Review of Asian Studies Volume 18 (2016): 133-159


Specifics of the Engagement



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Specifics of the Engagement


This engagement in Karbala began when the 31 AH-64 Apaches of the U.S. 11th Regiment launched from RAMS Base, which was an objective captured early in the advance. The base had become a supply and refueling center for Coalition forces. On 23-24 March 2003, American troops had taken Objective RAMS, which was located only a few miles southwest of An Najaf. From here, they had made plans to move against An Najaf and Karbala.16
Things immediately went wrong. One helicopter crashed soon after takeoff when its pilot became disoriented. As the remaining choppers turned north toward Karbala, intelligence listening stations picked up over 50 Iraqi cell phone calls alerting their forward units of the AH-64s’ approach. The Iraqis signal forces immediately alerted their troops to open fire by turning off, and then a few second later, on the area’s lights. Iraqi ground troops, having recovered from the mistimed SEAD assault, opened up with small arms and heavy weapons. Lieutenant Jason King, pilot of Apache “Palerider 16,” was hit in the neck by a 7.62 mm round from an

Avtomat Kalashnikova Modernizirovanniy (AKM)-47 assault rifle. This was a modern variant of the AK-47 designed and developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the 1940s. While grievously wounded, King never lost consciousness while making an emergency landing. He was later evacuated to Germany for surgery and survived the ordeal.17


Since most of the enemy fire came from houses and there was a high risk of collateral damage, the AH-64 crews were reluctant to return fire. Instead, they scattered in search of the Medina Division but were, again, hampered by poor intelligence. AH-64 “Vampire 12,” flown by Warrant Officers David S. Williams and Ronald D. Young Jr., was forced down after gunfire severed the hydraulics. The air commander’s radio was also hit, preventing communication with the other helicopters. The Apaches turned for home after a half-hour of combat. Most were without functioning navigation or sighting equipment. At least two narrowly avoided a mid-air collision. It had been a most unsatisfactory mission. After-action analysis indicated the U.S. gunships were targeted in a planned ambush with cannon fire, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and small-arms all coming from multiple camouflaged fire teams.18


Planned Invasion Objectives during OIF
Army Secretary Thomas E. White was deeply disappointed by the outcome of the battle declaring, “We were very fortunate we didn’t lose more aircraft.”19 Of the 29 AH-64s that returned, all but one endured severe damage. Each one had 15 to 20 bullet holes. One had suffered 29 hits. In addition, there was significant damage to sixteen main rotor blades, six tail blades, six engines, and five drive shafts. Most were damaged beyond repair. In the after-action report, one squadron stated they had only a single airworthy helicopter left. The 11th Regiment required a month to recover enough to be ready to fight again. These were terrible lessons to learn, but learn them they did. As a result of the damage sustained by the Apaches, leadership initiated a change of tactics by placing significant restrictions on the use of helicopter gunships. They directed that attack helicopters only be employed to discover the location of enemy troops, so they could be destroyed by artillery and air strikes by fixed-wing aircraft.20

With this initial assault declared a failure, American leaders determined an all-out attack was necessary. This task fell to the 101st Airborne Division, supported by the 2nd Battalion, 70th Armored Regiment 1st Armored Division. On 24-25 March 2003, things got worse when the Pentagon confirmed that two AH-64 crew members had been captured. They were David S. Williams of Florida and Ronald D. Young of Georgia. In spite of this terrible news, the offensive pressed on. With ground troops only 60 miles from Baghdad, Coalition Air Power continued to clear a path toward the Iraqi capital. Now began the next phase of the ground combat around Karbala.21


The Attack on the Republican Guard
On 25 March, American-led Allied forces devastated a large unit of Iraqi troops in a major land engagement near An Najaf in the Euphrates River Valley, killing more than 200.22 As this engagement was underway, other U.S. Army troops confronted thousands of Republican Guard soldiers at the entrance of the strategic Karbala Gap, about 50 miles south of Baghdad, in what U.S. and British officials called “one of the most crucial -- and perilous -- encounters so



