At 1:35 Saudi time on the 26th, Charles Jaco reported that the Iraqis were quitting “by the brigade-full” [sic]. There was footage of burned-out T-55s, more devastation visited on the Iraqis. He interviewed three Marines, veterans of both Khafji and the current ground offensive. “Hit ‘em a couple of good times and they just want to give up,” Lt. Paul Decker described it. “Their heart’s not in it.”
His opinion was widely shared. At dawn of the third day of the advance, the Marine tank crews could see Kuwait City from their encampment. “We expected it to be hard,” Lt. Delaney said. “On a combat scale of 1 to 10, it was a 1.” The Marines were surrounded by hundreds of bunkers and fortifications—deserted, still filled with loot.
Saddam Hussein must have seen, must have begun to believe. While Jaco was interviewing, CNN told us that Baghdad Radio had stated that Saddam Hussein had ordered his troops out of Kuwait. NBC reported radio intercepts from the Iraqis in Kuwait reporting to Baghdad that seven divisions were combat ineffective. In divisions that were still theoretically combat effective, helicopters flying over them saw the troops waving white flags, surrendering before coming into contact with the advancing allies. The Soviets were trying to cobble together a new peace plan at the United Nations.
Baghdad Radio had announced that the Revolutionary Command Council had accepted Resolution 660. Orders had been issued to Iraqi forces to withdraw “in an organized manner” to positions they had occupied prior to August 1st, 1990. The Iraqi armed forces, it warned, would “confront any attempt to get at it during the withdrawal” with its usual bravery and valor. The Iraqis had asked President Gorbachev to use his good offices to bring about a cease-fire.
There were more details later in the day. Saddam Hussein, CNN reporting from Baghdad told us, had stated that he no longer considered Kuwait to be a part of Iraq—but that it had been from August 2nd until that day. Troops might be pulled out as early as that night. There was dancing in the streets of Baghdad at the announcement, as victory was declared in the “struggle against aggression and the ranks of atheism and infidelity.” ABC showed us footage of Iraq’s “valiant armed forces” surrendering. Four men came out of a bunker, weeping. One kissed the hand of his Marine captor, who was trying to reassure him, “It’s alright. You’re okay.”
The statement that Kuwait had been a part of Iraq between August 2nd and February 26th was more than just an attempt to assauge wounded pride. Had that one point been accepted by a gullible world, then from a legalistic point of view everything that had happened in Kuwait between those two dates would have been an Iraqi internal affair—rapine, pillage, looting, and trying to burn down oil fields. All resolutions after 660 would have been invalid. Even the helpful Soviets couldn’t buy that one; they stated that the Iraqis would have to comply with all the UN resolutions.
Nor was Bush asleep at the helm. The Iraqis, he stated, would have to accept all twelve UN resolutions. Otherwise the war would continue. Iraq’s ambassador to the UN, Abdul Amir al-Anbari, stated his country’s position when CNN stopped him on the street. Did Iraq accept all twelve?
No. Some of these resolutions may be invalid, we have our own reservations, some of them lend themselves to different interpretations. So we have to really take it step by step. After all, it took five months for the Security Council to pass one resolution. And the first step to do is... a cease-fire, and then to negotiate.
India’s ambassador to the UN thought that was a good idea, a cease-fire to prevent unnecessary loss of life on both sides.
Colonel Abu Fahad, of the Kuwaiti resistance in Kuwait City, spoke by phone with CNN. The city was full of honking horns, waving flags and clapping hands. The Iraqis had begun leaving the city. There were none left but stragglers. The resistance was now checking for booby traps. The allies were not in the city yet, but were expected in an hour or two.
Task Force Ripper entered the southern suburbs of Kuwait City at dusk on Tuesday. Dozens of Iraqi tanks, trucks, and armored personnel carriers lay smoking, testimony to the accuracy of airstrikes, TOWs, and tank fire.
2nd Marine Division reached its final objective, Jahra, a town northeast of Kuwait City that is a major intersection for roads leading in all directions. 8th Marines and the Tiger Brigade took on an attack there and Marines took over the town and secured a ridge that ran west from the tip of Kuwait Bay.
