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Baghdad is bathed in the glow of a massive explosion near a bridge Thursday

In this story:

• Clinton: Decision to strike 'difficult'
• Baghdad: 'Villains in the Arabian Desert'
• Appearances of normal life in Baghdad
• Panic in neighboring Iran
• U.S. closes embassies
• Related stories and sites

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As U.S. and British bombers unleashed more missiles on Baghdad for a second straight night, Russia recalled its ambassador to the United States to protest President Clinton's decision to launch the strikes.

State Department spokesman James P. Rubin called the development "unfortunate," but said the Russian reaction was not a surprise.

Earlier Thursday, chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler vigorously defended the timing and contents of his report, which criticized Iraqi cooperation with arms experts. He bristled at suggestions it had been written to suit the interests of President Clinton.

"It danced to no one's tune. It was not written for anyone's purposes," Butler told reporters. "The report is factual, clear, objective and honest. Any suggestions to the contrary are false."

An intensive series of explosions thundered through Baghdad at about 10 p.m. local time (2 p.m. EST) Thursday. An orange plume of smoke wafted over the city after one of the loudest bursts.

"It's bigger, stronger and louder than last night," chief CNN Senior International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour reported from a rooftop in downtown Baghdad.

Iraqi officials said at least 25 people had died and 75 were wounded in the Iraqi capital alone during two days of airstrikes.

Health Minister Umeed Madhat Mubarak said two Baghdad hospitals were damaged in Thursday night's attack.

Reporters were taken to Iraq's largest hospital, Saddam Medical City, where they saw smashed windows, broken elevators and water flowing across the floors. Physicians said most of their equipment had been destroyed.

Mubarak said a maternity hospital had also been hit.

U.S. military officials acknowledged one errant cruise missile struck a residential and commercial district, resulting in civilian casualties.

Despite that mistake, Operation Desert Fox was proving successful, and progress was being made in efforts to "contain" President Saddam Hussein, U.S. military leaders said.

Allied missiles "struck more than 50 separate targets" during the first wave of bombing that began late Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen said Thursday.

"Additional strike operations are under way even as we speak," U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton said.

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Shelton added that the second phase of bombing would include land-based aircraft and sorties flown from the decks of the USS Enterprise.

Cohen and Shelton said the sites hit during the first bombing wave included weapons-of-mass-destruction sites and barracks belonging to the Iraqi Republican Guard.

Shelton said Hussein relied on the Republican Guard at the barracks to alert officials at suspected weapons sites that the U.N. Special Commission teams were en route to conduct inspections.

"His headquarters is now rubble," Shelton said, pointing to a photograph of Iraq's special security brigade headquarters in Baghdad. Four of five barracks in the brigade's living quarters were destroyed, he said.

Cohen emphasized that the bombing campaign was designed to attack Iraqi air defense systems, air fields and other infrastructure and facilities, not the Iraqi people.

The Pentagon officials would not be specific about the target sites, because the operation could continue for several days.

U.S. and British officials have emphasized that they will continue bombing Baghdad until they have achieved their goal.

"The goal is not to destabilize the regime," Cohen reminded reporters on Thursday, "the goal is to ... decrease his capacity to threaten his neighbors."

Earlier Thursday, U.S. President Bill Clinton told reporters that the decision to attack Iraq was "difficult," but that it was "absolutely the right thing to do." ( 512 K/26 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

White House officials said Clinton "was pleased the first day of the operation was conducted successfully."

Before and after images of Republican Guard barracks in Iraq following a U.S. attack - Click image to see an enlargement

Sources told CNN on Thursday that early damage assessments showed three key targets had been hit in the first round of bombing.

The Operation Desert Fox targets were described to CNN as: an intelligence headquarters in Baghdad, a missile design and manufacturing plant northwest of the capital and a presidential palace that U.N. inspectors believed housed plans for weapons of mass destruction.

"Clearly we did some substantial damage," U.S. National Security Adviser Samuel Berger told reporters Thursday as he commented on the attacks waged to punish Baghdad for failing to cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspectors.