B-52H Carpet Bombing Area Targets
far in the war.”23 As the ground engagement erupted at the southern end of the pass, B-52 “Stratofortress” bombers carpet-bombed Republican Guard positions to the north of the gap to facilitate the ground advance and weaken the enemy before the battle for Baghdad began. Even as units of the 2nd Brigade of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division sped across the high desert to the south and west of the gap, facing three brigades of the Guard’s elite Medina Division on the other side, air assets continued to obliterate key targets throughout the area of operation.24
On 26 March, in an action designed to open a northern front, 1,000 U.S. paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade jumped into Kurdish-held territory to secure an airfield for Allied use. This airfield afforded the Coalition airlift units the capability to bring in armor and humanitarian supplies for the advancing ground units and Iraqi citizenry.25
With Coalition ground forces grinding toward the mountain pass near Karbala, questions arose over whether or not Saddam Hussein, who had supposedly appeared live on television, was actually still in power. In the audacious presentation, he had vowed that “victory will soon be ours.” In a last ditch effort to halt the massive Allied advance, Iraqi leadership sent an armored column, south, toward the mountain gap near Karbala. This Shi’ite Muslim holy city and strangle point for troops advancing on Baghdad had already been the site of one engagement and, now, the pass to the north would be the location for another. It began when Allied aircraft destroyed ten tanks in the advancing Iraqi column and several other armored vehicles. The impact of the airstrike halted the Iraqis in their tracks. Unfortunately, yet another U.S. helicopter was forced down during heavy fighting near Karbala, and its crew members became the sixth and seventh Americans to be captured by the Iraqis.26

The Battle of Karbala
With combat operations swirling all around the bypassed Shi’ite holy city, it soon became clear that a second engagement was in the offing and this time in Karbala itself. What became known as the Battle of Karbala actually was brought on when, on 29 March, a suicide bomber, later identified as Ali Jaafar al-Noamani, an Iraqi noncommissioned officer, killed four American servicemen, specifically, Sargent Eugene Williams, Corporal Michael Curtin, and Privates 1st Class Michael Weldon and Diego Rincon, on Highway 9 on the outskirts of Karbala.27
As noted earlier, two days later, major lead elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division were on the outskirts of Karbala where they joined the fight against the Republican Guard forces southeast of the city. Once they pushed through the combat area, they bypassed the city and drove through the Karbala Gap towards Baghdad. To avoid having a potential enemy stronghold at its back, Coalition leaders gave the task of clearing the city to the 101st Airborne Division supported by the 2nd Battalion, 70th Armored Regiment, and Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division. The Americans were already anxious to seize the city, which had been the source of so many losses. By early April, things had become personal. This feeling only became more intense when, on 2 April 2003, a U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter was shot down by small arms fire near Karbala killing 7 soldiers. Four other soldiers onboard were wounded.28

Planners in the 101st determined to use helicopter-borne forces to seize three landing zones (LZs) on the outskirts of the city. They designated those codenames Sparrow, Finch, and Robin. In turn, they decided to coordinate this landing with an assault by an armored force of M-1 Abrams tanks and M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles linking up with troops fanning out from the LZs. The tactical plan worked exactly as planned. At 1100 hours, on 5 April, the 101st Airborne’s Division’s troops swept into Karbala following several successful airstrikes hitting targets all around the city. With this action underway, 23 UH-60 Blackhawk and 5 CH-47 Chinook helicopters transported three battalions of infantry from the 502nd Infantry Regiment to their designated landing zones. Forces at LZ Sparrow ran headlong into heavy but disorganized resistance as they moved into the city. To the south, members from the Second Battalion landed at LZ Robin and quickly moved, street by street, where they discovered several arms caches hidden in hospitals and schools. They also uncovered a suspected insurgent training camp.


