War Stories (28 page)

This morning, in a surreal scene worthy of a
M.A.S.H
. or
Hogan's Heroes
episode, Griff, armed with only a Sony camera, took Iraqi prisoners! We were recording the capture of another group of Iraqis when two young men wearing
thobes
and carrying white flags walked up behind him and surrendered. We quickly summoned Maj. Sara Cope, the CO of the Military Police detachment, and she had them taken into custody. She later told us that they had given themselves up because they were hungry and thirsty—somewhat deflating Griff's claim that they had done so because he looked so tough in his FOX News Channel baseball hat.

At 1400 this afternoon, as we were setting up our camera and satellite gear to go live on our network morning show,
FOX & Friends
, the producer called me on my satellite phone to say that the
New York
Times
, the
Washington Post
, and several other newspapers were beating the drum about the Marines being out of food, water, and ammo. I complained that it just wasn't true, but if they liked, I would be glad to put on some Marines to tell the American people how things really were.

New York agreed that would be a good idea—probably thinking that I would interview a general or at least a colonel. Instead, I grabbed a gunnery sergeant and asked him if he could produce two enlisted Marines to stand on either side of me. In an instant, Sgt. Jason Witt was on my left and a young lance corporal was on my right.

Without having time to brief the young Marines on what was happening, I hear Steve, E. D., and Brian talking to me through my earpiece. Their first question is about the Marines having outrun their supplies. I turn to Sgt. Witt and ask, “Have you guys been hungry out here?”

“No, sir,” he replies. “We've been well taken care of.”

“And how about thirsty?”

“No, sir . . . we're good.”

“And ammo?”

The sergeant grins and answers, “Good on ammo, and morale is good, sir.” Relishing the chance to send another message as well, Witt goes on to say hello to his wife, Melissa, his parents, and his twin brother back in Tyler, Texas.

And when the lance corporal has his chance, he responds the same way when I put the questions to him.

“The
New York Times
says the Marines are out of food, water, and ammo. Are you hungry?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you thirsty?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you short on ammo?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, what do you need?” I persist.

Without a moment's hesitation, the young Marine replies, “Just send more enemy, sir.”

To some, these two leathernecks probably sounded as if they were spouting typical Marine bravado. But in fact they had all been told before they left Kuwait that they were going into the attack “light” on supplies. Marines were instructed that two MRE rations per day, consisting of five thousand calories, were what they would be getting. They were also told, “Potable water will be delivered in bottles, so don't waste it on showers. Ammunition and fuel are the number one priorities for resupply, so don't waste them either. When you can, shut off your engine—and if you find uncontaminated Iraqi diesel fuel, use it.”

All of this was accepted by the troops pretty much as “business as usual.” Marines who have been in the service for more than a few years like to joke that the official motto of the Marine Corps may be
Semper Fidelis
, but the real slogan is, “The Marines have done so much, with so little, for so long—we now can do anything, with nothing, forever.”

Because they knew that they were expected to go farther and faster with less, many Marines came to resent how they were being portrayed by the media. This threatened to undo much of the goodwill accrued by having embedding correspondents directly with the troops. But consternation over the “hungry, thirsty, out of ammo” story was nothing compared with the firestorm created by another member of the U.S. media—this time from Baghdad.

By nightfall on the evening of March 31, word was already spreading among the troops about the comments of Peter Arnett during an interview he had given on Iraqi state television. Arnett was well
known for his coverage of the first Gulf War for CNN and for a televised “documentary” piece called “Tailwind,” which alleged that U.S. forces had illegally used nerve gas in Vietnam. Fairly or not, Arnett is widely perceived by many in the ranks to be antimilitary. Now he was in Baghdad “reporting” for NBC and
National Geographic
, and apparently apologizing to the Iraqis for the U.S.-led invasion.

Though few of the troops actually saw the broadcast of Arnett being interviewed by an Iraqi in military uniform, almost everyone had heard some of what he had said. “The first U.S. war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan. Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces.”

From what we were picking up on our satellite transceiver, the interview precipitated an uproar back in the United States. Here in Iraq, the troops wonder out loud why, with all our precision-guided munitions, Iraqi state television is still on the air. As for Arnett, they regard his comments to be treasonous, a personal affront, and have taken to describing his lineage in unprintable terms.

