Operation Targets Members of Saddam's Ba'ath Party
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: The Bush administration says that the Middle East peace process may be entering a new era. As Palestinian security officials took control of northern Gaza, sources say that Israel agreed to pull out of Bethlehem on Wednesday. And they say the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers plan to meet tomorrow in Jerusalem to discuss additional steps on the road map to peace. Now these moves follow yesterday's cease-fire announcement by Palestinian militant groups. In Iraq, U.S. troops arrested the interim governor of Najaf today on kidnapping and corruption charges as part of their mission to stop attacks on coalition forces. Earlier, insurgents fired a rocket- propelled grenade at a U.S. military vehicle in Fallujah, wounding a television news technician. The U.S. military's latest sweep against Saddam's loyalists has been called Operation Sidewinder. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that those holdouts are resorting to terrorist tactics against American forces and the battle to stop them won't be over anytime soon.</s>DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: What one has to do is to keep putting pressure on all of those categories and know that no one raid or five raids is going to deal with the entire problem. The problem is going to be dealt with over time, as the Iraqis assume more and more responsibility for their own country and are able to have an Iraqi face on the activities that are taking place in that country which are for the benefit of the Iraqi people.</s>WOODRUFF: CNN's Nic Robertson has more from Iraq on Operation Sidewinder.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Commanders say they expect the operation to go on at least until the end of the week. The searches are going door to door, both north of Baghdad, south of Baghdad. Commanders say they are targeting houses they believe are occupied by former Saddam Hussein loyalists, former Ba'ath Party members, former members of the Iraqi army, people they believe are behind some of the recent attacks on U.S. troops. So far, they say they've detained 60 Iraqis, captured a number of weapons. One of those Iraqis they have detained they describe as a senior Iraqi official. However, they do say that some of the intelligence they're acting on has been bad intelligence, some of the houses they've been to, expecting to find key Iraqi officials, they've found that those people are long gone or at least being told those people are long gone. However, they say the population in many of the areas they go to, the civilian population, is providing them -- is providing the coalition with more intelligence information about the whereabouts of people that the civilians believe are loyal to Saddam Hussein. And the reason coalition officials say that this is happening is because they believe as they are moving into areas, providing security in those areas, they say that the Iraqi population there no longer wants Saddam Hussein's regime, no longer want his representatives around, and for that reason they're turning them in. Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.