IN THE KUWAITI DESERT March 20 —
With a thundering barrage of artillery across the desert, the
U.S. Army opened the ground phase of the war with Iraq on Thursday.
Infantrymen on the move, their weeks of waiting for war finally at
an end, cheered as shells screamed overhead.
Artillery, mortars and howitzers rumbled for hours in the nearly
deserted far north of Kuwait, mixed with bursts of rocket launchers.
The explosions rattled tin roofs noisily on their wood frames miles
away and shook concrete houses.
The attack came at the end of a day that began with allied troops
at the other end of the gun barrel, as Iraq responding to the
American bombardment of Baghdad and other targets launched missiles
into Kuwait, where the allied forces were primed to attack.
There were reports that the border had been breached. A reporter
for The Times of London reported that Royal Marine Commandos had
crossed into southern Iraq. According to this account, hundreds of
British troops had attacked "Red Beach" at the head of the Persian
Gulf.
The marines were supported by a bombardment across the Khawr Abd
Allah, the river estuary that separates Bubiyan Island in Kuwait
from Iraq, according to the report.
The Iraqi armed forces claimed in a statement that they had
repulsed an "enemy" attack at Al-Anbar, on Iraq's border with
Jordan. It made no mention of the attack at the tip of the gulf.
The Iraqis did deny a Kuwait News Agency report that the city of
Umm Qasr had fallen to U.S. and British troops and hundreds of Iraqi
soldiers had surrendered.
Meanwhile, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division's artillery opened fire
on Iraq with Paladin self-propelled howitzers and multiple launch
rocket systems. More than 100 artillery shells were fired toward
southern Iraq in a five-minute barrage. White light glowed in the
sky above the cannons, as explosions were heard from Iraq.
No fire was being returned.
Infantrymen, deployed between the howitzers and the Iraqi border,
cheered as the 155 mm shells screamed overhead.
Their targets were not clear, although it appeared that this was
not the start of the pedal-to-the-metal offensive promised by U.S.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday an assault with
a "force and scope and scale that has been beyond what has been seen
before."
The shooting was unnerving to those within earshot, nonetheless.
Foreign farm workers ran out in their yards in the dark, shouting.
Pakistani and Indian farm workers shrank at each salvo. "Give me my
passport," one field worker told his foreman.
"The Americans are bombing to the left of us, to the right of us,
the front, the backside, and I'm under it!" the foreman said
later.
Troops continued to stream toward the Iraq border. A huge convoy
of trucks, tankers, humvees and every imaginable sort of military
vehicle of the 101st Airborne Division rolled across the desert late
Thursday night under a round white moon.
Troops in the backs of heavy trucks rode with scarves pulled up
across their faces as huge clouds of dust rose from the flat
surface. Pairs of red tail lights and yellow headlights strung
across the desert, filtered by a fog of dust.
The convoy moved at a steady clip of about 30 mph, in a constant
rumble of humvees and the grinding of huge tankers
The troops were largely silent, getting down occasionally to
stretch their legs when the convoy stopped to wait for any vehicles
straggling in soft sand areas.
Earlier in the day, the troops in waiting had their first brush
with action when Iraq fired missiles into Kuwait. There were cries
of "gas, gas, gas," and U.S. troops were sent scurrying for their
protective suits and gas masks for naught, as authorities said none
of the missiles carried biological or chemical payloads.
Soldiers of A Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment were
eating lunch when an Iraqi missile hit the desert. They wore the
masks for 20 minutes until given the all-clear.
After removing his mask, the company commander, Capt. Chris
Carter of Watkinsville, Ga., said: "Saddam is a fool."
"I think it's an obvious attempt by Saddam Hussein to demoralize
the army and the American public," Carter said. "An attempt that has
been a miserable failure. He's probably got the guys more ready to
fight than ever."
The men of the unit returned to cleaning their weapons and
reading books, waiting for their part of the war to begin with a new
awareness of the hazards ahead.
"I know what I'll be using as a pillow tonight," Staff Sgt. Bryce
Ivings of Sarasota, Fla., said of his protective suit.
After weeks on standby, U.S. troops were eager to get on with
their mission.
"It's a relief we can finally go," said Spc. Robert McDougal, 21,
of Paris, Texas, as the 101st Airborne Division broke camp.
"Standing by is the hardest thing to do. It is time to put our
training to the test."
photo credit
and caption:
Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade of
the 101st Airborne assemble before leaving to move to forward
positions at Camp New Jersey in the Kuwaiti desert Thursday,
March 20, 2003. (AP Photo/Jean-Marc
Bouju)
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