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Iraqi army abandoning posts wont fight iraqis Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-18-2004/0002153599&EDATE=http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-18-2004/0002153599&EDATE=
NEWSWEEK: New Iraqi Army Members Abandoning Posts When Fighting Starts; 'We Weren't Asked Beforehand To Fight Our People...' Says One Recruit. Says If They Had Been, 'We Would Have Resigned'
E NEWSWEEK NEWSWEEK
In the April 26 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, April 19): 'Treating Back Pain. The New Debate Over and Affliction Shared by 65 Million Americans." Newsweek reports on how back pain sufferers are costing the U.S. $100 billion annually in medical bills, disability and lost productivity at work and what doctors are doing to find new ways to treat pain other than invasive surgery. Plus: an excerpt of Bob Woodward's, "Plan of Attack"; on the road in Sadr City.[MN]
NEW YORK, NY USA 04/18/2004
Ambush in Sadr City Was Just Like 'Black Hawk Down'
Says One Soldier. But Troops Recovered Everyone Then Parked Tanks and
Vehicles in Front of Police Headquarters
NEW YORK, April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- After fighting broke out in southern
Iraq and Baghdad's Sadr City on April 4, the New Iraqi Army's 2d Battalion was
deployed to Shulla, a hardscrabble Shiite slum on the capital's outskirts. One
of the battalion's recruits, Khadhim al Zubaidy, says he balked when his U.S.
officers ordered him to open fire on a crowd of Shiites, many of them
presumably armed. "We weren't asked beforehand to fight our people in Shulla,"
he tells Newsweek in the current issue. "[If we had been], we would have
resigned." Many battalion members dropped their guns and fled, says a fellow
soldier, Hamid Tamimi. Others reportedly turned their weapons against the
Americans-especially after being told the battalion's next assignment would be
combat duty in Fallujah.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040418/NYSU003 )
Before the uprising, America had spent roughly $1 billion to recruit,
equip and train some 100,000 Iraqi police, soldiers and civil-defense
personnel. But when the fighting started, many of them evaporated-and others
wasted no time joining the revolt. These struggles with the newly-trained army
are part of what faces the U.S. forces whose job is to win the Iraqi public's
support and cooperation and convince them that the Coalition is working to
make their lives better, report Baghdad Bureau Chief Rod Nordland and Beijing
Bureau Chief Melinda Liu, on assignment in Baghdad, in the April 26 issue of
Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, April 19).
Liu spent time with the troops in Sadr City and spoke with Lt. Col. Gary
Volesky of the First Cavalry Division's 5th Battalion, 2d Cavalry, who heads
up the task there. Volesky has his own idea of what it will take to win the
war: safe streets, reliable public services and steady paychecks. "The people
are the center of gravity," he says. "You can't control the center of gravity
with Bradleys and tanks." But even the most basic needs can be all but
impossible to fill. Even before the recent uprising, Sadr City had only 500
Iraqi police. "We needed 7,000," Volesky says. "That's a tall hill to climb."
It got even taller when the Mahdi Army's rebels stormed the district's police
stations on April 4. Iraqi police held their ground at only two of them; at
least five were quickly abandoned. The casualty toll that day among U.S.
soldiers was seven dead and 24 wounded.
Liu reports that U.S. military patrols were lured into ambushes near al-
Sadr's local headquarters. Many of the troops who came under fire had been in
Iraq less than a week. Volesky had formally taken command just 15 minutes
before the attack. "It was just like that movie 'Black Hawk Down'," says one
of the drivers, Specialist Dee Foster. Volesky has a different take: "It
wasn't like Somalia," he asserts. "We recovered all our people, and we went
right back in." The Americans pushed the rebels back, then parked their tanks
and Bradleys in front of the district's police facilities for the next four
days.
Last week Volesky's troops were out taking care of the public-works jobs
they had been sent to Iraq for. People on the street didn't seem particularly
hostile as the Humvees passed. Appearances don't mean much, one soldier
grumbled to Newsweek. "The same kids who give us the thumbs up and say, 'Good,
mister!' are the guys chucking rocks at our convoys." One civil-affairs team
drove downtown to check on a newly launched $1.1 million trash-collection
project employing 62 laborers, who'll earn $6 a day-good money by local
standards. Arriving at a stretch of boulevard where the median was
uncharacteristically clear of trash, the six-Humvee convoy pulled to a stop.
Several young Iraqis were shoveling garbage into piles. Capt. Jeff Embree, the
team leader, had a question for the contractor in charge: What happened to the
banners depicting U.S. and Iraqi flags that were supposed to be draped on the
crew's trucks? The contractor shrugged: "The truck drivers have been shot at
for the past two days, so we took the banners off."
(Read Newsweek's news releases at http://www.Newsweek.com.
Click "Pressroom" at bottom of page.)
SOURCE Newsweek
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