There are now 250,000 U.S. ground forces inside Iraq, along with 40,000 coalition forces, Army Major General Stanley McChrystal, vice director for operations at Joint Staff, said at a Pentagon briefing March 26. Those forces have advanced more than 220 miles in six days in spite of difficult weather, he said.

Some of those forces inflicted sharp losses on an attacking Iraqi ground force the previous night near An Najaf, McChrystal said. The U.S. Army's Seventh Cavalry encountered Iraqi irregulars, killed hundreds and destroyed 30 Iraqi vehicles, while no U.S. forces were killed, he said.

U.S. casualties so far are 24 killed and 19 wounded, Defense Department Spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said at the same briefing.

Coalition air operations continue as well, McChrystal said. Close to 700 sorties were flown March 25, against "regime targets" near Baghdad as well as against missile threats in western and southern Iraq, he said. Since beginning the war on March 20, U.S. and coalition forces have fired more than 600 Tomahawk cruise missiles and have dropped more than 4,300 precision-guided munitions, he added. In contrast, Iraq has fired 10 short-range ballistic missiles at Kuwait; seven were intercepted by Patriot anti-missile missiles, while two fell in the desert and another fell into the Persian Gulf, he said.

Responding to press reports that coalition forces had bombed a marketplace in Baghdad the previous night, McChrystal said, "Coalition forces did not target a marketplace, nor were any bombs or missiles dropped or fired in the district" of the marketplace. "We'll continue to look and see if we missed anything, but another explanation could be the triple-A [anti-aircraft] fire or [a] surface-to-air missile that missed its target [and] fell back on the marketplace area," he said.

"But just like we mentioned [March 25], the bus on Monday that we hit accidentally, once we have a better clarity, we'll get it to you. We do regret the loss of ... any innocent life in any conflict," he said.

Asked about a report that Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles have broken out of Basra and are headed south, McChrystal said, "I've seen those reports as well. We wouldn't confirm their movements, but we watch wherever they go...." He also said he could not confirm reports of a column of Iraqi vehicles moving south from Baghdad.

Asked whether coalition forces would change tactics in view of Iraqi acts of battlefield perfidy that violate the laws of war, McChrystal said, "They're trying to get an overreaction from coalition forces, so that we'll fire on people who are trying to surrender.

"We won't change our rules of engagement," but U.S. forces "will be careful," he said.

Asked about Iraqi efforts to interdict the ground forces' supply lines back to Kuwait, McChrystal said, "One of the points I'd want to make is the extent of this move [toward Baghdad] and the speed: the logistics have not been interrupted. There have been some situations [that have occurred], but it has in no way endangered or cut any of our lines of communication."

Questioned whether coalition forces would go into cities to root out Fedayeen Saddam forces and others, McChrystal replied that "when the regime is taken down ... they will become less motivated and effective."