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Turkish security forces "neutralized" three PKK terrorists in northern Iraq, the National Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

The terrorists were targeted in airstrikes in the Operation Claw-Lock zone, the ministry said on Twitter.

Turkish authorities use the term "neutralize" to imply the terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.

PKK terrorists have hideouts in northern Iraq, across the Turkish border, which they use to plot attacks on Trkiye.

Trkiye launched Operation Claw-Lock last year in April to target the terrorist group PKK's hideouts in the Metina, Zap and Avasin-Basyan regions of northern Iraq, located near the Turkish border.

It was preceded by two operations Claw-Tiger and Claw-Eagle launched in 2020 to root out terrorists hiding out in northern Iraq and plotting cross-border attacks in Trkiye.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Trkiye, the PKK listed as a terrorist organization by Trkiye, the US and EU has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children and infants

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Turkish forces 'neutralize' three PKK terrorists in northern Iraq - Yeni afak English

To the Editor:

Re I Dont Regret Supporting the Iraq War, by Bret Stephens (column, March 22):

Mr. Stephens doesnt address one of the most significant consequences of the war, the strengthening of radical Islamic terrorist groups.

I supported the first war with Iraq when we drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait after their 1990 invasion, and if the war had included getting Saddam Hussein at the time, it could have made sense. I supported invading Afghanistan in an effort to get Osama bin Laden. We had clear moral reasons for both of those wars.

But the invasion of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction made no sense. It was a different situation, and I opposed it from the start. How could we say we had a good moral reason when we werent providing any evidence?

It was obvious to me that we had no clear definition of what Saddam Hussein and his government would be replaced with, that we would have great difficulty ever leaving and that when we did leave the country, whatever we put into place would probably collapse because it would not be supported by the people of Iraq. This all happened.

I also thought it was clear that the rest of the Muslim world would see this as an attack against all Muslims, helping radicals recruit more Muslims to their ranks, but was surprised by the degree to which this happened.

I submit that the damage done to our country and the rest of the world far outweighs any good that came out of that war.

Mark FlockNorwalk, Wis.

To the Editor:

Bret Stephens justifies Americas invasion of Iraq by saying Iraq, the Middle East and the world are better off for having gotten rid of a dangerous tyrant.

OK, sure, the world is better off without him. But what kind of justification is that? Should we now invade the many other countries that are led by dangerous tyrants because the world would be better off without them? Or should we perhaps hold off on invasions unless theres a clear and present threat to the U.S.?

Jeff BurgerRidgewood, N.J.

To the Editor:

I find Bret Stephenss lack of regret regarding Iraq unsettling.

I am 70 years old, and the most important lesson of my generation was from Vietnam: You cannot nation-build by military force. What you end up with is a dysfunctional quagmire, and that is indeed what we have today in Iraq.

The cost was huge about 4,500 young Americans died, about 32,000 wounded in action. The price tag was close to $2 trillion. The human cost to Iraq was much worse, close to half a million deaths by some estimates.

To suggest that the cost in lives and dollars was worth it to rid the world of a tyrant is shocking to me.

George Santayana famously said, Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. I sincerely hope we dont make this mistake a third time.

Bill PetersonSandy, Utah

To the Editor:

On the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Bret Stephens still stands by it, yet his argument is weak.

The best case against the invasion was not that it would strengthen Iran (though it did), but that no nation has a right to invade another without legal and moral justification, and it turned out that the U.S. had none. The rationale then was that Iraq was violating U.N. resolutions by secretly maintaining weapons of mass destruction, which we now know was not true. Without that, the invasion was illegal and morally unjustified.

Mr. Stephens argues that he still supports the invasion because Iraq, the Middle East and the world are better off for having gotten rid of a dangerous tyrant. But that boils down to might makes right: The U.S. can invade and topple Saddam Hussein because it has the military power to do so.

Tim CollierGardiner, Maine

To the Editor:

Re In France, the Damage Cant Be Undone, by Cole Stangler (Opinion guest essay, March 25):

Frances president, Emmanuel Macron, has undoubtedly been maladroit in his handling of the retirement age issue, as Mr. Stangler points out. But the merits of Mr. Macrons proposal are compelling.

Frances pension program will run out of money as the population ages and the ratio of workers to retirees diminishes. Further, Frances current retirement age of 62 is the lowest among its peers in Europe (which mostly run from 65 to 67).

By toughing out the demonstrators, Mr. Macron is risking ruining his presidency to do the right thing for his country.

Contrast this with the actions of another leader, Bibi Netanyahu, also facing massive demonstrations against his policy of weakening the Israeli judiciary, a key institution providing checks on the power of the executive and legislative branches of government.

Though he is now delaying any action, Mr. Netanyahu has seemed perfectly content to throw his country under the bus in order to avoid being prosecuted for corruption.

Daniel R. MartinHartsdale, N.Y.

To the Editor:

Re Macron Draws Anger Not Just for Law, but for His Monarch-Like Disposition (news article, March 25):

I am mystified that people arent talking about the obvious alternative to raising the retirement age in France to keep the system financially afloat: increase social security taxes on the wealthiest French.

President Biden proposed just such a solution this month to keep Medicare solvent for at least 25 years. It would appeal to the French working class, which feels so abused by President Emmanuel Macron and his government, as they seem more concerned with protecting the benefits of the French upper class.