CHAPTER EIGHT

OF RIVERS AND RESCUES

   
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #21

      
HMM-268 Detachment with RCT-5

      
Hantush, Iraq

      
Tuesday, 1 April 2003

      
2045 Hours Local

T
he “operational pause” is over with a vengeance. Before midnight, the three reinforced battalions of “Fighting Joe” Dunford's RCT-5 were on the move, back up Route 1, to the “right turn” on Route 27, following the hardball highway to Hantush. It's the same path they had taken on March 27—before they'd been turned around and sent back. This attack north has been preceded by a dramatic display of artillery fire from the 11th Marines. Throughout the night, RAP rounds, their orange trajectories arching over our heads like a fireworks display, pounded enemy positions that had been reoccupied when the Marines were told to reverse course for the “pause.”

In the race north, I-MEF has left the remnants of at least four Iraqi divisions in its wake, some of them with enough residual strength to make mischief by setting ambushes for Marine resupply convoys—but
none of them sufficiently intact to threaten the drive to the Tigris River. Now the Iraqi forces arrayed in front of the Marines are about to feel the full wrath of those who believed they had been wronged by the media and slighted by the decision to make the Army's V Corps the “Main Attack” force on Baghdad.

Though I've not heard a single Marine commander utter a word that could be construed as “interservice rivalry”—most have even praised the cooperation among the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines—many of the troops still feel that the USMC just isn't getting enough credit where credit is due. The Marines were the first to deploy, and most have been “in-theater” since December or January. And even the most junior Marines are aware that the Corps has a far higher proportion of its combat power committed in Iraq than any other U.S. service.

With the exception of contingents in Afghanistan and small detachments deployed with Marine Expeditionary Units elsewhere around the world, the Marine Corps has committed all of its tank and light armored vehicle battalions, over half its infantry and artillery, two-thirds of its engineers, all of its bridging equipment, over half of its helicopter assets, and nearly the same proportion of its AV-8 and F/A-18 fixed-wing aircraft to Operation Iraqi Freedom. In all, nearly 66,000 Marines, more than one-third of the entire Marine Corps, are in this fight. And so, when I-MEF was given the order to “get up and go” after the “tactical pause,” the Marines were more than ready to do just that.

By dawn this morning, Dunford's RCT-5 CP had moved forward yet again and the helicopters displaced with them. Before noon we were back at the Iraqi “highway” airstrip at Hantush—right where we were when we were told to turn around for the pause.

Beside us on the highway there is a steady rumble as Dunford's one thousand tracked and wheeled vehicles move north up Route 27 headed for the Tigris. Behind us at Ad Diwaniyah, RCT-7 is in a series
of running gunfights with fedayeen and Iraqi irregulars. Over the last twenty-four hours, the Iraqis have been lobbing 122mm rockets at the Marines from within the city. Several of these Soviet-era BM-21 rockets have hit in the general vicinity of the RCT-5 CP, causing us to scramble for cover. On two occasions we were ordered to “mask up” for fear that they might be firing chemical warheads. Though these rockets are wildly inaccurate, each one is packed with 140 pounds of high explosives—and no one wants an Iraqi rocketeer to get lucky. The 11th Marines counter-battery fire has been great, but if the RCT-7 infantry can eliminate the shooters inside Ad Diwaniyah, everyone will be safer while traversing Routes 1 and 27.

Enemy resistance as we move up the highway this morning has been sporadic rather than sustained, nothing like the Task Force Tarawa battle for An Nasiriyah. There, dismounted infantry had to battle from block to block and house to house against fedayeen, who had the advantage of sheltering themselves among the civilian population. Here the terrain is open, and aside from small farming villages along the way, RCT-5 is prepping every kilometer, first with fixed-wing air—F/A-18s and AV-8s—then with artillery and mortars, and finally with waves of Cobras under the direction of forward air controllers, the Marine pilots assigned to every battalion.

The battalion commanders are using their own Dragon Eye RPVs—as small as a radio-controlled model airplane, launched from a giant slingshot. The Dragon Eyes are equipped with sensors to pick out targets well before the armored columns approach what could be an ambush. But even with all this high-tech gear, it's still bone-wearying work for the grunts.

RCT-7 dispatched 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, reinforced by a company of tanks, to enter Ad Diwaniyah and they have been going at it since dawn. Tasked with clearing out the fedayeen and Baathists loyal to Saddam, the dismounted infantry had to resort to exhausting
fire team and squad rushes to root out Iraqi militia, snipers, and irregulars. Fighting from trench lines that seemed to have been hastily dug during the “pause,” the disconcerted Iraqi defenders fought bravely enough. But they were no match for disciplined, well-trained Marine infantry backed up by armor. The smart ones surrendered; those who didn't died. By early afternoon, enemy resistance inside Ad Diwaniyah had ceased. So had the rocket fire.