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Iraq war death toll grows Troops take fire from all directions

Jan-25-2007 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

DAMIEN CAVE; The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq – In the battle for Baghdad, Haifa Street has changed hands so often that it has taken on the feel of a no man’s land. On Wednesday, as American and Iraqi troops poured in, the street showed why it is such a sensitive gauge of urban conflict.

In a miniature version of the troop increase that the United States hopes will secure the city, American troops led by Fort Lewis-based Stryker soldiers raced onto Haifa Street before dawn to dislodge Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias who have been battling for a stretch of ragged slums and mostly abandoned high rises. But as the sun rose, many of the Iraqi army units who were supposed to do the actual searches of the buildings did not arrive on time, forcing the Americans to start the job on their own.

As the morning wore on and the troops came under fire from all directions, another apparent flaw in this strategy became clear as empty apartments became lairs for gunmen who flitted from window to window and killed at least one American soldier, with a shot to the head.

“Who the hell is shooting at us?” shouted Sgt. 1st Class Marc Biletski, whose platoon was jammed into a small room off an alley that was being swept by a sniper’s bullets. “Who’s shooting at us? Do we know who they are?”

The Haifa Street operation, involving Bradley Fighting Vehicles as well as the highly mobile Stryker vehicles, is likely to cause plenty of reflection by the commanders in charge of the Baghdad “surge” of more than 20,000 troops. Just how those extra troops will be used is not yet known, but it is likely to mirror at least broadly the Haifa Street strategy.

The commander of the operation, Lt. Col. Avanulas Smiley of the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, said his forces were not interested in whether opposition came from bullets fired by Sunnis or by Shiites. He conceded that the cost of letting the Iraqi forces learn on the job was to add to the risk involved in the operation.

“This was an Iraqi-led effort and with that come challenges and risks,” Smiley said. “It can be organized chaos.”

The American units began moving up Haifa Street from the south by 2 a.m. Wednesday. A platoon of B Company in the Stryker brigade secured the roof of a high rise, where an Eminem poster was stuck on the wall of what appeared to be an Iraqi teenager’s room on the top floor. But in a pattern that would be repeated again and again in a series of buildings, there was no one in the apartment.

Many of the Iraqi units that showed up late never seemed to take the task seriously, searching haphazardly, breaking dishes and rifling through personal CD collections in the apartments. Eventually the Americans realized that the Iraqis were searching no more than half of the apartments, At one point the Iraqis completely disappeared, leaving the American unit working with them flabbergasted.

“Where did they go?” yelled Sgt. Jeri Gillett. Another soldier suggested, “I say we just let them go and we do this ourselves.”

Then the gunfire began.[...]


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