Stephen BinghamSan Rafael, Calif.

To the Editor:

Re The N.C.A.A. Ensures the Biggest Losers Are the Players, by Bomani Jones (Opinion guest essay, March 24):

I have long thought that college athletes should be compensated. I imagine a bank account for each athlete that the school would create. The amount of money to be deposited annually and the conditions that apply would be determined by a committee of faculty and administrators and paid to each student upon graduation or at such time as the committee would establish. A sort of nest egg.

As part of this obligation to the student, there would be a lifelong commitment to provide medical care to any student sustaining long-term injuries within the program.

This would be a fair and humane approach to managing student-athletes. The program would be funded through money received from various media or maybe a reduction in coaches salaries, for starters.

Patricia K. SampsonJensen Beach, Fla.

To the Editor:

Bomani Jones does not mention the quality education made available to athletes who may not have the opportunity for such an education but for their athletic skills.

The large majority of student-athletes, even in Division I sports, will never become professional athletes. On the other hand, these student athletes have access to an education and eventual job placement that may have never been possible otherwise. Many get athletic scholarships.

Lets not lose sight of the bigger picture. The large majority of student-athletes have benefited from the N.C.A.A.s making their education possible.

Bruce FoxRandolph, N.J.

The rest is here:
Opinion | Looking Back, Was the Iraq War Justified? - The New York Times

The United States Invaded Iraq 20 years ago under false pretenses. Historians and social scientists have spent two decades investigating what went wrong. George W. Bush and other senior officials in his administration claimed former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. They also claimed that the Iraqi government had ties to nefarious groups such as al-Qaeda. Together, these two things posed an unacceptable threat to American security. Yet, once the American-led coalition toppled the Iraqi regime in 2003, it quickly became evident that there were no weapons of mass destruction or active ties to Osama bin Laden.

The narrative around the war is also controversial. Did the Bush administration actually believe that Saddam Hussein was a threat that had to be eliminated with military force, or did prominent U.S. officials simply cite the intelligence as a public justification for a war because they were eager to use the anger from 9/11 to remake the Middle East?

Either way, historians are now tasked with finding out what happened. Their sometimesprovocative findings have often been buried in dense academic tomes or, in some cases, exiled from polite conversation due to the political toxicity of anything that might be seen as lending support for a disastrous and ill-conceived war. This has left popular discourse to partisans on all sides looking to score political points rather than investigate the past. As a result, much of the debate in the national security community remains rooted in long-dispelled narratives or even factual inaccuracies. Despite the conventional wisdom touted in recent retrospectives, Saddam Hussein did not pursue a strategy of ambiguity around his weapons of mass destruction programs to deter Iran. Neither did his Arab nationalist ideology prevent him from working with people like Osama bin Laden. Indeed, much of the current conventional wisdom suffers from the same sort of groupthink as the intelligence failures it criticizes; it coalesces around easily digestible but flawed analysis. The 20-year anniversary of the war provides the perfect occasion to take stock of what we now know about these most infamous of intelligence failures.

Since the demise of Saddam Husseins rule, historians have been blessed with millions of pages of internal Iraqi records containing the former regimes innermost secrets. In the wake of the American-led invasion, Iraqi dissidents and the U.S. military seized the records of the regime in Baghdad, including the archive of the ruling Baath Partys secretariat. The way those records were removed from Iraq led to protests and accusations of colonial-style appropriation of historical artifacts from the Middle East. However, the archives have produced a steady stream of books and articles outlining how Saddam Hussein ruled and conducted his foreign policy. These files, along with other investigative projects and interviews with former Iraqi officials, provide stunning insights into American intelligence failures in 2003.

Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction

The basic history of Saddam Husseins weapons of mass destruction has now been well-documented. He had them in the 1980s. He used them against the Iranians and even his own people. Following the Gulf War, he promised to hand them over, but attempted to hide some from United Nations weapons inspectors. Once the Iraqi government was caught lying, Saddam Hussein decided to destroy the remaining illicit weapons in secret and without any documentation. Then, the Iraqi government doubled down on the claim that it had no weapons of mass destruction and challenged the inspectors to prove it wrong. Over the course of the 1990s, cajoling by the international community and defections by senior Iraqi officials including Saddam Husseins son-in-law in 1995 led the Iraqi regime to come clean about some of its past programs and to give up whatever remained of them. By the end of the decade, Iraq had completely dismantled his illicit weapons programs.

Yet, the question remains: How did intelligence agencies in the United States, with all their resources, fail to understand what had happened? Access to internal Iraqi records immediately showed the origins of some tactical misperceptions in Washington. For example, the United States government had intercepted snippets of Iraqi communications in which senior Iraqis ordered a site to be cleansed prior to the arrival of U.N. inspectors. In a high-profile presentation to the United Nations in February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell cited these intercepts as evidence that the Iraqis were covering up existing weapons programs. In the full context provided by Iraqi records, it became clear that the government was worried about a false positive from the residue of a long-dead program.

These discoveries, however, could not explain the full scope of the American intelligence failure. Finding itself in a political quagmire, the Bush administration prioritized uncovering how their assessments had gone so wrong. When an FBI agent named George Piro interrogated Saddam Hussein after his capture, one of his primary missions was to answer that question. After weeks of prying, Saddam Hussein let slip that he feared an Iranian invasion. Piro had his answer: Saddam Hussein had dismantled his illicit weapons programs but wanted to leave a residue of doubt about them to deter the Islamic Republic of Iran. Therefore, he could not come clean about completely dismantling his weapons program.

