Advancing forces meet an eerie stillness
FALLUJAH, Iraq -- As his Bradley Fighting Vehicle lumbered through a breach in the berm on the northern edge of this city at 8 last night, Lieutenant Eric Gregory told his crew: ''Game on."
A combined force of First Infantry Division soldiers and Marines opened the long-awaited ground battle for the insurgent city of Fallujah last night with a drumbeat of cannon and machine gunfire as waves of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and Humvees pushed in from the northeast and the west.
One platoon-sized unit of a half-dozen armored vehicles moved deliberately in the darkness, advancing block by block through the warren of streets in the Hay-al-Askari neighborhood in northeast Fallujah, home to many members who served in Saddam Hussein's military.
The ungainly Bradleys and M1A1 Abrams tanks struggled to maneuver their treads through the narrow streets, and Gregory's Bradley got lost a couple of times as the troops made their way south through the neighborhood.
Cannon fire and machine gun bursts echoed in the night as the armored vehicles opened fire on buildings where insurgents are believed to be hiding.
To disarm possible booby traps, mines, and other explosives, the advancing forces fired rockets charged with plastic explosives down the empty streets and alleys, which detonated a number of jury-rigged bombs.
The streets were eerily still in the initial advance last night, with few signs of the resistance fighters that the incursion was designed to roust.
Gregory's Bradley smashed the gate of an empty house and his soldiers took over the three-story building to survey the surrounding area. On the roof, embers of white phosphorus glowed in the dark, from the flares fired by the advancing forces that snaked down from the sky like the tentacles of an octopus. The air was filled with acrid chemical smoke.
The only light visible in the blacked-out city came from the main mosque, perhaps half a mile away. The sound of chanting and praying from the mosque competed with the gunfire.
''They're out there. They're scared. And they'll probably make a stand somewhere," said Sergeant Richard Harkleroad, 22, of West Farmington, Ohio. ''They'll give us the night," when American night-vision gear gives the US forces a technological edge.
The relatively light resistance, at least in the early stages, did not surprise the Americans in this platoon.
''I've heard it said that there are a lot of hard-cores here," said Sergeant Christopher Hendricks as he waited on the rooftop for the next phase. ''The next few hours will determine how hard-core they are. Once they feel the pressure wave of our offense, they may not have more stomach for the fight."
The soldiers grew frustrated as they waited for units of Iraqi soldiers who were to join them and take the lead in operations against mosques and schools suspected of being insurgent hideouts. Those forces apparently were delayed at the edges of the city, for reasons that were not clear. There were also reports of Iraqi desertions even as the Americans were mounting the assault.
An Iraqi captain told a reporter at a staging area earlier in the day that 100 Sunni members of his unit had deserted rather than fight.
Harkelroad was annoyed at the delay, saying, ''While we wait for the Iraqis to get their act together, [the resistance fighters] are getting their act together."
