operation iraqi freedom1

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOMMARCH 2003

Umm Qasr Liberated, But Now Under Siege By LootersSource: Seattle Post - Intelligencer Publication date: 2003-03-28Arrival time: 2003-03-29

Once a gateway to the world, Umm Qasr is poor, crumbling and in the middle of a war zone. And now the port city's factories are facing a new threat: aggressive looters. "Please tell the coalition to protect the factories from looting," pleaded Najim Ahd, a gray-haired teacher, pointing at plants nearby. "People were stealing everything from those factories yesterday - even tables and chairs, doors and windows. It's a kind of revenge against Saddam Hussein. He taught the people to steal, to lie, to kill and be killed." The coalition has declared that the stabilization of Umm Qasr is one of its highest priorities. As the only deep-water port in Iraq, it is a strategically important entry point for military and humanitarian supplies. British troops announced Wednesday they were clamping down on looting, yet there were obvious signs that it was continuing. One man rolled a barrel down a road near the port while carrying a sack over his back. Two men were stealing a sofa. "There's been tons of looting," said a U.S. soldier who was guarding the town's old port. "When they realized it was safe, they grabbed anything and everything." He said he saw one man with a flatbed truck to haul looted furniture. Another looter carried an entire sofa on his bicycle. Asked how the looter had managed this trick, the soldier said: "Years of experience, I guess." While British troops patrolled the streets, ordinary Iraqis continued to gather outside the new foreign military compounds, begging for medicine, electricity repairs and answers on the fate of missing people who might have been arrested. Yet of dozens clamoring for help, only Ahd dared to support the war.

"You can't imagine the huge suffering we went through from this political regime," he said. "All of my friends - teachers, novelists - were suffering from Saddam. Everything in Iraq is expensive, except death."

Iraq: Suicide Attacks Are Military PolicySource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-30Arrival time: 2003-03-29

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A bomber posing as a taxi driver summoned American troops for help, then blew up his vehicle Saturday, killing himself and four soldiers and opening a new chapter of carnage in the war for Iraq. An Iraqi official said such attacks would be "routine military policy" in Iraq - and, he suggested chillingly, in America. "We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land and we will follow the enemy into its land," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said at a Baghdad news conference. "This is just the beginning. You'll hear more pleasant news later." U.S. officials said the bombing occurred at about 10:40 a.m. at a U.S. checkpoint on the highway north of the holy city of Najaf. A taxi stopped close to the roadblock; the driver waved for help. When soldiers approached the car, it exploded, Capt. Andrew Wallace told Associated Press Television News, killing the driver and four soldiers from the Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. The names of the Americans were not immediately released. But Ramadan identified the bomber as Ali Jaafar al-Noamani, a noncommissioned army officer and father of several children. Iraq's state television reported that Saddam posthumously promoted al-Noamani to colonel, and bestowed on him two medals - Al-Rafidin, or The Two Rivers, and the Mother of All Battles. "It's the blessed beginning," said the statement, alluding to the suicide attack. "He wanted to teach the enemy a lesson in the manner used by our Palestinian brothers." It claimed that 11 American soldiers were killed in the attack, two APCs destroyed and two tanks damaged. "After he kissed a copy of the Quran, he got into his booby-trapped car and went to an area where enemy armored cars and tanks were gathered on the fringes of Najaf and turned his pure body and explosives-laden car into a rocket and blew himself up," the statement said. Ramadan said Iraq, like many other nations, cannot match American weaponry. "They have bombs that can kill 500 people, but I am sure that the day will come when a single martyrdom operation will kill 5,000 enemies." Thousands of Arab volunteers have been pouring into Iraq since the start of the war, he said, adding that Iraq will provide them with what they need to fight the allied forces. "The Iraqi people have a legal right to deal with the enemy with any means," he added.

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This was the first such attack since the invasion began. It was, said Maj. Gen. Gene Renuart of the U.S. Central Command, "a symbol of an organization that's starting to get a little bit desperate." At a Pentagon news conference Saturday, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said suicide attacks would not change the way U.S.-led forces proceed in the war, except that they would take more care in vulnerable locations like checkpoints. "We're very concerned about it. It looks and feels like terrorism," he said. Col. Will Grimsley, commander of the brigade that was hit, said force protection remained the highest priority, "but that doesn't mean we're going to back into little holes and hide." "The local population that's here and happy that we're here - they tell us all the time, they've been feeling the same kind of terrorist repression for years and now unfortunately it's hit American soldiers. I think it only tightens the resolve of why we're here." The 3rd Infantry Division is based at Fort Stewart, near Hinesville, Ga., and news of the attack hit the town hard. "It's not the deaths, it's the way it was done," said Ellen Seider, a local print shop owner who spent Friday night helping Army wives stamp out buttons printed with photos of their husbands. "There are bad people, there are mean people and there are evil people," she said. "And Saddam Hussein is pure evil." The attack did not come without warning. Iraqi dissidents and Arab media have claimed that Saddam has opened a training camp for Arab volunteers willing to carry out similar bombings against U.S. forces in Iraq. Al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden also urged Iraqis in an audio tape on Arabic television last month to employ the tactic, used frequently by Palestinian militants against Israeli soldiers and civilians. Though the Iraqis said the bomber was an Army officer, Lt. Col. Ahmed Radhi, an exiled Iraqi officer in Cairo, Egypt and former commander of an army brigade, said he did not believe it. The claim, Radhi said, was "a stupid method to raise morale among the army." If a soldier was involved, Radhi insisted, he either did not know his car carried a bomb or was acting under duress. In 1970, Saddam sent a group of security officers with a booby-trapped car to kill Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani, father of Massoud Barzani, current chief of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. The car exploded prematurely, killing the security officers while Mustafa Barzani survived. The biggest suicide attack against the U.S. military abroad was in Lebanon, when a truck packed with explosives drove into a U.S. Marine base in Beirut and exploded in the early morning of Oct. 23, 1983, as the troops slept. The attack killed 241 American servicemen and leveled the base. A simultaneous suicide attack on a Beirut base for French soldiers killed 58 paratroopers.

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The Americans and the French were in Lebanon as part of an ill-fated peacekeeping mission to end Lebanon's civil war. Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militants were blamed for the attacks. In 1996, a truck bomb at the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. servicemen.

Loud Explosions Rock Baghdad AgainSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-30Arrival time: 2003-03-29

Several loud explosions rocked Baghdad again late Saturday and early Sunday, many around the southern fringes of the city where the Republican Guard, Saddam Hussein's best trained fighters, are thought to be dug in. As a heavy string of blasts lighted up the horizon, buildings downtown shook over and over. At one point, an orange fireball illuminated the sky, followed by columns of white smoke. Three-quarters of the allied air strikes are now going after Republican Guard forces ringing Baghdad, Air Force Brig. Gen. Daniel Darnell told The Associated Press. Despite the fires and intermittent explosions, Saturday saw the heaviest traffic on the streets of Baghdad since the war broke out. Many shops were open in the commercial districts and thousands of residents were on the streets. Meanwhile, wailing and sobbing, black-clad mourners gathered for a funeral procession amid the wreckage of a Baghdad marketplace where Iraqi officials say dozens of civilians died in a coalition bombing. Elsewhere, Iraq's Information Ministry building was damaged but not destroyed in a U.S. missile attack before dawn Saturday. Planes were heard over the capital, drawing anti-aircraft fire, and the oil blazes started by authorities to conceal targets seemed to be burning furiously, sending darker-than-usual clouds over the city on an otherwise clear day. During daylight operations Saturday, U.S. warplanes dropped six 500-pound laser-guided bombs and nine 500-pound unguided bombs on military vehicles and a command bunker south of Baghdad, said Lt. j.g. Nicole Kratzer, spokeswoman for the USS Kitty Hawk's air wing. At the Al-Nasr market in the working-class district of al-Shoala, crowds of mourners wailed amid bloodstains and piles of wreckage. Blood-soaked children's slippers sat on the street not far from a crater blasted into the ground.

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At the scene of the Friday bombing, women in black chadors were sobbing outside homes where some of the victims lived. Men cried and hugged each other as a funeral procession passed through the market. Down the road, residents gathered at a Shiite Muslim mosque, crowded around seven wooden coffins draped in blankets. Some of the men stood silently. Others sobbed into trembling hands. In the background, women cried, "Oh God! Oh God!" Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf had said earlier that 58 people were killed - and many others wounded - in the market explosion Friday evening. There were conflicting reports, however, on the number of casualties. Haqi Ismail Razouq, director of al-Nour Hospital, where the dead and injured were taken, put the death toll at 30 and the number of injured at 47; surgeon Issa Ali Ilwan said 47 were killed and 50 injured. Witnesses said they counted as many as 50 bodies. There was no explanation for the discrepancy. Witnesses said the bombing took place around 6 p.m., when the market was at its busiest. They said they saw an aircraft flying high overhead just before the blast. "Why do they make mistakes like these if they have the technology?" asked Abdel-Hadi Adai, who said he lost his 27-year-old brother-in-law. "There are no military installations anywhere near here." The U.S. Central Command in Qatar, which has denied that coalition forces target civilian neighborhoods, said it was looking into the incident. Elsewhere Saturday, the Information Ministry remained standing after a Tomahawk cruise missile attack that the U.S. military command said was aimed at the ministry building. But many of the satellite dishes on the roof - used by foreign TV crews - were destroyed, and glass from broken windows was strewn in the hallways. Information Ministry officials said the 10th floor, which housed the ministry's Internet server, was gutted. Most of the ministry's satellite dishes have been destroyed and there was no sign of the two anti-aircraft guns that had been placed on the roof. Several foreign TV journalists were able to use their dishes on a lower roof of the building that seems to have sustained little damage. But most continued to work at a parking area opposite the building where they had moved for fear of attacks on the ministry. Sahhaf told reporters on Saturday that 68 people were killed and 107 wounded in Baghdad alone between Friday evening and Saturday morning. In addition, 74 people were killed and 244 wounded across the rest of the country, he said. "These are cowardly air raids," he told Lebanon's Al-Hayat LBC satellite television. In one incident, Sahhaf said coalition forces fired a cluster bomb at an ambulance carrying a wounded man to hospital. The wounded man, the driver and a nurse were killed.

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"We thank the superpower (America) and we congratulate this hated (Tony) Blair. Now they are bombing ambulances," he said. "We are encouraging several groups, lawyers, professors of international law in order to present a lawsuit against those war criminals."

Air Attacks Targeting Iraq's Elite GuardSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-30Arrival time: 2003-03-29

Three-quarters of allied airstrikes are now targeting Republican Guard forces that stand between advancing columns of U.S. ground troops and Saddam Hussein's government, a top American air officer said in an Associated Press interview Saturday. From his desert command post in Saudi Arabia, Air Force Brig. Gen. Daniel Darnell also said U.S. and British warplanes over the past week have attacked virtually every military airfield in Iraq - believed to number roughly 100 - and have seen only a small number of planes. Intensified allied airstrikes on Saddam's best ground forces coincide with efforts by the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to consolidate their supply lines south of Baghdad before beginning a multipronged assault on the Republican Guard. The intent is to severely weaken those forces so they will fall more quickly to American ground troops, minimizing U.S. casualties. The air campaign against the Republican Guard ringing Baghdad intensified after the foul weather that had impeded air operations lifted a few days ago. Darnell said there will be no letup in airstrikes. "That will increase at least a little more" in the days ahead, he said. The coalition has flown roughly 1,000 missions a day in recent days. Army attack helicopters are joining the battle. More than 40 Apache helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division launched Hellfire missiles and other munitions in an attack Friday on elements of the Medina division of the Republican Guard, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said at the Pentagon. McChrystal said the Medina division is trying to stay clear of U.S. air power, which is "taking them apart, piece by piece." Darnell said that although much of Iraq's air defense network has been damaged or destroyed, it remains a threat around Baghdad because key radars and other systems are moved frequently to avoid attack. The Iraqi air force, which was vastly depleted in the 1991 Gulf War, has not flown a single mission since this war began March 20, Darnell said. While that is good news for allied pilots, Darnell said he and other air war planners remain wary of the potential for Iraqi surprises.

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The Iraqi air force is believed to have no more than 100 serviceable combat aircraft. The United States has more than 600 aircraft in the region, as well as about 30 ships and submarines that have launched more than 650 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Darnell is director of a command post at Saudi Arabia's Prince Sultan Air Base that runs all aspects of the air campaign. Known as the Combined Air Operations Center, it is headquarters for Darnell's boss, Lt. Gen. Michael Moseley, the top air commander in the Persian Gulf. In the telephone interview, Darnell disputed suggestions from some critics that the air campaign has failed to achieve its intended goals. "We're on track thus far," he said, while acknowledging that some thought victory would come quickly. He said the military challenge is bigger than in the 1991 war, in which the air campaign lasted five weeks before allied ground forces prevailed in 100 hours of combat. "We're faced with a much larger problem" this time, given that the entire territory of Iraq is a battlefield, whereas the 1991 conflict was focused on expelling the Iraqi army from tiny Kuwait. "Any insinuation or opinion that the air effort is not meeting objectives is misplaced," said Darnell, whose prewar assignment was commanding the Air Force's largest flying unit, the 57th Wing at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. Darnell said he could not estimate what proportion of Iraq's formidable surface-to-air missile force has been destroyed or disabled by the bombing. "I would be totally guessing," he said. Darnell said the Air Force's approach to war is based less on counting the number of structures and weapons its destroys than in assessing the effects those attacks have on the opponent's ability to command and control its forces. The key effect sought in this war, obviously, is the loss of Saddam's control over Iraq. Darnell declined to estimate the degree to which Saddam may be losing his grip on power, although he said airstrikes against the pillars of power in Baghad are having "some of the desired effects." He said it has become harder for Iraq's leaders to communicate with each other and to their forces. In the early days of the air war, strikes against Saddam's presidential compound, his communications centers, intelligence headquarters and other strategic targets were the main focus. But in recent days much of the focus has shifted from Baghdad to the Republican Guard on the outskirts of the capital. By Friday, 75 percent of all air missions were targeting elements of the Medina and other Republican Guard divisions, he said. The rest are against targets inside Baghdad and in support of U.S. ground forces operating in western, northern and southern Iraq, Darnell said. The air command post at Prince Sultan directs not only Air Force missions but also those of Marine Corps and Navy flights, including those flying from the five aircraft carriers in the region.

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Rear Adm. Barry Costello, commander of the USS Constellation battle group in the Persian Gulf, said Saturday that his planes are pounding Republican Guard positions south of Baghdad. He said they hit 40 targets in the past 24 hours, including a Republican Guard headquarters near Kut. The bulk of close to 100 bombing missions a day from each of the five carriers have been at night and have hit artillery, command posts and vehicle convoys of the Republican Guard's Medina division, Navy officials said.

Kurds Move Closer to N. Iraq Oil CenterSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-29

Without firing a shot, Kurdish militiamen moved closer Saturday to the key prize of the north - Kirkuk and its oil fields - after Iraqi forces staged a sudden withdrawal to possibly plug defenses targeted by U.S. airstrikes. The extent of the aerial barrage around the northern centers of Kirkuk and Mosul is not fully known. But Kurdish commanders interpreted the latest retrenching of Iraqi forces toward Kirkuk as evidence that the daily attacks had taken a serious toll and that Saddam Hussein needed to solidify the lines. "They are getting ready for a last stand," said the leader of a front line unit, Farhad Yunus Ahmad, as he crouched behind a knoll and scanned for signs of Iraqi troops along the main road linking Irbil in the Western-protected Kurdish region to Kirkuk. Iraqi soldiers fell back at least 12 miles late Friday to apparently regroup near Perdeh - also known as Altun Kupri - about 27 miles from Kirkuk, which is Iraq's No. 2 oil producing region. Iraqi troops made a similar pullback east of Kirkuk on Thursday. Perdeh's centerpiece is an important bridge over the Little Zab River. Bypassing the bridge would require coalition forces to make difficult and potentially dangerous detours through rolling hills where Iraqis could stage guerrilla-style ambushes or fire from higher ground. But there are no orders yet to open a northern ground offensive. The Pentagon has only about 1,200 paratroopers and some special forces at its disposal in the Kurdish autonomous region - a force too small to directly challenge Saddam's military, although reinforcements and heavier firepower are expected. Kurdish leaders, meanwhile, have pledged not to launch any independent attacks. The Kurdish militia force in the Irbil area is about 5,000; in the entire enclave there are about 70,000 guerrilla militiamen known as peshmergas - literally, "those who face death."

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Kirkuk would be one of the main goals of a northern push. U.S.-led forces hope to avoid any damage to the vital oil fields. Kurds view the city as an integral part of their ethnic territory and insist on the return of thousands of Kurds driven out by Saddam's regime. The peshmergas advanced cautiously at dawn into the territory opened by the overnight withdrawal. For many, it was their first look at land held by Baghdad since a failed 1991 Kurdish uprising after the Gulf War. The road appeared to be mined in places. Along one stretch, it was blocked by long metal bars and earthen mounds. At first, some Kurds feared the pullout could be a trap by Iraqi commandos. But worries faded as each crest revealed a panorama of empty grazing land and abandoned installations. Iraqi soldiers left behind cinderblock bunkers, sandbags and barbed wire barricades. But no weapons or strategic information were found, Kurdish fighters said. On Friday east of Kirkuk, Kurdish militiamen said they'd found gas masks and vials of the nerve gas antidote atropine in the headquarters of Saddam's Baath Party in Qala Hanjir. Along the Irbil-Kirkuk road, Kurds planted the yellow flag of the Kurdistan Democratic Party - one of the two main Kurdish factions - atop a former Iraqi observation hill overlooking the abandoned village of Shehan surrounded by lush pastures dotted with yellow and violet wildflowers. "I used to live on a farm over there," said fighter Hamza Ali, pointing to a cluster of broken stone buildings outside the village. "The Iraqi army destroyed everything. It's sad to be back here and see my village this way." Tracks in the mud suggested the Iraqis had some tanks in the area recently. In a foxhole, an Iraqi soldier left an empty pack of Al-Rashid cigarettes with some pencil doodles on the inside cover. The Iraqi-made brand claims to be "the finest Virginia filter cigarettes." The Kurdish fighters - in mismatched uniforms and munching on wild celery - posed for snapshots. Overhead, the contrails of U.S. warplanes left white cat claw streaks in the cloudless sky. On the horizon: the dark smoke from a bombing strike in the direction of Kirkuk. "This move by the Iraqi forces must mean only one thing: Saddam's government is using whatever it has left to try to defend Kirkuk," said a Kurdish special forces chief, Nazim Harki. "And we are another step closer to Kirkuk."

Saddam Sacks Commander of Air DefensesSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-29

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Saddam Hussein has fired his commander of air defenses as U.S.-led forces claimed control of 95 percent of Iraq's sky, the British government said Saturday. Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said Saddam had sacked his cousin, Musahim Saab al-Tikriti, and replaced him with Gen. Shahin Yasin Muhammad al-Tikriti. The spokesman also said new, unspecified intelligence indicated that U.S. and British bombing may not have been to blame for explosions in two marketplaces in Baghdad this week. He stopped short, however, of saying that Iraqi missiles were responsible for the explosions, which reportedly killed scores of civilians. According to Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, 58 people were killed - and many others wounded - in the explosion at the Al-Nasr market Friday evening. Iraqi officials have also blamed U.S. forces for an explosion at another market that killed 14 people on Wednesday. The Blair spokesman, whose briefings to reporters are by tradition on condition of anonymity, said many Iraqi surface-to-air missiles "have been malfunctioning and many have failed to hit their targets and have fallen back onto Baghdad before exploding." He said the Iraqi regime had ordered civil defense workers to remove Iraqi missile fragments which fell on residential areas before Western journalists arrived on the scene. "We are not saying definitively that these explosions were caused by Iraqi missiles. But people should approach this with due skepticism," he added. The U.S. Central Command in Qatar, which has denied that coalition forces target civilian neighborhoods, has said it was looking into the incidents.