The claim that Saddam Hussein was intentionally ambiguous about his weapons programs received a boost when a U.S. government-commissioned study on Iraqi strategic thinking interviewed former Iraqi officials. For many months after the 2003 war, the report recounted, a number of senior Iraqi officials continued to believe it possible (though they adamantly insisted they possessed no direct knowledge) that Iraq still possessed a weapons of mass destruction capability hidden away somewhere. One Iraqi general claimed Saddam Hussein was pursuing a strategy of deterrence by doubt. If Saddam Hussein was not forthright with senior leaders in his own regime, he was obviously lying to the international community as well.

This narrative is still widely accepted, but it is too neat. It too easily lets the intelligence community off the hook. It suggests the United States had relied on sound strategies and competent analysis, but it was tricked by the regime in Baghdad. It also ignores the fact that while Saddam Hussein was certainly duplicitous, and his claims about weapons of mass destruction contradictory, his regime had been telling the world it did not possess weapons of mass destruction for a decade.

There is no solid evidence prior to 2003 of Iraqis claiming that they really did have weapons of mass destruction. Further, scholars have uncovered no evidence of a deterrence by doubt strategy in the millions of pages of internal Iraqi records, and the Iraqi general who coined that phrase later walked it back. He claimed to have been influenced by reports in Western media and clarified that Saddam Hussein never signaled the existence of WMD; neither in a statement of any kind nor by hints. Despite whatever some other Iraqi generals told the United States government in an effort to clear themselves of responsibility for their crimes under the previous regime, Iraqi archives made clear that Saddam Hussein consistently and repeatedly conveyed the truth to his underlings about Iraqs lack of illicit weapons programs. As he told the regime leadership in one closed-door meeting during the late 1990s, you might think we still have hidden chemical weapons, missiles and so forth. We have nothing; not even one screw.

New Scholarship on Iraqi Weapons

Scholars working with Iraqi archives have posited other theories resting on firmer ground. An important academic article by Gregory Koblentz pointed to the role of secret Iraqi intelligence agencies in Saddam Husseins failure to cooperate with U.N. inspectors, and thus the misperceptions about his weapons programs. The most important agency was aptly named the Special Security Organization. Its primary role was to spy on other spies and on members of the Baath Party to coup-proof the regime. Saddam Husseins regime held members of the Special Security Organization to the highest standards and trusted them with its innermost secrets. When Iraq tried to hide some weapons of mass destruction from the international community in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein placed the deception program within his most trusted agency, the Special Security Organization. Once Iraq dismantled its remaining weapons programs later in the decade, U.N. inspectors demanded Iraq not only open its weapons facilities but also to come clean about previous deceptions. Only then would the inspectors and the U.S. government feel comfortable that they were not being lied to again. Yet, that demand necessitated Iraq open it Special Security Organization to international inspectors.

By the mid-1990s, the United States clearly wished to do away with Saddam Hussein one way or another. It had even attempted a coup. It was also clear that U.S. intelligence agencies worked with and had penetrated the U.N. weapons inspection program. So, to come clean on his governments deception program, Saddam Hussein would have had to open his primary counter-coup organization to the international community. This risked exposing this organization to U.S. intelligence agencies, which were working to overthrow the Iraqi regime. As the CIA concluded in a 2006 retrospective, when Saddam Hussein refused, intelligence analysts in Washington assumed he had something to hide. Instead, he was simply hoping to avoid a coup.

More recently, Mlfrid Braut-Hegghammer, a leading expert on weapons proliferation at the University of Oslo, produced perhaps the most in-depth and sophisticated study of Saddam Husseins incentives. As she states, The Iraqi leadership did not, as is widely believed, try to create a deterrent effect through calculated ambiguity as to whether Iraq no longer possessed WMD. Rather than elaborate schemes or hidden agendas, sometimes the problems in Iraq stemmed from the type of good old-fashioned incompetence one often finds in authoritarian regimes. Senior leaders like Saddam Hussein had difficulty communicating their policies to lower-ranking officials, leading to contradictory statements and actions throughout the regime. Just as importantly, Saddam Husseins initial attempt to deceive weapons inspectors left him in what Braut-Hegghammer, calls a cheaters dilemma.

Once Baghdad was caught concealing weapons and documentation, U.N. inspectors and U.S. intelligence analysts developed a healthy distrust of everything the Iraqis said. When Baghdad later owned up to some aspects of its illicit programs, Americans took Iraqs revelations of its previous misdeeds as proof of the regimes duplicitous nature. Thus, instead of encouraging the Iraqis to cooperate with weapons inspectors, American and U.N. officials turned the screws even tighter on Baghdad, hoping to squeeze out even more hidden details. The incentive structure was all wrong. Every time Saddam Hussein cooperated, he was punished, and therefore, he eventually stopped doing so. As he told his advisors, We can have sanctions with inspectors or sanctions without inspectors; which do you want?