3rd Battalion, 67th Armored, part of the Tiger Brigade, got, in the words of the battalion’s executive officer, Major Robert Williams, “the chance to do what every cavalry unit wants to to once in its life. Drop the reins and charge.” There was still some left for them to charge into. The dunes were honeycombed with bunkers defended by light artillery pieces and dug-in T-55s. The “Hounds of Hell” picked off their targets from up to a mile away.
For the 3rd of the 67th, too, most of the Iraqis just gave up. The advance became more a matter of herding the Iraqis before them. Tiger Brigade moved forward in a diamond formation more than two miles long, nearly as wide. There was no time to pick up prisoners. Green-clad Iraqis waved white rags of surrender or just stood by dumbly while the tanks roared by them. The Marines and Tiger Brigade were facing a force that was too demoralized to fight.
A few tried, though. One T-55 was passed by vehicle after vehicle because it seemed abandoned. It was probably damaged; rather than firing the tank’s 100mm main gun at the Americans, an Iraqi inside hopped onto the turret with a rocket launcher. There was a double explosion as the attacker “sort of vaporized,” the victim of a hit from Major Williams’ 120mm main gun.
Lt. Col. Douglas Tystad, commander of the 3rd of the 67th, talked himself hoarse on the radio that day, keeping his tanks in formation, bringing fire on the enemy when they could find him. “Someone radioed that he saw unidentified tanks at 2300 meters. ‘Well, move forward and shoot the goddam things,’” Tystad replied. There were two fireballs in answer.
During a day-long, 50-mile advance from al-Jaber airfield to Kuwait City, 1st Marine Division destroyed more than 100 tanks. By midnight, retreating Iraqis had been cut off and the Marines were fighting for control of the airport. Two battalions of M60A3s, 110 tanks, fought the Iraqis in their Soviet-built T-55s and T-62s overnight, most of the battle fought without air support because of the dense black smoke from burning oil fields. They secured the airport the next day.
XVIII Airborne Corps was in the middle of a traffic jam. The corps had siezed several of its objectives more quickly than anticipated. There was only a single two-lane road connecting them to Saudi Arabia, and there was that damned endless sandstorm. Bad weather had grounded the helicopters of the 18th Army Aviation Brigade, which was responsible for supplying the force.
The 101st Airborne was at the far end of that supply line. The division was launching brigade-sized raids all over Iraq, 2,000 men at a time, riding assault helicopters, cutting the Iraqis’ lines.
The French and the 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne had secured the force’s western flank. Saddam’s armies were trapped in a sack and the VII Corps and the 24th Infantry Division were beating it with a club.
VII Corps was pushing toward Basra, taking few casualties and large numbers of prisoners. Truckloads of exhausted and filthy Iraqis were shuttling south toward Saudi Arabia. Thousands had turned themselves in. Most had long since thrown away their arms, were starving, walking on blistered feet.
Four men trying to fix a damaged Bradley suddenly found themselves with 30 prisoners. The Iraqis were content to sit and wait until they had finished what they were doing.
The British 1st Armoured continued to engage the Iraqis through the moonless night and the overcast day. They had destroyed nearly 200 tanks, 100 APCs, 100 artillery pieces. They had 5,000 prisoners. B Company, 1st Battalion, Royal Scots, captured 100 Iraqis in an attack with fixed bayonets that must have made Schwarzkopf, with his concern for keeping casualties minimal, cringe inside. In another incident, Challengers destroyed nine APCs as they tried to sneak out of the combat zone under cover of darkness.
The British took heavy casualties—for this war. They had 13 killed in that battle, nine of them by “friendly fire.” A-10s proved more dangerous than the Iraqis.
For the U.S. 1st Armored Division, the weather was worse than on any night of the war. About midnight, Lt. Col. Mike McGee, commander of 6th Battalion, 6th Infantry, got his orders from 2nd Brigade to attack al-Busayyah. He issued his own orders to his company commanders at 2 a.m.
A final artillery barrage was dumped on Busayyah at 6:15, with the battalion deployed for attack. Shortly after dawn, 6/6 and 2nd Battalion, 70th Armor moved forward with their tanks companies forward. They advanced to within two kilometers of the town before finding the expected defending tanks. Finally, at 1,500 meters a T-55 was spotted, its turret swinging toward the Americans. It was destroyed, as were three others in rapid succession, so quickly they couldn’t get a round off. A fifth tank, trying to escape, was taken out by an M1A1 round. “The turret flew through the air like a frisbee,” McGee described it to Army Times. The town’s defenses were overrun by 9 a.m.
