← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · N.B. Forrest

Thread 5873

Thread ID: 5873 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-03-29

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N.B. Forrest [OP]

2003-03-29 14:47 | User Profile

*THEY CALL it the turkey shoot, and they are the targets. Every day, Marines trying to keep critical supply lines open to forward units heading toward Baghdad run a gantlet through the strategic crossroads city of Nasiriyah — over one bridge, up a few miles and then over another bridge. If they make it without getting shot at, they are lucky. The passage, about 100 miles north of the Kuwait border, has become perhaps the most treacherous few miles in Iraq. A contingent of about 120 Marines trying to make it to the first bridge Wednesday came under fire from assault weapons and rocket-propelled grenades; about 15 of their Humvees and seven-ton trucks were destroyed and more than 60 of the Marines were wounded.

   From the perspective of commanders directing the war, Nasiriyah has proved to be a strategic success. The Marines captured two vital bridges and have moved hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, fuel trucks, Humvees and other military vehicles across them in the last few days to build up forces heading toward Baghdad.

FRIEND AND FOE From the perspective of Marines fighting the war, however, Nasiriyah has proved to be a nightmare. The Marines leapfrog forward across the bridges, a new unit coming to relieve the one that heads across, constantly moving to maintain momentum. With so many civilians nearby, it is never clear who is friend and who is foe.*

  ** “Each unit takes its turn being sacrificed,” said Sgt. Chris Merkle, 31, from Irvine, Calif., who made the run the other day. “Everybody gets torn apart the same way.”**

*Nasiriyah became a critical juncture early on in U.S. war planning because of the crossings over the Euphrates River. It became a killing field over the weekend with a pair of grisly disasters for U.S. troops. An Army convoy that made a wrong turn drove into an Iraqi ambush that left 12 soldiers dead or captured. In a separate incident, at least nine Marines died in the fighting. A military source said today that preliminary indications suggested they might have been killed by fire from an A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack plane trying to help them.

   Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, the top Marine commander in the region, visited Nasiriyah the next day to inspect the battlefield and came close to two or three gun battles himself, according to his chief of staff, Col. John Coleman.* **“It’s the Wild West there,” Coleman said. “We control what we want to control, but it’s not a very safe place.”**

For the Marines driving through the area every day, it has been hard to know how or where to concentrate their firepower. With many of the attackers out of uniform and hiding behind civilians, Marines said they have had to refrain from returning fire, according to several interviewed today at an 80-bed field hospital that opened here in southern Iraq on Wednesday.

** “It’s a turkey shoot,” said Merkle, a reservist who normally works as a FedEx delivery man. “It’s not an actual engagement. You’re just receiving fire and trying to get through as fast as you can.”**

On Tuesday, the Marines found Iraqi paramilitary forces using a hospital in Nasiriyah as a base to stage hit-and-run missions. “We went to a hospital and a doctor started to shoot at us,” said Khalid Anzi, 34, a Kuwaiti working as an interpreter for the Marines. “The Marines don’t shoot back, they talk and they call the other people to come out.”

The situation left Anzi fighting tears as he sat in a recovery tent today with his friend and fellow translator, Duaij Mohammed, 32, who was sliced by shrapnel. “Bad, bad, bad situation there,” Anzi said softly. “Believe me, if you see with your own eyes, you would cry.”

C'mon gang, say it with me now: Goathump. GOAT-HUMP! Hoo-ah!

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