Iraqs Support of Terrorism

The basic facts about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are well-known. Iraq did not have them. Thus, most of the post-mortem analysis has been interpretive. On the other major intelligence failure, the basic facts are still not widely understood. Senior Bush administration officials and right-wing intellectuals made false and reckless claims about Iraqi connections to terrorists. Despite their allusions and assertions, Saddam Hussein had no active links to al-Qaeda in 2001 and no ties to the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

Refuting such claims is important, but the backlash, as is often the case, overreached. For example, Paul Pillar was a CIA analyst who served as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East from 2000 to 2005. That made him the nations top authority for interpreting Saddam Husseins regime during the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. When no evidence was found linking Iraq to 9/11, he argued that because Saddam Hussein was the head of a secular dictatorship, the lack of connection should not have been surprising. This is a widely held view.

Yet, while Saddam Hussein had no ties to 9/11, records in Iraqi archives have confirmed that he had a long history of supporting terrorists, including the type of radical Islamists in al-Qaeda. In 1994, bin Laden was living in Sudan. The director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, along with Saddam Husseins son Uday, made contact with him through a Sudanese intermediary. The Iraqis met bin Laden with Saddam Husseins approval in 1995. Bin Laden requested that the Iraqis begin radio broadcasts of a dissident Salafi preacher, Salman al-Ouda, into Saudi Arabia, and to perform joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz. The latter was a euphemism for attacking U.S. military forces. Saddam Hussein personally approved a plan for the broadcasts, and the Iraqi Intelligence Service was looking for ways to develop the relationship and cooperation between the two sides further when Bin Laden was deported from Sudan and took refuge in Afghanistan in 1996. The Iraqi government then claimed that the relationship with him is ongoing through the Sudanese side. Currently, we are working to invigorate this relationship through a new channel in light of his present location. However, it appears Baghdad lost contact with him.

The Baathist regime aided other Islamist terrorists around the Middle East as well. Saddam Hussein was quite open about support for Palestinian suicide bombers. Iraqi records also make clear that in the early 1990s, Baghdad supported Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which later became an affiliate of al-Qaeda., Further, as late as July 2001, the Iraqi Intelligence Service was working with a group called the Army of Muhammad in Bahrain, which the Iraqis thought was an off shoot of al-Qaeda. According to Iraqi records, the groups objectives were similar to bin Ladens but it used different names as a way of camouflaging the organization. Clearly, then, there was no ideological impediment to cooperation between the Iraqis and the type of people who carried out the 9/11 attack.

When some of this information became public, and especially after some former Baathists turned up in the Islamic State, a few analysts argued that not only had Saddam Hussein supported radical Islamists, but that in the final years of his rule, he had become one himself. He was a born again Muslim or a proponent of some sort of Baathi-Salfism. These claims often came from proponents of the Iraq War and were meant to refute people like Paul Pillar. In reality, they simply repeated the same fallacy: that a dictator like Saddam Hussein needed to be ideologically aligned with foreign groups to support them. In fact, internal Iraqi documents show unequivocally that Saddam Hussein made no such ideological conversion. He still hated Islamists and did everything he could to suppress them in Iraq. Yet that did not stop him from supporting them abroad when his interests aligned with theirs.

Conclusion

Questions about Iraqs weapons and ties to terrorism have already become foundational issues in 21st century international history. Unfortunately, public debates about these questions have not kept pace with the rather significant advances made by scholars. Saddam Hussein did not try to trick outsiders into thinking that he had weapons of mass destruction as a form of deterrence. The U.S. government had a flawed strategy rooted in poor incentives and dubious analysis. Saddam Hussein had no ties to the 9/11 attacks, and he was not an Islamist. Yet, these facts did not prevent him from working with bin Laden and groups like al-Qaeda.

Failing to grapple with the tragedy of the Iraq War in all its complexity risks creating simplistic narratives that will leave American analysts and policymakers ripe for repeating the same mistakes in the future. Blaming Saddam Husseins trickery for faulty assessments about his weapons programs takes the onus off American intelligence agencies. They will not learn the right lessons if they fail to address how their strategies to uncover Iraqi weapons programs created the flawed incentive structures that ultimately led Iraq to cease cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors. Likewise, simplistic narratives that refuse to address Saddam Husseins very real support for people like Osama bin Laden will leave analysts and policymakers ill-equipped to handle the nuance that such a threat demands.

Samuel Helfont is the author of Iraq against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order (Oxford 2023) and is Assistant Professor of Strategy and Policy in the Naval War College Program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California.

This article contains the personal views of the author. It does not represent the views of the Naval War College or any other part of the U.S. government.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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The Iraq War's Intelligence Failures Are Still Misunderstood - War On The Rocks

Carl Nolte (front center) with troops from Company C, Seventh Infantry Regiment, Third Infantry Division, in Kuwait on March 21, 2003. He spent time embedded with the troops on assignment to cover the invasion.

This past week wasthe 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the beginning of a war that went on for years.