Saudis Protest Iraq War Despite Rally BanSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-29

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Since the war on Iraq began, invocations to Allah to "strike the Americans," "bring down their planes" and "burn them with their own fire" have been heard at Saudi mosques following daily prayers. Text messages on cellular phones ridicule President Bush and laud Iraq's people, saying they're the "victims of the 'stubborn' missiles between the United States and the (Iraqi) regime." A group of 120 intellectuals refuses to meet with U.S. ambassador Robert W. Jordan to discuss a letter they had sent to Bush, saying they are disappointed with the U.S. administration's indifference to U.N. and world opinion on the war. In a country where protests are banned by the government, the citizens have found other ways to vent their anger against the United States and express their disgust with a war that many believe is unjust.

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Such passionate expressions of support for Iraq may sound strange in a country that offered its territory for the U.S.-led campaign against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. But this time the kingdom is not in danger of being overrun by Iraqi troops, and for Saudis, like for most Arabs, it's not only about Iraq. It's also about the United States, a country they feel has consistently betrayed them with its unconditional support for Israel. Many Saudis feel that attacking Iraq is the first U.S. step toward controlling the entire Arab world, especially the oil-rich Gulf region. America has "no regard to our dignity and our issues while at the same time it talks about freedom, peace and human rights," Ali Saad al-Moussa, a columnist for Al Watan daily, wrote Friday. "Because of all the double standards, we will hate America and will support from today every phrase or political speech that puts the black bull in its place," al-Moussa added in a column that accused the United States of "leading humankind to a catastrophe." Foreign Minister Prince Saud recently told reporters that while the basics of Saudi-U.S. relations are "healthy," a protracted war on Iraq "may damage that relationship." "The impact is already there. People see images that you bring them in the media. The sight of blood and destruction is never conducive to understanding and good relations between people," said Saud. In the minds of many Saudis the war on Iraq has become intertwined with the Israeli-Palestinian violence, with many drawing parallels between Bush's Iraq policies and those of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government toward the Palestinians. In Al-Madina daily a whole page on Thursday showed pictures of Iraqis carrying their dead, cringing with fear and inspecting damage from U.S.-British bombardment. A headline read: "Sharon's massacres repeated by Bush in Iraqi cities." On Friday, Al Watan daily placed two pictures side by side on its front page, one showing an Iraqi next to his damaged home and the other a Palestinian woman weeping for two Palestinians who fell by Israeli fire in Gaza. The caption said: "From Palestine to Iraq ... one roving tragedy ... carrying death and destruction." At mosques, Saudi preachers beseech Allah to inflict his wrath on America and its allies. The unusually harsh language indicates the government - which generally discourages clerics from using language that could be considered inflammatory - sees a need for an outlet for anti-war sentiment in a country where protests are banned. Saudis also are getting to express their anger on the Internet, in phone messages and through e-mails. The traffic is so heavy that the government has told its people, through the clergy, not to believe everything they hear or read. The kingdom is in a delicate position, having to balance its desire to keep the street calm while at the same time quietly helping the Americans in the war.

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Internet cafe owners report brisk business from people who surf for news, join chat rooms that discuss the war and call for jihad, or holy war, on the United States. They also forward messages making fun of Bush. Some voices caution Saudis not to get too carried away and turn Saddam Hussein into a hero. "The pretense of liberating the Iraqi people may be a smoke screen for the arrogant exercise of power or the personal goals of the American president or those of the cabal surrounding him," wrote Turki al-Hamad in Asharq al-Awsat paper. "But we should not forget that Saddam Hussein and his men have committed unprecedented crimes against the Iraqi people and the Arabs, competing in acts of ruthlessness surpassing in evil those of the tyrants of the past," he added

130,000 troops called up in change of battle planSource: Daily Mail - London Publication date: 2003-03-29

A RADICAL switch in the Allies' approach to the war in Iraq emerged yesterday as the U.S. ordered another 130 , 000 troops to the conflict. The move by American forces chiefs could also see more than 4,000 extra British personnel deployed to the Gulf. It came amid growing signs that the Allies' 'fast and light' war strategy has failed. News of the massive reinforcements - which will double the size of the coalition Army - came after a U.S. commander admitted the war was turning out very differently to expectations as Saddam Hussein's loyalists adopted effective guerilla tactics across southern Iraq. Lieutenant General William Wallace, who leads the U.S. 5th Army Corps, said: 'The enemy we are fighting is different from the one we'd wargamed.' On Thursday, Gordon Brown announced an extra pounds 1.25billion for the war, which has already cost pounds 3billion and is costing Britain pounds 75million a day. Earlier in the week President Bush asked Congress for pounds 50billion to fund operations over the next five months. But it is thought far more money and reinforcements, on top of the extra 130,000 revealed yesterday, could be needed if the war stretches on into the summer. Yesterday Mr Rumsfeld raised the prospect of Allied forces encircling Baghdad and laying siege to the city, hoping for a popular uprising, to avoid being sucked into dangerous urban warfare. And a British military spokesman admitted the southern Iraqi city of Basra is 'clearly nowhere near' under Allied control. A British defence source said: 'Basra is very interesting to watch as an example of how Baghdad will be tough to crack.

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'The key thing is that U.S. forces do not want to get involved in downtown fighting. It's all about applying pressure with the result of the regime falling. 'You need an overwhelming force to move into urban areas and I don't think we will do it. We do not have the amount of troops you need to carry out urban guerilla warfare.' Allied spokesmen insisted yesterday that the war was going to plan, but the changes sparked speculation that the Allied strategy may have been badly conceived. It is understood that Mr Rumsfeld and his closest aides were instrumental in adoption of the 'fast and light' tactics. The aim was to use hi-tech and mobile special forces and lightweight infantry to hit quickly at the heart of Saddam's regime, in contrast to the heavy, five-week bombardment of Iraq that preceded invasion in the first Gulf War 12 years ago. Mr Rumsfeld is thought to have been at odds with American field commander General Tommy Franks, who advocated using traditional heavy armour to invade Iraq. It is now thought possible that the Allies might have to revert to increased 'shock and awe' tactics - heavy bombing raids designed to destroy the Iraqi regime from the air. The coalition force in and around Iraq totals about 250,000 - barely a third of the massive 700,000-strong force used in the 1991 Gulf War to achieve the far more modest task of liberating Kuwait. More than 30,000 members of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division - originally due to invade Iraq via Turkey - will start flying from their Texas base to Kuwait this weekend. But their heavy equipment is only now arriving by sea, and the formation may not be combat-ready for up to a month. Another 100,000 U.S. troops are on standby to deploy. The British Army is drawing up contingency plans to send another battalion-size force of 4,000 to 5,000 troops, possibly based around the 4th Armoured Brigade in Germany or the 19th Mechanised Brigade at Catterick.

British army not taking a back seat to U.S. in taking on IraqiSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-29

UMM QASR, Iraq (AP) -- Striking before dawn, British tanks and infantry staged a lightning raid into besieged Basra on Saturday, destroying five Iraqi tanks and blowing up two statues of Saddam Hussein before withdrawing without casualties. The strike was the first thrust into the city confirmed by British officers, and it and other limited attacks around Basra could be a preview of how coalition commanders might deal with a siege of Baghdad. The move also was further evidence that British troops fighting for control of Iraq's far south are not here just as window dressing in the war to topple Saddam.

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The 30,000 British soldiers and marines in the field have pedigrees that stretch to El Alamein, Waterloo and earlier and aren't taking a back seat to an American ground force about five times larger. British troops have fought some of the toughest battles so far, mixing up pinpoint raids in urban areas with the pummeling of Iraqi armored forces daring or desperate enough to risk a head-on fight in the open. On Thursday, 12 Challenger tanks from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards battled an equal-sized force of Iraqi T-55s near Basra, Iraq's second-biggest city where 1,000 or so Saddam loyalists are holed up among 1.5 million people widely unfriendly to the regime. The Iraqi force lost two tanks and saw two infantry positions overrun. In an army that thrives on obscure regimental histories and traditions, the Scots Dragoon Guards have one of the proudest, wearing beret badges resembling the eagle standard of Napoleon's army, which they engaged in a suicidal cavalry charge at Waterloo in 1815. Having long ago given up their gray war horses and sabers, they now fight from Challenger II tanks, using some of the most sophisticated aiming systems in the world to hit the aging Iraqi tanks while moving at 40 mph (64 kph). Overhead, the Royal Air Force has been flying about 10 percent of the 1,000-plus sorties flown by the coalition each day, employing their own aerial refueling aircraft, Tornado fighter-bombers and Harrier jump jets. Asked if the British, who are operating under overall control of U.S. Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway, would need reinforcements to take and hold the south, one of their officers bristled. ``We've got quite enough troops to do the job, 26,000 troops,'' Col. Chris Vernon, the army spokesman in Kuwait City, told journalists. ``The British army is a professional army that's probably second technologically only to the Americans.'' U.S. Marines and Royal Marines surged into the Faw peninsula at the outset of the war. Though they would have preferred to avoid urban fighting, they needed to seize Umm Qasr, Iraq's main deep-water port, as soon as possible to open it up for ships bringing in humanitarian aid. The city was taken after five days of hard street-to-street fighting. Iraqi militiamen sniped from windows, while others feigned surrender, then opened fire when troops came up to take them into custody. Military officers say the area is largely secure now, and the harbor is being cleared of mines. British troops patrol the dusty streets, walking in pairs on both sides of the street, a sight familiar from the days of urban guerrilla warfare in Northern Ireland. Gurkhas, armed with assault rifles and their intimidating 13-inch kukri knives, help guard the port. The most powerful British unit, the 7th Armored Brigade, has been at the gates of Basra since midweek. Its soldiers are staging quick, sharp attacks on Iraqi forces that took refuge in the city and reportedly have attacked civilians trying to escape.

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The brigade is descended from the ``Desert Rats'' that defeated Nazi Germany's Desert Fox, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, in the North African desert in World War II. On Tuesday, soldiers from the brigade raided the house of a senior official of Saddam's ruling Baath party on the outskirts of the city and took him prisoner, leaving 20 dead bodyguards. ``He was sitting there in his little building, thinking what a good morning, when whap! we're in, whap! we're out, and 20 of them are gone,'' Vernon said. ``That would have sent a shock wave through them.''

As Jets Pound Iraqi Positions, Ground Troops Continue Battling IrregularsSource: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau Publication date: 2003-03-29

Mar. 29--NEAR AN NAJAF, Iraq--In one area, American troops found caches of weapons pre-positioned along U.S. supply routes. In another, they found signs that Iraqis had executed one of their own, perhaps to stiffen the spines of others. In a third, Cobra attack helicopters scrambled to defend a 70-vehicle Marine supply convoy. Throughout central Iraq, the battle continued Friday against the shadowy irregulars who have harassed U.S. supply lines for days and slowed the American march toward Baghdad. Near An Najaf, elements of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division found small arms and rocket-propelled grenades hidden behind sand berms and under debris, apparently so Iraqi fighters could slip in unarmed, fire on convoys, and then escape while appearing to be civilians. South of al Kut, Marines reported on an engagement Thursday that killed 14 Iraqis. Marines picking through what had been the Iraqi perches found the remnants of humanitarian-aid food that the fighters had consumed while waiting to ambush the rear end of a convoy. They also found an Iraqi, bound hand and foot and shot in the head, perhaps a message for would-be deserters. In the third, two Cobra attack helicopters and two infantry companies were called in after a supply convoy was attacked with artillery and rocket propelled grenades. "We're going to find them and kill them," 1st Marine Expeditionary Force planner Lt. Col. George Smith said of the Saddam Hussein loyalists who have been sniping at U.S. rear areas and supply columns. In the air, about 115 U.S. and British jets blanketed central Iraq at any one time in a day-long swarm aimed at softening up Republican Guard units defending Baghdad. But on the ground, the persistent threat of attack from guerrilla fighters still occupied American GIs. Even those who didn't experience an ambush were feeling the threat.

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"This is too much," said Lance Cpl. Matt Jungling, after a two-hour ride through a sniper zone in which he and 10 other Marines were told to hunker down in the bed of a dump truck for cover. "I'd rather walk naked down the street than deal with this mess." It was the second day of determined sweeps west of An Najaf by soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in search of Iraqi fighters. They discovered caches of small arms, including two shoulder-fired SA-7 surface-to-air missiles and several dozen rocket propelled grenades, one of the Iraqis' most frequently used weapons. The weapons were destroyed. "I think we put a dent in their operations for a while," said Capt. John Whyte, of Billerica, Mass. Villagers told soldiers that the weapons had been left there by Baath Party members for use against U.S. forces. They said there were no regular Iraqi army units or fedayeen militia in the area. American soldiers said some of them have been told to enter An Najaf and capture Baath Party loyalists. Marines south of al Kut combed through the site of an ambush on one of their convoys the day before. The Iraqis had dug themselves in along a sand berm running parallel to the highway, setting up foxholes or hiding on the banks of a drainage canal behind the berm, which offered a decent anti-tank ditch and escape route. Sitting in small camps, each clustered around a small black tea pot, the Iraqis ate food from aid packages while they waited. After the armored portion of the convoy passed, including tanks and assault vehicles, the Iraqis opened fire on the convoy's vulnerable end. The Marines turned around, firing 25 mm machine guns and rifles. The Iraqis were no match. Later, examining the dead guerrillas, Marine Capt. Sean Riddell of the 7th Engineering Support Battalion said he was surprised by what he found. The Iraqis were older, many showing graying hair, receding hairlines and the thick, stodginess of middle age. These were not new recruits or young fanatics but looked more like experienced soldiers. Several wore the red bandana associated with the Republican Guard. Their gear was similar to that of U.S. fighting forces: black rubber gas masks, green canvas carriers and camouflage outfits. Then there was the 15th dead Iraqi, who was bound hand and foot and shot in the back of the head. There was other fighting reported: --A Marine reconnaissance drone spotted 10 of Iraq's best artillery pieces, South African designed G-6 howitzer that can lob shells accurately more than 30 miles, near the city of Karbala southwest of Baghdad. The sighting allowed U.S. warplanes to knock out two of the big guns -- for which Marine officers have expressed a healthy respect -- and give coalition forces a hint about the whereabouts of senior Republican Guard headquarters units around Karbala.

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"That's a corps-level asset," said Lt. Col. Dave Pere, the senior night watch officer at Marine headquarters outside of Nasiriyah. Iraq has two Republican Guard Corps, with three divisions each, which have control of all the G-6s, which can be used to fire chemical weapons. --Three al Samoud missiles, of the type that was being destroyed by U.N. weapons inspectors before the war started, spotted north of Basra, were targeted with a long-range missile, a Joint Stand Off Weapon, fired from an Air Force jet. There was no immediate report on the damage. --And in Washington, the Pentagon identified eight Marines missing since fighting started last Sunday around An Nasiriyah in Iraq. They are: Pfc. Tamario D. Burkett, 21, of Erie, N.Y.; Lance Cpl. Thomas A. Blair, 24, of Oklahoma; Cpl. Kemaphoom A. Chanawongse, 22, of Waterford, Conn.; Lance Cpl. Donald J. Cline, Jr., 21, of Washoe, Nev.; Pvt. Jonathan L. Gifford, 20, of Macon, Ill.; Pvt. Nolen R. Hutchings, 19, of Boiling Springs, S.C.; Lance Cpl. Patrick R. Nixon, 21, St. Louis, Mo.; and Lance Cpl. Michael J. Williams, 31, of Arizona. The Pentagon also announced that a Marine listed as missing since Monday has been declared dead. He was identified as Cpl. Evan T. James. By Drew Brown, Matt Schofield and Steven Thomma. Brown reported from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division near An Najaf. Schofield of The Kansas City star reported from the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force along Highway 7 in Central Iraq. Thomma reported from Washington. Juan O. Tamayo of The Miami Herald at the Marine Combat Headquarters in Iraq contributed to the article.

Bodies of 15 Dead Iraqis Found after Ambush Tell TalesSource: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri) Publication date: 2003-03-29

Mar. 29--IN CENTRAL IRAQ -- Dead men do tell tales, and the bodies of 15 Iraqis found after an ambush on a supply convoy told a story by themselves. They were killed Thursday during a firefight along a blacktop highway in which a U.S. Marine also was killed. The Iraqis had lain silent while the fighting portion of the convoy passed, including tanks and assault vehicles. But when the convoy's softer, supply end was exposed, they opened fire. The assault vehicles quickly rounded on them with 25 mm rounds and rifle fire. When it was over, the Iraqis turned out to be a cadre of middle-aged soldiers, some wearing the red bandannas associated with the Republican Guard. Mysteriously, one of them had been killed before the confrontation, apparently executed by the Iraqis themselves. The attack came from sniper nests dug into a sand hill parallel to the highway. Each hole held the remains of the attackers' last meal, yellow Humanitarian Aid food bags and a small black teapot. Capt. Sean Riddell of the 7th Engineering Support Battalion said the Marines were surprised by the Iraqis' appearance.

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Compared with the youthful Marines around them, these were older soldiers, many with gray hair, receding hairlines and the thick stodginess of middle age. They looked like experienced soldiers, though. Several wore the red bandannas associated with the Republican Guard, suggesting that perhaps the elite Iraqi fighting force was involved in guerrilla tactics as well as the massed warfare it is known for. The soldiers' gear was similar to that of U.S. fighting forces: rubber gas masks, green canvas bags and camouflage outfits. The Marines were baffled by the executed man, his body bound hand and foot and shot in the back of the head. Riddell said they couldn't know what happened, but one explanation was that the man might have been on the verge of surrendering.

Troops prepare to build prisonsSource: U-WIRE Publication date: 2003-03-28Arrival time: 2003-03-29

FULLERTON, Calif. -- Camp Bucca, somewhere in Southern Iraq -- The 36th Engineer Group along with the 46th and 109th Engineer Battalions moved out of their camps in Kuwait on Monday and into southern Iraq. Loaded into more than half a dozen convoys totaling 400 vehicles, they left throughout the morning, beginning at 6:45 a.m. The mission of the approximately 1,000 men and women in the three units is to build a camp for Iraqi prisoners of war. The destination of the 36th Engineer Group and 46th Engineer Battalion convoys was a location about 70 miles north of the Kuwaiti border; the sight of the future war prisoner camp to be called Camp Bucca. The camp is named after a New York City firefighter who died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Capt. Brian Chapuron of the 36th Engineers said the idea of naming the camp after the fallen firefighter came from Col. Ecke of the 800th Military Police Brigade, who is a reservist and a New York City firefighter. The 800th M.P. Brigade is the unit that will guard the Iraqi prisoners of war once they arrive. They will also provide security for the engineers while they build the camp, Chapuron said. The camp will be built on a large, flat, desolate plain and is designed to hold several thousand Iraqi prisoners. It can be expanded if necessary. The number of prisoners it will hold will depend on circumstances. Most of the convoys arrived in the late afternoon and quickly began to set up their large command and sleep tents to get the generators on line before night made their work much more difficult. As it was, many soldiers worked late into the night. The next morning, several sleep tents had to be put up and most of them sandbagged. Filling sandbags and placing them around the bottom of the tents took most of the day.

