TIME: The View from the
Front Lines
Monday, December 05, 2005
The fighting men of Blue Platoon have taken a
horrific beating, but no one talks about pulling
out
By
MICHAEL WARE / RAMADI
"Do you see 'em?" screams a gunner as he spots
al-Qaeda fighters dart in front of him. "Just kill
people to the north," a sergeant bellows. "Light him
up," cries another soldier as a gunman approaches. On
Nov. 17, even as Representative John Murtha was
stirring debate on Capitol Hill by calling for an
immediate redeployment of U.S. troops, the young
soldiers of Blue Platoon were amid a citywide battle
that revealed just how hard it will be to pull U.S.
troops out soon.
Throughout the day, members of Blue Platoon had been
hunkered down in their battle-scarred observation
post (dubbed "Hotel") in Ramadi, sniping at
reconnaissance units. Then, four hours before Murtha
spoke, al-Qaeda let loose an attack on all five
American outposts in the city--an assault that a
hardened Army sniper dubbed a mini-Tet offensive,
referring to the coordinated military actions the
Viet Cong launched across South Vietnam one fateful
day in 1968.
With the mini-Tet raging, more than 50 rebels lobbed
mortars and fired rocket-propelled grenades at the
U.S. bases before they closed in under cover of
machine-gun fire from virtually 360 degrees. By the
end, about the time Murtha wrapped up his press
conference in Washington, coalition forces had
stormed past dead insurgents to retake Ramadi's
central mosque.
But this is still a city the insurgents can claim
they own. Although a U.S. Army brigade hunts them
daily, the rebels move freely among a supportive
populace. U.S. troops are despised here. The
insurgents are embraced. "They are the people we see
every day who give us a loaf of bread on a patrol,
the people we will be fighting that night," says
Lieut. Colonel Robert Roggeman, whose 2-69 Armored
Regiment is battling to control the eastern part of
this city of 400,000.
Pentagon officials routinely characterize
anti-insurgent operations around Iraq as great
victories. But just as Operation Steel Curtain,
targeting insurgents in towns near the Syrian border,
wound down, fighters loyal to al-Qaeda's top man in
Iraq, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, popped up in Ramadi. The
insurgents' ability to preserve and regenerate their
forces is a hallmark of the war. The official
American tally for the Nov. 17 battle in Ramadi: 33
insurgents killed, 1 Marine slightly wounded. But
Blue Platoon knows it has not delivered a knockout
punch.
Since July, 1 in 3 platoon members has been killed or
hurt. "All of my squad leaders and section leaders
have been wounded," says the platoon leader, 2nd
Lieut. Joe Walker, a South Carolinian who volunteered
to fight after 9/11. "For a while, our unit was
fighting at less than 70%, and we're still below 60%
on our vehicles--so many Bradleys have been blown
up."
For weeks the 2-69, an entire armored battalion, was
cut off from other American forces. The roads in and
out of its base were saturated with improvised
explosive devices, says Captain Chas Cannon. At one
stage, there were 100 explosions a week. "You
expected to get hit ... possibly several times," says
Cannon. The roads were closed; some food was
rationed. But with aggressive combat operations,
sniper assaults and the building of precarious
outposts, the 2-69 has regained control of the city's
main artery, "Route Michigan," the troops' lifeline.
Now they are struggling to keep it open. "Anyone who
thinks [Iraq] is going to be won a year from now is
mistaken," says brigade commander Colonel John
Gronski.
The military has barely made a dent in the
insurgency. It's hard to imagine how American troops
can leave in large numbers without further inflaming
the threat to the U.S. Al-Qaeda is stronger now than
it was before the invasion of Iraq and under
al-Zarqawi has even extended its reach, as proved by
the Nov. 9 hotel bombings in Jordan by three of his
acolytes.
The soldiers of Blue Platoon don't need to be told
that. On Aug. 23, with four insurgent video cameras
rolling, al-Zarqawi's group sent a truck bomb under
cover of small-arms fire and rocket-propelled
grenades straight into their observation post. The
explosion knocked the entire platoon--more than 30
troops--unconscious. They recovered and fought back,
only to be hit by the mini-Tet three months later.
Until the U.S. begins a withdrawal, it's up to
soldiers like those of Blue Platoon to man the
bunkers. "After the truck bombing," says Gronski,
"every one of them, to a man, said, 'We are not
pulling out of here.'"