McGee had been instructed not to get bogged down in house-to-house fighting, but the 26th Division’s commando battalion was holed up in the town. Gen. Griffith did not want to leave that large a force behind him, right on his main supply route. 6/6 was left behind to clear the town while the rest of the division pressed on.
The way the war had been going, McGee’s battalion moved in expecting the Bad Guys to surrender. Instead, they started shooting. A machinegun nest was spotted in a building and a Bradley fired 60 rounds into it, turning the building into rubble.
Capt. Bill Smithson, commander of C Company, saw some Iraqis coming to the edge of the town with their hands up. The dirty ruse used at Khafji hadn’t been forgotten: the Americans waited for them to come out, rather than advancing toward them—into antitank weapon range. When the enemy dropped back behind fortifications and started shooting again, not only did the Americans know they were going to have to go in after them, but so also were they angry.
McGee pulled his forces back and ordered 2nd Battalion, 1st Artillery to fire a 10-minute prep on the town. Then he sent three companies to the east side of Busayyah, a tank-heavy security element to the north end to catch those trying to escape, and an assault team consisting of a platoon of Bradleys, two armored earthmovers, and a combat engineer vehicle to the south side. Once they were in position, the three companies opened up and shot hell out of the town. When fire was lifted, the assault team entered, to be hit by small arms fire. The engineer vehicle fired 21 rounds from its 165mm demolition gun and the commandos died in their holes. “There were four dogs left alive when we were done,” McGee said afterward. When the battalion moved on to secure a corps logistics complex it met no resistance, taking twelve prisoners.
While 6/6 was clearing Busayyah, the remainder of 1st AD arrived at its next objective, dubbed Python, at 11 a.m. The original plan had called for the division to spend 24 to 36 hours there, regrouping and refuelling. Instead, Lt. Gen. Franks ordered a sweeping turn that reoriented the division a full 90 degrees. The Republican Guard was positioning itself to stop the VII Corps advance.
During the night, 210th Field Artillery Brigade had launched artillery raids against 12th Armored Division’s 50th Armored Brigade. The artillery had positioned its MLRS battery behind 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cav’s tank company to launch 20 rockets at a massed formation of armor from the enemy division’s 50th Armored Brigade. This was followed by a second successful raid. Around 2 a.m., an Iraqi mechanized battalion had tried to silence the MLRS, instead running into 3rd Squadron’s M and K Troops. Visibility was poor as the units engaged. The tank company destroyed about a dozen MT-LB troop carriers.
Soldiers from K Troop’s maintenance section and engineer platoon had been guarding prisoners near the screen line of combat vehicles when the fighting started. They attempted to move back through the screen line in their M113 APCs. Attempting to evade fire, they zigzagged out of K Troop’s sector and into I Troop’s. Adding to the confusion, an MT-LB moved with them. Sighted by I Troop, and with a positive ident on the MT-LB, the tanks engaged. Both M113s were hit, killing the driver of the maintenance vehicle, Cpl. James McCoy of K Troop, and the driver of the engineer track, PFC Aaron Howard of C Company, 82nd Engineer Battalion. Two other engineers, Sgt. Dodge Powell and Sgt. William Strehlow, also were killed. Staff Sgt. Hilbert Potter lost his right leg and five others were wounded. In the K Troop sector, two Bradleys were hit, one of them by another Bradley, but there were no injuries.
At 3:30 a.m., 2nd Cav received the order from Lt. Gen. Franks to move due east, to make contact with the Republican Guard. 3rd Armored Division would pass to the north, between 1st Armored Division and 2nd Cav. The regiment was to be prepared to execute a passage of lines with 1st Infantry Division. Imagery had shown exactly where the Tawakalna Division was and how it was deployed. The RG was setting up a defensive line to allow other Iraqi units to flee the Kuwait theater of operations. 2nd ACR was to find the southern end of the enemy division’s line, then to pass through the 1st Infantry Division to allow them to turn the flank.
In the trackless desert, the regiment would measure its progress along north-south military grid lines, called eastings. 1st Squadron was committed at about the 55 Easting. Franks had ordered that scouts be sent out as far east as 70 Easting. Holder sent the entire regiment.
