Fanatical Iraqis meet doom

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/new...24irmartz.html


Fanatical Iraqis meet doom

By RON MARTZ
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


BRANT SANDERLIN / Staff
A soldier of the 3rd Infantry Division looks over the remains of an Iraqi truck whose occupants tried to challenge U.S. tanks. It was a bad gamble.





With Charlie Company, Task Force 1-64 near Baghdad -- The Iraqi troops thought they would be fighting the relatively lightly armed 82nd Airborne Division.

So they sent a convoy of pickup trucks loaded with Baath Party loyalists armed only with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles.

What the Iraqis found when they got to the fight were the 70-ton M-1A1 Abrams tanks of Charlie Company, a part of the Fort Stewart-based 2nd Brigade Combat Team.

It was no match.

In a fight that started shortly after dusk Saturday night and continued until almost dawn on Sunday, the Charlie Company soldiers led task force elements in killing an estimated 100 to 150 Iraqi soldiers and destroying 15 trucks. Thirteen Iraqis were taken prisoner. No Americans were injured in the fight.

Military officials said the fight lasted so long because of the Iraqis' determined resistance to the advancing American forces.

"They were definitely fanatical. They tried to low-crawl to the tanks to attack them," said Capt. Jason Conroy, 30, of Apalachin, N.Y., commander of Charlie Company.

The first major battle for the 2nd Brigade following their long-distance dash through the desert of southern Iraq delayed the advance on Baghdad by the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized).

Sunday afternoon, as Charlie Company rested, reloaded and did maintenance work on its tanks, the division's 1st Brigade moved north toward the Euphrates River while tons of supplies and equipment and thousands of soldiers poured into the area about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad.

As local Iraqis saw the influx of soldiers and equipment, many approached the troops, bearing white flags and saying they were not loyal to Saddam Hussein, whose ouster is the object of the invasion.

But Intelligence officials said the Iraqis who attacked Charlie Company and other elements of the task force were from a quick-reaction force of Baath Party members loyal to Saddam.

Each of the Iraqis apparently had been paid a wad of 250 dinar notes to take on the Americans. They believed they would be taking on the 82nd Airborne Division because they had seen a parachute in the area the day before. That chute may have belonged to a member of a long-range surveillance detachment who officials said was still unaccounted for this morning.

The Charlie Company tanks were moving north on a single-lane paved road in an area of flat farmlands late Saturday afternoon when the lead tanks of Staff Sgt. Jason Diaz, 27, of New York City, and Sgt. Carlos Hernandez, 26, of Carolina, Puerto Rico, saw troops moving through the fields only a few hundred yards away.

"We were trying to get an indication that they were real troops. They were ducking up and down and acting real suspicious," said Hernandez.

One Iraqi prisoner told interrogators that he and about 27 others had been taken to the area and told to defend it. Their officers then left them.

When the Iraqis began firing, the Charlie Company soldiers responded with machine-gun fire, killing several almost immediately. Several others acted as if they were surrendering and troops ceased fire, but when some started to approach the tanks another fired a rocket-propelled grenade.

Fighting went on sporadically for several hours. Sgt. Major William Barnello, the top enlisted man in the task force and a Gulf War veteran, said tanks normally have a difficult time fighting infantry.

"It's hard for these guys because they are used to fighting other tanks or vehicles. These guys [the Iraqis] were fighting in ones and twos and running all over the place and they are tough to spot through the tank's thermal sites," said Barnello, 44, of Syracuse, N.Y.

Taking on the pickup trucks was not a problem for the tanks, though. The trucks and troops were easily dispatched with high explosive anti-tank rounds. "I don't think they understood what they were up against because they just kept coming at us," said Conroy.

After a brief lull, the fighting picked up again in the morning when the 2nd Platoon of Charlie Company, under the command of 1st Lt. Jeremy English, 24, of Mobile, moved through a built-up area. An anti-aircraft gun mounted on the roof of one of the houses fired on them. It surprised the entire platoon, said English.

"It's the first time I've ever shot at [people] when I knew they were shooting at me," said England, whose tank blew a large hole in the house and destroyed the gun.

For many of the troops in this their first combat action, it seemed like little more than an extension of their lengthy training.

"I wasn't sure how I'd feel out going out there and shooting anybody. But with the training they give us, I didn't feel scared or remorseful. I just did the job they sent me here to do," said Sgt. Christopher Freeman, 32, of Clayton, Calif.

When an armored column was sent to the area later Sunday to take on the Americans, it was destroyed by air strikes.