GOTTA SEE THIS-WarEndur.Freedom 03/29/03-Arbil,Chamchamal,Kirkuk,Baghdad

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 03/29/03 - Arbil, Chamchamal, Kirkuk, Baghdad

BREAKING: Saddam Surrounded

BREAKING: Arbil- American paratroopers In Force

BREAKING: Chamchamal - Kurds Take Iraqi Position

BREAKING: Near Kirkuk - Retreating Iraqis

BREAKING: Baath telecommunications centers taken out

BREAKING: Baath government centers taken out

BREAKING: Baghdad-Tikrit Regime elects to continue its terror and WMD

BREAKING: Fedayeen and Republican Guard - Decimation In progress

At the Harir airfield, somewhere near the Kurdish city of Arbil [231 miles north of Baghdad],
paladin American paratroopers of the US Army 173rd Airborne Brigade prepare.

Near Chamchamal, Kurds monitor their crossing the line
into what was Iraqi government-controlled territory.

In Irbil, controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP),
231 miles north of Baghdad, a Kurd hero carries an artillery shell
that exploded in a vacant lot. These shells have TNT and smoke bombs,
and in the past also chemical weapons. The huge white plume of smoke
made everyone nervous that it was a chemical attack, because the Iraqis
do this to use up chemical weapon defense suits.

Near Kirkuk, at the abandoned Iraqi checkpost,
after Iraqis feld from Iraqi Kurd fighters who here stands guard.

At the Tigris River, in Baghdad, Iraq.
Abu Dhabi TV shows smoke billowing behind a bridge.

Iraqi television and communications facility, before and after coalition bombing.

In Baghdad, Iraq, Iraqis at one of their last soccer games
under the Dictator and murderer Saddam, as smoke rises from Saddams oil fires.

In Baghdad, the Red Cross is busy again helping the Axis of Evil,

as unfortunately has been their way from Afghanistan through Israel.

Republican Guards control Baghdad. Will "Saddam" (read the Ministries and Feyadeen)
harden their hearts and minds again -- or disarm?

In Baghdad, at the news conference, Iraq's Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed.
This little Piggy is about to get voted off of the island with prejudice.

In Baghdad, at the news conference, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al Sahaf
arrives for a news conference.

The Baghdad-Tikrit Regime yesterday elected to continue its terror and orders
Iraqi Republican Guard to head for the frontlines south of Baghdad to kill Coalition troops.

Behind enemy lines - NOT REPORTED BY MAINSTREAM MEDIA
With the Fedayeen and Republican Guard supporters in Baghdad after
their troops were destroyed south of Baghdad.
If they do not give up now, they have just begun to feel the terrible swift sword of Justice at their door.

Somewhere between Iraq, England and the Black Sea,
champions on an Air Force B-52 bomber pilot its return from a mission
over Iraq, as heroes on a KC-10 plane refuel our "fathers' airplane".

-----------------------
Please spend a few hours today helping for success in the War for Enduring Freedom,
or/and post your thought, missive, picture, thread, analysis, greetings to those serving overseas,
venting, update, correction, observation, or anything else of interest.

