Marine Cpl. Phil Sapio stands ready at a 50-caliber machine gun while transporting troops on a CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter into Iraq

HILLA, Iraq  -- Coalition forces in the field have begun receiving a battle plan suggesting the focus of the ground war in Iraq soon will shift to Baghdad, U.S. military officials said Tuesday. After days of intense aerial bombardment, U.S. forces are in contact with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's "most prized forces" south of Baghdad, a U.S. Marine official said.  Increasing numbers of U.S. Army troops are being freed up for the siege on Baghdad, reports CNN's Walter Rodgers, who is embedded with the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry of the 3rd Infantry Division.  Tough, ongoing battles in southern Iraqi cities such as Basra, Najaf and Nasiriya could become second priority as reinforcements come in and the military focus shifts to Baghdad, Rodgers said.  "In our own terms and in our own time, we'll continue the attack to defeat those fielded forces," said Col. Tom Bright, Marine Corps chief at the U.S. Central Command's joint operations center in Qatar, on CNN's "Larry King Live."

"Now the fight's on to reduce those prize forces that [Saddam] has," Bright said.  These developments come as the White House stepped up public efforts to downplay reports of a rift between U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and military commanders. A senior administration official said that President Bush has "tremendous faith" in Rumsfeld and the war plan.  "It's borne out by what the president views as a successful military campaign," the official said.  Coalition officials have said their ground units had advanced within 50 miles south of the Iraqi capital, where members of the elite Medina Division of Iraq's Republican Guard have lined up near the central Iraqi city of Karbala.

Iraqi TV showed pictures of clansmen who promised to fight to the last for Saddam Hussein

More than 3,000 precision-guided munitions have been dropped in the last three days, bringing the total to 8,000 since the U.S.-led military campaign began, the Pentagon said Monday. Officials stressed that the bulk of these bombs targeted the Republican Guard. 

Additional elite Iraqi forces are moving toward Karbala from the north, U.S. officials said, while coalition reconnaissance units gather intelligence and engage in sporadic skirmishes with Iraqi units. 

There are maneuvers under way "to try to destroy the divisions that stand in our way," said Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, vice director for operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Other developments
• Coalition forces have not found any evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said at Tuesday's Central Command briefing in Qatar. 

• In Kurd-dominated northern Iraq, CNN's Brent Sadler reports Iraqi opposition forces took a town that was a suspected stronghold of the Islamic militia Ansar al-Islam. U.S. officials said the group is a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. Kurdish fighters worked with U.S. Special Forces to destroy the operation. Equipment and documentation indicating the presence of chemical or biological weapons was found, according to Sadler. 

• Iraq Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said Tuesday that a U.S. warplane struck two buses in western Iraq filled with human shields. Al-Sahaf accused coalition forces of "indiscriminately killing people." U.S. Central Command said it is "not aware of any reports" of such a U.S. airstrike and is investigating the allegation. 

• A large explosion produced plumes of smoke Tuesday evening (8:55 a.m. EST) in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. British forces say they have secured the western part of Iraq's second largest city, where Iraqi paramilitary forces have been battling coalition troops for the past week. 

• U.S. forces shot and wounded a Kuwaiti Army soldier driving too close to a U.S. military camp, a Kuwaiti Defense Ministry spokesman said. The soldier, who told interrogators that he was taking a shortcut through the desert, was treated for a shoulder wound and released by a U.S. medical unit at Camp Sanders. 

• U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is to leave Washington for Turkey on Tuesday, hoping to mend fractured relations and discuss the war in Iraq. From Ankara, Powell will travel to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. 

• Two U.S. Navy pilots survived a harrowing episode Tuesday in the Persian Gulf after their S-3B Viking aircraft slid off the USS Constellation flight deck shortly after touching down. The plane slipped left, hit safety netting and then plunged into the water. The pilots ejected into the water, and swimmers from a helicopter rescued them. 

• Italian authorities arrested two Kurds, an Egyptian and a Somali suspected of being affiliated with Ansar al-Islam, the group in Kurd-dominated northern Iraq linked to al Qaeda, said Italian police officials. The four men were detained Monday as they were preparing to leave Italy for Iraq. 
 

• Fox News Channel executives and the Pentagon reached a deal Monday in which correspondent Geraldo Rivera, who raised the military's ire when he reported operational details, will leave Iraq voluntarily rather than be expelled,  • Intense coalition air raids subsided Tuesday in northern Iraq for the first time since hostilities began, CNN's Ben Wedeman said. With this abatement, five Shiite recruits from southern Iraq surrendered to coalition forces along the northern front. One of the soldiers told CNN that Iraqi forces had "execution squads" to kill any Iraqi deserters.  • British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Tuesday praised journalists working in Iraq, while warning against "snap judgments based on television pictures." Speaking at Great Britain's Newspaper Society's annual conference in London, Straw also outlined a plan to rebuild Iraq, saying that the United Nations would play a major role in the nation's political and economic future.

A Kurdish militiaman guards a checkpoint in Kalak at the dividing line between the  Kurd- and Iraq-controlled parts of the country.