President is about to come on tv...

[Shancopp]

President Bush is coming on in about 10 mins.

[MusicfanAnnie]

President Bush will address the Nation at 10:15 pm ET

[Angelbear3]

Can somebody post what he more or less says??? I don't have cable and can't pick up any locals either

[sharinbo]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush announced Wednesday night he has ordered the attack on Iraq to begin.

"American and coalition forces are in the early stages of miltary operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger," Bush said.

He said the first strikes were against "selected targets of military importance.

A Pentagon official told CNN that cruise missiles were fired against "a target of opportunity," described as a "leadership target."

Air raid sirens were heard in Baghdad at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday (9:30 p.m. Wednesday ET) about 90 minutes after the U.S. deadline for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to step down or face a U.S.-led military attack.

The United States and Britain have massed nearly 300,000 troops in the Persian Gulf region.

Earlier, Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet, said allied forces were prepared to carry out an "unprecedented" campaign: "If we go, the plans we have are unlike anything anyone has ever seen before."

In the hours leading up to the deadline, about a dozen U.S. and coalition warplanes dropped precision munitions on nearly a dozen Iraqi artillery pieces in the southern no-fly zone that could have been in range of American troops poised to invade southern Iraq, Pentagon officials told CNN.

There was also concern some of the artillery could be capable of using chemical weapons and U.S. planes had been conducting around-the-clock reconnaissance of the sites.

Warplanes also struck Iraqi cable repeater sites and command and control sites. In addition, at least one Al Ababil surface-to-surface missile launcher was struck.

[ahippiechic]

At least his speech was short.

[sharinbo]

“ON MY ORDERS, coalition forces have begun striking targets of military importance,” Bush said from the Oval Office of the White House at 10:15 p.m. ET. “... These are opening stages of a long and concerted campaign.”
Peter Arnett, on assignment in Baghdad for “National Geographic Explorer,” reported for NBC News that anti-aircraft fire emanated from the southern outskirts of the capital about 5:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m. ET Wednesday), about 90 minutes after the deadline Bush set for Saddam to flee the country had expired.
NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski reported that U.S. forces had launched a preliminary wave of attacks using B-1, B-2, B-52 bombers, as well as F117 “stealth” bombers flying from three aircraft carriers, against what senior U.S. military sources described as a “key air node” and a “national command center.” The forces were firing cruise missiles from both land and sea.
Sources told Miklaszewski that the raids in and around Baghdad had been intended as “extensive prepping of the battlefield” in the no-fly zone in the south of the country. But the attack was ramped up after U.S. intelligence spotted what was termed a “target of opportunity,” described as a “senior or very senior member of the Iraqi regime.” U.S. officials would not disclose the identity of the target or say whether the attack was successful.
Loud sirens and anti-aircraft fire persisted in Baghdad for almost two hours as police cars raced through the streets, Arnett reported.