War Stories (27 page)

I decide not to tell him I've turned into something of a metal magnet over here. But thankfully, we do make an uneventful forty-kilometer run to the RCT-5 CP at Hantush, on Route 27, northeast of the intersection of Routes 1, 8, and 27, arriving just after 2300. A few hundred meters up the road I find a circle of LVTs and Humvees with “5>” painted on their sides—the distinctive RCT-5 tac mark. The four HMM-268 CH-46s are parked in a field about fifty meters north of the CP. When I climb aboard the lead helicopter, the crew is asleep, but Capt. Dave Roen, one of the pilots, awakens and says, “You aren't going to believe what happened while you were gone.”

“What's that?” I respond.

“The war is on hold.”

   
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #19

      
With HMM-268 and RCT-5

      
Near Hantush, Iraq

      
Friday, 28 March 2003

      
2115 Hours Local

As Griff and I hook up our satellite gear in preparation for our regular report on
Hannity & Colmes
, we learn from FOX News Channel that CENTCOM has ordered an “operational pause” for all ground combat units so that supplies of food, water, and ammunition can catch up with units about to make the final push on Baghdad. We're stunned by the information, for there has been no serious shortages of any of these items thus far in the units that I have seen. In fact, for the eight days since the war started, the Marine logisticians back in Kuwait have done an amazing job of pushing all necessary supplies—plus spare parts and the myriad items of equipment needed to keep a military force of this size and complexity on the move day
and night. Further, stopping where we are, well within the fan of chemical weapons that can be launched by Saddam's artillery in a last ditch effort to save his capital, seems to add considerable risk to what had thus far been a remarkably successful campaign.

When the sun rises as it's supposed to—clear, without a tinge of sand in the air—I make my way to the RCT-5 CP to scrounge a cup of hot coffee and the latest hot scoop. It turns out that we're not just going to “pause” in place. The new command is “to the rear, march.” Topic number one for everyone is a new order: RCT-5 has been directed by CENTCOM to reverse march forty kilometers back down Route 27 to Route 1 and stand in place. While I'm talking with “Hamster,” the RCT-5 assistant air officer, Col. Dunford walks out of the CP. He looks not only tired but exasperated as well. I ask him if he can give us an interview. He looks as though he might spit nails, but then softens and says, “Not on camera.”

When I ask him to fill me in on what's happening for documentary purposes, he tells me that CENTCOM is concerned that we're inside the “red zone” for chemical attack and that we have to move south until V Corps, which has seen a lot of action at Najaf, can be resupplied with food, water, and ammunition. Using my map, Dunford shows how leaving RCT-5 in place this far north on Route 27 risks compromising the very closely held I-MEF/1st Marine Division deception plan for crossing the Tigris.

Until the “operational pause” had been ordered, I-MEF had planned to deceive the Iraqis into thinking that RCT-5 and RCT-7 were planning to charge straight up Route 1 to Baghdad, while RCT-1 forced a crossing of the Tigris at Al Kut. It was hoped that the elite Baghdad division of the Republican Guard defending Al Kut would be so intent on stopping RCT-1 from crossing the Tigris that the Iraqis would be fixed in place and unable to respond when RCT-5
and RCT-7 made a surprise move up Route 27 to cross the river at An Numaniyah. All of this would be in jeopardy if RCT-5 remained “parked” on Route 27, so the regiment dutifully turned around and rolled back down the hardball to the Route 1/Route 8 interchange.

By mid-afternoon we are back to within a kilometer of where we had been when I had gone on the VIP flight with HMLA-267. The HMM-268 pilots and aircrews have all been briefed on the reason for reversing course and seem to understand. But that's not the case with many others.

For the grunts who gather around our tiny TV set to watch what's being said back in the States and around the world, both the pause and the move to the rear have created consternation. They wonder who it is that's out of supplies when they hear news reports that the Marines have had to stop because they outran their supplies. While we're getting ready to go on the air, a Marine C-130 makes a pass over the highway that they had rolled over yesterday. I turn on my camera and catch the giant, four-engine cargo craft as it lands to disgorge tons of supplies and then pump thousands of gallons of fuel into waiting tank trucks and fuel bladders.

