Nation & World News
Eight U.S. soldiers killed in Sadr City ambush
At least 30 Iraqis perished
in the conflict, and 40 more
U.S. troops were wounded
By Colin McMahon
Chicago Tribune (KRT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The soldiers
of the 1st Cavalry Division steeled
themselves as their troop truck
rumbled toward the crowded streets
and narrow alleys of Sadr City. A
reconnaissance patrol, including
guys like them with only a few
weeks in Iraq under their belts, had
been ambushed up ahead.
Gunfire echoed through the
Baghdad slum, a place they used to
call Saddam City but which now
bore the family name of another
Iraqi who had worked his way up
the list of U.S. enemies: Shiite cler
ic Moqtada Sadr.
"I saw that there were no kids out
on the soccer field," a soldier recalled
of the drive into battle. "That's when
1 knew it was going to be bad."
In the worst Baghdad street fight
ing since the Iraqi capital fell nearly
a year ago, eight U.S. soldiers were
killed Sunday night and more than
40 were wounded in clashes with
Sadr's militia. At least 30 Iraqis
died, Iraqi doctors said.
The ambush that began the
bloodshed was fierce, frenzied and
calculated, said Maj. Gen. Martin
Dempsey, commander of the U.S.
Army's 1st Armored Division, who
provided an initial but detailed
account Monday of the previous
night's clashes.
It was about 5 p.m., and 30 or so
soldiers were on a reconnaissance
mission near the center of Sadr
City. Sadr's people had attacked
Spanish and Salvadoran troops out
side Najaf earlier Sunday. Now
there were repons that his men
were going to take over Sadr City's
police stations. The Americans went
to check it out.
The patrol was made up of a mix
of veterans from the 1st Armored
Division, men finally going home
after a year in Iraq and their
replacements from the 1st Cavalry
who had been in the country less
than a month.
They spotted about 30 men bran
dishing weapons. Many wore the all
black dress of Sadr's Al-Mahdi Army,
a militia that, like all private militias
in Iraq, is officially outlawed and
supposed to be disbanded. The men
would be asked to disarm.
But as the U.S. soldiers prepared
to challenge the men, a hellish gun
fire rained down. From facing
rooftops of two- and three-story
buildings, Sadr's militia fighters
unloaded their AK-47s on the U.S.
Humvees and troop carriers. From
the alleys, other militiamen fired
rocket-propelled grenades.
"There is nothing more confus
ing in the entire universe than an
ambush, especially one where the
road networks are so narrow,
because everything echoes,"
Dempsey said.
The Americans were hit hard.
Dempsey said most casualties typi
cally occur in the first part of a battle,
and this one followed form: 1 lalf of
the dead and many of the American
wounded resulted from this ambush.
"They outnumbered us at that
point on the ground, so the patrol
leader made the correct decision to
move to a better defensive posi
tion," Dempsey said.
The soldiers scrambled for cover,
abandoning their vehicles and tak
ing refuge in a building about 300
yards away. They called for backup.
A column of four Bradley armored
vehicles responded. It was
ambushed too.
One more group of vehicles
would enter Sadr City and come
under attack before, with the city in
darkness and firefights raging, a
column of tanks entered and put
the uprising down for the night.
"It was a very calculated action,"
Dempsey said. If the plan of Sadr's
men was sound, it was also relative
ly easy to arrive upon. There are few
paths the Americans could take into
Sadr City from their rear bases, and
the spots at which to attack were
obvious to all.
Beyond that, Dempsey said, the
execution of the plan showed that
while Sadr's Al-Mahdi may call
itself an army, it remains an
unprofessional militia. From the
rooftops, Sadr's men would raise
their automatic rifles over their
heads and shoot over the railings,
emptying their ammunition clips
in one go but barely aiming.
"It's really a mob," Dempsey said.
"A mob with a lot of weapons."
(c) 2004, Chicago Tribune!
Distributed by Knight Ridder/
Tribune Information Services.
Military looks for
ways to increase troops in Iraq
U.S. officials, concerned
about recent violence in Iraq,
look at ways to increase the
size of the occupation force
By Stephen J. Hedges
and Bob Kemper
Chicago Tribune (KRT)
WASHINGTON — Facing a rising
wave of violence in Iraq, the U.S. mili
tary is examining ways to expand the
size of its occupation force there in
case reinforcements are needed.
Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the
U.S. Central Command, has asked his
staff to determine how the force in
Iraq could be bolstered in a "worst
case" scenario, said a senior U.S. mili
tary' official who briefed Pentagon
reporters Dy reiepnone Monday.
"Given the events of this weekend
and the obvious potential for more
demonstrations or more violence," the
official said, "we have asked the staff to
at least take a look and see what forces
are available out there in a quick-re
sponse mode in the event that they
should be needed if there was a wide
spread move in that direction.
"But we don't believe that that's go
ing to occur and we don't believe that
we're going to need any additional
forces from the United States. So we
simply do that as a matter of planning."
The level of unrest has raised doubts
about the Bush administration's June
30 deadline for turning power over to
an interim Iraqi government.
But President Bush, meeting with re
porters during a day trip to North
Carolina, said the date remains firm."
"I believe we can transfer authority
by June 30," the president said, while
acknowledging that violence against
U.S. forces is likely to increase in
coming weeks. "The closer we come to
the deadline, the more likely it is peo
ple will challenge our will," Bush said.
Until now, Abizaid and Pentagon
military leaders have said that the size
of the U.S. force in Iraq is adequate.
If additional troops are needed, it is
not immediately clear where they would
be drawn from, and how large a rapid
response force would be considered.
One Pentagon official suggested that the
rapid-response troops could even be tak
en from units elsewhere in Iraq. Also, a
force of about 1,800 U.S. soldiers is in
Djibouti on a counter-terrorism mission
and could be moved to Iraq.
r
The addition of such rapid-response
troop would not necessarily
change the composition of the
long-term U.S. ground force in Iraq,
Pentagon officials said.
Abizaid's request came after a bloody
shootout in Baghdad on Sunday be
tween U.S. troops and militiamen loyal
to Moqtada Sadr, a radical Shiite Mus
lim cleric who has called on his follow
ers to challenge the American occupa
tion. Eight Americans and at least 30
Iraqis died in the gun battle.
Bush said Monday that Sadr is "one
person who is deciding that rather
than allow democracy to flourish, he's
going to exercise force. And we just
can't let it stand."
Sunday's violence followed
Wednesday's grisly attacks in Fallujah,
in which four employees of an
American security firm were killed in
attacks on their vehicles. Their charred
bodies were then dragged through the
streets and hung from a bridge by a mob.
In January, the military launched a
massive rotation of Army and Marine
ground units that will put fresh troops
in Iraq; currently there are about
130,000 troops in Iraq. By June, Army
planners say, the total force will be near
120,000.
Military officials on Monday said
that a major outbreak of violence in
Iraq could both require more II.S.
troops on the ground and push back
the June 30 date for a transfer of pow
er. Still, they said such a scenario
seemed unlikely.
(c) 2004, Chicago TribuneTDistributed
by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information
Services.
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