Bombs, but No Panic, Rain on Weary Baghdad : Attacks: After eight years of war with Iran, residents of the beleaguered city responded calmly to the airborne assault.

“Wake up. Run for shelter. They’ve come. They’ve come!”

The knock on the door came just after 2:30 a.m. local time today, and there was no mistaking what was happening: Less than a day after the United Nations deadline for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait, the war was on.

Tracer bullets from antiaircraft batteries crisscrossed the black sky, so densely at times that they looked like fireflies.

A few minutes after the antiaircraft batteries starting firing at the enemy in the sky, there was a huge explosion and the lights went out. Then the telephones went dead.

The first wave of attacks lasted about three hours. Bombing resumed at mid-morning, and a third wave came before sunset.

Most of the bombs or missiles appeared to have struck with pinpoint accuracy.

Eyewitnesses say the targets damaged in the attack included the airport, the Defense Ministry, the presidential palace and the telecommunications building on the banks of the Tigris River. The building had five gaping holes in it, and one of the satellite dishes on the roof had melted.

There were no precise details on casualties, but initial reports put them in the dozens rather than in the hundreds.

There was no sense of panic among the population, hardened by eight years of war with Iran, and there was no sign of looting or any other outbreaks of lawlessness.

There was no panic either in the air raid shelter of the Meridien Hotel, where some guests slept through the rattle of the antiaircraft guns.

Shortly before dawn, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein went on Baghdad radio with a defiant message in which he called President Bush a “Satan” and said “the great, the jewel and the mother of battles” had begun.

The raids turned Baghdad into a ghost town of deserted streets and shuttered shops. Hundreds of residents stayed in shelters for the entire day.

Iraq’s “war communique No. 1,” read over Baghdad radio, said “criminal aircraft” had flown in from Saudi Arabia. Hussein has sought to portray Saudi Arabia as a traitor to Islam for allowing foreign troops on its soil. It is host to hundreds of thousands of U.S. and allied soldiers massed since Hussein invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2.