Television marked the anniversary with film of the opening air attack on Baghdad rockets, bombs, a shock and awe demonstration of American power. Other media had pieces about the rationale for the war: regime change, the threat of weapons of mass destruction. There were reports about the price of the war: 4,500 American dead, about 270,000 Iraqi deaths, mostly civilians. And shorter pieces about life in present-day Iraq.Now few would quarrel with the view of Alejandro Rodriguez, an Army medic who served in Iraq. I think it was a big mistake, he told National Public Radio on a program marking the anniversary.There are lessons from the wars in Iraq and later in Afghanistan, bitter lessons. But there is another lesson: how hard it is to be in the military in wartime, how confusing the face of war really is.I was able to see some of it as a reporter for The Chronicle in the Persian Gulf War and later in Iraq. I am thinking now of a night in late March 2003.I had been assigned, with other reporters, to cover the war and was embedded, as the term was known, with the Army. Embedded reporters went with the troops, ate what they ate, slept where they slept, went where they went. I was with the first platoon, Company C, Seventh Infantry Regiment, Third Infantry Division. It was mechanized infantry, designed to move fast, with lots of armored vehicles.I had been with them for two weeks, maybe three, first in Kuwait, waiting for the war to start, then in Iraq. The soldiers were young men, the youngest 18, the oldest Staff Sgt. Benito Rodriguez, who turned 40 on March 21, the day we crossed into Iraq. I was the outsider, of course, with gray in my beard. I told them not to worry about an old guy like me. Id bring them luck, like a mascot. So they let me tag along.I listened to their talk. They never talked about politics or why they were in Iraq. They talked about the Army, about home, about what might happen. They were apprehensive, but if they were afraid, I could not see it.We were in desert country, bare and sere, heading north. We had bypassed the cities and had seen nothing. One day we stopped at a place we called Firebase Raider and waited. Toward dusk, a sandstorm came up. It was very fine sand, red colored, making it hard to see.Rodriguez came back from wherever hed been. Listen up, he said, We have a mission. He said our outfit a string of Bradley armored vehicles and other equipment would head back south, the way we had come, toward the city of Najaf. The enemy had some forces there, and they were attacking our supply line. We have to take care of them, he said.We got into Red Four, the code name for our Bradley. There were eight of us: seven soldiers and me. Three men, Brendan Dillon, the driver; Mark Brown, the gunner; and Rodriguez were up front. Four soldiers, infantrymen called dismounts, an old cavalry term, were in back, sealed inside an armored box. I sat next to the hand grenades.The Bradley is a formidable weapon, a tracked vehicle, almost as big as a tank. It weighs 25 tons, carries a 25mm cannon, a machine gun and an anti-tank missile launcher.Just after Dawson cranked up the engine, one of the men, Ben Lee I think it was, said we ought to have a prayer. Lee was a serious man who had a quote from the 91st Psalm on a card taped to his helmet: I will say of the Lord he is my refuge and my fortress. My God in him I trust.Now he said: Lord, take care of us, and he mentioned each of us by name.Then the Bradley roared off, clanking and roaring, down some unknown road. The trip took all night. No one in the back could see anything. No one said anything. We tried to sleep, but we were crowded back there, with weapons, armored vests, helmets. Legs cramped up, beyond uncomfortable.After a very long while, the Bradley slowed, stopped, started again. It was first light. There they are! someone up front shouted over the earphones. I couldnt tell who it was. Maybe Rodriguez, who was in charge, maybe Dillon, the driver. Brown fired: Wham! The Bradley bucked. There was more firing. We could also hear other soldiers on our radio circuit.The Bradley jumped and swerved as Dillon chased something, somebody. In the back, we didnt know what it was; it was like being inside a horse during a cavalry charge.We were firing on people in black, we heard. The enemy, whoever that was. The firing stopped, and we stopped too. The rear ramp went down. Everybody out! was the word. The soldiers piled out, took up a firing position. A gray morning. Nothing. Nothing to see.After a while, everyone got back aboard. From the radio chatter it was clear that we had killed a number of the enemy, whoever that was; we had never seen their faces or knew who they were. Brown, the gunner, was willing to talk about it. We caught them by surprise. It was them or us. You know what I mean? Ben Lees prayer had come true. None of us were hurt.In the weeks ahead, the Third Division moved up to Karbala, then across the Euphrates River and occupied the Baghdad airport. The enemy army melted away.We thought then that we had won the war. The unit I was with stayed behind for some time, facing another phase of the war. It was not over after all. It was like we were in a spiderweb, caught in the middle of the web, Rodriguez said of that time, and we didnt know who the spiders were.

Carl Noltes column appears in The San Francisco Chronicles Sunday edition. Email: cnolte@sfchronicle.com

Continued here:
20 years ago, we invaded Iraq. Now we look back at it as a big mistake - San Francisco Chronicle

They were a surreal sight black motorcycles with mounted rocket tubes parked on the edges of a column of idling Iraqi armored vehicles.

They were about the length of a football field from American troops positioned near date palm trees and vegetation so lush the area looked more like the jungles of Vietnam than the vast Iraqi desert the Americans had traversed over the previous 13 days.

The onset of explosions and gunfire ratcheted up the tension.

Air Force Capt. Shad Magann, commander of two teams providing close air support for a 3rd Infantry Division battalion, decided his truck, a Humvee with plastic doors and see-through jelly windows, would join an armored column as it crossed a bridge over the Euphrates River. The structure was wired with explosives and thick with enemy troops just how many no one knew. His Hummer cut in front of a Bradley armored personnel carrier and was 12 feet behind an M1 Abrams tank.

Making a mad dash across the Al Kaed Bridge 18 miles southwest of Baghdad looked so much like a suicide run that Maganns radio operator, Senior Airman Dan Housley, questioned the order. And then he said a prayer.