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Military personnel said the sandbags at the bottom of the tent were to keep chemical agents out. But as the day wore on, it became clear they served another, and more immediate purpose, to keep the tents from blowing away. The day began windy and by mid-afternoon it was a sandstorm. Soldiers who were fixing and putting up tents against a gusting wind in the morning found themselves filling sandbags and placing them around the tents in a blizzard of sand and wind in the afternoon. Everyone was drafted to fill sandbags. Majors and captains worked beside sergeants and privates kneeling in the sand, filling sandbags and tying them up. The bags were then loaded onto the front hoods of Humvees and then unloaded at the tents. By nightfall, work had stopped. The soldiers probably would have continued working under normal circumstances, but the blowing sand and darkness prevented it. Maj. Christopher Sallese, a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, said he didn't experience anything this bad back then. "We had the rain, but not the wind," he said. He then told me that the 109th Engineers, who are camped about 60 miles away, had worse problems. The 109th Engineers had put their tents up on pre-existing cement slabs. They could not peg their tents into the ground and some of the tents blew over. Others flooded when the cement slabs channeled water into the tents. Sgt. Jimie Logan of Bellville, Ill., called the weather horrendous. It was "raining rocks," he said. When the wind slowed and it started to rain, Logan said several officers took the opportunity to take a shower in the rain. Because there have been communication problems in this location, it appears that some of the units will move to anther location, possibly farther north, while others will stay to build the camp.

Marines Convoys on Lookout for Snipers, Ambush TeamsSource: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri) Publication date: 2003-03-29

Mar. 29--ACROSS CENTRAL IRAQ -- They roll down superhighways, across small stretches of blacktop and up dirt roads, past small towns and cities. They pass Navy Seabees working on roads, small prisoner-holding areas and fields of tanks, artillery and armored assault vehicles. At night, U.S. helicopters thump overhead, bombers rumble high above and spy drones pass with a whining buzz. It's a military convoy, the movement of Marines and materiel through a land under siege, and for 48 hours, Lance Cpl. Jacob McGreevey kept his finger near the trigger, because passage can be tricky. Snipers and ambush teams are afoot, sometimes opening fire on supply convoys after combat units have passed. McGreevey crouched, poised and ready, a round in the chamber as his convoy passed within a few miles of An Nasiriyah, one of the more contentious sites yet in the war.

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He rode in the back of a Humvee with eight other Marines, sometimes slowly, sometimes halting every few minutes. At times, convoys stretched to the horizon in both directions. "I knew where we were traveling, I knew it was supposed to be dangerous, but we didn't need to fire a shot," McGreevey said after the two-day trip to the country's midsection. The convoy geared up and left an old airfield in southwest Iraq before dawn Wednesday. It became the equivalent of a rolling block party, with other convoys dropping in and staying awhile before nipping off in other directions at intersections. The threat was of ambush, not all-out attack, and several times the convoy rolled into areas where ambushes were expected. For two hours Wednesday night, it rolled with lights out through a sniper zone, but drew no fire. About noon Thursday, while fighting was fierce in An Nasiriyah nearby, the convoy turned west and crossed the Euphrates River. The Marines halted Thursday night and set up camp, prepared for a third day of travel, only to learn Friday morning that they already had reached their objective. "This is not Gulf War Two," said Staff Sgt. Michael Close of the 7th Engineering Support Battalion. "They are fighting back pretty fiercely in places. But they're fighting us and their own people, and I don't think they can do that for very long. "And what we just did, travel across an enemy country in the open, only one week in, we're moving pretty quick."

A Wild West lifestyle on a newly occupied airbaseSource: Scripps Howard Publication date: 2003-03-29

A FORWARD AIR BASE IN IRAQ -- In a week's time, thousands of U.S. forces are expected here, to create the most substantial coalition airbase in Iraq. But right now it is still a Wild West kind of place. There are some old Iraqi air force sand-cement buildings, with blasted out windows and recent sandstorms have covered everything inside with a sheet of filth. There are no closed or modern buildings, no bathrooms. There is no electricity, except for the humvee's generators and their battery-powered flashlights. Wild dogs growl and bark just outside the secured perimeter and occasional explosions further break the night. Some of the blasts come from members of the Explosive Ordinances Demolition team finding and destroying live munitions that are still dug into the sand, and some are from nearby skirmishes with Iraqi resistance. There are security passwords for when the men encounter each other roaming at night, because there's still a threat that individual snipers can break through the barriers. "Stick a few trailers on the side of the road, and this would look like Oklahoma," says Staff Sgt. Chad Wurm. "And add a few satellite dishes," adds Airman First Class Brian Kolfage.

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The 17th Security Forces Squadron, like many of the troops setting up camp here, gets to work on making a home. Senior Airman Nathaniel Reed and Airman 1st Class Peter Poole fill rows of sandbags, to fortify a shooting position on the roof. "Got lotion?" Poole asks, his hands cracked by sand and shoveling. At first, they were going to stay in the large cement and mud hazzes' or hangars, in rows of cots on the ground with the several hundred other personnel that have rolled in. But after other new arrivals started stealing their cots, the guys circled wagons around their headquarters shack and made it home — complete with a workable shower. "Come check this out!" says Wurm. He has used cord, a sandbag, a metal leg from a cot and a tin bucket with holes punched in the bottom to make a showerhead that balances through a window in one of the abandoned rooms in the shack. He pours water into the tin bucket, and it spews out. After some scavenging in the Iraqi buildings, the guys also find an old cylinder to punch out and use as a stove. They put a pot on top, tear up MRE cardboard boxes for fuel, and presto — they're making hot showers. Next, they make a bathroom. They drag a bombed-out Iraqi truck against a power generator, and top it off with camouflage netting. They rope off a door, find another pot that looks like a bedpan, and when it fills, they set it on fire to burn off the waste. They line the whole compound with C-wire, marking their territory. "We are going to have a restroom tonight," Wurm teases. "It's not going to have a bidet, but you can only do so much in one night." Inside the shack, the guys have lined up the remaining cots and are "hot-bedding" it, with someone on the team on active patrol at all times. It's still a dangerous place to patrol, not only because of the explosive ordinance, but also because the Pave Hawks and C-130s taking off constantly through the night are doing so blacked out, so enemy fire can't find them. They are near impossible to see without night vision goggles. Inside, 10 of the 13 men sleep. There's no complete block from the wind or sand and some of the men are very cold. Airman 1st Class Damien Osborn wakes up to find a scorpion on his pillow. "I tried to stomp on it, but it kept squirming," says Airman 1st Class Jason Harris. "Then I just took Wurm's bayonet and stuck it." With the base so newly formed, every commodity has to be guarded, or it walks off into another squadron's possession. Stacks of MRE's are lined up against the mud walls, boxes of bottled water are sheltered too. Even though there are some risky and scary moments, it's pretty clear the guys are having the time of their lives. Airman 1st Class Brian Kolfage tears up some cardboard and marks in bold, black lettering a sign they nail to the building: "17th S.F.S." Says Harris: "This is kind of cool. They train us how to do all of this, and now we're doing it. Well, except for the showers."

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Combat Seasoning Starts With 1st MissionSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-29

The infrared image on Chief Warrant Officer 2 Chris Montjoy's screen startled him. It was early in his first combat mission, and the 101st Airborne Division pilot almost reacted by firing. He took a deep breath, paused and realized it was a dog. The dog's life was spared, but not those of soldiers in several Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles in a Friday night attack in Karbala - the first for the air assault division in the war. "I don't think it's an adrenaline rush," said Montjoy, 28, of Clarksville, Tenn., a member of the 2nd Battalion of the 101st Aviation Brigade, as he spoke to pilots gathered under a large mosquito net draped next to their tent. "I think it's just scared." Like Montjoy, most of the battalion's pilots - including the commander - were fighting in their first combat mission. The division's 1st Battalion and the Air Force also partnered in the mission to take out Medina elements of the Iraqi Republican Guard to allow the 3rd Infantry Division to move further north into Baghdad. The 2nd Battalion alone destroyed four tanks, six armored personnel carriers, 15 vehicles, a fuel site and a communications tower in a mission deemed a success by commanders. At a Washington briefing, Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said the 101st Airborne troops sent "40-plus Apaches" to attack the Medina division. He said the Pentagon has some damage assessments but refused to give exact numbers. Lt. Col. Stephen Smith, the battalion commander, said combat experience is invaluable in a fight, and the lack of combat experience might have contributed to the crash of two of the battalion's Apaches in dusty conditions. One pilot was evacuated to Kuwait with a broken leg. No other serious injuries were reported. "I guarantee it makes a difference because of the unknown," said Smith, who has been in the Army 19 years. Smith, an instructor pilot during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, said the timing of wars makes it possible to go an entire career without seeing combat. Chief Warrant Officer 4 Ted Hazen, 41, of Nashville, Tenn., said he couldn't help but feel a little left out when his unit wasn't deployed in the Gulf War. "It's like busting your butt for the varsity team, then you don't get to go play," Hazen said.

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On Friday, he got his chance. Watching the missiles fire, Hazen said, "was pretty spectacular." Chief Warrant Officer 3 Scott Jackson, 36, of Houston, said he doesn't think the level of combat experience matters. "You always plan three conditions of attack we think the bad guys will do and they do the fourth," Jackson said. Capt. Jeffrey Dahlgren, Bravo Company commander for the battalion, said having one attack under the battalion's belt will help. "I don't think it matters how much you train. It's going to settle nerves a little bit. The first time is also a little unexpected," Dahlgren said. "You're not sure what to expect, but I'm not saying we're going to become complacent at all."

Getting Supplies Through ; Food For The Troops Comes 'Just In Time'Source: Buffalo News - Financial Edition Publication date: 2003-03-27Arrival time: 2003-03-29

Gripping the phone to his ear and scowling, Gen. Charles W. Fletcher Jr. fought his most important battle of the war to date with a few blunt words. "We've got to get this going every day up here, or we're going to starve," he said, hoping the officer on the other end of the line would help find the food shipments that had been missing for days. The officers and soldiers in the war room at this Army outpost would not have been starving alone. As of Thursday morning, the 3rd Infantry Division -- America's key ground fighting force in the war in Iraq -- was running out of food, too. Two days of food shipments finally arrived here later Thursday, but Fletcher's outburst from the night before illustrates one of the biggest challenges the Army has encountered in this week-old war: getting food and supplies to the troops. With Iraqi militiamen controlling the northern parts of the main highway between here and Kuwait, U.S. Army logisticians have been forced to move supplies on a dusty one-lane road that has been a traffic jam since Sunday. So food and other supplies are arriving days late, and it's not making Fletcher happy. "I'm starting to get an ulcer over this just-in-time delivery," said Fletcher, who heads the 3rd Corps Support Command, which manages the flow of supplies to Army troops here. It's also causing problems for all those Army forces. In addition to food, fuel and other basic items have been in short supply, partly because of that miserable road between here and Kuwait and partly because of the Army's own war planning efforts. The problems haven't been critical. In fact, officers here say that the "readiness rate" of units in the region is better than 90 percent despite the logistical difficulties.

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But supplies have been reaching the troops just before they need them, with no time to spare, thanks in part to the huge traffic jam leading north from Kuwait. That traffic jam, along a dirt path, has doubled or even tripled the expected delivery time. Officers here said it now takes at least 36 hours to make the 300- mile drive. "All down that goat path there was huge congestion, traffic for as far as you can see," said Lt. Col. Glenn Steffenhagen, 42, a Clarence native who made the trip recently. The Army is using that road -- which really is not much more than a goat path -- because the last 100 miles of the highway it had intended to use is not secure. Stretches of that main road are controlled by militiamen from the Fedayeen, a 60,000-member militia loyal to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and commanded by Saddam's son Odai. Army planners never predicted such a possibility, said Steffenhagen, who now serves as executive officer for the 3rd Infantry Division's Support Command, which makes sure the division's brigades get the supplies they need. "No one thought there would be guerrilla warfare as much as there is," Steffenhagen said. "The planners never anticipated this." Instead, the planners put together a logistics program aimed at minimizing the backlog of supplies that would be at the front at any given moment. By adopting a supply-delivery system similar to "just in time" delivery system of the business world, the idea was to make the fighting force lighter and more mobile. "It's a very complicated system that was in its infancy," said Lt. Col. David Brouillette, who serves as a liaison between the supply unit and the attack command post here. He expects that it will improve as the war effort progresses. Under that system, troops arrived here in central Iraq with a five-day supply of food and water. For the 3rd Infantry Division and for command and supply elements here at this Army post, that supply was all set to run out until the new two-day shipment arrived Wednesday. Officers said the logistics situation is improving now. A fuel farm has been set up here, near the biggest battle of the war to date, and a new water purification system has allowed the Army to tap into local water sources. In addition, troops from the 3rd Infantry Division have been dispatched to patrol the route from here to Kuwait, to protect convoys from being ambushed.

MREs are A-OKSource: Tulsa World Publication date: 2003-03-26Arrival time: 2003-03-29

U.S. soldiers strap down hundreds of cases of MREs (MealsReady to Eat) that just arrived by ship on Saturday at Port AlShuiba in southern Kuwait. The

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easily transported and consumedmeals once unimaginative and tasteless have becomemuch more palatable. WALLY SANTANA / Associated Press From Thai chicken to vegetarian burritos, rations actually taste good Veterans who remember the canned C-rations of earlier wars may not believe it. But the U.S. military has finally come up with standard-issue field rations that actually taste pretty good -- assuming you don't mind eating your meals out of brown plastic bags. "MREs? They're OK, I guess," says Lance Cpl. Charlie Valle, 19, with the 1st Marine Division at Camp Matilda, Kuwait. "But you get tired of them pretty fast." MRE is short for "Meals Ready-to-Eat," and most of the Marines in the Kuwaiti desert eat them at least once a day while they're in base camp. While combat Marines are on the move, MREs are their breakfast, lunch and dinner. The meals come in 24 different menus, ranging from "Thai Chicken" to "Meatloaf With Gravy" to "Vegetarian Bean & Rice Burrito" to "Beefsteak, Grilled, Chunked and Formed." The menu slowly changes over time, with some of the less popular items being phased out. For example, the ham and egg omelet entree, known to Marines as "Dead Man in a Bag" because of an unpleasant aroma and greenish hue to the eggs, is no more. The so-called "Four Fingers of Death" -- four hotdogs in a bag with beans -- is also on its way out. Each entree comes with a side dish -- rice pilaf, potato sticks, Mexican rice, etc. Snacks such as M&Ms, and cheese or peanut butter that can be spread on a vegetable cracker for fiber, are also included. Lack of fiber apparently was a problem with earlier versions of MREs, earning them the nickname "Meals Refusing to Exit." (Poor quality in the earlier versions of MREs also resulted in them being dubbed "Meals Refused by Ethiopians" and other, even less tasteful names.) Each MRE also comes with an accessory packet: plastic spoon, moist towelette, packets of salt, sugar, cocoa or Tasters Choice instant coffee, powdered creamer, a small packet of toilet paper, Chicklets gum and matches. Unlike in the old days, the new health- conscious military no longer includes mini-packs of cigarettes with field rations. Heating the MRE entrees and side dishes is simple, since each MRE comes with a disposable "Flameless Ration Heater." Put the entree bag in the heater bag, add a little water and a chemical reaction produces heat to warm the food. Virtually every Marine agrees that without heating, the MREs are awful -- and even when heated, the popularity of any given MRE varies from Marine to Marine. "I like the chicken and salsa," says Lance Cpl. Nena Shaw, 22, with the 1st Marine Division at Camp Matilda. "It's the one that tastes most like real food." "A lot of people like the beef patty," says Lance Cpl. Ben Wilder, 23, of Murietta, with the 1st Battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment at Camp Grizzly.

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"The least preferred is the pork chow mein. I got that three days in a row once." "Yeah," agrees Cpl. John McFarling, 29, also with the 1/5 Marines. "If you get the pork chow mein, you're getting screwed. The grilled chicken is pretty good -- but they all get old eventually." To break the monotony, sometimes the Marines improvise. For example, Sgt. David Crockett of San Diego, with the 1st Marine Division, offers this recipe for MRE Chocolate Cafe Pudding: Ingredients: 1 package MRE Cocoa Beverage Powder (Type 1 Fortified) 1 packet MRE Taster's Choice instant coffee 1 packet MRE Cream Substitute, Dry, Non-Dairy 1 canteen water Directions: Combine ingredients into cocoa beverage bag. Add small amount of water. Mix thoroughly. Serves one.

U.S. Forces Wait for Next Move in BaghdadSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-29

Having weathered near-Biblical sandstorms, fought guerrilla-style ambushes and brought their high-tech powerhouse to within 50 miles of Baghdad, U.S. forces are waiting for the next move - a showdown with Iraq's best troops, the Republican Guard. Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the allied coalition, appeared to be in no immediate rush, while spokesmen at the Pentagon and the Central Command forward headquarters in Qatar insisted the operational plan was on schedule. After a two-day battering by sand-laden 40 mph winds disrupted the advance, the Army and Marine divisions needed to regroup and resupply. Some field commanders complained of shortages of ammunition, food and fuel, published reports said. Clearing skies allowed a resumption of air attacks on Baghdad and a nighttime raid by AH-64 Apache attack helicopters on the Medina division, one of the six Republican Guard units believed to be defending Saddam Hussein's capital. Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed told reporters Friday that the coalition forces would have to fight for Baghdad street by street. "The enemy must come inside Baghdad, and that will be its grave," he declared. But it appears unlikely allied commanders plan a big frontal assault on Baghdad that could lead to the kind of bloody urban warfare predicted by Ahmed. American military forces last engaged in that kind of fighting in Seoul, during the 1950-53 Korean War, and at Hue, in 1968 during the Vietnam War. Military experts consider it the most difficult form of combat - slow, grinding and guaranteed to be costly in human lives.

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"The casualties would be extraordinary," said John Abrams, a retired Army general and military analyst. "Whatever the U.S. strategy, it will be surgical, and a very deliberate process. It cannot be an impromptu or spontaneous action." For the moment, the campaign seemed focused on using helicopters and planes to pound the Republic Guard divisions around Baghdad and strike strategic targets in the city. Air attacks hit the Iraqi Information Ministry and other key government facilities late Friday. Destroying these targets - spared in the "shock and awe" overture a week earlier - would deprive Iraq's top commanders of ability to communicate with field forces in a timely manner. Analysts say the U.S. effort will continue an intensive psychological operation aimed at persuading Republican Guard troops and the people of Baghdad not to give up their lives defending Saddam. Franks also is awaiting reinforcements that could relieve pressure on coalition forces stretched thin across the desert after eight days of grueling road marches and flare-ups of Iraqi resistance that some senior officers admitted they had not expected. Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of the Army's V Corps, said Pentagon strategists had miscalculated the nature and tenacity of the adversary his troops would encounter - especially the fanatical Fedayeen militia that clashed with coalition troops in ambushes and fake surrenders. "The enemy we're fighting against is different from the one we'd war-gamed against," Wallace told The New York Times and The Washington Post. "We knew they were here, but we did not know how they would fight." Of major importance in recent days was the capture of two key airfields by U.S. forces - one in Kurdish territory in northern Iraq and the other the Tallil air base with its 12,000-foot runway near Nasiriyah. Abrams called these takeovers "absolutely essential" to the campaign, providing secure forward supply bases to support coalition forces outside Baghdad with weapons, food, fuel and reinforcements, and eventually postwar aid efforts by humanitarian organizations. Planning for the campaign against the Republican Guard is based heavily on the allies' overwhelming edge in technology and weaponry. Iraqi armored forces consist mainly of aging Soviet-era armor and are about half the strength of 1991, when Iraq boasted the world's fourth largest army. The remnants of Saddam's air force - about 90 French Mirages and Soviet MiGs - remain impounded in Iran, where they fled to escape destruction during the first Gulf War. Other Iraqi planes or helicopters can take off only at peril of being shot down.

Close Encounters Of Different KindsSource: Richmond Times - Dispatch Publication date: 2003-03-28Arrival time: 2003-03-29

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The U.S. Marines are meeting two types of people on their push north to Baghdad. On one hand are the local farmers along Route 7, who stare warily up from their donkey carts as they watch the passing Marines in their miles-long column. If any of their children wave, they get a passing smile from a young Marine who might have a kid brother or sister the same age back home. On the other hand are the truckful of AK-47-toting men who greet the Marines at nearly every dusty hamlet. Whether they're civilians or soldiers in civilian clothes, they usually end up the same - smoldering corpses in a demolished vehicle. The latter group has slowed the Marines' advance. The first group, the indifferent farmers, has perplexed the Marines, who had hoped they would be greeted as liberators the way young French belles greeted the Marines' grandfathers during World War II. "You look in their faces, they look so beat down," said Dave Zhorne, 36, first sergeant of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment. "Maybe Saddam has been kicking their asses so long, they think of us as just another ass kicker." "They're so wary, they just stand there and stare at you," said Maj. Jim Swafford, platoon leader in the 4th Amphibious Assault Vehicle Battalion. "They're leery." Perhaps they have cause to be. The march of Marines north has steadily gotten bloodier as assailants with machine guns and mortars - Iraqi soldiers dressed as civilians, according to intelligence reports - have met them in the few significant towns they passed through. Several thousand Marines are on their way to Baghdad, rolling through farmlands along Route 7, which runs north from An Nasiriyah to Al Kut, then veers west to Baghdad. Along Route 7, Marines have not been greeted by Iraqi citizens grateful for liberation, but by armed men, sometimes in vehicles, sometimes in ambush, who open fire on the passing convoy of Humvees, amphibious assault vehicles and tanks. The Marines are also beginning to meet refugees, usually women with young children, beseeching them for help. The Iraqi strategy of hassling the Marines in various towns seems to be paying off as a method of stalling an attack on Baghdad. Though the Marines eventually rain down enough firepower to kill the assailants, their trek north has been slow. Wednesday, the Marines devised a system of leapfrogging up Route 7. First a battalion would secure a town, then the other two battalions on the march would move past it, north to the next town. One of the battalions would clear that town, while the others moved north. Another problem is the weather. Heavy rains fell Tuesday night, bogging many vehicles in deep mud when they parked for the night. Wednesday morning they had to be towed out.

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Also on Tuesday night, word reached the Marines that Saddam Hussein had dispatched a regiment of the Baghdad division of the Republican Guard from Al Kut to battle them on Route 7. The Marines dug in for the night and waited. Around 7 p.m. Iraq time (11 a.m. EST), a small convoy of cars and trucks flashing bright lights tried to make it through the checkpoint the Marines had set up. The Marines hit the vehicles with rockets and rifle fire, killing everyone. The Marines presumed they were trying to get inside the camp to open fire. AK-47 rifles were found inside the charred vehicles. Some of the occupants were wearing soldiers' uniforms.

What Iraqi soldiers, fleeing quickly, left behindSource: Scripps Howard Publication date: 2003-03-29

AN AIRBASE IN IRAQ -- Iraqi soldiers fled this airbase so quickly that they left eggs in the fridge, ripe oranges on the tables and clothes, weapons and intelligence scattered all over the floor. "Some of them left real recently, the batteries in their clocks were still good and the time was still accurate," said Maj. Rob Ament, a pilot who was one of the first ones to arrive here. With battles still raging seven miles away, the U.S. military has settled in quickly. One of the first responsibilities of the early arrivals was to scoop up as much of the paperwork left behind and ship it back to the states for intelligence analysis. "We're boxing it all up to analyze — some of it's classified. Some of its on how they train, and if we can learn better how they train, we'll know better how they fight." Some of its not so classified like the glossy calendars of the Iraqi soccer teams, colorful safety signs instructing the men, in English to "please conserve energy." There's a green ceramic rabbit-shaped soap dish in the bathroom, which is just a sink and a hole in the ground that gathers human waste. In the Iraqi soldiers' quarters, pink and white translucent curtains block the sun, but most of the windows are broken. The men left in a hurry, boots, pieces of uniform, even guns are on the floor. A sandstorm Tuesday that washed over the region left a thick film of dust on it all. Their beds had no mattresses, just rickety metallic frames. One chest of drawers included a tourist duffle bag from Branson, Mo., decorated with a cowboy hat, star and a mountainside. Beside it, a tube of "Sinan Toothpaste: Classical Taste, Powerful Effect." Some of the intelligence left behind is elementary with simple drawings on how to assemble a gun, what a line of sight to shoot a tank is. There are handouts on how to properly carry a backpack. And there is a financial office, with charts of attendance and some personnel ID cards.

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Finally, in the back, there's a broken down armory, with boxes of ammunition. And in a broken wooden box that gives everyone pause, there's rows of discarded gas masks.

U.S. Troops in Iraq Get First Mail CallSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-29

NEAR KARBALA, Iraq (AP) - The magic words first came on the battalion's radio network: "Mail is ready for pickup." "Is that mail to go out, or mail coming in?" asked an incredulous 1st Lt. Eric Hooper of A Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment. "Why don't you go over and find out," answered Capt. Chris Carter, the company commander, from Watkinsville, Ga. Soon the lieutenant's Humvee pulled up, bringing mail from home. Overstuffed letters, carefully taped boxes, all with U.S. Postal Service markings. The surprise delivery, brought from Kuwait by cargo truck, sparked excitement around the unit, and a few happy tears. Spc. Luke Edwards of Raleigh, N.C., inhaled deeply the perfumed scent of an envelope holding a letter from his wife. Then he ripped into it with an ear-to-ear grin. "She joined a gym behind my mom's work, she got a better job," said Edwards, 22, as he voraciously read the letter. "Nothing could be better right now. This is the closest thing to going home." In the desert, miles from any village or city, anything other than green or tan stands out - especially a pink love letter. Spc. Shaun Urwiler, 26, received letters from both his fiancee and his parents in Tampa, Fla., filled with snapshots from home. His fiancee, Emily McFarland, sent him photos of his cocker spaniel, Sparky, and a new armoire she'd bought for their future home. "I didn't expect to get mail for a couple of months," Urwiler said, disappointed that he couldn't write back right now because mail hasn't yet begun to be shipped to the rear. "I keep a diary, so I can tell them about it when I get home." There were also packages of snacks and letter-writing materials sent to "Any Soldier" from supporters back home - everything made more precious because it was unexpected. "You look around and you're in the middle of Iraq," said Sgt. Paul Ingram of Athens, Ohio. "You don't expect to get mail." Carter received several back issues of Sport Illustrated. He offered the other troops a chance to read them first, and they leaped from the lowered ramps on the back of their Bradley fighting vehicles to get the first whiff of the pristine glossy paper. Several soldiers had held out hope for shipments of cigarettes, cigars or chewing tobacco, but were disappointed. Their withdrawal pains seemed to

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worsen. Many resolved to quit tobacco permanently, but were soon seen bumming cigarettes or a pinch from the more fortunate. Then came the next question: "When do you think we'll get mail again?"

WAR IN IRAQ; War `surreal' for tankers; Armor crews await action on edge of fightingSource: Boston Herald Publication date: 2003-03-29

IRAQ - As we sat in the sand at dusk, eating our MRE dinners, enjoying the cool breeze and admiring a brilliant desert sunset, Lt. Nick Kauffeld mused. "It's surreal," he said. "It's hard to believe we're at war and there are people out there who want to kill us. Back home, our families are probably all freaked out, thinking we're in all kinds of danger." We had been talking about the interesting tracks lizards make in the sand around the desert scrub and the paw prints of some kind of dog that passed a few yards behind our Bradley in the middle of the night. Some GIs idly debated whether POD can be both a Christian band and a heavy metal band. A Company of the 4/64 Armor Battalion remains the farthest north of the U.S. ground push in Iraq, barring some cavalry scouts and special forces teams. But the battalion remains in a holding pattern, while "shaping operations" and "situational development" takes place to the satisfaction of the generals who will order them forward to attack the Republican Guard on the approaches to Baghdad. Minor skirmishes have taken place around surrounding units at night, as Iraqi raiders and reconnaissance units probe the American battle force. For the most part, those Iraqi units are utterly destroyed by air power, artillery and occasionally direct U.S. fire. The unit moved west a couple of kilometers in the early evening Thursday, startling a wild ass that bounded away from the tanks, stopping to look back. "Hey, where did that (expletive) donkey come from?" said Pvt. Robert Baxter, the fire-support Bradley's driver. "That must be Hajji's MRLS (multiple launch rocket system), a donkey with a couple of RPGs strapped to it. Or maybe he's spying for Saddam. He got air- dropped in. `Go on, donkey, tell us what you see.' " Thursday night, two of A Company's tank platoons were ordered forward when scouts spotted what they took to be a BRDM, a Russian- made armored scout vehicle. The tanks were also to destroy a bunker that the battalion's infantry company had cleared during the day. Hidden under the ruins of an oil pumping station, the grunts recovered an Iraqi military radio, maps and radio logs in Arabic, which were passed on to intelligence analysts. Although the post was only a few kilometers from our position, Capt. Philip Wolford suggested that "IV lines," rises in the landscape known as intervisibility lines that can mask land force positions and movements, probably prevented the Iraqis from learning details about the U.S. force's strength and composition, although they probably knew Americans were here.

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"It's the recon donkey," Baxter said over the Bradley's intercom as we listened over the radio to the tanks maneuvering ahead of us. The eight tanks of red and white platoons raced forward and took positions they hoped would head off the reported vehicle, but never made contact. "What were we chasing last night, Sgt. Ray?" Wolford asked his gunner. "A (expletive) donkey, sir," Ray said. "Was there a BRDM out there? We never saw it," Wolford said. "We could have been chasing a ghost vehicle." But he said it's possible the fast, wheeled armored vehicle used IV lines to escape from the tanks toward Iraqi bases in the northeast. However, Sgt. Jonathan Lustig in Red Four reported seeing two figures with his thermal imaging device that ran across the desert and disappeared into the ruined building with the hidden observation post just before he and Lt. Maurice Middleton in Red One fired four high-explosive anti-tank rounds into it. These were the first shots A company has fired in the war. Wolford said the suspected Iraqi observers may have evaded the infantry during the afternoon by hiding in some kind of air shaft. The infantrymen were returning to inspect the wreckage today, but after four HEAT rounds were fired into the small building, they didn't expect to find much of anything, let alone anything alive. Another face of the Iraqi war showed itself today, when a large tanker was reported moving toward us from the Iraqi positions to the north. As Air Force jets prepared to bomb it, we were ordered into our gas masks due to concerns that it carried lethal chemicals. The thick black plume of smoke from the strike suggested otherwise, and as the wind carried the smoke east, the all-clear came and we gratefully stripped off the hot, suffocating masks. Caption: ON THE PROWL: U.S. Army soldiers search a crumbling medieval fortress near Karbala, Iraq, yesterday. Scouts had reported Iraqi military activity in the area but no one was found in the abandoned ruins. AP photos Caption: PROCEEDING CAUTIOUSLY: A pair of U.S. Army soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division take cover next to a brick wall in Karbala, Iraq, yesterday.

'Blue-collar warfare' dots way to BaghdadSource: Columbian Publication date: 2003-03-29Arrival time: 2003-03-30

SOUTH-CENTRAL IRAQ -- Convoys bearing tens of thousands of Marines bound for Baghdad are taking days to crawl a few miles of central Iraq's "Ambush Alley" so dubbed for the rocket-propelled grenade and mortar attacks along the way. Instead of barreling up to the big fight at Baghdad, they are seeking out their opponent here. Marines who recently found an abandoned Iraqi mortar nest by the side of the road, with helmets strewn on the ground and tea kettle still at the ready, left

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the mortars there instead of collecting them and moving on, as they might have in past days. When three Iraqi fighters returned to the mortars, Marines lying in wait killed them. "There's no magic solution to it. It's just the hard, grinding work of patrols," Lt. Col. B.P. McCoy, commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment, said of the ambush-style fighting. "Blue- collar warfare." Instead of the mass Iraqi surrenders many had anticipated, the Marines have met repeated firefights with a surprisingly fierce opponent and countless Iraqi deserters, straggling on the roads. Firefights increasingly pop up to the front, rear and sides of the route north, bottlenecking advancing U.S. forces for hours or days while artillery, infantry and rocket- and bomb-lobbing Cobra attack helicopters and F-18 fighter jets try to clear the route. Sandstorms have slowed progress, too. Going slow, the Marines have changed tactics. "I thought the first fight was going to be tank on tank in open desert," said Gunnery Sgt. Troy Yates of Sierra Vista, Ariz., who instead found himself opening fire on Iraqi tanks and machine-gun bearing infantry in towns in the south, with Iraqi families in the streets looking on. "I didn't think it would ever be that close." A tank commander traveling with the Marine 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment, Yates sprawled Friday on top of his tank watching two crew members play chess. His crew, and those around him, were stopped in the same mud field for 20 hours and counting, after Marines up front ran into attack Thursday from Iraqis hiding in a cement plant and fields just ahead. All along the route, Marine tanks swing turrets toward open fields, while foot patrols climb the dirt berms that line Iraqi fields and probe for attackers.

Kitty Hawk pilots pound Republican Guard positions to prepare forSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-29

ABOARD THE USS KITTY HAWK (AP) -- U.S. warplanes launching from the Gulf are pounding Republican Guard positions south of Baghdad to soften up the defensive line around the Iraqi capital in preparation for a U.S.-led assault by ground troops, senior Navy officers said. Navy strike planes launched from the USS Kitty Hawk on Saturday on the latest bombing missions in support of Army and Marine forces that are consolidating positions south of Baghdad. The two other U.S. carriers in the Gulf, the USS Constellation and the USS Abraham Lincoln, are conducting similar operations. Scores more flights were scheduled for Saturday and into Sunday morning. The bulk of close to 100 bombing missions a day from each carrier have been at night and have pounded artillery, command posts and vehicle convoys of the elite Republican Guard's Medina division and other targets. Rear Adm.

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Barry Costello, the commander of the Constellation battle group, told reporters Saturday morning that planes from his ship hit 40 targets in the past 24 hours. They included Republican Guard headquarters near Kut and artillery and personnel carriers in the same region, in support of Marines in the area. Other targets included buildings, vehicles and fuel trucks north of Hillah in support of the Army's V Corps and artillery and missile sights south of Baghdad, he said. ``These are all close air support missions in order to prep the battlefield for the advance of our ground troops,'' Costello said. Army attack helicopters are joining the battle. More than 40 Apache helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division launched Hellfire missiles and other munitions in an attack Friday on elements of the Medina division of the Republican Guard, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said at the Pentagon. McChrystal said the Medina division is trying to stay clear of U.S. air power, which is ``taking them apart, piece by piece.'' Kitty Hawk-based planes dropped 46 bombs on missions into the early hours of Saturday, including six 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) target penetrator, or ``bunker buster'' satellite-guided bombs, eight JSOW satellite-guided bombs, 26 500-pound (225-kilogram) laser-guided bombs and six 500-pound unguided bombs. The three U.S. carriers in the Gulf have flown around 1,400 sorties since the war started, Capt. Dick Corpus, the Kitty Hawk's chief of staff, said Friday. He didn't provide details of the number of bombs dropped. Kitty Hawk-based planes hit a Baath Party headquarters, surface-to-surface missile canisters, a military compound, other buildings, tanks and an early warning radar site, officials said. All of the targets were between Karbala and Baghdad. From his desert command post in Saudi Arabia, Air Force Brig. Gen. Daniel Darnell also said U.S. and British warplanes over the past week have attacked virtually every military airfield in Iraq -- believed to number roughly 100 -- and have seen only a small number of planes. Darnell said that although much of Iraq's air defense network has been damaged or destroyed, it remains a threat around Baghdad because key radars and other systems are moved frequently to avoid attack. The Iraqi air force, which was vastly depleted in the 1991 Gulf War, has not flown a single mission since this war began March 20, Darnell said. While that is good news for allied pilots, Darnell said he and other air war planners remain wary of the potential for Iraqi surprises. The Iraqi air force is believed to have no more than 100 serviceable combat aircraft. The United States has more than 600 aircraft in the region, as well as about 30 ships and submarines that have launched more than 650 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Darnell is director of a command post at Saudi Arabia's Prince Sultan Air Base that runs all aspects of the air campaign. Known as the Combined Air

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Operations Center, it is headquarters for Darnell's boss, Lt. Gen. Michael Moseley, the top air commander in the Persian Gulf. In the telephone interview, Darnell disputed suggestions from some critics that the air campaign has failed to achieve its intended goals. ``We're on track thus far,'' he said, while acknowledging that some thought victory would come quickly. He said the military challenge is bigger than in the 1991 war, in which the air campaign lasted five weeks before allied ground forces prevailed in 100 hours of combat. ``We're faced with a much larger problem'' this time, given that the entire territory of Iraq is a battlefield, whereas the 1991 conflict was focused on expelling the Iraqi army from tiny Kuwait.

Dear diary life in the land of the embedded journalistSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-29

Associated Press reporters remain on assignment -- `èmbedded,'' in military parlance -- with various U.S. military units as the war against Iraq continues. Here are some daily snapshots of life in those units. NEAR KARBALA, Iraq (AP) -- Wednesday, March 26: The sandstorm eased at about 3 a.m. I woke up, stuck my head out of my tent and saw stars -- always a good sign. But the damage inside the tent was already done. Sand covered everything. Each time I rolled over in my sleeping bag, the dust would stir and fill the air like thick smoke. When dawn broke, I crawled out to more wind, but not so much sand. The troops and I held out hopes that the sky would clear -- but no luck. Slowly the winds built up and the sky thickened with sand. Soon, we were all squeezing into our vehicles, trying to stay out of the growing storm. When I stepped outside to stretch my legs, I found Sgt. Robert Compton of Oklahoma City, with a balaclava around his face, goggles over his eyes and his helmet firmly planted on his head. `Ì'm not playing anymore,'' he said. ``This sandstorm stuff is getting serious.'' He'd learned an unforgettable lesson in aerodynamics the night before. Sleeping outside in the storm, he decided to open his sleeping bag and let the wind blow out the gathering sand. But the wind filled it like a parachute, tossing him several feet. `Ì thought for sure I was going to fly away,'' he said. --CHRIS TOMLINSON, Associated Press writer, with the 3rd Infantry Division ABOARD USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (AP) -- Sunday, March 23: The media on board the Roosevelt have been out to sea for two weeks now. With our ship doing overnight duty, most of us have shifted over -- day is night, and vice versa. The crew greets us with a cheery ``Good morning'' as we tumble into the hallways at 6 p.m. Breakfast is at 7 p.m. And lunch at 7 a.m.

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That, and our mole-like existence, makes many of us lose all concept of time. When the ship's combat aircraft are flying, the deck is off-limits, which means we can go for days without being allowed to venture out to the top. I'm beginning to understand the previously un-understandable -- how the sailors talk longingly of the sounds of traffic and other nuisance noise that links them to existence on land. --GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press writer ABOARD USS SHILOH (AP) -- Saturday, March 22: The Tomahawk blasts from the aft launcher. The night before, each missile was heralded by a blinding flash, a thud and a thunderous roar before a trail of flames and smoke climbed into the sky and disappeared. In the daytime, the deafening roar is still there, but the fiery exhaust isn't blinding and the actual rocket is visible. As it flies away, you can see the wings spread open and the booster fall and splash into the sea. Unlike the boisterous crowd that gathered to watch the launch the night before, the small crowd at the daylight firing is largely silent as they watch the missile hurtle toward Iraq. A minute or two after the launch, a sailor yells ``Captain on the bridge!'' as Capt. Will Dewes walks in the door. He's been down in the combat information center -- the nerve center in the guts of the ship -- directing the firing. He gets on the ship's public address system, tells the crew the launch was successful and that another is likely in about two hours. ``Since we successfully smoked a Tomahawk today, it seems fitting to smoke a cigar on the bridge,'' he says, and invites any and all up the bridge for a smoke. Around two dozen sailors take up the offer. --MATTHEW ROSENBERG, Associated Press writer NEAR AZ ZUBAYR, Iraq (AP) -- Monday, March 24: For Marines in the field, MREs -- Meals Ready to Eat -- are the steady diet, morning, noon and night. And weeks of the same 24 MRE selections force Marines and other soldiers to test their culinary skills and create a little more variety. It can be simple, like adding the tube of cheese spread that comes in many packages to the chicken salsa, throwing in some Tabasco and a few crumbled crackers that come in each package. The Marines also make a sort of pudding by combining cocoa powder with white dairy cream and sugar, and heating the mix until it turns thick. On one of the ``tracks'' -- or Amphibious Armored Vehicles -- 21-year-old Cpl. Jerod Elder, of Temecula, California, has devised ``The Magic Mocha Mix.'' It's a hit. The recipe is four servings of powdered cocoa, four servings of instant coffee, and four coffee whiteners in a bottle of water. ``Shaken, not stirred,'' jokes Elder.

Marines Push North Along 'Ambush Alley'Source: Associated Press

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Publication date: 2003-03-30

Thousands of Marines pushed north toward Baghdad in "seek and destroy" missions Sunday, trying to open the route to the Iraqi capital and stop days of attacks along a stretch that has become known as "Ambush Alley." Charging into previously unsecured areas, the Marines tried to provoke attacks in order to find Iraqi fighters and defeat them. A chaplain traveling with them handed out humanitarian packages to distrustful Iraqi civilians encountered along the way. Army supply trucks appeared on the Marine route north for the first time Sunday, supporting field reports that Army and Marine forces were meeting for the first time in the ground invasion, which had the Marines trekking north along Route 80 - known as the "Highway of Death" - and Army forces punching their way across desert terrain. Rank-and-file Marines, ordered to intercept and question each civilian they see along the route after an Iraqi army officer attacked a group of Americans in a suicide bomb attack Saturday, also handed out ration packets. For hungry Iraqis, this gift was the only thing that could convince them the Marines were not there to hurt them. "I had one of them tell me they'd heard to be a Marine you had to eat a baby, or kill someone," one Marine about enemy prisoners of war. Frightened Iraqis scrambled into their homes at the sight of the Americans, Marines said. One old woman clutched her mule with one hand and smacked her dogs forward with the other, trying to get them to attack the approaching American soldiers. Like many other exchanges, that encounter ended with smiles and gratitude for the rations. Elsewhere, the U.S. Central Command, which oversees the war in Iraq, said coalition warplanes hit a series of targets in the Iraqi capital overnight into Sunday morning. In a "key strike," coalition aircraft bombed the eastern Baghdad barracks of the main training facility of the Iraqi paramilitary forces. With advancing ground forces expecting a showdown with Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard in the final 50-mile march to Baghdad, the coalition sought to hobble Iraqi forces by striking a fuel depot in the holy Shiite city of Karbala. "While the army is not moving forward, it is the turn of the air to shape the battle space," said Wing Commander Andy Suddards, the British pilot who led the attack. "If the tanks have no fuel, it is all going to help." Coalition warplanes also struck surface-to-air missile batteries in eastern Baghdad, as well as the Abu Garayb presidential palace, just east of Baghdad's international airport, and two facilities at the Karada intelligence complex, on the banks of the Tigris River, Central Command said.

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To the south, British commandos exchanged fire with Iraqi paramilitaries in an eastern suburb of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, British military spokesman Group Capt. Al Lockwood said. The operation apparently aims to block off any escape route for Iraqi forces trying to leave Basra. "They are putting up some resistance, but they are disorganized," Lockwood said of the paramilitary forces. At least 4,000 Iraqi prisoners of war have been taken by the coalition since the conflict began, Lockwood said. On Saturday, a British tribunal released 35 civilians who had been swept up among them, he said. British forces surrounding Basra have skirmished with paramilitaries loyal to Saddam for several days, mostly on the city's western outskirts. The Arab satellite television channel al-Jazeera, which has a correspondent in Basra, also reported a 90-minute exchange of tank and artillery fire Sunday near a bridge on the city's western edge. Basra, Iraq's main seaport, is the heart of the country's southern oil facilities. A mostly Shiite Muslim city of about 1.3 million people, many in Basra may oppose Saddam's Sunni Muslim regime, but the city remains gripped by his ruling Baath party militia. One Baath official warned on Arab television that fighters were competing to die in suicide attacks like the one that killed four American soldiers Saturday. "The holy warriors are rushing to die or be martyred," Abdul-Baqi Saadoun, the No. 2 Baath official in southern Iraq, said in an interview broadcast Sunday on al-Jazeera.

Troops Prep for Possible Urban WarfareSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-31Arrival time: 2003-03-30

The 101st Airborne Division encircled the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Sunday, preparing for a possible door-to-door battle to root out Saddam Hussein's fighters - but leery of damaging some of the faith's most sacred shrines. To the north, Army brigades crept closer to Baghdad, advancing 10 miles with little resistance, though battles with the Republican Guard loomed. To the south, Marines launched "search-and-destroy" missions to clear the road to Baghdad of Iraqi attackers. But it was at Najaf - a city of 300,000, 100 miles south of Baghdad - that U.S. military leaders were faced with a difficult decision. It was unclear whether the U.S. strategy is to take Najaf or simply to cordon off the city. There are too many Iraqi fighters to bypass them or leave them unattended; they're a danger to supply lines on the way to Baghdad.

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But if Najaf is a key stepping stone to the capital, it is also a dangerous one. On Saturday, a suicide attack killed four U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint north of town; on Sunday, nervous U.S. troops warned approaching drivers they would be shot if they did not leave the area. "This is our type of fight," said Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill, of the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based air assault division. "This is probably the most dangerous part of combat and that's urban. Sometimes you don't find out who the enemy is until they're shooting at you." It is also a place where soldiers must tread with sensitivity. It is in Najaf that Ali, son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, is buried at an extraordinary shrine, its gold dome and twin minarets gleaming for miles. It is surrounded by low buildings and narrow streets, a nightmare of an urban battleground. Other Muslim holy figures are buried there and at the vast al Wadi es Salaam cemetery - one of the world's largest - that forms a semicircle around the city. Officers speaking on condition of anonymity said some of the Iraqi fighters were hiding there. A battle that destroyed these holy places could inflame passions of Shiites in Iraq and elsewhere, most notably Iran. The United States has been hoping that Shiite Muslims, who represent 60 percent of Iraq's population, will rise up against Saddam and his largely Sunni leadership. Ibrahim Khalili, a prominent Iranian Shiite clergyman, said: "I don't think that anyone dares to attack a holy site in Iraq. An attack on holy shrines will only provoke the uncontrolled anger of Muslims, especially Shiites, with serious consequences to the attackers." Capt. Micah Pharris, an attorney in the 101st Airborne's judge advocate general's office, said some locations in Najaf are on the military's "no target" list - to be fired at only in self defense. "We take our responsibility to these things very seriously and treat them with the utmost respect," he said. So the Army still held out hope that the battle could be avoided. Using loudspeakers mounted on Humvees, U.S. soldiers on Najaf's perimeter will soon beseech its townspeople to turn over Saddam's zealots. To the north, brigades of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division advanced 10 miles to near Karbala, just 50 miles from Baghdad - also a Shiite holy city. One battalion was slowed by the need to shepherd dozens of surrendering Iraqi soldiers. A military intelligence officer, fluent in Arabic, spoke with farmers who now faced hundreds of U.S. armored vehicles outside their window. The officer held out fistfuls of candy for the children. The Iraqi men at first stood back, hands behind their heads, struggling to hold up the sticks on which they had tied flour bags in a sign of surrender. The officer's message: U.S. forces would not hurt them, but they needed to stay away from the American soldiers. As they spoke, artillery fired volley after volley at the nearby city of Al-Hindiyah.

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Republican Guard positions between Karbala and Baghdad continued to be targeted for allied bombardment - Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more than half of Sunday's sorties were directed at the guard, Saddam's best equipped and trained forces. At Tallil, the former Iraqi airbase near the southern city of Nasiriyah that has been taken over the U.S. forces, A-10 Warthogs departed for missions throughout the day. Tallil grows in importance and size with every day; it is nearer to targets than take-off points in the Persian Gulf, Kuwait or elsewhere. North of Baghdad, meanwhile, U.S.-backed Kurdish troops took control of territory left by Iraqi forces withdrawing toward the oil center of Kirkuk. They advanced almost 10 miles - slowly, as the cleared more than 300 mines, some the size of ashtrays, others as big as layer cakes. That territory came without a shot - unlike the continuing battles with Saddam's fighters in the south. A British soldier was killed in action near Basra. Royal Marine Commandos at first said they captured an Iraqi general there, but British military spokesman Will MacKinlay later told BBC television that the report was wrong, attributing the mistake to "the fog of war." In what was described as the Royal Marines' largest operation of the war so far, the British Press Association reported fierce fighting for the town of Abu al Khasib, southwest of Basra. It said 30 Iraqis had been killed and hundreds captured in what the British are calling Operation James, named after James Bond. A reporter for Sunday Telegraph of London reported that Kalashnikov rifles confiscated from defeated Iraqi soldiers were being collected by British troops to pass to pro-Western rebels in Basra. Marines from 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment returned Sunday from a two-day mission. Actively seeking engagements, they went to three cities and towns in southern-central Iraq including Afak, about 50 miles east of Najaf. Some of the fighting, they said, was building to building.

Allied Soldiers Move Closer to BaghdadSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-31Arrival time: 2003-03-30

Allied soldiers inched toward Baghdad on Sunday and pressed their campaign on a southern redoubt of Saddam Hussein loyalists, trying at every turn to gain trust from Iraqi citizens and stay safe from those who may be combatants in disguise.

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The military campaign has increasingly become a confidence-building one, too, and not only in Iraq. U.S. war leaders, deployed on the Sunday airwaves, defended their strategy as a sound one and cast the painstaking pace of recent days as a virtue. "We have the power to be patient in this, and we're not going to do anything before we're ready," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. U.S. and British allies reported increased contacts with ordinary Iraqis on many fronts Sunday, a development measured - like the march toward Baghdad - in wary steps. The reason for the caution was clear: persistent danger from plainclothes killers and warnings from Iraqi officials that there will be more suicide attacks like the one that took the lives of four Americans in Najaf. Iraqis said some 4,000 Arabs have come to Iraq to help attack the invaders. Airstrikes on Baghdad continued Sunday night against Iraqi leadership targets, command and control centers and communications facilities, Pentagon officials said. The Army's 101st Airborne Division surrounded Najaf on Sunday and was in position to begin rooting out the paramilitary forces inside the city, said Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill. In Nasirayah, where fighting has been fierce for a week, Marines secured buildings held by an Iraqi infantry division that contained large caches of weapons and chemical decontamination equipment. A Marine UH-1 Huey helicopter crashed Sunday night at a forward supply and refueling point in southern Iraq, said a spokesman, 1st Lt. John Niemann, in Kuwait. Three people aboard were killed and one was injured in the crash that occurred while the helicopter was taking off. Questions grew in Washington over the war's pace. Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said the U.S.-led invasion is clearly facing more Iraqi resistance than anticipated and the war plan will probably have to be adjusted to deal with that. "I consider them not to be trivial setbacks," he said on CNN's "Late Edition," but rather "in the category of major problems." Gen. Tommy Franks, the coalition commander, said: "One never knows how long a war will take." Close to 100,000 U.S. service members are in Iraq, supported by about 200,000 in the theater and with 100,000 more on the way. U.S. officials said coalition ground forces were closing in on Baghdad from the south, west and north - the southern front lines now 49 miles from the capital. Myers said airstrikes have reduced some units of the Republican Guard, Saddam's best-trained forces, to less than half their prewar capacity. British troops moved into villages on the fringes of Basra, the southern city where an outnumbered but tough core of Saddam loyalists have held off the coalition for about a week. Up to 1,000 Royal Marines and supporting troops, backed by heavy artillery and tanks, staged a commando assault in a Basra suburb, killing some 30 Iraqi

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fighters and destroying a bunker and several tanks. Officials said Operation James - named for James Bond - was the Marines' largest mission so far. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in Washington that the British are getting "increasing assistance from the local people as to where the death squads are located, where the thugs are. And they're systematically working them over." The British first said they had captured an Iraqi general, but British military spokesman Will MacKinlay later told BBC television that the report was wrong, attributing the mistake to "the fog of war." The spokesman said British troops had killed a number of Iraqi officers. Baath party enforcers have shot civilians trying to flee Basra and forced regular troops trying to quit the fight to stay in it. "As we win the trust of the Iraqi people," said British Maj. Gen. Albert Whitley, "they're pointing these people out, and either we're targeting them or we're detaining them." Rumsfeld offered a frank assessment of why many Iraqis have been slow to embrace allied soldiers even in some areas of the country unfriendly to Saddam. He noted that the Shiite population in and around Basra rose up against Saddam after the 1991 Gulf War. "The United States and the coalition forces left, and they were slaughtered" by the tens of thousands, Rumsfeld said. For that reason, "I'm inclined not to urge people to rise up until we're close and we can be helpful." Whitley, commander of coalition efforts to secure areas for humanitarian shipments, said: "We did not really appreciate what 12-plus years of fear can do to people. They're looking to see who hits them next." That concern was voiced in the British-controlled southern seaport city of Umm Qasr. "The British army is here, we are safe," said Yasser Hassan Ghanim, 22, who has been unemployed since running away from the Iraqi army in 2001. "But we are afraid the armies will go back, just like in 1991." After the suicide attack at Najaf and continuing trouble from combatants out of uniform, every apparently innocuous Iraqi man in the path of the allies is getting a hard second look. Nervous U.S. troops warned approaching drivers Sunday they will be shot if they do not leave the area. Still, with handshakes, candy for the children and chitchat in broken Arabic or through an interpreter, U.S. soldiers were making acquaintances. In a 10-mile advance toward Baghdad on Sunday, bringing them within 50 miles of the capital, soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division encountered a dozen farmers waving white flags attached to sacks of flour. Capt. Chris Carter, the commanding officer, pulled back his convoy of hundreds of armored vehicles to avoid damage to the farmers' run-down shanties. One of his officers brought fistfuls of candy for the milling children. There were warm smiles and handshakes even as nearby U.S. artillery fired volleys at the city of Al-Hindiyah on the Euphrates River.

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The U.S. Central Command said the latest targets hit by coalition aircraft included military facilities at the Abu Garayb Presidential Palace, the Karada military intelligence complex and the barracks of a major paramilitary training center, all in different sectors of Baghdad. Several telephone exchanges in the city also were hit Sunday, as well as a train loaded with Republican Guard tanks. In Kuwait, a man in civilian clothes ran a white pickup truck into a group of U.S. soldiers standing by a store at their base, Camp Udairi, injuring about six people.

U.S. Ready for Assault on Guard ForcesSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-31Arrival time: 2003-03-30

U.S. troops are ready to launch a major assault against Iraqi Republican Guard forces protecting Baghdad, but the commanding general may wait for pressure to build on Saddam Hussein before striking, war planners said Sunday. "We have the power to be patient in this, and we're not going to do anything before we're ready," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We'll just continue to draw the noose tighter and tighter." Myers and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said coalition ground forces were closing in on Baghdad from the south, west and north. The U.S. troops south of Baghdad were within 49 miles of the capital, Rumsfeld said, and reporters traveling with those units said several were on the move again Sunday. More significantly, Myers said days of relentless airstrikes had reduced some Republican Guard units to less than 50 percent of their prewar capacity. Armed reconnaissance elements of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division also have fought with Republican Guard units, Myers said. U.S. war planners want to be sure the Republican Guard - the best trained and equipped of Iraq's military - are significantly softened up before coalition troops meet them in ground fighting. During the 1991 Gulf War, for example, U.S. ground forces didn't attack until Republican Guard units had lost 50 percent to 60 percent of their capacity. American commanders have a target percentage in mind for the degradation of the Republican Guard before launching the ground assault, a senior defense official said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Officials will not discuss the goal to avoid revealing their strategy. Parts of the Army's 82nd Airborne and other units moved into south-central Iraq over the weekend to help protect supply lines that have come under attack by Iraqi forces. Other U.S. fighting units, including members of the 3rd Infantry Division, moved closer to the Republican Guard forces between them and Baghdad.

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The U.S. military has detected signs that reinforcements are being sent to some front-line Republican Guard units, while other Iraqi units are pulling back, closer to Baghdad, the senior official said. Coalition airplanes and helicopters have focused most of their missions against Republican Guard units such as the Medina and Hammurabi divisions, which are in place south, west and north of Baghdad. "I imagine their morale is a little low right now because they've lost a lot of their force," Myers said. "Their fighting capability is going down minute by minute, hour by hour. There's not going to be much left to fight with." Myers and Rumsfeld, making the rounds of the Sunday television talk shows in Washington, would not say when the ground assault on Baghdad would begin. Both predicted such fighting could be brutal. "It's going to get more difficult as we move closer to Baghdad," Rumsfeld said. "I would suspect that the most dangerous and difficult days are still ahead of us." The attack on Baghdad, population 5 million, might not be a siege of the city, Myers said, saying the term "conjures up, sometimes, some really bad images." "It will not be a sort of siege that people have thought about before," Myers said. "We have plans for several different contingencies." Pentagon officials continued Sunday to raise the possibility that Iraq could use chemical weapons. "There is no doubt that they have chemical weapons, that they have weaponized them, they have them in artillery shells," Myers said. "They probably have other means of delivery." He cited the discovery by coalition forces of protective gear and nerve agent antidotes left behind by Iraqi military and paramilitary forces. Myers said the discoveries indicate that Iraqi troops planned to wear the protective gear while using chemical weapons. Marines searching a compound used by Iraq's 11th Infantry Division in the Euphrates River city of Nasiriyah on Saturday found more than 300 chemical protection suits and gas masks, U.S. Central Command reported. The Marines also found atropine injectors - antidotes for nerve agents - and chemical decontamination vehicles and devices, Central Command said. Earlier last week in the same city, Marines found more than 3,000 chemical protection suits in a hospital used by Iraqi paramilitary forces as a base. Also Saturday, British troops south of Basra found Iraqi training equipment for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare - including a Geiger counter, nerve gas simulators, gas masks and protective suits, according to British press reports.

In battle for Kifl, U.S. troops confront a relentless enemy 'It seemed to me they were trying to test us, but it was suicide,' a soldier remembersSource: International Herald Tribune Publication date: 2003-03-29

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Arrival time: 2003-03-30

It troubles him, now that the fighting is over. Sergeant Mark Redmond remembers shouting "qiff," the Arabic for halt, but they did not halt. They kept coming. Redmond's unit spent three days and nights fighting for the bridge at Kifl, a village on the Euphrates River. By any military definition the territory seized, the number of enemy killed, the mission accomplished the troop's fight ended in victory. After victory, though, comes rest. And with rest comes reflection. "I mean, I have my wife and kids to go back home to," he said, sitting atop a box of rations at the troop's base camp, whiling away a lull as unexpected as it was appreciated. "I don't want them to think I'm a killer." The fighting around Kifl subsided Friday, officers here said, as it did around much of An Najaf, the holy city on the Euphrates that the 3d Infantry Division struggled to encircle in an unexpectedly fierce battle that began late Monday night when Redmond's unit, Troop C, attached to the First Brigade of the 3d Infantry, first crossed the river. The division's commanders said Friday that the withering effects of an expanding armored ring around the city, coupled with air strikes and artillery barrages, had at last halted Iraq's efforts to reinforce An Najaf, though the situation in the city itself remains unclear. By Friday evening, there was still no complete count of the enemy who died there, though soldiers and officers said there were scores, at least. And for some, like Redmond, the memory remained haunting. "They just came up to us," he said, describing irregular Iraqi militiamen who began fighting as soon as Troop C crossed the two-lane bridge over the Euphrates. "It seemed to me they were trying to test us, but it was suicide." By Friday, only skirmishes continued. Iraqi forces fired mortars late Friday morning at Kifl, but ineffectively, officers said. American artillery barrages quickly silenced them. "They learned if they get too close, bad things happen," Captain Adam Morrison, the brigade's assistant artillery officer, said in the sand-infused tent where the brigade's tactical operations center is situated. Much of the brigade's and the division's firepower concentrated instead to the north, firing rockets and calling in air strikes on what officers said were artillery batteries and other Iraqi targets. The division's commander, Major General Buford Blount 3rd, said in an interview on Wednesday that the army's efforts were now focused on softening up Iraqi forces on the approaches to Baghdad. In Kifl, the effort turned to the accounting. The brigade's Graves Registration Team fanned out across the village and its surroundings to collect the remains of Iraqi fighters, which they packed in black bags along with any personal items that might help identify them. "Basically we did the same thing with the Iraqi dead that we would have done with American dead," said Captain Andrew Valles, the brigade's civil affairs officer. For Redmond, 26, it was a time to digest what had happened. He did not want to dwell on the details of the deaths his weapons caused. "Other guys will tell you details maybe even embellish them to make a better story," he said. He joined the army three years ago after doing odd jobs around his hometown, a four-church and no-stop-light place outside of Gainesville, Florida. He wanted to be a combat

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soldier, he said, but his wife told the army recruiter that she wanted him to have a safer job. The recruiter suggested he become a forward observer, calling in artillery and air strikes. "He said I'd be close enough to the front to see it, but not in the middle of it," he said. "Look at me today." He was in his Humvee on the bridge when the Iraqis detonated explosives underneath buckling, but not collapsing it and felt the sudden, wrenching fear of isolation. In hindsight, he questioned the decision to send only an unarmored scout troop across the bridge. He understood why. Like many soldiers here, from the lowest private to the commander of the Army's 5th Corps, Lieutenant General William Wallace, Redmond said he did not expect the Iraqis to resist so doggedly. "I expected a lot more people to surrender," he said. "From all the reports we got, I thought they would all capitulate." In the three days that followed, they did not, and he fired every weapon on his Humvee, including a 50-caliber machine gun, his M-4 rifle and a grenade launcher everything except the shoulder-fired anti-tank missile. Many of the Iraqis, he said, attacked headlong into the cutting fire of tanks and Bradleys. "I wouldn't call it bravery," he said. "I'd call it stupidity. We value a soldier's life so much more than they do. I mean, an AK-47 isn't going to do nothing against a Bradley. I'd love to know what Saddam is telling his people." "When I go home, people will want to treat me like a hero, but I'm not," he went on. "I'm a Christian man. If I have to kill the other guy, I will, but it doesn't make me a hero. I just want to go home to my wife and kids." The brigade's chief chaplain, Major Mark Nordstrom, said he spent more than six hours with the troop's soldiers on Thursday after they returned from Kifl. Redmond was among them. Nordstrom belongs to a branch of the Mennonites with a pacifist theology. He has given this some thought. He cites St. Augustine's theory of just war: "War is love's response to a neighbor threatened by force." "We're in the thousands now that were killed in the last few days," he said Friday. "Nothing prepares you to kill another human being. Nothing prepares you to use a machine guy to cut someone in two." "They tell stories amongst themselves," he added of the soldiers. "When I come up, they tell different stories. It bothers them to take life, especially that close. They want me to talk to me so that they know that I know they are not awful human beings."

Iraqi ambushes stall U.S. supply convoy Critical ammunition and fuel held up as Marines heading north face firefightsSource: International Herald Tribune Publication date: 2003-03-29Arrival time: 2003-03-30

The American convoy loaded with fuel and ammunition resumed its northward march, marshaling its 300 trucks in a line that stretched for kilometers. Then the Iraqis began firing, and the convoy turned around, leaving its stores of shells and diesel fuel in the same place it was several days ago. The firefight that unfolded Thursday in front of the U.S. caravan illustrated the difficulty the military is having here in resupplying its troops at the front line. The rapid

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advance of U.S. forces through Iraq has left the spearhead of the army 500 kilometers (300 miles) away from its main base. As a result, the supply lines are stretched thin and vulnerable to the kind of attacks that have left this convoy standing still since Tuesday. "The firing was very close," said Colonel John Pomfret, who is leading the convoy. "We're going to have to wait." Pomfret will try again Friday to take his convoy north in hopes of supplying the 22,000 U.S. Marines gathered about 16 kilometers to the north. He says that despite the recent attacks, he will be able to get his supplies through without any disruption to the force's ability to fight. But here in the parched plains of central Iraq, it is much less clear that the American military can stop the harassing Iraqi attacks that have been slowing the caravans down. The Marines running the convoys say they can fight their way through just about anything the Iraqis can throw at them. With their supply lines reaching all the way back to Kuwait, the experience of this convoy suggests that the Marines may be doing a lot more fighting than they bargained for. The Marine convoy is a gigantic thing, involving trucks and tankers and jeeps and tanks, carrying thousands of liters of diesel fuel, millions of rounds of ammunition and crates of ready- made meals. So large is this caravan that it takes several hours for all of its vehicles to pass through a single point. Among its cargo is 600,000 liters (160,000 gallons) of fuel and 180 tons of ammunition. Yet it is a measure of the voraciousness of the modern army that this convoy, 300 vehicles long, carries only enough supplies to last the First Marine Division a few days. Its guns can shoot thousands of shells in a single day. The key to the Marines logistical success is its ability to keep the train going, to keep more caravans, just as big, rolling north. So far, the path of the convoys as they travel across central Iraq has been anything but smooth. They have come under constant fire from Iraqi soldiers, who often wait for the tanks and heavy armored vehicles to pass by before opening fire. Each attack, however small, almost always requires the convoy to stop, if only to allow their soldiers to respond. In the past several days here, the Iraqi attacks against the Marine convoy have been almost ceaseless. First came an ambush Tuesday night, which left 23 Iraqis and one American dead. Then a group of Iraqis attacked the convoy's base on Wednesday, resulting in a firefight that left five Marines wounded. Then Thursday, as the convoy tried to resume its journey north, it ran into a battle between American and Iraqi forces about a mile from the base. In each case here, the Iraqi attacks have been carried out by small groups who capitalize on surprise assaults. Since Thursday, the fighting has been continuous. Cobra gunships raced back and forth to the front lines, their racks full of rockets on the way out, and empty on the way in. Twice on Thursday evening, American officers sounded warnings for poison gas. All through the night, the ground shook from the tell-tale explosions of U.S. B-52 strikes. All the while, the convoy was still. The needs of the Marines battling at the front are not dire yet, officers here say. But the constant fire from the Iraqis suggests that the effort to supply American fighters at the front could be a battle itself. "The logistical people do not want to be the cause of a pause in operations," Lieutenant Colonel Bob Weinkel said. The Marine convoys have

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armed themselves heavily to repel the Iraqi attacks. Each caravan is shadowed by several tanks and armored cars, and they have responded ferociously to the recent ambushes. The Marine commanders say they need to respond quickly and decisively to such attacks, in large part because they are so vulnerable. The Marine convoy stuck near Diwaniya, for instance, has more than a dozen fuel tanks 18 meters (60 feet) long, each carrying 19,000 liters of diesel fuel. "I think about it a lot, getting hit," said Gervonne Bell, a diesel truck driver. "I'm a sitting duck." Each of the Marines, even the driver of the smallest water truck, is ready to taken down his gun and fight. It is that, more than anything, the Marines say, that makes them confidant they will be to keep the caravans rolling north. "We're not just truck drivers," Weinkel said. "We're truck drivers with guns."

Battle for a village was 'a little piece of hell'Source: International Herald Tribune Publication date: 2003-03-29Arrival time: 2003-03-30

The concussive force of the tanks' rounds sucked everything off the sidewalks and into the middle of this village's narrow, dusty main road "even people," said the captain of a tank company who fought his way through it. The blasts shattered the plateglass window of a small barbershop, next to the girls' elementary school, on the roof of which Iraqi troops had built a redoubt of sandbags. Inside the barbershop were three chairs and pictures of haircuts to choose from most outlandishly out of style. On the back wall, incongruously, hung a large poster of lower Manhattan, seen from the New Jersey waterfront, with the World Trade Center intact. It was not one of the kind sold in souks across the Arab world, with a glaring Osama bin Laden or the airliners crashing into the twin towers. Rather, with palm trees and sand in the foreground, it was a picture of paradise Manhattan on the Euphrates. The tank captain had another word to describe his company's push through this village on Wednesday afternoon, just as the sun set in the middle of a sandstorm, turning the sky blood orange. "A little piece of hell," said the captain, who did not want his name used, only his radio sign, Cobra Six. Army forces seized a toehold in this village beginning late Monday night. It was supposed to be a relatively simple blocking action, intended to prevent Iraqi reinforcements from reaching An Najaf, a city of 100,000 across the Euphrates River about 16 kilometers (10 miles) away that the 3d Infantry Division was in the process of encircling. Seventy-two hours later the division had a foothold, but the fight is far from over, tying down an ever-growing number of troops that had been preparing for a final assault on Baghdad, 120 kilometers to the north. The Euphrates here runs gently south toward An Najaf, its deep green waters lined with marsh grass and groves of palms. It might have been a pastoral idyll except for the stuttering pop of gunfire. Iraqi forces had tried to blow up the bridge early Tuesday, but the plastic explosives packed inside the columns only buckled the structure. Iraqis came

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back under darkness early Thursday to try again, hoping to isolate the forces of the 3d Division that, for the third day, had been steadily crossing it. Three Iraqis died on the bridge in a firefight that ensued. Their bodies lay in mangled heaps, wrenched by their last steps. One dead man, face down, clutched his eyeglasses in front of him. The dead make a trail through town. A sedan, its paint burned off, rests where it had lurched to a stop in front of the barbershop. Inside were two charred skeletons. The American military's policy is to pack the dead in black bags to be taken to makeshift morgues for identification and, someday, repatriation. Here, there has been no time for it. "Every time we clear guys, more come," said Colonel William Grimsley, commander of the division's 1st Brigade, whose troops are trying to hold several kilometers around Kifl. The village, normally home to several thousand people, seemed deserted Thursday. The only activity comes from Iraqis who keep fighting. They are irregular fighters and soldiers from Iraq's Republican Guard, evidently sent to bolster An Najaf's resistance. "It sort of depends on how you define enemy," Captain Darren Rapaport, commander of Charlie Company, part of the 2d Battalion, 69th Armored Regiment, replied when asked if enemy forces were in the village. "He could be right around the corner. He could be up the street. He could be a few kilometers down the road." Minutes later, the deep thuds of explosive rounds fired by a Bradley fighting vehicle exploded nearby, bursting around some unseen enemy and sending a tuft of black smoke above the palms. "Son of a bitch is still shooting at us," said Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Randall Sanderson, the commander of the 2d Battalion, 69th Armored Regiment. Through the morning, scores of Iraqi troops poured down the road from Baghdad. Intelligence reports said there were as many as 1,000. Some came in military jeeps, but most were in civilian trucks. The battalion's lead units pushed north three kilometers up the road past the sign marking the entrance to the village. "Welcome to Kifl," it said. At a brick factory, just north of Kifl, M1-A1 tanks and Bradleys destroyed the vehicles as they approached. Forward observers on the ground called in air strikes by A-10 attack planes overhead. Still, more vehicles came and unloaded more troops. An armored Humvee with a speaker blasted messages in Arabic, telling civilians to stay inside and soldiers to surrender. "Your cause is lost," was repeated through the night and the morning Thursday. "He's broadcasting, 'Surrender, surrender, surrender,' and they ain't surrendering," Lieutenant Colonel Sanderson said. "I don't know why not. If they want to fight out, we'll fight it out." Every time they played it, he added, it seemed the Iraqis fought harder. Cobra Six said he saw five Iraqis coming down the road on foot. It was around 4 a.m. There were three men with weapons and two women. They did not stop. Three died, including one of the women. Commanders here said that 60 to 70 Iraqis died in the 12 hours leading up to midday Thursday. Lieutenant Colonel Sanderson said two of his soldiers were slightly wounded by friendly fire on the bridge in the confused firefight.

America at War: Marines battle Iraqis in NasiriyahSource: Columbian

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Publication date: 2003-03-29Arrival time: 2003-03-30

IN THE IRAQI DESERT -- As pieces of the strategic puzzle came together Friday to the north, south and west of Baghdad, U.S. forces almost 200 miles away in Nasiriyah got a sample of the kind of firefight that may await them at the capital city. All day, Marines battled pockets of Iraqi resistance; four Marines with the 1st Expeditionary Force were reported missing. Explosions from tank fire, artillery and rockets fired by Cobra helicopters reverberated through the city of 500,000 as Marines battled to clear the main supply route north to Baghdad. Artillery blasts set buildings afire throughout the city on the Euphrates River thick black smoke from a burning power plant cast a pall. Helicopter crews drew almost continuous small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. In Nasiriyah's chaos, progress elsewhere on the Iraqi battlefield seemed so distant. But Saddam Hussein no longer controls 35 to 40 percent of Iraq, according to Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Troops were within 50 miles of Baghdad to the south; north of Najaf, the Army's V Corps defeated paramilitary attacks, military officials said. Air attacks focused on the Republican Guard's Medina division. Two Army helicopters, returning from an attack mission south of Baghdad, crashed Friday night while landing at a base the 101st Airborne Division has set up in a remote part of the southern Iraqi desert. Both aircraft were heavily damaged, but there was no immediate word on whether any on board were injured. F/A-18s from the USS Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf attacked a fuel depot and another site with missile cannisters belonging to the Medina division, said Capt. Dick Corpus, chief of staff of the Kitty Hawk battle group. Royal Air Force pilots also hit Republican Guard positions 60 miles southeast of Baghdad. "There was fantastic visibility and I could even see the camels on the ground as well as a number of bomb craters around the encampment," Flight Lt. Scott Morley, a Harrier pilot, told a reporter for Britain's Sunday Express. "It is not carpet-bombing, it is still precision stuff. I got two good hits on Medina division artillery pieces." At least 1,200 troops are in place in northern Iraq, and special operations forces have secured air fields and other strategic targets in the west. The big target is Baghdad. "We'll attack when we're ready," Myers said. But they won't be ready until more forces reach the environs of a city where Saddam's forces were expected to mass for a last stand of house-to-house fighting. And continuing attacks by Iraqi irregular forces along with almost perpetual traffic jams on roads north have turned last week's sprints across the desert into a distant memory.

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Marine units pushed forward. Instead of trying to avoid engagements, they looked for them, trying to clean out pockets of regime loyalists as they go. Convoys moved day and night, taking food, fuel and other supplies north, traveling in total darkness without headlights. But they did advance. Authorities said the 1st Marine Expeditionary force was north of Qalat Sikar, 50 miles up the road from Nasiriyah.

Karbala Gap seen as key to offensiveSource: International Herald Tribune Publication date: 2003-03-29Arrival time: 2003-03-30

It is a gateway to Baghdad, a strip of land encompassing marshes and rich farmland, densely populated and within sight of the canals of the Euphrates River Valley. The Karbala Gap, a choke point approximately 90 kilometers (55 miles) south-southwest of Baghdad, is emerging as a significant potential battleground in the U.S.-led advance on the Iraqi capital. It is a last stepping-stone into Baghdad, and the Iraqi military and paramilitary seem intent on turning the Karbala Gap into a battle to thwart the forces of the 3d Infantry Division and inflict as many casualties as possible with tanks, artillery and ground troops. "The Karbala Gap is the most direct route to Baghdad," a top 5th Corps officer said. The gap is about 30 to 40 kilometers wide between the Euphrates and Razaza Lake. The city of Karbala sits astride the gap. Like An Najaf to the southeast it is a stronghold for Shiite Muslims, who are a majority in Iraq but have been persecuted by Saddam Hussein and his fellow Sunnis. "These are holy cities," an intelligence officer said. "We are treading on very significant ground." U.S. officials said they wanted to avoid heavy damage to the cities lest it enrage the populace. American officers said the corridor was well defended by two Republican Guard divisions, the Iraqi Army's elites. One of them, the Medina Division, south of Baghdad, was the force that fought off an assault by U.S. Apache helicopter gunships Monday, downing one helicopter, damaging more than 30 others and emerging relatively unscathed. Army officers said that the Karbala Gap's location was perfectly suited for the jump into Baghdad. The gap rests near two major roads from Baghdad, Highways 1 and 8. Control of the Karbala Gap would, in the words of one top officer, open both highways to the U.S. forces, enabling them to fan out and move toward Baghdad in the open desert. "It is a choke point," said a ranking officer, referring to the gap. "Once we go through, it allows us more freedom of movement between the cities of Karbala and Najaf. "It allows us to disperse our maneuver elements. Once through, we have more effective range for our weapons. It allows us to target or monitor the Medina and the Hammurabi divisions and allows us to cover the city of Baghdad itself." "For us, this is key terrain," the officer said. "Those who hold it by fire or occupy it have the advantage of maneuver and have the advantage over the enemy." Moreover, by controlling the Karbala Gap, the officer said, the military would control significant crossing sites over the Euphrates River, the biggest natural barrier

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to the western approaches to Baghdad. In contrast to the surrounding area, the gap's soil is sandy and easy to navigate, not only for troops but also for tanks and armored personnel carriers. "Once we're through the gap, there's no stopping us," an army officer said. Publication date: 2003-03-29

Bridging A `Land Between Rivers' ; Bogs, Marshes Abound In IraqSource: Richmond Times - Dispatch Publication date: 2003-03-28Arrival time: 2003-03-30

Today we call it "Iraq," but the region was once known as Mesopotamia - "the land between the rivers." That fact of Iraqi geography explains, among other things, why the Army mobilized three companies of Virginia reservists who build combat bridges and why Marine amphibious assault vehicles make perfect sense in what we think of as a desert. While much of Iraq is truly dry, the bulk of the Iraqi people live in the region watered by two of the world's most important rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. Legendary site of the Garden of Eden, that low-lying Tigris- Euphrates plain - more than 700 miles long, and crisscrossed with streams, and irrigation and drainage canals - is one huge wetland bog at this time of year. Destructive flooding, particularly of the Tigris, is common, and scholars have traced great flood legends, including the biblical story of Noah and the ark, to the region. The twin rivers' levels peak in March. American soldiers are crossing the plain in the middle of Iraq's rainy season, and one that's been three times wetter than normal. U.S. tactical armored vehicles are either amphibious, as the Marines' assault amphibian vehicle and the Army's Bradley fighting vehicle are, or capable of traversing shallow rivers and deep streams, as the Abrams main battle tank does using a special deep- fording kit. Though they can slowly cross water obstacles, military vehicles move faster and in greater numbers when they can trundle over bridges instead swimming rivers or floundering in mud. Almost 480 Virginia soldiers from three Army National Guard and Army Reserve companies were called up in the mobilizations for the war in Iraq: * 110 Virginia Guardsmen with the 1031st Engineer Company from Southwest Virginia's Gate City and Pennington Gap. The 1031st oversees construction of traditional Army Bailey bridges - portable steel spans that a handful of engineer soldiers can erect with simple tools - and floating bridges that unfold in sections like accordions. * 183 Guardsmen with the 189th Engineer Company out of Big Stone Gap in Southwest Virginia. The unit upgrades tactical - combat - bridges to handle a regular flow of supplies and reinforcements.

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* 184 Army Reservists with the 299th Engineer Company from Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia. The 299th - "First Forward, Proud and Ready" - is a multi-role bridge outfit, constructing pontoon and girder bridges, and using its float-bridge equipment to raft troops and equipment across waterways during assaults. The trio of companies can also use their trucks for other engineer jobs. Fed by snowpack and rainfall in eastern Turkey and in northwest Iran, the lower Tigris and Euphrates rivers create vast reaches of interlaced tributaries, shallow lakes, marshes and seasonally inundated floodplains running from Basra in the southeast to within about 90 miles of Baghdad in the northwest. This wet lowland also contains most of Iraq's population, as it has since the world's first civilizations sprang up along the two rivers in antiquity. Though Iraq built a major road network to carry troops and supplies during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, linking nearly all the major cities with paved roads, secondary and feeder roads are mainly dirt tracks. The road system offers good going for the Army and Marines for thrusts along the rivers, though room to maneuver is limited. Because of the many streams and canals, the U.S. military rates the Tigris-Euphrates plain as poor for large-scale cross-country movements of its trucks and tracks. The marshy areas are flatly inaccessible for most tracked vehicles. While crossing the Tigris and Euphrates means putting up bridges and using ferries for big operations, at the same time, however, the rivers themselves can support military operations using boats and small ships. The region's inhabitants have long understood water can be a weapon. In what was labeled "the war of the pumps," both Iraq and Iran alternately drained and flooded fields to help their war efforts during the 1980s. Given that history, American officers cast a wary eye at three dams near Baghdad that Saddam Hussein's Iraqis could blow, disastrously flooding the capital's southern approaches.

Two U.S. Soldiers Survive Week in DesertSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-30

NORTHERN KUWAIT (AP) - They gave away much of their food to Iraqis. They drew "SOS" in the sand. One of them passed the time writing poems to his wife back home. For a week, two American soldiers were stranded in the Iraqi desert. They survived - hungry, thirsty and tired, but eager to get back to their unit and back to the war. In a dispatch Sunday from a reporter embedded with the Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, The New York Times Web site reported the story of Specialist Jeffrey Klein, 20, of Independence, Ky., and Sgt. Matthew Koppi, 22, of Asheville, N.C., both mechanics with the Army's Third Infantry Division. The soldiers said they were stranded when their truck's clutch failed on the way to tow an officer's Humvee that had broken down as the division was

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traveling toward Baghdad. They said a staff sergeant had ordered them to wait, and said they would be picked up. No one did. So the two dug trenches to defend their position, and took turns on watch. They gave most of their food to hungry Iraqi civilians, and watched nervously as white vehicles - a trademark of Saddam Hussein's paramilitary Fedayeen - passed by. Koppi had become a father 10 days before he was deployed, and he wrote poems to his wife. "It has been weeks since we have spoken, I know her heart is close to broken," went one couplet. The soldiers were found Friday by Marines in Chinook helicopters. They were dropped at a desert battle outpost, and then taken to Camp Udairi in northern Kuwait by Col. Richard R. McPhee, who commands the 75th Exploitation Task Force, which was on a mission in southern Iraq. They were given a medical checkup, new uniforms and a hot meal. Klein's wife, four months pregnant with their first child, took a while to calm down when he called her on a satellite phone. McPhee praised their resourcefulness and dedication. "When we found them, they just kept saying that they wanted to return to their unit as soon as possible to be part of the battle," he said.

U.S. troops south of Baghdad move forward, meet Iraqi civiliansSource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-30

NEAR KARBALA, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. soldiers south of Baghdad advanced 15 kilometers (10 miles) through the Iraqi desert Sunday, along the way having their first face-to-face meeting with Iraqi civilians and detaining dozens of Iraqi prisoners. The 1st and 2nd Brigades of the 3rd Infantry Division moved forward in the vicinity of Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad. One battalion, conducting a sweep on the U.S. troops eastern flank, near the Euphrates River was slowed down by dozens of Iraqi soldiers surrendering. The men of A Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment advanced with almost no contact until they came up to a dusty, abandoned mine they had planned to use as their camp. The mine was no longer abandoned. A dozen Iraqi Bedouins had taken over the old quartz mine and had dug a well, which they used to irrigate a meager onion crop in the desert sands. As the hundreds of hulking armored vehicles approached, with Attack company in the lead, the Iraqi farmers climbed on top of sandberms, waving white flags. Capt. Chris Carter, the commanding officer, informed his battalion commander that he would need to pull his line of troops back a few hundred meters (yards) to avoid the farmers' delapidated shanteys. Lt. Col. Philip DeCamp agreed.

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Once his perimeter was set, Carter sent a military intelligence officer, fluent in Arabic, to speak with the farmers, now facing hundreds of U.S. armored vehicles outside their window. The officer, accompanied by an assistant, rode up to the farm houses in a Bradley fighting vehicle, then casually stepped out the back, holding fistfuls of candy for the children. The Iraqi men at first stood back, with their hands behind their heads, struggling at the same time to hold up the sticks on which they had tied flour bags in a sign of surrender. The Iraqis quickly relaxed when the officer, who asked not to be identified, told them in Arabic that they could drop their hands and relax. The Iraqis walked up to the officer, shaking his hand and offering greetings. The officer's message to the Iraqis was simple, the U.S. forces would not hurt them, but they needed to stay away from the American soldiers. As they spoke, nearby artillery fired volley after volley at the nearby city of Al-Hindiyah, on the Euphrates River. The concussion of each round could be felt as well as heard. The officer quoted the men as saying that Iraqi forces had pulled out of the desert toward the town 10 days ago. The Iraqis smiled warmly at the U.S. troops and asked if it would be possible for the soldiers to avoid driving through their fields. Looking at the absolute poverty around him -- the ramshackle mud huts, a small herd of sheep and goats, everyone barefoot -- the officer assured him that no more U.S. vehicles would drive through the farm. One tank had already broken several lengths of irrigation pipe, and that would the last of the U.S. damage, the officer promised. The men flew colored flags in their fields which indicated to whom they had to pay rent to live on the abandoned mine. The men said they had to pay 10 percent of their crop to an Iraqi lieutenant colonel. The officer said the men had invited the soldiers to drink tea, but the officer couldn't bring himself to take anything from the families. Eight children, covered in dust, lived in one 5-foot by 10-foot (1.5-meter by 3-meter) hut. A teenage girl showed off her toddler, dressed in rags. One man, who gave his name only as Mohammed, said he had escaped from the Feyadeen, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's militia. He said he had been conscripted from his home as a teenager and trained to conduct ambushes and suicide attacks, but had run away before the war started. In broken English, he said ``Down with Saddam.'' The soldiers came away mostly with pity for the poverty of the farmers. Their paranoia following reports of suicide attacks was softened by what appeared to be sincere Iraqi smiles and ordinary people trying to eke out an existence in the harsh desert. ``What a miserable way to live,'' the officer said.

U.S. Army Battles Its Way Into HindiyahSource: Associated Press

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Fighting street by street, U.S. Army troops punched their way into this town Monday in the closest known battle in the U.S.-led advance on Baghdad. The Americans captured several dozen Iraqis who identified themselves as members of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard. Further south, the Army encircled the Shiite holy city of Najaf and said it killed about 100 paramilitary fighters and captured about 50 Iraqis. At least 15 Iraqi troops were killed in the fighting in Hindiyah, 50 miles south of Baghdad between the sacred city of Karbala and the ruins of ancient Babylon. The prisoners told the Americans they belonged to the guard's Nebuchadnezzar Brigade, based in Saddam's home area of Tikrit, and they had the guard's triangular insignia. The 4th Battalion of the 64th armored regiment rolled in to the town of 80,000 at dawn - met quickly by small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades from Iraqis hiding behind hedges and brick walls. On the southeast side of a 200-yard concrete and steel bridge across the dark-green Euphrates, the soldiers took up positions in abandoned bunkers and sandbags and traded fire with Iraqis on the other side. A dark blue car attempted to race across the bridge toward U.S. forces but it was hit with heavy machine gun fire, which stopped it in the middle. Iraqi forces dressed in civilian clothes with blue or red kaffiyahs wrapped around their heads and faces scrambled between buildings, trying to sneak up on U.S. troops on the city side of the bridge. Americans in tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles fired back with heavy machine guns and 25mm cannon. The ground shook as mortars landed, and the smell of gunpowder filled the air. As the Americans began the cross the bridge, Iraqi troops tried to block it with civilian cars. Leading to the bridge was a broad boulevard with wide sidewalks dotted with sidewalk cafes. Portraits of Saddam had been erected along the street every 100 yards. Senior officers, chewing on cigars, conferred as the tanks and fighting vehicles ringing them fired toward the distance. The assault on the key river crossing is the closest known point in the U.S.-led advance on Baghdad, where a battle looms with the Republican Guard, Iraq's best-trained troops. But it was at Najaf - a city of 300,000, 100 miles south of Baghdad - that U.S. military leaders were faced with a difficult decision. It was unclear whether the U.S. strategy is to take Najaf or simply to cordon off the city. There are too many Iraqi fighters to bypass them or leave them unattended; they're a danger to supply lines on the way to Baghdad. The U.S. Central Command said 100 "terror squad members" were killed Sunday at Najaf and another town in fighting with the 82nd Airborne Division. It did not further identify the "terror squads" or give other details about the newly captured Iraqis. The 101st Airborne Division surrounded Najaf, preparing for a possible door-to-door battle to root out Saddam's fighters - but leery of damaging some of the faith's most sacred shrines.

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In Najaf, the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law Ali is buried at an extraordinary shrine, its gold dome and twin minarets gleaming for miles. It is surrounded by low buildings and narrow streets, a nightmare of an urban battleground. Other Muslim holy figures are buried there and at the vast Wadi es-Salaam cemetery - one of the world's largest - that forms a semicircle around the city. Officers speaking on condition of anonymity said some of the Iraqi fighters were hiding there. A battle that destroyed these holy places could inflame passions of Shiites in Iraq and elsewhere, most notably Iran. The United States has been hoping that Shiite Muslims, who represent 60 percent of Iraq's population, will rise up against Saddam and his largely Sunni leadership. Ibrahim Khalili, a prominent Iranian Shiite clergyman, said: "I don't think that anyone dares to attack a holy site in Iraq. An attack on holy shrines will only provoke the uncontrolled anger of Muslims, especially Shiites, with serious consequences to the attackers." Capt. Micah Pharris, an attorney in the 101st Airborne's judge advocate general's office, said some locations in Najaf are on the military's "no target" list - to be fired at only in self defense. So the Army still held out hope that the battle could be avoided. Using loudspeakers mounted on Humvees, U.S. soldiers on Najaf's perimeter will soon beseech its townspeople to turn over Saddam's zealots. Republican Guard positions between Karbala and Baghdad continued to be targeted for allied bombardment - Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more than half of Sunday's sorties were directed at the guard, Saddam's best equipped and trained forces. North of Baghdad, meanwhile, U.S.-backed Kurdish troops took control of territory left by Iraqi forces withdrawing toward the oil center of Kirkuk. They advanced almost 10 miles - slowly, as the cleared more than 300 mines, some the size of ashtrays, others as big as layer cakes. That territory came without a shot - unlike the continuing battles with Saddam's fighters in the south. In what was described as the Royal Marines' largest operation of the war so far, the British Press Association reported fierce fighting for the town of Abu al Khasib, southwest of Basra. It said 30 Iraqis had been killed and hundreds captured in what the British are calling Operation James, named after James Bond. A British soldier was killed in action near Basra. A reporter for Sunday Telegraph of London reported that Kalashnikov rifles confiscated from defeated Iraqi soldiers were being collected by British troops to pass to pro-Western rebels in Basra. Near the southern port city of Umm Qasr, British forces discovered a cache of arms and explosives in a school, an Australian defense spokesman said Monday. Australian mine clearance experts were called in to dismantle the weaponry, military spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan said. Marines from 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment returned Sunday from a two-day mission. Actively seeking engagements, they went to three cities and towns in

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southern-central Iraq including Afak, about 50 miles east of Najaf. Some of the fighting, they said, was building to building.

A floating truck stop keeps navy commandos at workSource: International Herald Tribune Publication date: 2003-03-29Arrival time: 2003-03-30

Navy commandos have been inching their way into the Iraqi hinterland with the help of an odd-looking ship with a jaw-like bow that, three years ago, was ferrying commuters and their cars around New Zealand. The HSV-X1 Joint Venture, an aluminum-hulled catamaran ferry that has been modified to carry gunboats, amphibious landing craft, helicopters and marine platoons, has become the aquatic forward operating base for navy special operations forces that are helping to clear southern Iraqi waterways of enemy ships and mines. "We are the mother ship," said Captain Phil Beierl, the ship's commander. The Australian-built catamaran a light, high-speed ship with twin hulls has been anchored in Kuwaiti waters within sight of Iraq's lone deep-sea port, Umm Qasr. Like a floating truck stop, the Joint Venture has provided supplies, shelter and spare parts for more than a dozen Naval Special Warfare boats that have been darting in and out of the riverway that links Umm Qasr to the Tigris River on the north and the Gulf to the south. For several days, the small, speedy special operations boats have been searching Iraqi vessels for mines, snipers and fleeing soldiers. They have combed through the river's numerous derelict freighters, ensuring they are not booby trapped. And they have been carrying Seal teams into Iraqi territory on reconnaissance missions. The work of those small boat units and commandos was critical to securing the port so that a British ship could begin bringing food, water and medicine into Umm Qasr's container port. From there, the British plan to move aid northward by land, including to Iraq's second-largest city of Basra, which is under siege. Without the Joint Venture, the commando boats would have had to travel scores of miles to reach bases in Kuwait for fuel and supplies, drastically reducing their time on mission and adding as many as four days to the operation, Naval Special Warfare planners said. "It would have been a mess," said Captain Snyder, who is in charge of logistics for the Naval Special Warfare Task Group based in Kuwait. Like most of the Naval Special Warfare officers interviewed, he requested that his first name not be used. With the Joint Venture nearby, the Seal and boat teams were just minutes from fuel, hot meals, ammunition, showers, warm bunks, Internet access and a video-stocked television room. And when hurricane-force winds damaged an MK-V gunboat on the riverway early Wednesday, the ship was able to limp back to the Joint Venture for repairs. Naval Special Warfare planners hope the Joint Venture will be the model for a new kind of ship for a new kind of unconventional warfare. Future battles will increasingly involve smaller, swifter, stealthier forces that will need to stage heavy equipment closer to a battle than in the past, they say. The Joint Venture, or ships like it, will enable

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the Seals an acronym for the navy's Sea, Air, Land commando units to mobilize larger, more complex missions than the daring but smaller-scale insertions of the past. The Umm Qasr operation was a model for that kind of mission, the planners contend. "What we did near Umm Qasr was historic," said Lieutenant Commander Tom Rancich, who is in charge of future operations for the Naval Special Warfare Task Group. "We've never had 14 small boats operating independently of the big navy for seven days, unresupplied." The Joint Venture and the smaller gunboats that have been using it as a mother ship also exemplify a concept sometimes dubbed "street fighter ships." Navy planners had already been searching for a fast, maneuverable cargo vessel when they first observed Australian forces using a commercial catamaran to ferry peacekeeping troops to the Indonesian island of East Timor in 1999. Impressed, the Pentagon rented two of the $48-million catamarans in July 2001 for about $5 million a year each from Bollinger/Incat USA, a company based in Australia. Initially, the ships were viewed as experimental. But they were pressed into war duty in January, and 40- person crews were hastily assembled for deployment just weeks later. With its four jet-propulsion engines, the Joint Venture can travel 3,000 nautical miles at 35 knots on a tank of gas. It carries enough extra fuel to keep several smaller boats operating for days, has room on its car deck for as many as six small boats and can carry more than 200 heavily armed passengers in relative comfort. It also has a landing pad capable of accommodating one SH-60 Seahawk helicopter. Because it is a catamaran that rides high in the water, it can also navigate relatively shallow waters. The trip close to the Kuwaiti coast required the 96-meter (315-foot) ship to weave through narrow waters, creep over a sand bar at high tide and slip under a bridge at low -

'These cats fight hard: they see a tank and try to shoot it with an AK47 rifle'Source: The Sunday Telegraph - London Publication date: 2003-03-30

THE US army's famous "Screaming Eagles" flew into battle for the first time early yesterday as the 101st Airborne Division pounded Republican Guard tank units south of Baghdad using helicopter gunships. At least 30 AH64 Apache helicopters joined the night attack and army officers said that they destroyed 25 Iraqi tanks, armoured personnel carriers and trucks, killing at least 50 soldiers of the Republican Guard's formidable Medina Division. "The 101st is back in flight. That was our first deep attack mission of the war," said Major Hugh Cate yesterday. The Screaming Eagles owe their name to their eagle's-head shoulder patches. Founded during the Second World War, they offer the Allies "agility and lethality". Over the coming days the 101st Airborne - along with British forces - is likely to be used to "soften" the Republican Guard units which are blocking the Allies' march on Baghdad from southern Iraq.

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In yesterday's battle near the holy city of Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, no Screaming Eagles lost their lives, but one pilot broke his leg in one of the two crash-landings that left one helicopter badly damaged. The Americans acted with RAF Harriers, which dropped more than a ton of high explosive on the Republican Guard in the heaviest 24- hour period of sustained bombing so far. British pilots are sleeping in four-hour snatches so that pressure can be increased on the heavily-armoured units ringing the Iraqi capital. The main roads from the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya to Baghdad became known as "Ambush Alley" last week, the most treacherous road in Iraq. In dozens of battles and skirmishes, thousands of US troops saw their first action of the conflict. Many came under enemy fire for the first time; others boasted of their first "kills". "We've been contested every inch, every mile on the way up," said Col Ben Saylor, the 1st Marine Division's chief of staff. Senior officers have respect for the tenacity of the small bands of Iraqi fighters that have endangered the lives of the Allied troops. "These cats are fighting hard," said Lt Col Terry Ferrell, commander of the 3rd Squadron 7th Cavalry. "By no means do they see that tank and run. They see that tank and try to shoot it with an AK47." At the town of Kifl, on the Euphrates river, dozens of Iraqi bodies littered the streets yesterday after the culmination of a four-day battle. Some were wrapped in blue and black body bags, but others were still out in the open, rotting in the midday sun. Several spilled out of their charred and shattered cars and trucks, burned beyond recognition. Earlier, when tanks of the US Army's 3rd Infantry Division, had rumbled into the town, which lies north of Najaf and about 8O miles south of Baghdad, irregular Iraqi forces had set up sniper nests up and down the main street, opening fire from doors, windows, market stalls and patches of open ground. US officers said fighters in minivans, pick-up trucks and cars drove straight at the oncoming tanks. Others took to canoes, rowing down the river and trying to fix explosives to the main bridge to halt the advance. But the guerrilla-style forces were vastly outgunned and some US soldiers estimate that about 1,000 Iraqis were killed. Officers said that just one American died.

The officers said that the tank unit fired two 120mm high- velocity depleted uranium rounds straight down the main road, creating a powerful vacuum that literally sucked guerrillas out from their hideaways into the street, where they were shot down by small- arms fire or run over by the tanks.

"It was mad chaos like you cannot imagine," said the tank unit's commander, who identified himself as "Cobra 6" because he did not want friends and neighbours back home to know what he had been through.

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"We took a lot of fire, and we gave a lot of fire," he said. "You couldn't see anything except all those hues of red and the sound of fire from all sides. It was not earthly. I'll have nightmares about it." American troops were in agreement this weekend that the Iraqis had been far more determined fighters than they had expected. Maj- Gen Buford Blount III, the commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said: "We did not expect the ambushes," adding that the Iraqis had been more "tenacious and willing to fight" than expected, as well as better equipped. Sgt James Ositis from the 3rd Squadron 7th Cavalry told how he and his troops were fighting through an ambush by hundreds of Iraqis near Najaf when their tank was hit by a missile. "Everyone thought it would be like 1991 [the Gulf war] when they gave up in floods. Now I've shot a lot of people, and not one has given up," he said.