Back in the United States, second-guessing of the Pentagon is well under way. Much of the media back home apparently believe that Operation Iraqi Freedom has run afoul of bad planning. Once again, retired generals are on the air with dire predictions that the war in Iraq could cost up to three thousand American and British deaths. The word “quagmire” is mentioned now as if coalition forces were bogged down in a swamp. Some commentators are comparing the situation to Vietnam.

One of the troopers watching the news on our little TV set asks, “Is that right, Colonel North? You were in Vietnam. Is this what happened there?”

He's clearly too young to have been alive while I was at Khe Sanh or Con Thein or know much about Hue city, where Ray Smith led a rifle company during the Tet offensive of 1968, so I try to explain how different the two wars really are.

“From their safe haven in North Vietnam, the rulers in Hanoi invaded South Vietnam with conventional military forces and simultaneously orchestrated an indigenous insurgency,” I tell him. “Other than a bombing campaign, we never seriously threatened Hanoi. That's not the case here in Iraq, where we're taking the fight directly to the despot who has attacked his neighbors and oppressed the Iraqi people for more than three decades. Here we face a conventional indigenous army and some ‘guerrillas'—mostly foreign fedayeen on a jihad.

“In Vietnam, the Viet Cong guerrillas were operating as a ‘wholly owned subsidiary' of the North Vietnamese. Here, we're being attacked by criminals released from prison just before the war started and by Baathists who want to restore their power and prestige by orchestrating the attacks, along with jihadist foreign fedayeen who are coming here to become ‘martyrs.' But none of these groups are coordinating their efforts and activities.”

The young Marine nods, seeming to understand the differences.

Iraq isn't the “quagmire” that Vietnam became, at least not for anyone but the Iraqis, who have been leaderless since the beginning of the war. Saddam may have survived thus far, but the Iraqi military is essentially on its own. There is little, if any, command-and-control structure. No one seems to be giving orders to the enemy commanders in the field. And while some Iraqi soldiers fight bravely, there is no evidence of any real coordinated defense—only a series of point-to-point engagements that have hardly slowed the coalition attack.

Quagmire?
I don't think so.

   
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #20

      
With HMM-268 and RCT-5

      
Near Hantush, Iraq

      
Monday, 31 March 2003

      
2300 Hours Local

Early this morning we got the word from RCT-5. The so-called “operational pause” is officially over. The 1st Marine Division has resumed the march on Baghdad. Though we haven't been “advancing” toward Saddam Hussein's capital, the last four days haven't been devoid of combat: 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, part of RCT-7, has been busy clearing Route 17 of fedayeen like those who had shot at our Hueys over Al Budayr on March 27. And RCT-5 has had gunfights every day, most of them engagements against irregular units, small bands of roving Iraqis who have not surrendered despite the disappearance of their senior officers, or in other cases, the foreign fedayeen.

Yesterday afternoon, there was a major fight with more than two hundred of these irregulars near Ad Diwaniyah that continued until well past nightfall. Earlier today, Griff and I went to interview the Marines in the unit that had discovered the enemy force. VMU-2 is one of the squadrons of RPVs that has done a remarkable job of finding the enemy here in the desert. Flown like remote control air planes, these vehicles currently provide the capability to locate, observe, and assess enemy targets through the use of a small, high-powered camera that disseminates imagery back to the aircraft control center. This information can then be passed on to air or ground units to assist forward assault and capture of enemy assets. We videotaped the takeoff and recovery of several Pioneer UAVs, the less expensive predecessor to the now-famous, sleek new Predators.

Hurled into the sky from an elevated launch rail by compressed air, and recovered on a highway, the boom-tailed Pioneers have a GPS
tracking system, cameras, emission detectors, and electronic sensors jammed into their fuselage. And even though each one costs nearly a million dollars, they are all flown under remote control by young enlisted Marines.

When an RPV spots an enemy force, emplacement, or equipment, the VMU-2 can bring artillery fire or strikes from fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft to bear on the target in a matter of minutes. The VMU-2 control van also has the ability to transmit the image of what the RPV sees in real time to ground combat unit commanders or print out aerial photos of the area over which the RPV has just flown.

Yesterday afternoon, when one of these Pioneer UAVs spotted a large Iraqi unit massing east of Ad Diwaniyah, the area was first hit with artillery fire and then a half dozen Cobras followed up for several hours after dark. The attack was so devastating that, throughout much of today, small groups of Iraqis have been wandering into RCT-5 positions to surrender.