Unfazed, Magann explained that he wanted to be among the first to reach the T intersection at the end of the bridge. A counterattack was coming, and they had to repel it.

Did you make peace with your Lord, Captain? asked Housley, who grew up in the Huntsville area.

A long time ago, Magann shot back. He was usually laid back, but the question irritated him.

METRO - KUWAIT A soldier watches as 3-8 Cav troops leave a kabal for a patrol near the Iraq/Kuwait border Friday, November 23, 2001 in Kuwait. Kabals (small fortified encampments) set up throughout the desert region are receiving additional troops and artillery. HEARST NEWSPAPERS/BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS STAFF

An Iraqi soldier covers his face from the bugs as he awaits being taken to a POW camp in the town of Navit Al Ajil South of Baghdad Thursday, April 3, 2003 in Iraq. The soldier had fought U.S. soldiers as they crossed the Euphrates River, then hid in his foxhole overnight before surrendering. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI, STAFF / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS

It took the 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force just three weeks to conquer Iraq. The United States along with the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland launched the Iraq War 20 years ago, on March 19, 2003.

The battle that Magann was muscling into was the turning point in the conflict, and one of its most perilous moments for both sides.

Close air support played a critical role in the 21-day offensive called Cobra II, with Joint Terminal Attack Controllers assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division calling in 925 sorties in defense of troops on the ground. The 70-plus Air Force and Marine JTACs, or Tactical Air Control Parties, helped destroy 656 enemy armored vehicles and other war machines, along with 89 Iraqi facilities.

They also played an outsize role in the divisions crossing of the 900-foot-long bridge April 2, 2003. It marked the first of two battles for Magann and Housley, who were among a handful of JTACs calling in airstrikes at the bridge to protect badly outnumbered American soldiers.

Its a very large force multiplier with a very small group, so with a few people you bring air power to bear, said retired Air Force Col. Bryon Risner, 63, of Richmond Hill, Ga.

Twenty years ago, San Antonio Express-News reporter Sig Christenson and photojournalist Bahram Mark Sobhani were embedded with two close air support teams attached to the 3rd Infantry Divisions 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment during the invasion of Iraq. They covered coalition forces three-week push to Baghdad, where they then chronicled the start of the occupation.

He commanded the Air Forces 15th Air Support Operations Squadron, which provided the JTACs to the division.

Objective Peach, as the bridge was called in the battle plan, was the coalitions key to taking Baghdad.

When the sun rose after an all-night battle that saw thousands of Republican Guard troops descend on the bridge and then retreat, the rout was complete and nothing stood between the 3rd ID and Iraqs capital. Two American soldiers were killed and as many as 60 were wounded. Thousands of Iraqis were killed, wounded or driven back to Baghdad.

The capital would fall six days later, on April 9.

Victory on the battlefield had been as fast and efficient as the subsequent occupation was drawn-out and chaotic.

In the years to come, GIs sent to Iraq for a gritty year of occupation duty would say embrace the suck in describing their predicament. They sometimes talked in wonder of the invasion they had missed as if it were an Arthurian legend.

As troops settled in for what would become an eight-year occupation, President George W. Bushs rationale for war that Iraq had a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction vaporized like a desert mirage. None were ever located.

Meanwhile, signs of trouble ahead were as palpable as the odor of diesel exhaust and raw sewage that troops encountered across Baghdad.

During the invasion, the 3rd ID lost 46 soldiers and awarded 263 Purple Hearts. The death toll increased exponentially in the years ahead.

Iraq cost the lives of 4,910 coalition troops, 4,586 of them Americans, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. In all, 8,509 coalition troops died in Iraq and Afghanistan, 7,051 of them Americans. As many as 315,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the violence unleashed by the U.S.-led invasion, according to Brown Universitys Costs of War project.

The war and occupation of Iraq cost the U.S. an estimated $2 trillion.

On a recent Friday afternoon, nearly 20 years after the battle at the bridge, Magann and Housley met at Fort Stewart, Ga., for a reunion marking the start of the Iraq War. They recounted their moments of terror, adrenaline, uncertainty and triumph over the Euphrates.

Though subordinate to Magann, Housley was as given to asking questions as he was to playing songs by country singer George Strait on the way to Baghdad. Magann was a one-time enlisted jet engine mechanic from Jacksonville, Fla., who later graduated from the Air Force Academy and flew A-10s over Afghanistan. He usually didnt mind explaining things.

We had a couple of instances where he asked me why, and I said, Dude, theres going to be times when I say crash into that ditch and I need you to just do it without asking why, Magann recalled. And we were having that big conversation just before the road over Peach, and then just before we go, artillery starts coming in and Im like, Dude, put your helmet on.

Why? he recalled Housley asking.

Put your helmet on, Magann replied.

But why?

And Im like, Oh, my God, this is not good.

Housley said that wasnt how he remembered it. Nevertheless, they laughed about the exchange at the squadron reunion.

Magann, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, is now a Delta Air Lines pilot living with his wife, Kandice, in Tampa, Fla., while Housley flies for American Airlines and remains in Texas. Hes a major in the Texas Air National Guard flying C-130J Hercules cargo planes and lives with his wife, Carin, and two children in Houston.

Magann is 50 and Housley 42. They were 30 and 22, respectively, the morning of March 20, 2003, when the 3rd Infantry Divisions 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment rumbled across a tall, thick sand berm separating Kuwait from Iraq.