By nightfall, they had cleared 23 of their 30 assigned sectors. The 1st Battalion pushed forward from LZ Finch in the southeast and also captured several weapons caches. Air support from helicopter gunships as well as artillery support was used in the operation. The artillerists used roughly 100 smoke shells to act as a screen for infantry moving through the streets and alleyways of Karbala. Concurrently, the 2nd Battalion of the 70 Armored Regiment and Charlie Company, First Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment (Mechanized) had reached Karbala and were engaged in combat, losing one man killed from small arms fire and a Bradley to an RPG.29


Pulling Down the Regime of Saddam Hussein
The next day, the units continued to clear their sectors until resistance evaporated around 1700 hours. Thirty minutes later, soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 70th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Division, tore down a large statue of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. This symbolic gesture marked the end of this phase of the struggles in and around Karbala. In the end, the enemy lost 254 men killed, while the Americans lost 21 killed, one M-1 tank disabled, one M2A2 Bradley destroyed, one Navy FA-18 Hornet shot down, and one UH-60 shot down.30
Collateral Combat
Even as the 101st was planning the seizure of the city itself, the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division launched heavy attacks on Iraqi positions north of Karbala, where 2,000 paramilitary members of the Saddam Fedayeen and the Baath Party were dug in. The attacks began around midnight on 2 April 2003. At least 20 Iraqi were killed and an unknown number of fighters were taken prisoner. Lt. Col. Scott Rutter, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, later reported that Iraqi troops concentrated their attacks on his battalion allowing the rest of the brigade to pass into the Karbala Gap unscathed. This proved to be very important since the mountain gap was a chokepoint between a lake to the west and the city of Karbala to the east and it opened onto a sweeping plain where Coalition forces were able break out and rush forward toward Baghdad.31
Further to the east, U.S. Marines seized an important bridge over the Tigris River near the city of al-Kut amid fighting with the Baghdad Division of the Republican Guard. The bridgehead allowed thousands of Marines from the 1 MEF to cross the river in their push toward Baghdad from the southeast.32 That night, around Karbala, even as Iraqi defenders fired anti-aircraft guns skyward, B-52 bombers circled Karbala carpet-bombing some areas while U.S. Air Force and Navy fighters went after more specific targets. The next day, the Allies fired Tomahawk cruise missiles and launched more airstrikes pounding positions held by the Republican Guard’s Medina Division near Karbala. As the assaults waned, Army units smashed into the remnants of the Medina Division in an effort to eliminate the Guard before ground troops moved on toward Baghdad. For more than a week, coalition airstrikes and artillery barrages had devastated Guard units to the south, west, and north of the capital. General Richard Myers, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) reported, “The Medina Division’s fighting strength had been reduced by more than half.” He added, “The Republican Guard’s Baghdad Division, centered near the city of al-Kut to the southeast, also has been similarly worn down.”33


The Advance Moves Forward: Seizing the Bridges
The Battle of the Karbala Gap
Even as the Coalition was taking Karbala itself, a battle to take the vital mountain pass leading out of Karbala and onto Baghdad was underway. The Karbala Gap is a 20–25-mile wide strip of land with the Euphrates River on the east and Lake Razazah (also known as Lake Milh) on the west. The moment for the great battle on the road to Baghdad had arrived. To quote an article on the battle, “Near Karbala, the Army’s Third Infantry Division hoped to find the battle it has been looking for: a climactic showdown with the elite troops of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard. The U.S. goal was twofold: to blow through the Karbala Gap and open the road to Baghdad, as well as to pin and crush the Medina Division and any other Republican Guard force blocking the way.”34
As OIF unfolded, Iraqi military leaders realized this strip of land was a key approach to the capital city of Baghdad. As a result, they moved their elite Medina and Nebuchadnezzar Divisions of the Iraqi Republican Guard into position to defend the area against the Allied advance toward Baghdad. From the outset, Lt. Gen. Ra’ad al-Hamdani, commander of these forces, recognized he would need even more troops in order to hold back the powerful and highly mobile Coalition forces on the way. He argued vehemently for the additional troops to no avail. Iraqi military leaders in the capital rejected his appeals mainly due to the fact that President Saddam Hussein wanted to keep as many troops as possible around the capital to defend against an attack from Turkey in the north. Besides, they were afraid of disobeying the dictator’s orders and having these troops cut off and unable to retire to help in the defense of Baghdad.35