1st Squadron began movement at 6 a.m., coordinating with the British 1st Armoured Division, to the south of them but about 20 kilometers behind. The squadron soon received indirect fire. C Troop then picked up a dozen hot spots on thermals. A driving rainstorm had lowered visibility to 100 meters or less, so the men weren’t sure what they were. Rather than firing, Lt. Clement Laniewski determined that they were British, and further discovered that there was a potentially disastrous five-kilometer overlap between their sector and that of the Brits. The British moved out of the squadron’s sector around 8:15 a.m., with no unfortunate occurrences.
I and L Troops had made contact with a security force of dug-in T-72s and BMPs a little after 7 a.m. At 7:30, 4th Squadron was engaged by main gun rounds fired by T-72s. The squadron called for fire support, and F-16s dropped 500-pound bombs, kiling four of ten tanks. At 8:45, while 2nd Squadron was stopped to allow the follow-on divisions to stage, a highly accurate concentration of artillery landed on K Troop, damaging a tank and seriously wounding the loader. A forward air controller called in air support against the Iraqi artillery and it was devastated by cluster bombs. There was no trouble with artillery after that.
By 9 a.m., 4th Squadron was grounded as winds hit 40 knots. At 62 Easting, with visibility under 500 meters, B Troop’s Bradleys found T-55s in revetments. They held them down with 25mm fire while scouts maneuvered to engage them with TOW missiles. The scouts found that they could destroy the T-55s with their 25mm cannons using armor-piercing Sabot rounds. E, G and I Troops met elements of 50th Brigade on 60 Easting early in the afternoon.
A brigade of Tawakalna was setting up a defense to allow the rest of the division to get away. When the sandstorm hit, the RG brigade passed word to its tanks to expect an attack as soon as the storm finished. Instead, the 2nd Cav came through the sandstorm. As a captured Iraqi lieutenant described it, the enemy were sitting in their tanks, waiting for the storm to end. The turret blew off the tank next to him and he looked through his sensors, but could find nothing to shoot at. Then the next tank was hit. He passed word to his platoon members to get back in their holes as the Cav methodically blew the tanks.
Col. Holder moved the regiment forward three kilometers at a time. A, B, E, G, I and K Troops all made contact with Tawakalna defenses as they approached 70 Easting. Around 2:30 p.m., I Troop hit two outposts. 3rd Platoon destroyed one by mortar fire, while 1st Platoon killed the other with direct fire from its Bradleys. They were taken out so quickly they were unable to warn the main force of 2nd Cav’s arrival.
The soldiers noticed that five Bedouins standing by some camels were wearing army boots. Rocket-propelled grenade launchers stuck out from under the blankets of the camels. I Troop blew them away with direct fire.
1st Armored Division’s 3rd Brigade made contact with Tawakalna in the afternoon. At 2:30 p.m. eight air strikes were launched against dug-in tanks. About 30 were destroyed, and pilot reported another 30 still dug in. An artillery attack was fired on the Iraqi positions from a range of about 10 kilometers. The Iraqis thought the barrage was an air strike and abandoned their tanks for bunkers. When the U.S. tank and Bradley crews began identifying hot spots about three kilometers out, they could see the Iraqis leaving the bunkers for their tanks and BMPs. Many were killed trying to get back to their vehicles.
At 73 Easting, 2nd Cav’s scouts spotted machine guns behind dirt embankments. As their fire blew away the dirt, they saw vehicles underneath. The machineguns were the 12.7mm antiaircraft guns mounted on the turrets of T-72s. I Troop attacked through two lines of the tanks, destroying 16 of them, and fought its way into the enemy rear area, destroying command tracks and ZSU-23-4 self-propelled antiaircraft systems.
Around 6 p.m., as darkness was falling, the weapons system on Sgt. Kirk Alcorn’s Bradley went dead because of an electrical malfunction. He and his driver, PFC Gregory Scott, checked the batteries, which caused them to open their hatches. Another Bradley called and warned of approaching T-72s. The I Troop tanks were refuelling, so Alcorn began backing up. Caught by a round apparently fired by a T-72, the Bradley was destroyed by a blast that knocked Alcorn’s helmet off, burned his face and singed his eyelids together. Scott’s back was peppered with shrapnel and he was set afire. SFC Ronnie Mullinix, the Bradley commander, was wounded in the leg by shrapnel. He and Specialist Philip Gilman came to the aid of Alcorn and Scott, putting Scott’s fire out. They and the remainder of the Bradley’s crew were loaded into Lt. Steven Daigle’s vehicle and then waited an hour for the medics to arrive.
In 2nd Squadron’s sector, E Troop encountered T-72s in prepared positions around 4 p.m., on the 70 Easting line. With its tanks in the lead, the troop punched through the resistance and destroyed more than 20 tanks and other armored vehicles.
The contact degenerated into a nasty night fight, with the advantage to the Americans with their thermal optics and the superior range of their weapons. The fight continued until all the hot spots the tankers could see were burning. Six 1st Armored Division tankers were wounded. Two tanks were lost to T-72 fire, one to a missile fired from a BMP and one to a rocket-propelled grenade. One man, Spec. Douglas Fielder, of 54th Engineer Battalion, was killed by friendly fire when he was mistaken for an Iraqi. 3rd Brigade destroyed 21 tanks, 22 APCs and a number of other vehicles by the time fighting finally died down, around 11 p.m. They took about two battalions worth of prisoners, who had to be dealt with by the single MP platoon attached to the brigade.
In 2nd Cav’s sector, Sgt. Larry Foltz, the keeper of Spike the Scorpion, was in his fire support vehicle, deployed with G Troop, trying to identify targets with his laser designator. Moving up to the 73 Easting line, E and G Troops picked up a major armored force, a combination of elements of Tawakalna and 12th Armored Division. Foltz got his fire support vehicle as close to the enemy as possible as the sandstorm raged and kept visibility minimal. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash; a Bradley had been hit. Foltz and others tried to get the ramp open, finally succeeding in freeing the crew. Sgt. Nels Moller, the Bradley’s gunner, was dead. Another sergeant was wounded.
As night fell, the RG T-72s continued coming, fighting for their lives. The thermal sight in Foltz’s vehicle picked just that moment to go out. He ran to a nearby Bradley and used its thermals to acquire targets; since he could not get on the fire support net from the Bradley, he ran between the vehicles to call in targets to the artillery. During the six-hour battle, the G Troop fire support team called in 720 howitzer rounds. One mission prevented T-72s from overrunning the troop’s 3rd Platoon. “DPICM [Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions] does wonders on T-72s,” Foltz commented.
By 10 p.m. the battle had subsided. Tawakalna and 12th Armored were not yet dead, but they had been found and they had been bloodied. Foltz and his comrades could flop for a few hours of sleep while a light rain washed some of the soot from them. The next day they would scrape poor Spike from the floorboard of the fire support track and bury him. His washbasin-home had flipped over in the course of the battle and someone had stepped on him.
1st Infantry Division began the tricky night passage of lines with 2nd Cav around 10:30 p.m. One unit passing through the sector of another in the dead of night presents an unparalelled opportunity for friendly forces to shoot each other up, and Col. Holder worried constantly until the operation was completed, despite the professionalism and the high level of training of his troops. All it would have taken would have been for one crew not to have gotten the word. Finally, at 2 a.m. on the 27th, the regiment went into corps reserve and could cease fire.
In the distance, the flash of artillery lit the sky as battle was joined along a 40-kilometer front. Corps MLRSs fired their rockets, bringing hundreds of bomblets down on the heads of the Iraqis. By midnight, 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions were in full contact with the Republican Guard
1st Armored Division’s 2nd Brigade was occupying itself with a brigade of the Adnan Infantry Division—a light infantry Republican Guard unit—which was moving into its sector. Farther east, two brigades of the Medinah Division were trying to set up a defense line around what had been designated Phase Line Lime.
As 3rd Brigade engaged Tawakalna, the rest of 1st Armored Division continued after Adnan. Maj. Gen. Griffith ordered continuous artillery and helicopter attacks against them. There was some ground contact, but most of the destruction was visited by the artillery and the Apaches. Objective Bonn, holding the Medinah division and a major RG logistics base, was hammered by helicopter and air force strikes. Pilots reported a lot of enemy around there: Medinah was reinforced by elements of the 17th, 12th, 10th and 52nd Armored Divisions, which had been retreating north.
Medinah retained about three quarters of its tanks and was attempting to maneuver against 1st AD. Griffith tried to discourage them from this course of action by dishing up MLRS fire and other “delicacies of the season.”
At the day's briefing, Brig. Gen. Neal reported that 35 T-72s had been destroyed by A-10s alone. More than 270 tanks were reported destroyed by aircraft since the beginning of the ground offensive. 17,000 Marines were still waiting for an amphibious assault.
Gen. Kelly summarized it at the Pentagon briefing on an even grander scale. As of Day 41 of operations, Day 3 of the ground offensive, there had been a total of 55 U.S. killed, 155 injured, 30 missing, and nine POW; four had been reported killed in the ground offensive and 21 wounded, two missing. 81 SCUDs had been fired, 31 of them against Israel. The allies had more than 30,000 EPWs. The Iraqis had lost 2,085 tanks, 962 armored vehicles, and 1,505 artillery pieces, had 21 divisions rendered combat-ineffective or destroyed, and were in full retreat — he wouldn’t use the word “rout.” There had been 103,000 allied air sorties since January 16th; the Iraqis had not flown a single combat mission in the past 17 days, though two more aircraft had fled to Iran on Sunday. Not counting those in Iran, they had lost 103 aircraft.
But Kelly cautioned against over-optimism. The Iraqis still had eight Republican Guard divisions—three armored, four infantry and one special forces. All were located outside Kuwait, and there was still a chance they might be able to mount an attack.
24th Infantry Division, rushing down the Euphrates Velley, hit a convoy of T-72s on Highway 8—loaded onto trailers for withdrawal to Iraq. They destroyed the lot of them, 57 tanks in all.
The Americans had marched 200 miles in two days and achieved total surprise. The Republican Guard was checkmated; corps-level communications nets were either jammed or destroyed.
By the end of Day 3 the Marines and the 2nd Armored’s Tiger Brigade had sealed off Kuwait City. The liberation would be left to the Arab forces. Saudi military officials took reporters into the city to watch some of their tank forces continue the last few miles to the Kuwaiti capital. A Marine reconnaissance unit snuck into the U.S. embassy in Kuwait City to raise the U.S. flag before they got there.
Christiane Amanpour reported man-in-the-street reactions from Baghdad on Saddam Hussein’s attempts to capitulate. One or two had had enough of bombing and war: “Nobody here wants war. Everybody here wants peace.” Or perhaps it was only most of them. One man vowed, “It’s not finished. We will defeat the Americans and the West. You will see. Wait and see.” Another man stated simply, “We win. That’s all.” Yet another was more exuberant about Iraqi victory: “President Saddam Hussein is the president of all the Arabs!” he crowed.
“The words of a people who can manage to see victory no matter where they look,” Amanpour observed drily.
Saddam Hussein agreed with her. “Applaud your victory, my dear citizens,” he said on the radio, “and the honor and dignity of all Iraqis.”
The Kuwaitis were beginning to worry about the aftermath. Of their population of 2.1 million before the invasion, only 600,000 were native Kuwaitis. Of the remainder, more than 400,000 were Palestinians, many of whom had collaborated with the invaders. Now there were fears of reprisals.
CNN ran a filler on obstetricians and gynecologists in the theater. Somehow it just didn’t fit with what was going on elsewhere in the area.
There was also a CNN report on twelve Marines who were facing courts martial in the States on charges of desertion. Cpl. Daniel Gillis, the only active-duty Marine of the twelve, was to go on trial the following Tuesday. Lance Cpl. Samuel Lewin had applied for conscientious objector status after U.S. troops had deployed to the Gulf. It would be immoral for him to kill another human being, he stated. Besides, he had been ignorant and naive when he had joined the Marines. His lawyer, his hair caught up in a becoming ponytail, attacked the Corps’ recruiting campaign.
The deserters’ story seemed almost as strange as the one on the combat gynecologists. Lewin didn’t want to be immoral, certainly not when there was a chance he might have to duck live rounds; meanwhile, the Iraqis had stored the bodies of some of those they had murdered in Kuwait City in the skating rink before departing the vicinity, taking civilians with them as hostages.