This report of a botched raid is so bizarre that I had to read it repeatedly while trying to piece together the information it contains. So, let’s see. We read that, operating on the theory that "foreign fighters" are "flowing into Iraq" from Syria, 1,000 Marines are sent "north of the Euphrates" on what James Janega, reporting for the Chicago Tribune calls "Sunday’s elaborate mission, planned for weeks."
However, "a combination of bad luck and insurgent counterattacks quickly disrupted the plan." The plan was to send the Army’s 814th Multi-Role Bridge Company ahead to build a pontoon bridge across the Euphrates. But! "The trucks were forced to use their headlights to allow them to spot land mines along the route."
There were landmines in the road? OK, so this landmine problem forced the convoy to employ the "routine safety practice" of turning on their headlights. Everything went downhill from there.
But the routine safety practice apparently alerted area residents to the convoy’s presence. An entire town along the route switched off its lights all at once, a move Marines believe is used to send signals from one river town to the next.
As the bridging unit approached the river crossing early Sunday, they switched off the truck headlights even though many soldiers lacked night-vision goggles. In the gloom, one truck rolled off the road and into a ditch, bringing the column to a dead halt in the darkness.
The soldiers soon discovered another problem: The river banks, sodden after recent rains, might have been too wet to support the oncoming American tanks.
"I hope security keeps us safe all day," Capt. Chris Taylor of the 814th said as officers tried to find other ways to get troops and equipment across the river.
But when dawn broke, the column came under mortar fire from Ubaydi, the nearest town. Two mortars dropped within feet of the Marines’ command post and an officer’s Humvee. The insurgents the Marines expected to find north of the river were on the south side as well.
Marines and soldiers scrambled into a ramshackle building on a bluff overlooking the river, then devised a new strategy: They would not cross the river Sunday. They would attack Ubaydi.
Apart from information that the area is so hostile that before the Marines even got to the river, they came under attack from the locals, causing the Marines to call in F/A-18 fighter planes and helicopter gunships, we have another amazing revelation about why they had blundered into this situation in the first place.
While some American units were able to conduct limited raids north of the Euphrates on Sunday, most of the rest were trapped south of the river while Army engineers struggled to build a pontoon bridge across it.
U.S. military officials in Baghdad said forces that crossed the Euphrates had killed six insurgents and captured 54 more, using information gleaned from a captured aide to terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Well, no wonder there were landmines in the road.
Meanwhile, Maj. Steve Lawson of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines led his troops through the north end of Ubaydi in tough fighting that lasted until after sunset.
Marine officers would not release casualty information, saying their policy requires families to be notified first. But during the day, evacuation helicopters swooped repeatedly to the emergency landing zone set up near the intended river crossing.
"We thought the enemy was north of the river," Lawson said. "Obviously, they were here too."
Yeah, obviously they were. Almost like they knew the Marines were coming.
