders will be well- advised to treat them "according to the Geneva Convention, just as we treat Iraqi prisoners to the Geneva Convention," he said.

Rumsfeld said the United States will stay in the fight "until it's over." He refused to give an estimate of how long the fighting might continue.

"There are any number of things that could cause difficulties, that could delay things," Rumsfeld said. "But there is nothing that can happen that can change the ultimate outcome. It is certain. The Iraqi government should put down their arms, follow the instructions that they've been given and end any resistance at all, because it is futile."

Progress slows in offensive, still in motion

Jim Garamone/AFPS

Coalition forces are encountering greater Iraqi resistance as they move closer to Baghdad, U.S. Central Command officials said today.

News reports indicate that American units are engaging Iraqi battalions. Central Command officials said units with the 3rd Infantry Division have captured a bridge over the Euphrates River at Nasiriya.

Capturing the bridge solves a potentially tough problem for the Americans since the Euphrates River is just under a mile wide, officials said. While the Army has bridging units, taking the highway bridge substantially eases the problem. U.S. forces will not have to find a crossing place suitable for placing military bridging equipment.

News reports also said another 3rd Infantry Division unit is within 100 miles of the Iraqi capital. Other reports indicate that elite Iraqi forces are using human shields to protect themselves from the Americans.

U.S. Central Command officials announced that a 3rd Infantry soldier was killed and anther wounded March 23 in a vehicle accident inside Iraq. The soldiers' identities are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

One 101st Airborne Division soldier died and 12 were wounded in an attack on a command tent at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait, said DoD officials. Army criminal investigators are detaining an American soldier in the incident where a hand grenade reportedly was slipped into a headquarters tent, CENTCOM officials said.

Command officials also said a U.S. Patriot missile battery in Kuwait might have engaged a Royal Air Force aircraft returning from a mission over Iraq. The crew is missing. The incident is under investigation, said RAF Group Captain Jon Fynes during a briefing from Kuwait.

"I thought it was worth emphasizing that when something like this happens within a coalition, it doesn't do anything of harm to the coalition itself," Fynes said. "In many ways it brings us closer together. It's interesting that just before I came in, many of our coalition members asked me to express their sympathy to the families of the crew involved."

To date, eight Americans and 15 Britons have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom.