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AN NASIRYAH, IRAQ
Border crossing becomes close call
By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff, 3/22/2003
Awake at that point for 36 hours, I was almost too tired to care when a dozen artillery and mortar rounds exploded around the mobile howitzers I was traveling with in a convoy through the desert at about 4 p.m. local time yesterday.
Wrapped in body armor and wearing a Kevlar helmet, I caught glimpses of my potential demise when the explosions burst less than 75 yards away.
Fortunately for us, US radar fed one of the howitzers a pinpoint reading on the attackers and silenced them -- but not before the Iraqis had brought the entire convoy to a halt.
The feeling was surreal, like watching a movie. I kept telling myself the odds were in my favor. I had to believe it. I recalled that Winston Churchill said, "There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result."
Later yesterday, the Dorchester, Mass., sergeant with whom I'm riding through this war plunged his Humvee into a sand ditch, with me inside. Then, after traveling nonstop across grueling desert terrain from the Kuwait border to a camp near this Euphrates River crossing, we began a far bigger battle.
Our unit unleashed a powerful assault last night, designed to secure a strategically important bridge, defeat an Iraqi Army division based here, and demoralize remaining forces loyal to Saddam Hussein.
The attack against the 11th Iraqi Division began with a rocket barrage in the early evening, followed by strikes from helicopters. It continued with powerful howitzer assaults and attacks by two infantry task forces to seize the Euphrates bridge and take Tallil Air Base, a senior US military officer said.
The operations started after the Third Brigade of the Third Infantry Division drove through about 70 miles of trackless desert to a staging area about 23 miles from the river city.
When US reconnaissance units encountered and defeated a small group of Iraqi troops near here yesterday afternoon, an entire brigade broke camp and began moving closer to the city. Ten Iraqis were killed and 10 taken prisoner in the firefight, officials said.
No US casualties were reported in any of yesterday's attacks.
US military officers said the Iraqi opposition was somewhat unexpected, particularly because the 11th Desert Division was believed by US intelligence to have lost about 60 percent of its troops to desertion. "I was especially surprised at the amount of fighting they did," said Major Robert Bailes, Third Brigade Operations Officer.
The brigade's intelligence officer, Lieutenant Chris Pike, concurred. "Out of reasons of nationality, loyalty to the regime, or whatever, there are forces here who are willing to fight."
The aggressive pace of the Third Brigade's movement and the sophisticated, coordinated assault on An Nasiryah was designed as a quick knockout punch to Iraqi troops who had been considered unwilling to fight hard for Hussein.
The entire 5,000-soldier brigade, which began training in the Kuwaiti desert last March, took part in last night's fight.
The river bridge is considered a key prize of the early stage of the war, Bailes said, and quick action was critical to prevent the Iraqis from destroying it. US Marines currently engaged in southeastern Iraq might need the bridge to link up with Army troops for a drive against Baghdad, Bailes said.
He added that American officers feared the Iraqis might apply a chemical agent to the bridge to prevent or degrade its use.
We are not told where we are headed from here. But once the bridge is secured, the road for the Third Army Brigade appears to lead north -- toward Baghdad.
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 3/22/2003.
or one unit of the Third Army Brigade Artillery Battalion, the journey into Iraq began in the early hours yesterday with a border crossing from Kuwait. It almost ended in an ambush by Iraqi guerrillas, who surprised US military leaders here (and an accompanying Boston Globe reporter) with their unexpected combativeness.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