U.S. military officials spent the night studying photographs taken by spy satellites and U-2 aircraft in an attempt to assess the damage from the first wave of attacks.

The U.S. House of Representatives, which had been scheduled Thursday to begin debating four articles of impeachment against Clinton, instead convened to consider a resolution of bipartisan support for U.S. forces involved in the Iraqi operation.

The military action was also being discussed by the British Parliament.

"The operation is now continuing and, as I speak, British Tornado aircraft are engaged in action," Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a statement to the House of Commons. ( 448 K/21 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

U.S. military officials said the second night of attack called for using 15 Air Force B-52H bombers, armed with long- range AGM-86 air-launched cruise missiles, based on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

When dusk fell, Iraqis huddled in their homes in anticipation of new strikes.

As the sirens sounded in Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahaf held a news conference to blast the U.S.-British military action.

"They call it Operation Desert Fox. In fact, it is Operation Villains in the Arabian Desert," al-Sahaf said. ( 448 K/26 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

al-Sahaf

Al-Sahaf said Baghdad wanted to remind U.S. and British officials that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had in recent days received two reports on Iraq's cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors.

The report from U.N. chief weapons inspector Richard Butler - - the one that prompted the military strikes -- was highly critical, al-Sahaf said. The other -- from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- was not, he said.

According to al-Sahaf, the IAEA report said the Iraqis had provided the necessary cooperation to allow the weapons inspectors to do their jobs "efficiently and effectively."

"They lied to the world shamelessly," the foreign minister said, referring to Butler's report, and added that the U.S., British, U.N. and other world officials had stood behind the document in defense of the strikes against Iraq.

The foreign minister complained that Butler's report did not accurately portray Iraq's attempts to cooperate with the weapons inspectors.

Damage in Baghdad

Countering five incidents outlined by Butler, the minister cited at least one in which the U.N. weapons experts wanted to inspect sites on a Friday, even though they had been previously told that not all Iraqi sites were staffed on Fridays.

On Thursday morning, Iraqis awoke from the first night of bombing to proceed with the appearances of a normal life.

Children headed to school and government workers went to offices. Downtown streets were busy with traffic.

Baghdad Radio said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein toured some targeted sites, including his daughter's house.

In the predawn hours, Hussein appeared on Iraqi television to condemn the "wicked people" who unleashed missiles on Baghdad.

Light from an explosion arches over a building in Baghdad

An Iraqi doctor told reporters that two people were killed and 30 others wounded in the bombing attack.

U.S. officials said as many as 280 cruise missiles had been launched in the first phase of their blitz.

But, it may be impossible to know whether the U.S.-British forces were to blame for the casualties, since the Iraqis launched substantial anti-aircraft fire throughout the night.

U.S. officials have said the military strikes could last up to four days.

Reporters in Baghdad spent the day filming damaged sites that the Iraqi officials allowed them to see. Iraqi officials routinely restrict the movements of Western journalists.

A stray missile from the allied attack on Iraq crashed into a southwestern Iranian border city early Thursday, causing no casualties but prompting a strong diplomatic protest from Tehran.

The official IRNA news agency quoted an informed source in the port of Khorramshahr as saying the missile touched down near the city's central mosque. INRA said the missile shattered nearby windows and damaged property within a 200- meter (220-yard radius).

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"The source told IRNA that the missile had apparently targeted one of the Iraqi installations in the city of Basra, but instead hit Khorramshahr," IRNA said.

No injuries were reported, the agency said.

The blast spread panic in the city, which had been virtually destroyed during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Meanwhile, in Africa, the United States closed 40 embassies temporarily as a precaution against possible terrorism because of the attacks on Iraq. Only three diplomatic posts remained open. Three embassies already had been closed.

The State Department's Bureau of African Affairs sent a cable to other posts on Wednesday ordering a suspension of official business, officials told Reuters.

Some officials said the bureau is especially sensitive to the potential for threats since the August bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 250 people.

Correspondent Carl Rochelle, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.