Lt. Gen. Ra’ad al-Hamdani
As the engagement became inevitable, U.S. military leaders at the Central Command (CENTCOM) forward headquarters told members of the Reuters News Agency that, “This is the big battle for the Karbala Gap!”36 Allied forces, led by the 3rd Division and commanded by Maj. Gen. Buford Blount II, determined to attack Iraqi forces in the area first with massive airstrikes followed by concentrated armored thrusts which would result in the Iraqi units being surrounded and annihilated.37 Not only did U.S. planners pour in Coalition Air Power, they used a wide variation of weapons platforms that included B-52 heavy bombers, which dropped 500-pound iron bombs in carpeted patterns all over the enemy’s defensive positions. The success of these aerial raids, limited as they were, raises the question as to why, in this second war with Iraq, Coalition leaders had not followed the pattern of the first war in which massive and prolonged airstrikes preceded the ground campaign leaving the Iraqi forces so devastated that the ground forces cut through the remaining Iraqi defenses like a hot knife through butter.



President Bush honors Maj. Gen. Buford Blount II
Details of the Struggle
Originally, the Iraqi high command positioned the aforementioned two Guard divisions to block the Karbala Gap. Throughout the combat in this area, U.S. and British Air Power inflicted heavy casualties on these units degrading them by 30-40 percent by the time the ground battle began. However, while, in retrospect, it is easy to criticize the losers in any war, their reasoning was not altogether flawed. Since early March, Coalition covert operations personnel had been artfully conducting a strategic deception campaign to deceive the Iraqis into believing the American 4th Infantry Division would make the major assault into northern Iraq from Turkey. Much as the Allies had tricked the Germans into believing the cross channel invasion on 6 June 1944 would be made at the Pas d ’Calais and be led by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, the success of this operation in Iraq had a direct effect on the outcome of the war.38
This deception plan worked so well that on 2 April 2003, Saddam Hussein’s son Qusay Hussein, asserted that the American invasion from the south was a feint and ordered troops to be re-deployed from the Karbala front to the north of Baghdad. As noted above, Lt. Gen. Raad al-Hamdani, commander of the Karbala region, protested this radical strategic departure and argued that unless reinforcements were rushed to the Karbala Gap immediately to prevent a breach, the fate of Baghdad would be determined within 48 hours. His recommendations fell on deaf ears, and the fate of the Hussein regime was all but sealed!39
Even as this misstep occurred, Allied troops rushed through the gap and reached the Euphrates River at the town of Musayib. They paused, for a moment, expecting an Iraqi chemical attack which did not materialize. At Musayib, U.S. troops crossed the Euphrates in small boats and seized the vital al-Kaed bridge, better known as Objective Peach. Once across the Euphrates, they were able to prevent Iraqi demolition teams from blowing up the bridge. Soon, the Allies’ heavy units began to cross into the city to take it over. Hearing of this disaster, Iraqi leadership ordered Lt. Gen. Hamdani to launch an immediate counterattack. After the war, Hamdani said his units were in no condition to launch an immediate counterattack and that he had wanted to setup a defensive line along the Usfiyah River in order to contain the Allied breakthrough. Ultimately, he relented and his exhausted troops launched a counterattack on the night of 2, and the early morning of 3 April 2003.40
The Counter Attack
The counter stroke was spearheaded by the 10th Armored Brigade of the Medina Division and the 22nd Armored Brigade of the Nebuchadnezzar Division supported by massed artillery. The strike was launched at night against the Allied bridgehead at Musayib. Even though the Iraqis made the assault in earnest, the attack was violently repulsed by tank fire and massed artillery rockets, which destroyed or disabled every Iraqi tank in the assault. The next morning, Coalition strike aircraft and helicopters savaged the remainder of the Republican Guard units destroying many more vehicles and wiping out their communications infrastructure. The Republican Guard units disintegrated under the massed firepower and lost any sense of


