U.S. Forces on Offensive Against Loyalists of Baath Party
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In the meantime, U.S. forces in Iraq have been on the offensive all week against loyalists of the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein. Today, in a raid west of Baghdad, an Apache helicopter was shot down. Ben Wedeman live in Baghdad right now to talk about all these stories. He was embedded with that operation known as Operation Peninsula, earlier today -- Ben, good afternoon there.</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good afternoon, Bill. There's a variety of operations going on. Now, the latest on this Apache helicopter, it apparently was shot down by hostile fire during a raid on what U.S. officials are describing as an extremist camp. Now, this occurred 90 miles west of Baghdad, which would put it roughly in the area of the town of Ramadi, which is on the Amman- Baghdad highway. Ramadi has a history of fairly intense anti-American sentiment so it's a good chance that this helicopter was downed in that area. Now, according to Central Command officials, the two pilots of that Apache were rescued shortly after their aircraft went down. In addition to that, an F-16 crashed, that due to mechanical failure, according to U.S. officials. Now, during this raid 90 miles west of Baghdad, there was a firefight between troops of the 101st Airborne Division and what are being described as irregular forces. One U.S. soldier apparently received minor wounds during that clash. Now, since the beginning of the week, we've seen a real intensification of U.S. military efforts against what are being described as holdouts from the old regime. My crew and I tailed along with, on what has been described as Operation Peninsula Strike. That occurred in the Zilawea Peninsula (ph) about 50 miles north of Baghdad, involved on the ground, at least, about 1,000 troops of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. It began very early Monday morning. Many armed personnel carriers and Humvees coming into that area with air cover from U.S. helicopters. Now, the initial focus of their efforts in that area were some houses that belonged to members of the former Baathist regime. Now, we were there. We saw them rounding up women, children and men under the cover of darkness. No lights there. We were taking all these pictures through a night scope. We saw the men, women and children with their hands tied behind their backs, sitting in the front lawn of one of these houses that belong to former Baathist officials. The women and the children were shortly afterwards released, but we know that the Americans detained and questioned around 400 people. But the man they were looking for, Ali Hassan al-Majid, otherwise known as Chemical Ali, was nowhere to be found -- Bill.</s>HEMMER: Ben Wedeman covering everything for us there in Baghdad. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com