Going downtown
The rescue of Jessica Lynch:

NBC’s Kerry Sanders, reporting from near An Nasiriyah, said U.S. officials were made aware that at least one female prisoner was being held at Saddam Hospital when a note was passed to a Marine on Tuesday morning. In handwriting that looked as though it was written by a female, the note said, in English: "She’s still alive. She’s in room [XXX]."

A resident of An Nasiriyah who spoke English approached Sanders on Tuesday and told him: "There’s a woman in the Saddam Hospital who’s an American soldier. Please make sure the people in charge know that she’s being tortured."

... military officials said 11 corpses that were also discovered in the building where the soldier was found, and it’s believed some were American.

And the van barreling through the roadblock:

Sahid Mohammed Bakir Almohari - a prominent Muslim cleric from the town near where the shooting and an earlier homicide bombing occurred - said on Fox News Channel that villagers told him Iraqi militants mercilessly orchestrated both incidents to try to whip up anti-American support.

"These people, children and women, those were put in the bus by Saddam Hussein's forces, their husbands or fathers were taken hostages and the driver was ordered to speed up to the checkpoint and not stop so that they would be shot at," said Almohari, one of many Shiites opposed to Saddam.

As for Saturday's homicide bombing, in which an Iraqi posing as a cabdriver lured four soldiers to his vehicle at another nearby checkpoint and then blew them all up, the cleric said the "bomber" became involved only to save his family.

The thugs had threatened to kill his relatives, including his infant son, if he didn't comply, the cleric told Fox.

Almohari said one man who refused to carry out an attack at another checkpoint was personally killed by Ali Hassan, a k a "Chemical Ali," the mastermind of Iraq's brutal gassing of the Kurds in the '80s.

The Marines:

The Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment are hoping to make a strong impression.

Along the road to Baghdad, U.S. Marines have started knocking on doors - hard. They're sweeping into towns, drawing out and crushing Iraqi attackers, clearing ruling Baath Party militia bases and setting Saddam Hussein's most loyal fighters on the run.
...
At first U.S. forces bypassed smaller towns on the road to the Iraqi capital, hoping to avoid confrontations as they pressed north toward the war's decisive battle. But after a series of attacks on rear supply lines, Marines began provoking conflicts in areas where they suspected Iraqi militants were hiding.

Marines have targeted four towns since Saturday, killing more than 100 Iraqi fighters, capturing key Baath and military headquarters and seizing ammunition, mines and rockets. They took dozens of prisoners, including some members of Saddam's vaunted Republican Guard. Not a single Marine was injured.
...
All of the Iraqi soldiers were gaunt, except for one fat, groaning man, Marines identified as a Republican Guard officer. Shot in the back, he died of his wounds.

Some day the name of Saddam Hussein will only be spoken in Hell. But let's not forget the whining apologists that are still hovering around his ass like flies.