Key Objectives between Karbala and Baghdad
command and cohesion. By the end of the day, the tanks of the 3rd Infantry Division had overrun Lt. Gen. Hamdani’s headquarters and Hamdani and his staff fled. At the end of this engagement, American forces had suffered none killed by Iraqi fire, while Iraqi losses were counted at 233 killed. Even so, the Iraqi counterattacks had caused much confusion, which had led to the friendly fire death of Captain Edward Korn on 3 April in the Karbala Gap.41


An Iraqi Casualty—the Human Face of War and its Tragedies
The End of the Medina Division

On 3 April, as the combat around Musayib raged on, other elements of the 3rd Infantry Division engaged Iraqi forces surrounding the Baghdad International Airport and soon took control of this vital position. As this unit secured the captured airport and moved against the capital city itself, American military commanders decided to finish off the vestiges of the Medina Division which were still present south of Baghdad. Their plan was to take these Iraqis from behind, while they were engaging other units to their front. The 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, commanded by Col. David Perkins, was sent to the southwest towards Objective Saints, the codename for the intersection between highways 1 and 8. Iraqi dismounted infantry defended this interchange. During the engagement, the U.S. had one M-1 Abrams tank disabled by an RPG and one American soldier wounded. Both were quickly patched up and returned to their units.42


Following the seizure of Objective Saints, the 2nd Brigade moved south and engaged the remnants of the 10th and 2nd Brigades of the Medina Division. Despite Allied reports that 80 percent of the Medina Division’s vehicles had been destroyed, the truth proved to be much different. The Iraqis had redeployed their vehicles away from their prepared defenses and hidden them near buildings and in palm groves, saving the majority of them from the devastating Coalition air attacks. As a result, hundreds of Iraqi tanks, Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs), and artillery were capable of fighting back. On the other hand, the Iraqi troops, with little hope of reinforcements or victory, were becoming increasingly reluctant to continue the fight and/or make useless gestures of defiance. Thus, when the U.S. tank units attacked, they quickly tore through the Iraqi vehicles and defenses destroying many of them at point blank range. Even with all their vehicles in place, the Iraqi defense was un-coordinated, and many troops surrendered without a fight or discarded their uniforms, put on civilian clothes, and deserted as the fighting continued. It soon became evident to the Americans that the expected resistance had evaporated. By mid-day on 4 April, the Medina Division ceased to exist as an effective fighting force.43
The Results

As night fell on 4 April 2003, the Battle of the Karbala Gap was over. It had been a one-sided engagement during which elements of the 3rd Infantry Division annihilated the best units in the Republican Guard while absorbing minimal losses. In fact, during the Battle of Karbala Gap, only one American died and that was the aforementioned Captain Edward Korn who was killed by friendly fire. The U.S. had one tank damaged. The Iraqis suffered nearly a thousand casualties and had hundreds of armored vehicles destroyed. The destruction of these elite units left the door to Baghdad wide open for the Allies. The next day, Col. Perkins led the first armored strike through southern Baghdad known as a “Thunder Run.” This marked the beginning of the end of the invasion and the regime of Saddam Hussein. By 10 April 2003, Baghdad had fallen. In one last act of defiance, four days later, the Republican Guard scored a direct hit on the 3rd Infantry Division, 2nd Brigade’s Tactical Operations Center, with an Al-Samoud variant rocket which killed 3 soldiers, 2 foreign news reporters, wounded 14 more soldiers, and destroyed 22 vehicles, mostly unarmored Humvees.44





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