British officers fear chemical attack Martin Bentham, with the 7th Armoured Brigade outside Basra, hears worrying intelligence from the besieged citySource: The Sunday Telegraph - London Publication date: 2003-03-30

ARMY INTELLIGENCE officers were investigating reports last night that mortars with chemical rounds attached had been tested by Iraqi troops in Basra. The reports, received from agents within the city supplying information to the coalition forces, gave warning that Iraqi forces had fitted chemical warheads to 82mm mortar bombs in preparation for an attack on British soldiers on the city's outskirts. British officers fear that conventional mortar rounds fired at the Desert Rats Black Watch battle group early yesterday, causing several casualties, may have been a test run for a chemical assault over the coming days. The Army is also concerned that the Iraqis might add chemicals to the oil fires burning around Basra with the aim of catching British troops unaware. In response, it has ordered daily checks to be made on the smoke from any large fires in the area to ensure that soldiers are not caught by any such disguised chemical attack. As British troops intensified their efforts to take control of the city yesterday, Capt Johnny Williamson, a spokesman for the British Army in Iraq, confirmed that a possible chemical threat was being investigated. "Military intelligence is reporting that mortars with chemical rounds have been tested," he said. "It's possible that the mortars fired at us overnight were used to get the range." Capt Richard Ongaro, the chemical warfare officer for the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, one of four battle groups from the 7th Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats, added: "One concern is that they are using the oil fires to test the wind direction so that they know when it is the best time to use chemicals.

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We're also worried they might add chemicals to the fires to spread with the smoke." The chemical alert emerged as resistance from Iraqi forces inside Basra continued. Rockets from a T59 multiple rocket launcher were fired into the camp of the Black Watch battle group just outside Basra in the early hours yesterday, causing several powerful explosions. No casualties were reported. In response, British artillery fired on Iraqi mortar positions in Basra. Overnight, two American F15E Strike Eagle fighter jets used laser-guided bombs to destroy a building where about 200 paramilitary members of the Ba'ath Party were believed to be meeting. A spokesman at the Central Command's battle headquarters said early reports indicated that "no one came out" of the shattered two- storey structure. The bombs used in the attack had a delayed fuse so they could penetrate the building before exploding, minimising damage to surrounding property, including a church. Despite the coalition's overwhelming firepower, Major Charlie Warner, a battery commander with the Royal Horse Artillery gave a warning that British forces were likely to come under attack for the foreseeable future because of the difficulty in identifying and destroying weapons inside Basra. "We believe that the multiple rocket launchers were probably mounted on a lorry," he said. "It's always been a concern that these type of weapons are very difficult to find inside a city." Despite earlier optimism that entry into Basra could be achieved last week, British forces now appear to be settling down for what could be a prolonged siege. The strategy now, according to officers, is to "prod, prod, prod", in the hope of encouraging a large uprising - allowing British troops to enter the city in support. This is seen as a safer option than the alternative of entering the city with a show of force - an approach that British officers fear could lead to heavy fighting and significant casualties on both sides. Street fighting - known in military circles as Fibua (fighting in built-up areas) - is one of the most dangerous forms of warfare. One hope is that individual districts of Basra, which are particularly hostile to Saddam Hussein's regime, might rise up, allowing British forces to enter the city, sector by sector, consolidating each position in turn. To keep up pressure on the paramilitaries, Ba'ath loyalists and Fedayeen militia defending the city, British artillery shells and flares are being fired across Basra each night as a reminder of coalition fire power. British troops are also carrying out a series of "in and out" raids into the city. There were reports yesterday that four soldiers staging such raids had been kidnapped, but the Army denied this. Efforts are also being made to sever Iraqi lines of communication after the destruction of Basra's radio and television station last week. The aim is to disrupt channels of propaganda which British officers fear may be hindering

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their efforts to convince Iraqis that the war is against Saddam and not the ordinary population. Lt Col Hugh Blackman, the commanding officer of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, confirmed that an advance into Basra might be some time off, saying that the planning was "open-ended". He said: "It might take a number of days before conditions are right. There is still a significant paramilitary threat. The important objective for us is to minimise the amount of collateral damage, both to their side and to ours and to the city's infrastructure. We could go in and destroy the city, block by block, but that's what we're trying to avoid." In an attempt to minimise the number of people willing to fight to the death for Saddam, many of the leading figures in Iraqi society are being told they will be able to keep their jobs after the war. Civil liaison teams composed of British and American officers and civilians specialising in reconstruction have begun passing messages to local leaders, businessmen, factory owners and others in southern Iraq, telling them they will not be replaced when Saddam is defeated. The aim, according to the British Army, is to reassure those who have risen to senior positions on merit - rather than because of close links to Saddam's regime - that they will not be penalised, thereby giving them less incentive to take up arms to maintain their place in society. The strategy is also intended to ensure that civil administration and the supply of basic goods and services does not collapse in the aftermath of war. Problems would be considerably worsened without sufficient key personnel. Major Aidan Stephen, a liaison officer with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, said: "People who run factories, provide utilities such as water and electricity, or run local administrations - we need them to continue as much as possible. Many of these people will be talented individuals who had no choice but to work for Saddam's regime." British officers say their intention is to remove only "cronies and associates" of Saddam and the Ba'ath Party - separating the "bad guys from the good guys".

Maine-based cutter reaches Iraq for duty ; The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Wrangell had to navigate mined waters to reach Umm Qasr.Source: Portland Press Herald Publication date: 2003-03-29Arrival time: 2003-03-30

A Portland-based Coast Guard vessel found its way safely to a Persian Gulf port Friday, helping to bring humanitarian aid to Iraq. Officials said the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Wrangell, a 110-foot high-speed patrol vessel homeported in Portland, was one of the many patrol boats that assisted the British ship RFA Sir Galahad into the port of Umm Qasr on Friday. The British ship is loaded with the first military shipment of relief aid for Iraqi citizens.

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It was not an easy trip, as the waters into port were littered with mines. But the news that the Wrangell made it through was welcome to locals who have friends and family stationed on the vessel. The Wrangell carries a crew of between 12 and 16 enlisted men and two officers. "It's good to hear humanitarian aid has made it through and hopefully it will get to people who need it," said Liselotte Barrows, wife of Coast Guard Lt. Chris Barrows, who is the cutter's commanding officer. "And it's nice to know my husband and the guys were part of that." Sir Galahad's cargo includes 100 tons of water and 150 tons of rice, lentils, cooking oil, tomato paste, chick peas, sugar, powdered milk and tea. It is the first massive shipment of aid to reach Iraq. Medical supplies, blankets and ration packs also are aboard. "Further aid supplies from the United States and Australia are en route to Iraq and are expected to arrive soon," said British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram, speaking in London. The British mine-detecting ship HMS Sandown cleared the route for the Sir Galahad, underscoring the difficulty of navigating the Khor Abdallah waterway, where U.S. and British minesweeping teams found and detonated six mines in the previous 36 hours. Working intensely for the past week, mine hunter teams have cleared a 200-yard-wide channel along the 40-mile route from the Persian Gulf into the port of Umm Qasr, which allied forces are hoping to make the center for humanitarian relief distribution. About 50 British, American and Australian divers, along with two mine-detecting dolphins flown in from the United States, have been scouring the bottom of the port area. The Wrangell was deployed in early February as America prepared for Operation Iraqi Freedom. About 650 Coast Guard men and women are participating in the war, including four patrol boats, a high-endurance cutter, a buoy tender, two law enforcement detachments, two port security units, one mobile support unit, elements of the National Strike Force and a harbor defense command unit. "The Coast Guard brings expertise in a variety of missions to Operation Iraqi Freedom, including force protection and port security," Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Carter, a Coast Guard spokesman in Bahrain said in a prepared statement. "The men and women of the Coast Guard are proud to be a part of the liberation of the Iraqi people."

Storied 7th U.S. Cavalry unit finds new battlefields in IraqSource: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Publication date: 2003-03-30

Within sight of Baghdad Storied 7th U.S. Cavalry unit finds new battlefields in Iraq Sunday, March 30, 2003

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As satellite television beamed images of units of the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment advancing northward toward Baghdad, its subdivisions calling themselves by names like Apache and Crazy Horse, a moment in American history echoed through the Iraqi desert. The 7th Cavalry, a mobilized infantry unit that has been serving as a spearhead moving in advance of the Army's powerful 3rd Division, is one of the armed forces' oldest continuously serving regiments, its history replete with tales that hint at the heroism, mishap and tragedy that go hand in hand in war. Founded by Congress in July 1866, along with nine other regiments, it was originally charged with helping to secure the American frontier, which had been badly neglected from 1861 to 1865 while the nation was at war with itself. The horse-mounted regiments roamed from the Gulf of Mexico to the Dakotas, sparring with the Indian tribes then being uprooted and pressed toward resettlement, even as they provided safe passage for the waves of pioneers moving west. In an 1896 account, Maj. E.A. Garlington wrote of the 7th Cavalry: "The summer's sun found it plodding over the arid, dusty plains as escort to commissioners, surveyors and what not, or dashing along in eager pursuit on a fresh Indian trail. It subsisted for months on food unfit for human consumption, and as a consequence scurvy frequently prevailed among the men, weakening them to such a degree as to invite the more deadly disease, cholera." Who sought the glories of this life? According to Melbourne C. Chandler, author of "Of Garry Owen in Glory: The History of the Seventh United States Cavalry Regiment," the enlistees were "young adventurers, professional frontiersmen, outcasts from society, fugitives from justice, refugees from the Civil War, both North and South alike, recently arrived immigrants to this country seeking to enlist in the Army to save enough money to get started in the new land, and professional soldiers who wanted to re-enlist in a new outfit." Such were the men who provided the only security that pioneers might find, and during the Indian Wars of the 1870s, the 7th Cavalry was made famous by a string of victories. But it was in defeat that it became legendary. In June 1876, the Army was campaigning to force the Sioux, led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, onto reservations. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and about 220 of his men found themselves trapped and were slaughtered at the Battle of the Little Bighorn after Custer made a classic military blunder by dividing his forces. But the victory helped the Sioux little; Congress and the public were inflamed, and soon the Sioux had surrendered or, like Sitting Bull himself, fled to Canada. In the 20th century, modern warfare dismounted the 7th Cavalry along with other horse-borne units, but it did not sideline it. Rather, elements of the 7th, now a mobilized infantry unit within the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, shared in some of the climactic moments of World War II; they were among the first to

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occupy Manila in 1944 when Gen. Douglas MacArthur returned there, and they were with him for the occupation of Tokyo after Japan's surrender. Then came Korea. On July 26, 1950, in the chaotic first weeks of battle, members of the 7th Cavalry's 2nd Battalion, fearing that North Korean soldiers were hiding among refugees, panicked and fired their machine guns into a crowd of unarmed civilians huddled under a railroad bridge near the village of No Gun Ri. The number killed is believed to be in the hundreds. Two years ago, after an investigation prompted by news accounts recalling the massacre, the Department of Defense said the soldiers had acted without orders from their superiors. In the 1960s, 7th Cavalry units rode again, in Vietnam -- this time aboard the UH-1 helicopters known as Hueys -- when the 1st Cavalry became the nation's first air mobile division. There, the 7th was present during another desperate battle, a two-day firefight in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965 in which several hundred U.S. soldiers staved off several thousand North Vietnamese. When the battle ended, 174 U.S. soldiers were dead and 256 more were wounded. The North Vietnamese reportedly lost at least 3,000.

Kurdish Fighters Move Toward Key Oil CitySource: Associated Press Publication date: 2003-03-31

Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq have taken control of more territory from withdrawing Iraqi forces, moving closer to the major oil center of Kirkuk. The nearly 10-mile advance Sunday by the U.S.-backed Kurdish militia was unchallenged but slowed by dense minefields left by Saddam Hussein's troops, said Ares Abdullah, a Kurdish commander. It was the third significant shift since Thursday in the front line separating Iraqi forces from the U.S.-backed Kurds. Each Iraqi move has allowed the Kurds to move closer to Kirkuk, the nation's No. 2 oil-producing region. The Kurds consider it an essential part of their ethnic lands. In the hill country south of Taqtaq - about 35 miles southeast of the Kurdish administrative capital of Irbil - Kurdish forces can clearly see the glow of Kirkuk and its oil fields about 15 miles away. "Our goal is now closer," Abdullah said. Elsewhere in the Kurdish north, Kurdish guerrillas working with U.S. special forces attacked extremists belonging to Ansar al-Islam, a militant group allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. The attack Friday left 120 to 150 militants dead and dealt "a very serious blow" to terrorism, said Barham Salih, prime minister of the Sulaymaniyah-based Kurdish government that is a U.S. ally. He said 17 Kurds were killed. "It was a very tough battle," Salih said. "You're talking about a bunch of terrorists who are very well-trained and well-equipped." The two main northern cities under Baghdad rule - Kirkuk and Mosul - have come under relentless attack from U.S. warplanes. New explosions were reported Monday in Mosul from the Arabic television station al-Jazeera.

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The reason for the Iraqi repositioning is unclear. But Kurdish commanders believe Iraqi troops have been seriously battered and need reinforcements. Iraqi forces could also be rearranging their units, since the United States apparently does not yet have enough strength in the Western-protected Kurdish zone for a ground assault. Plans for a northern offensive were crippled after Turkey refused to allow U.S. troops to use its territory for an invasion across the border. The Kurdish advance in the Taqtaq region came less than 24 hours after its forces fell back along another front: conceding more than 12 miles along the main road from Irbil to Kirkuk. Iraqi gunners have now dug in just outside Altun Kupri - also known as Perdeh - about 27 miles from Kirkuk. "We cannot move against them unless American planes bomb the positions," said Farhad Yunus Ahmad, leader of a front-line Kurdish unit near Altun Kupri. Kurdish fighters spent Sunday clearing mines and poking through abandoned Iraqi posts. They carried away war souvenirs and anything with possible value: electrical cables, helmets, vintage gas masks, casing from anti-aircraft artillery. The Iraqi outposts seemed little more than rough camps. Small cinderblock and mud shelters dotted a clearing - probably a muddy quagmire in rain and a dustbowl in the heat. Roofs were apparently tarps, removed in the withdrawal. Dozens of positions were dug out for tanks or other vehicles. Down the road, a team of Kurdish sappers pulled up about one mine every minute. In just five hours of work, they cleared more than 230 anti-personnel mines and 77 anti-tank mines, said the team leader, Abdullah Hamza Salim. The light olive anti-tank mines are as big as a layer cake. The smaller mines are black and about the size of an ashtray. The team worked with no protective gear and used sticks to pry up the mines. At least two sappers have been injured since Saturday. Salim said they had received some mine-clearance training but wondered why U.S. experts have not offered help. "We would welcome the Americans, but they do not come," he said. "We face this danger alone." Three airstrike teams of six to eight combat aircraft each were launched late Saturday against northern Iraq from the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Eastern Mediterranean late Saturday, according to Lt. John Oliveira. He said Iraqi bunkers, artillery and surface-to-air missile sites and some Iraqi troops were hit with laser- and satellite-guided munitions. The Kurds established an autonomous region in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, beyond the control of the Baghdad government and protected by U.S.-British air patrols. But Islamic militants control pockets of territory. The United States sent more than 1,200 paratroopers into northern Iraq last week and has begun coordinating military activities with the Kurds

U.S. Army battles its way into Hindiyah, surrounds holy city ofSource: Associated Press

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HINDIYAH, Iraq (AP) -- Trading fire with Iraqis hidden behind brick walls and hedges, U.S. Army forces spearheading the drive on Baghdad battled their way into this town 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the capital Monday and captured dozens of members of Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard. The fierce street-by-street fighting at the key Euphrates River crossing was the war's closest known battle to Baghdad. Farther south, the Army encircled the Shiite holy city of Najaf and said it killed about 100 paramilitary fighters and captured about 50 Iraqis. At least 35 Iraqi troops were reported killed and dozens captured in the fighting in Hindiyah between the sacred city of Karbala and the ruins of ancient Babylon. The prisoners told the Americans they belonged to the guard's Nebuchadnezzar Brigade, based in Saddam's home area of Tikrit, and they had the guard's triangular insignia. An armored unit of the 3rd Infantry Division rolled into the town of 80,000 at dawn and was met quickly by small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades from Iraqis hiding behind hedges and brick walls. One U.S. soldier was wounded in the leg. On the southeast side of a concrete and steel bridge across the dark-green Euphrates, the U.S. soldiers took up positions in abandoned bunkers and sandbags and traded fire with Iraqis on the other side. As the Americans began to cross the bridge, Iraqi troops tried to block it with civilian cars. A dark blue car attempted to race across the bridge toward U.S. forces but was hit with heavy machine gun fire, which stopped it in the middle. Iraqi forces in civilian clothes with blue or red keffiyahs wrapped around their heads and faces scrambled between buildings, trying to sneak up on U.S. troops. Americans in tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles fired back with heavy machine guns and 25mm cannon. Leading to the bridge was a broad boulevard with wide sidewalks dotted with cafes. Portraits of Saddam had been erected along the street every 100 meters (yards). ``This must have been important to him (Saddam) to send down one of his Republican Guard brigades,'' said U.S. brigade commander Col. David Perkins. Looking across the river, he noted that Iraqis were firing rocket-propelled grenades from the reeds, and told a company commander: ``Let's put some artillery in there.'' Within minutes, 155mm artillery shells whistled overhead, falling along the far side of the river, sending plumes of water into the air. In another part of the city, a tank company attacked a bunker and killed 20 Iraqi troops and captured a dozen more in a different part of the city, according to reports from the field. At the Hindiyah police station, U.S. soldiers used shotguns to open a locked door and stormed the building. Intelligence officers rifled through the desks.

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Troops found maps with fighting positions marked out and organizational charts. Three Iraqi men were in the station's jail cells. They told U.S. soldiers they had not eaten for three days. A company commander gave them field rations, and the soldiers looked for the keys to the cells. The 3rd Infantry is at the forefront of the advance on Baghdad, where a battle looms with the Republican Guard. But it was at Najaf -- a city of 300,000, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad -- that U.S. military leaders were faced with a difficult decision. It was unclear whether the U.S. strategy was to take Najaf or simply to cordon off the city. There are too many Iraqi fighters to bypass them or leave them unattended; they are a danger to supply lines on the way to Baghdad. The U.S. Central Command said 100 ``terror squad members'' were killed Sunday at Najaf and another town in fighting with the 82nd Airborne Division. It did not further identify the ``terror squads'' or give other details about the captured Iraqis. The 101st Airborne Division surrounded Najaf, preparing for a possible house-to-house battle to root out Saddam's fighters -- but they were wary of damaging some of the area's sacred shrines. In Najaf, the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law Ali is buried at an elaborate shrine, its gold dome and twin minarets gleaming for kilometers (miles). It is surrounded by low buildings and narrow streets, a nightmare of an urban battleground. Other Muslim holy figures are buried there and at the vast Wadi es-Salaam cemetery -- one of the world's largest -- that forms a semicircle around the city. U.S. officers said some of the Iraqi fighters were hiding there. A battle that destroyed these holy places could inflame Shiites in Iraq and elsewhere, most notably Iran. Capt. Micah Pharris, an attorney in the 101st Airborne's judge advocate general's office, said some locations in Najaf are on the military's ``no target'' list -- to be fired at only in self-defense. The Army held out hope that the battle could be avoided. Using loudspeakers mounted on Humvees, U.S. soldiers planned to beseech the townspeople of Najaf to turn over Saddam's zealots. Republican Guard positions between Karbala and Baghdad continued to be bombarded by the allies. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more than half of Sunday's sorties were directed at the guard. In the south, a British air assault brigade attacked two companies of Iraqi infantry north of the Rumeila region overnight and destroyed 17 T-55 tanks and five artillery pieces, a British military spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity. British military spokesman Group Capt. Al Lockwood said an enormous amount of equipment had been seized and some 30 Iraqis taken prisoner. He said casualties were heavy on the Iraqi side, while one British soldier was killed. ``There have been some significant military figures captured,'' he said, but he would not elaborate.

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North of Baghdad, meanwhile, U.S.-backed Kurdish troops took control of territory left by withdrawing Iraqi forces. The Kurds advanced almost 16 kilometers (10 miles), slowed by hundreds of mines.

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