Iraqi troops hadnt fought well, but at Objective Peach, the stakes were too high to write them off.

A large Republican Guard force converged on the bridge for two battles, one the afternoon of April 2, and the other in the early morning hours of April 3. The Iraqis held a lopsided numerical advantage against Lt. Col. Ernest Rock Marcones Task Force 3-69.

Not that it mattered.

They had a great plan, I think, but so did Marcone. He had a wonderful setup, said retired Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Russell Carpenter, a JTAC assigned to Army Col. William Grimsley, a brigade commander who won the Silver Star during the war. The Iraqis just kept coming at the one or two companies that were at this specific position, and so youve got to think of the weight of 10,000-strong (enemy troops).

SSg. Travis Crosby (GA) sits atop his tracked vehicle after a night of fighting at Saddam International Airport Friday, April 4, 2003 in Iraq. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

U.S. forces take three enemy POWs after a battle near Ah Najaf as 3rd Infantry troops moved north through the central farmlands of Iraq Sunday, March 23, 2003. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

Alpha Company 11 Engineer Christopher Raeder, with 1st Brigade, sweeps aside spent shell casings from the side of Hwy. 8 Saturday, April 12, 2003 in western Baghdad. Members of 3rd Infantry Division spent the day clearing a stretch of the highway in preparation for it to be reopened to civilian traffic. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI, STAFF / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS

Marcone saw the four-lane bridge as the linchpin of the battle plan.

Once it was taken, his battalion and other elements of the 1st Brigade and assorted Army units sped to Saddam International Airport. They also took the intersection of Highways 1 and 8. The Army and Marines then linked up in Baghdad and crushed the remnants of Saddam Husseins regime.

The bridge was so important that an Iraqi general said Saddam had to repulse the 3rd ID there or lose the war. But the regime wasnt listening.

Iraqi Gen. Raad Majid Rashid al-Hamdani and other commanders met with Saddams son, Qusay Hussein, and were told that the armys high commander believed the American infantry divisions thrust from the southwest was a strategic deception.

Baghdad, the high commander insisted, would be attacked from the north.

I asked them to stand in front of the map, Hamdani said in an interview with the PBS documentary series Frontline. I briefed them, saying that American action stopped at the area of Karbala, which was the neck of the bottle. They intend to advance to Baghdad, moving towards Usfiyah, the airport, and then the presidential palaces.

That was exactly the American plan.

Hamdani sent Republican Guard troops to intercept them. They would attack the Americans holding the intersection east of the bridge and strike at their flank on the west side of the span.

Marcone had no notion of their strength. There was a dearth of information.

He thought a facility near the bridge, protected by a 12-foot-tall concrete wall, was a rocket motor plant, but it was more than that.

It was the Al Qa Qaa weapons storage facility, a massive bunker complex controlled by the International Atomic Energy Agency prior to the invasion.

The Armys plan was to cross the bridge, capable of handling vehicles weighing 70 tons or less, with heavy armored vehicles while engaging a larger enemy force. The M1 tank weighed just under the 70-ton limit.

A Republican Guard reconnaissance battalion defended the bridge that afternoon but would be reinforced later by many more troops. They went up against 1,100 Americans and a handful of JTACs with Task Force 3-69.

Marcone later learned that the Iraqis brought three brigades to the fight essentially a division against his battalion. That represented a 9-to-1 superiority in soldiers. He not only didnt know that at the time but had no idea how many enemy tanks he was up against.

There is zero information getting to me, Marcone said. But he added: We were ready.

Marcone launched the bridge battle at 3 p.m. His battalion had boats in the river with soldiers defusing explosives intended to collapse the span. One charge blew up a 10-foot-by-10-foot section of a single lane of the bridge, but vehicles were able to drive around it. No one knew the severity of the damage.

Housley put the Hummer in gear once the column began to move, his M4 rifle resting atop the open drivers side window. A moment later, a courtyard full of overturned vehicles and foxholes came into view. The column moved slowly as mortar rounds exploded in the distance.

Magann, in the passenger seat, eyed smoke rising from the treeline as the Humvee closed on the bridge. Housley occasionally fired three-round bursts at revetments that provided cover for Republican Guard troops, steering the Humvee with one knee.

I was watching him kind of be the man, Magann said. Hot brass was falling in the Humvee as he was shooting.

U.S. warplanes dropped precision-guided bombs near the far corners of the bridge, far enough to spare it from damage. AH-64 Apache helicopters and fighter aircraft attacked Iraqis forces on the far bank of the river as engineers checked the southern edge of the bridge for demolition charges.

The Iraqis set off some of the charges at 4:15 p.m., just after the first coalition soldiers reached the east bank in rubber boats. But damage to the bridge was limited. By then, the first soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division were on the other side.

On either side of the Humvee lay the detritus of war wrecked and smoldering equipment, abandoned AK-47 rifles and the occasional dead combatant, one with a long black beard clothed in a brightly colored, blood-stained dishdasha.

The bridge shimmied with each artillery and mortar blast.

Magann found Staff Sgt. Travis Crosby, Senior Airman Nick Taylor and San Antonio Express-News photographer Bahram Mark Sobhani about 150 yards to the south, their M-113 surrounded by foliage.

