JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Now we want to go quickly to Baghdad, where the Iraqi minister of defense is talking to reporters. Let's listen.</s>HAMAD AL SABAH, IRAQI MINISTER OF DEFENSE (through translator): ... in their city up to this moment. And those who are carrying out the operations, they are actually carrying out operation against the enemy. Yesterday, the Fedayeen Saddam that are present there, the party militia carried out an operation and destroyed a tank in Al Faw. And they're going to be exhausting the enemy whenever they have a chance to. In the Basra region -- in the city, I'm sorry, in the city of Basra, it's during those three days the enemy, the American enemy, tried to expand outside of its area of presence outside of the airport of Basra. They tried to expand toward the highway, and they suffered a lot of losses and many tanks were destroyed. And then they retreated back towards the airport. Now, they continue to strike at the public highway with the artillery, continuous artillery shelling with the heavy artillery. And our artillery is responding from its positions. This was repeated once or twice. Now this moment, the position in the airport section is the same as it has been for four days. The enemy couldn't develop any in that direction. They went from the Rumallah (ph) site...</s>WOODRUFF: We're listening to the Iraqi defense minister describe, from his perspective, how some of the battles have been going, describing at one point the Fedayeen Saddam, in his words, carrying out an operation where they destroyed an enemy tank, and then he described how in the Basra City area, they went after what he said, many tanks were destroyed, he said, and he talked about Iraqi forces, continuing to strike at the enemy artillery.
Iraqi Minister of Defense Talks to Reporters