- With a deafening bang, the Humvee span violently out
of control and I was thrown out through a back door into the middle of
a busy dual carriageway in Baghdad's dangerous western suburbs.
-
- Seconds later, one of the three young American soldiers
with whom I was travelling rushed over, clutching his ribs with one hand
and his gun in the other. "Just stay down sir," he yelled, as
if we might be under attack.
-
- There was no incoming gunfire, however, and it quickly
became clear that there had been no bomb. Instead we were victims of something
almost as commonplace and sometimes as deadly - a high-speed car crash
involving American troops.
-
- Only minutes earlier the three young GIs had set off
from near their base, taking me to join a patrol from their company, fresh
from America. Soon they were hurtling along the highway towards Baghdad
- in completely the wrong direction.
-
- Told of their mistake, they attempted a high-speed U-turn,
apparently oblivious of the car following close behind. Miraculously, the
Humvee passengers escaped with only cuts and bruises, but those in the
following vehicle were not so lucky: an American contractor from Halliburton
appeared to have a broken leg.
-
- The dazed young GIs, barely out of their teens, had only
been in Iraq for a fortnight. They were without their flak jackets and
there was panic in their eyes.
-
- A passing convoy of soldiers from an engineering unit,
grizzled and weary veterans after a year in the country, stopped to help.
"I've gotta get out of this country," one engineer said, shaking
his head at the sight of the damaged Humvee.
-
- It is a sentiment shared by the thousands of American
soldiers who are nearing the end of their year-long duty in Iraq and preparing
to make way for fresh units. In the biggest US troop movement since the
Second World War, over the next three months 14 brigades will briefly overlap
with, and then replace, 17 brigades now in Iraq, reducing the number of
divisions from four to three, and the total US force from 130,000 to 110,000.
-
- The rotation brings high risk as inexperienced soldiers
grapple with their first real taste of combat in a complex, dangerous and
alien country.
-
- Despite intense training beforehand in simulated Iraqi
towns and villages, nothing can fully prepare the new troops for the mixture
of anti-terrorist action, defending civilians and policing Iraq, that they
face.
-
- Commanders know that relationships forged over many months
with Iraqi officials, tribal chiefs, and religious leaders cannot be duplicated
overnight.
-
- Gen Peter Schoomaker, the US Army chief of staff, told
a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington last week: "We're
very, very sensitive to the fact that the great progress we've made has
much to do with the understanding and relationships we've established at
the local level."
-
- Just days earlier near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, an incident
involving newly arrived soldiers of 25th Infantry division illustrated
the dangers.
-
- A bomb had exploded next to a troop convoy and in the
ensuing panic, soldiers chased and shot a woman and her two daughters who
had failed to heed warnings to stop - killing one daughter and injuring
her sister and mother.
-
- No soldier was hurt, yet local goodwill developed by
their predecessors over almost a year was destroyed in an instant.
-
- Such matters are much on the mind of First Lt Justin
Harper, a platoon leader in 2-12 Cavalry, stationed near Baghdad. In the
three weeks since his unit arrived, their base has come under sustained
mortar fire and they have seen action.
-
- He has written in bold letters, across the windscreen
of his specially armour-plated Humvee: "This ain't a movie."
-
- >From the unit his own has replaced, 18 of 64 soldiers
were either killed or injured, and among the dead was one of Lt Harper's
university classmates. He hopes that by drawing on the survivors' experience,
his own soldiers can make it through the next 12 months.
-
- "We are fresh and keen, but that may change if we
take casualties," Lt Harper said. "I told the guys not to tell
their families about these incidents, but to save their war stories for
when they get home. It will just make them worry more - and there's nothing
anyone can do about it."
-
- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/29/w
irq29.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/02/29/ixworld.html
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