The men were the other half of Maganns close air support team and had just driven past six Iraqi T-72 tanks and six armored personnel carriers that were hidden in camouflage, waiting for the Americans to become strung out so they would make easier targets to hit.

Heeeeyyyyy! Magann yelled.

Housley stopped shooting.

Probably the most vivid memory is the actual drive over the bridge where there was a woman covered with blood, he said. Remember, the Bradley had shot that truck that was across the bridge and she was a passenger in it. When we drove by, you know Im on the left side and she was on the left side of the bridge, and she was covered in blood and she had her hands on her face and shes shaking back and forth, and she was just piercing into my eyes. And she was sobbing, and she was maybe 6 feet from me, and Ill just never forget her face.

PFC Brandon Ellis, 422 Civil Affairs Battalion, heads for cover as the second day of sandstorms turn the sky red in the south central Iraqi desert near the town of Kifil Wednesday, March 26, 2003. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

A dead Iraqi soldier lies next to his Kia minivan as U.S. tanks roll by near a bridge in Southern Iraq Tuesday, March 25, 2003. Iraqi soldiers had tried to ambush U.S. troops, blowing up a bridge as their vehicles crossed, and attacking with AK-47s, but they were swiftly taken down by U.S. forces. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

An infantryman stands inside his Bradley Fighting Vehicle at the scene of the battle in Kifl as a sandstorm moves into Southern Iraq on Tuesday, March 25, 2003. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

A gunner on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle is silhouetted against a large fire as Task Force 3-69 moves to take Saddam International Airport. This was a long night of fighting and by the time we got to a stopping point, we were on the tarmac. We stopped for about an hour of rest and at sunrise made the move across the runway and secured to entire airport.South of Baghdad Thursday, April 3, 2003 in Iraq. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI, STAFF / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS

The Republican Guard, or Saddam fedayeen, a fanatical militia, had deployed black motorcycles with anti-tank missile tubes mounted on them.

Crosby and Taylor saw one of the motorcycles rounding a bend, the driver clinging to the bikes handlebar with one hand as he leaned into the sidecar. The Americans had never seen such a strange contraption before. Transfixed, they didnt fire at the Iraqi.

Well, he does something and this damned missile takes off, and if it had continued straight it probably would have missed anyway, but it shoots up in the air like a surface-to-air missile and we never see it again, said Crosby, 45, of Riddleville, Ga. What the hell was that?! And everybody opens up on the motorcycle and kills him. Five minutes later, here comes another one, does the same thing.

As the first battle at the bridge began, Crosby a gifted athlete who played football in high school directed A-10 fighters to attack Iraqis trying to detonate demolition charges on the bridge. The bombs found their mark, striking six trucks. He then directed A-10s to cover a team of engineers in the river.

Then the situation got dicier.

Crosbys team was ambushed by three Iraqi tanks, numerous other vehicles and soldiers on foot. The ensuing firefight was so close that American and Iraqi vehicles were intermingled, making it difficult to identify friend from foe. Fire fell like hail around the M-113 tank. It had its protective Kevlar removed so radios vital to calling in airstrikes could be installed, making it vulnerable to rockets and small-arms rounds.

Under fire, Crosby drained the ammunition belt of his.50-caliber machine gun, killing more than 20 Iraqi soldiers while simultaneously calling in another A-10 airstrike.

A few moments later, two Republican Guard soldiers got within 10 feet of the M-113.

Infantry in the ditch! someone cried on the radio.

I turned and looked and thats when they started shooting, and I said, Son of a said Crosby, who would serve five tours in Iraq and three others in Afghanistan.

The Iraqis ducked into a bunker and were quickly forgotten, but they came out again when one of them saw Crosby standing in the M-113s turret.

When he says, Dudes in the ditch! I turned and looked, and first thing I see is sparks, like the flash of a gun, and it came by pretty damn close, Crosby said. Im facing left in my turret and the dudes are on the right. Those turrets you turn by muscle theyre all slow and heavy and I got it turned about halfway around and I just spun the gun as far as I could, and we got that damn thing hot. We shot two rounds and it locked up.

The two rounds I shot kind of put them on the defensive a little bit, and then I reach for my M4, he said.

He struggled to pull the rifle because Army Sgt. Bryan Slick, the M-113s driver, was reaching for the weapon at the same time. Seeing the danger, both unwittingly had a tug of war over the rifle, thinking it was stuck.

And thats when I reached down and grabbed my pistol, Crosby said.

Taylor exited the truck, aimed his rifle and fired three bursts at the Iraqis.

Distracted by Taylors entry into the fight, the Iraqis were exposed as Crosby trained the handgun on them.

The moment Crosby fired at the Iraqis, Sobhani captured an image of a single bullet casing floating over the handgun, frozen against a deep blue sky.

Even though they were hit by multiple rounds, the two mortally wounded Iraqis kept coming.

Both of them fell forward after they finally gave out of whatever, adrenaline, said Crosby, who was awarded the Silver Star, the nations third-highest award for battlefield gallantry.

More than 30 Iraqi POWs sit in the back of a U.S Army vehicle after they were captured Friday, April 4, 2003 near Saddam International Airport in Iraq. The POWs were brought to the airport to be processed and held temporarily until until they could be taken to a POW camp. BAHRAM MARK SOBHANI/STAFF

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Remembering the battles that sealed the fate of Saddam and Iraq - San Antonio Express-News