Friday, March 28, 2003
Wounded soldiers describe Iraq ambush
By Marni McEntee, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, March 28, 2003
LANDSTUHL, Germany — Army Staff Sgt. Jamie Villafane discovered the meaning of perfidy on a bridge south of An Nasiriyah, Iraq.
The treachery of Iraqi troops dressed as civilians nearly cost Villafane and his gunner, Sgt. Charles Horgan, their lives.
Villafane, 31, of Long Island, N.Y., doesn’t remember some of what happened, even though the whole fight on Saturday morning took just 10 minutes.
Villafane and Horgan, of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, from Fort Benning, Ga., had been ordered to clear half-dozen “unruly” civilians from the bridge over a branch of the Euphrates River.
The Iraqis, wearing black Bedouin robes, were congregating on one bridge, and a few more were on a bridge not far down the river. The Army troops were supposed to secure the bridge and block it, so no one could continue to a nearby airfield.
“We had no idea they were going to ambush us,” said Villafane, who spoke to journalists Thursday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, where he was taken for treatment. “I didn’t expect it to escalate to what it did.”
Horgan, 21, of Helena, Mont., was manning a .50-calibre machine gun in the Humvee’s turret. Villafane was in the passenger seat.
As the soldiers approached the first bridge, the Iraqi men scattered. Some ran to the team’s left, and some scurried down an embankment under the bridge.
“There was something wrong with them, they appeared jumpy or edgy,” Horgan said. “One had a rifle so I turned the turret. It was just like in the movies.”
Villafane and Horgan both heard the rocket-propelled grenade coming. Someone shouted out “RPG!” But it was too late.
“I heard a whizzing noise, and said to myself, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die,” Horgan said. “No sooner than I said it, it blew me off the truck.”
The RPG apparently had come from the second bridge.
The blast ripped Villafane from the Humvee as well, and somehow he managed to get up and go back for his M-4 rifle. He had just stood back up when he saw a wire-guided rocket whiz in front of his face.
“It came pretty close,” Villafane said. “I could see the wire as it went by.” The rocket hit an armored Humvee that was working backup for the squad. No one inside was seriously hurt.
As Villafane started firing at the Iraqis, Horgan, whose legs were numb, tried to crawl toward cover.
“I looked down and saw I still had my legs,” Horgan said. “I was pretty relieved about that.”
Then Villafane went under the bridge.
There, he found one Iraqi civilian cowering near a pillar. When the Iraqi saw Villafane, he dropped his assault rifle and put his hands up. Then, three more Iraqis came around a corner and they surrendered, too.
“They were terrified,” Villafane said. “I was not necessarily scared. I was just really annoyed that this was happening to us.”
Later, the men took off their black robes to reveal they were regular Iraqi army troops. One was an officer, based on the stars in his uniform. One was an enlisted man.
“I was disgusted,” Villafane said of the ruse.
Meanwhile, gunfire was still popping around the bridges. Villafane managed to bring the four POWs up onto the road, where they were taken into custody by a crew of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
Villafane rushed back to Horgan and found the gunner with a gaping wound in his foot. He picked up the gunner and helped him hop to the Bradley. Once inside, Horgan used a knife to cut open Villafane’s sleeve. Horgan used his field bandage to wrap up the softball-sized hole in Villafane’s arm and his damaged hand.
As Villafane spoke Thursday, wearing his blue hospital gown and slippers, his left arm was heavily bandaged.
He’ll carry the scars from the battle of the bridge for a long time. He’s got pieces of shrapnel lodged in his elbow and had to have a nerve moved from his arm to his hand so he could have feeling around his ring finger.
Horgan said he’s not sure how long it will be before he gets off his crutches. A “sizable” chunk of his foot was blown away by the RPG, he said.
Both are going next to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where they will get extensive physical therapy and, perhaps, more rehabilitative surgery.
The Army soldiers shared the podium with Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Menard of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, from Camp Lejeune, N.C. Menard got shot in the hand while in a different skirmish near Nasiriyah the day after Villafane and Horgan were wounded.
Villafane, who is married with three children, said the fighting confirmed for him that he means to finish his Army hitch and get out. Although he and Horgan both said they wish they were there to help their fellow troops who helped them, they both have no desire to get in the line of fire again.
“We decided that it wasn’t so bad getting shot at,” Villafane said. “It was getting shot that sucked.”

At the Front: 'Unimaginable' firefight lasts 72 hours

Iraqi troops 'shooting rifles at tanks'

From Walter Rodgers
CNN
Friday, March 28, 2003 Posted: 2:07 PM EST (1907 GMT)

Wheatley: "I went behind the sight with the gunner and we engaged everything we could engage."

CENTRAL IRAQ (CNN) -- Tank machine gunner Sgt. 1st Class Paul Wheatley feels for the Iraqi troops.

As Wheatley and his 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry unit rolled up central Iraq's "Machine Gun Alley" this week, they took nearly constant fire. In the dark and in a sandstorm, they took fire.

The Iraqis shot at them for 72 hours with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). And Wheatley's unit -- Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles -- routed them.

"It was sad," Wheatley said Thursday. "They were forced to fight against odds they would never have a chance to overcome -- shooting rifles at tanks. They are driving Toyota pickup trucks at Bradleys and tanks. I couldn't even explain it."

Until Thursday, when it was temporarily relieved, the 3-7th was the "tip of the spear," lead element of the 3rd Infantry Division on the way to Baghdad, putting themselves out to receive the first frenzied shots.

The experience left Wheatley stumbling for words: "It's unreal. It's unimaginable. You're constantly almost paranoid. You are paranoid about every turn, every building or every person. And it's a little nerve-wracking at times."

'Blaze of tracers'

During a night ambush, Iraqi troops shot "some RPGs at the convoy we were in, at the column we were in," Wheatley said. His gunners picked up targets on their thermal sites and the fight broke open.

