Compiled by Joe Humphreys
DAY 15:At a glance
1. BAGHDAD: US planes pound targets around the city, knocking out some power supplies. Coalition admits to using "cluster bombs" too, drawing condemnation from human rights groups.
2. SOUTH SUBURBS: US forces claim to move to within six miles of the capital after killing 500 Iraqi troops on south-western roads.
3. NORTH-WEST SUBURBS: US claims special forces are active in the area, raiding a residence of Saddam and blocking a road to his hometown of Tikrit.
4. KUT: Coalition jets and helicopters attack Iraqi defences.
5. KARBALA: A Black Hawk helicopter and a US fighter-bomber crash amid claims that the Allies have wiped out two of the six Republican Guard divisions.
6. NAJAF: US troops continue fighting Fedayeen paramilitaries.
7. MOSUL: Kurdish fighters, backed by US soldiers, are met with heavy machinegun and rifle fire.
8. BASRA: British troops make little headway, advancing less than a mile from the south into the city centre.
Ireland: A challenge by retired UN peacekeeper Edward Horgan against the Government's decision to grant landing rights at Shannon airport to the US military opens in the High Court.
Death toll: Iraqi civilians: 1,250 killed, 5,000 wounded (Iraqi estimates). US troops: 54 dead, 12 missing. UK troops: 27 dead. Iraqi troops: no reliable casualty figures, more than 9,000 taken prisoner by coalition forces. Journalists: Four dead, two missing.
Media watch: Iranian dissent
Coverage of the war by Iran's state media is "heavily biased" against the US and UK, a Tehran university political scientist has said. Prof Sadegh Zibakalam told a local independent news agency that such coverage stemmed from a grudge against Americans, and would damage Iran's national interests in the long run. He added: "In my view, grudge and hatred should not define our foreign policy. It should rather be defined by the realities of the external world."
The editor of an independent media website has also criticised local coverage, saying Iranian state media had given hundreds of reports on the killing of civilians by coalition forces but "very few" on killings by Iraq's Ba'athist regime. Fuad Sadeqi of Baztab added that the official agencies had published dozens of reports about the cutting off of Basra's drinking water supply. Yet, they failed to file one single report when the supply was restored by US forces.
Official Iranian news agency IRNA reported this week that "aggressive" British forces had suffered heavy losses in Basra, citing Iraqi claims of up to 500 UK soldiers killed. Yesterday it headlined with a warning by President Mohammad Khatami that the US-led military assault would give "a green light" to extremism and violence.
Rummy: the poet
Businessman, politician, now poet: Is there any end to Donald Rumsfeld's talents? Take the following composition, "The Unknown":
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
Taken - as direct extracts - from the Defence Secretary's recent press briefings, this and other "poems" have been collated by online magazine Slate (www.slate.com), which remarks: "His work, with its dedication to the fractured rhythms of the plainspoken vernacular, is reminiscent of William Carlos Williams He never faces his subjects head on but weaves away, letting inversions and repetitions confuse and beguile."
Bush skipped 'conflict' class? Hawks in the US who have been asking themselves despairingly why so many American kids are against the war may have an answer. For the past decade, children have received "conflict-avoidance" lessons at school, learning how to use words rather than fists to settle scores in the playground.
To many pupils, Bush's aggression seems a case of "do as I say but not as I do", as James Garbarino, professor of human development at Cornell University tells the Washington Post: "In school, if they thought a bully was about to attack them and they attacked first, they wouldn't get very far with the principal, particularly if they 'shocked and awed' him with a lead pipe."
Say it with shoes: urges Iraq
"Why don't we go and welcome them, but instead of giving them flowers, we'll hurl shoes and bullets at them" - Iraq's information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, when asked if US troops were advancing on Baghdad Airport.
"We have an inferiority complex What's important is that the world respects us, much more important than they love us" - media mogul Rupert Murdoch, speaking on the war to a US audience.
"The weight of bombs we have brought into the area is the same as four Eiffel Towers" - a senior US Central Command official looks to France to describe the firepower it has just moved to the Gulf.
"Out of sensitivity and respect to the armed forces I do not believe it is appropriate to air it at this time" - Madonna explains her decision to pull the release of an anti-war video accompanying her latest single, American Life, which shows a grenade being lobbed at a look-alike of US President George W. Bush.