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Iraq
Battle for Nassiriya turns into vicious urban warfare
2003-03-25
Slightly edited
American Marines battled their way into the heart of Nasiriya on Monday, but they appeared to be stepping into just the sort of urban imbroglio they had been hoping to avoid.
In the reporters' OPINION
Following heavy fighting here on Sunday, in which 10 Americans were killed in an ambush, Marines found themselves wading into a protracted street fight on Monday that took them into the heart of a populated area. Helicopter gunships fired rockets into the city, and residents of Nassiriya complained that the air raids had killed and injured scores of civilians. The Marines countered that the Iraqis were using civilians as shields, pushing women and children into the streets to drive up the civilian body count. They also said Iraqi men were leaping out of the buses and taxis to shoot at them.
Tough for the Marines, tougher still for the taxi riders...
The fighting continued until sunset, with the Marines gaining control of much of the urban center but sustaining an unknown number of casualties.
OPINION ALERT. Howell Raines boys are at it again.
Necessary as it may have been, Monday's battle was not the sort of warfare that American commanders had envisioned to persuade the Iraqi population of America's good intentions. For American commanders, winning the war means destroying the Baghdad government, but it also includes an effort to avoid the kind of urban fighting that might enrage the Iraqi people.
But if we've got to do that, then we'll do it. I think the "urban warfare" mess is a matter of holding actions, enough to keep supply lines secure, not enough to really take the cities and towns. The strategy seems to be to cut off the head and then roll up the appendages...
"No Iraqi will support what the Americans are doing here," said a man at an American checkpoint at the city limits who gave his name as Nawaf. "If they want to go to Baghdad, that's one thing, but now they have come into our cities, and all Iraqis will fight them."
And this man on the Arab street has surveyed each Iraqi.
In interviews on Monday, residents of Nassiriya, including Nawaf, said that American bombs dropped on the city in the morning had killed 10 Iraqi civilians and injured as many as 200.
Of course, Saddam would never want to harm his dear people by drawing the fighting into the cities.
Some of the Iraqis conceded that loyalists to President Saddam Hussein had operated bases inside the city center. But many Nassiriya residents, including those who said they were opposed to Hussein, expressed outrage at the entrance of American troops.
No Baath Party Stalinists influenced this free speech, I'm sure!
In the chaos of the fighting, it was impossible to verify the Iraqi claims of civilian deaths. An American commander said on Monday night that the fighting had taken them into the heart of the city, and he did not discount the possibility that Iraqi civilians could have been killed. Col. Glenn Starnes, the commander of an artillery battalion firing on Nassiriya, placed responsibility for any civilian deaths on the Iraqi soldiers who drew the Marines into the populated areas. "We will engage the enemy wherever he is," Starnes said.
Amen to that.
Nasiriya, a southern Iraqi city that spans the Euphrates River, is coveted by American commanders for a pair of bridges that could be used to help a Marine division move north toward Baghdad.
Posted by:Kerry

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Posted by: Anonon   2003-03-25 15:59:00  

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Posted by: liberalhawk   2003-03-25 11:18:40  

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Posted by: Kerry   2003-03-25 02:52:14  

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