"Just a blaze of tracers coming from both sides of the road and mainly from the left side of the road. ... I went behind the sight with the gunner and we engaged everything we could engage."

Wheatley was handling a medium-size 7.62 mm machine gun.

Bullets ricocheted off the side of his tank. "It was almost like somebody was throwing rocks. But, against the side of a car when you kick up rocks."

"They were probably 150 meters away," he estimated. That far away, "their AK-47s won't do too much damage to a tank."

The RPGs couldn't have done much against the tank either, he said. "If you don't see it and just feel the percussion from it, not much is going to happen. ... But if you're hanging out of the hatch, it could mess you up pretty bad."

Wheatley said he didn't know how many Iraqis he took out. "I wouldn't even begin to guess. Probably 30-35. During that one stretch of road."

Sandstorm skirmish

The next day the unit took more "Machine Gun Alley" fire. The desert winds had kicked up a sandstorm, but the result was the same as the night before.

"We could see through thermal sites," he said. "You could see what was shooting at you. With our gun tube orientation, everybody kept their sector and we kept rolling and we engaged all the way through."

By Wednesday night, he was northeast of Najaf, guarding the Euphrates River bridgehead. The unit stopped there, waiting for reinforcements to catch up.

As reports showed an Iraqi convoy apparently moving their way, Wheatley stood watch. He could feel the blasts of B-52 bombers attacking the convoy. "The wind was blowing bad," he said, "you could feel it more than hear it."

Due to the B-52s, the Iraqi convoy did not reach his unit. Reinforcements arrived the following day.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This report was written in accordance with Pentagon ground rules allowing so-called embedded reporting, in which journalists join deployed troops. Among the rules accepted by all participating news organizations is an agreement not to disclose sensitive operational details.

-archy-/-

3. However, John stayed behind, out of his fear of Simon, even while his own men were earnest in making a sally upon their enemies without. Yet did not Simon lie still, for he lay near the place of the siege; he brought his engines of war, and disposed of them at due distances upon the wall, both those which they took from Cestius formerly, and those which they got when they seized the garrison that lay in the tower Antonia. But though they had these engines in their possession, they had so little skill in using them, that they were in great measure useless to them; but a few there were who had been taught by deserters how to use them, which they did use, though after an awkward manner. So they cast stones and arrows at those that were making the banks; they also ran out upon them by companies, and fought with them. Now those that were at work covered themselves with hurdles spread over their banks, and their engines were opposed to them when they made their excursions. The engines, that all the legions had ready prepared for them, were admirably contrived; but still more extraordinary ones belonged to the tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that threw stones were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they not only repelled the excursions of the Jews, but drove those away that were upon the walls also. Now the stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent (1), and were carried two furlongs and further. The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space. As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came by its brightness; accordingly the watchmen that sat upon the towers gave them notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came from it, and cried out aloud, in their own country language, THE STONE COMETH so those that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon the ground; by which means, and by their thus guarding themselves, the stone fell down and did them no harm. But the Romans contrived how to prevent that by blacking the stone, who then could aim at them with success, when the stone was not discerned beforehand, as it had been till then; and so they destroyed many of them at one blow. Yet did not the Jews, under all this distress, permit the Romans to raise their banks in quiet; but they shrewdly and boldly exerted themselves, and repelled them both by night and by day.

1. "The missiles shot by the catapults, stone-throwers, and "quick-firers" flew all over the temple, killing priests and worshipers at the very altar itself. For despite war, the sacrifices went on..." (Josephus - The Essential Writings, Paul L. Maier translator, p.329)

The Roman ballista shot stones, up to 160 pounds in weight, at an angle of about 50 degrees over an average range of 300 to 500 yards. (p.299)

"All the Roman engines were well built, but those belonging to the Tenth legion were most powerful. Their stone -projectors hurled boulders weighing a talent (75-85 pounds) a quarter mile, and the Jews set lookouts on the towers to spot the fired stones which, being white, shone and whizzed as they flew. When they saw the stone discharged, these watchmen would call out, 'Sonny's coming!' ("The stone" in Hebrew is ha-eben, which is easily corrupted to ha-ben, "the son.") - at which those in the line of fire dropped down to let the stone pass through harmlessly. When it occurred to the Romans to blacken them, the stones were more effective, destroying many with a single shot." (p.340)

--The Wars of The Jews,
Book V, Chapter VI, Section 3 (Entire)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.