Hostile Reception by Iraqis Surprising Some Troops
By Thomas Frank
Staff Correspondent
March 29, 2003
Central Iraq -- Many soldiers who have pressed deep into Iraq are surprised at the opposition they have encountered and disturbed at the number of Iraqis who are not welcoming U.S. forces as their liberators, but fighting them as invaders.
The hostility has come in widely reported battles, such as the surprisingly lethal attack on marines in the southern Iraqi city of An Nasiriyah, and in obscure encounters. Thursday, an unseen gunman fired at a convoy of Army attack helicopters in central Iraq on a non-combat repositioning flight.
"I honestly don't think the Iraqi public wants us here," said Chief Warrant Officer Sean McNeal, 33, whose Apache helicopter was nearly hit by rifle fire as he flew over a tiny desert outpost of a few homes. The shots forced the convoy to alter its route to avoid any developed area and led McNeal to conclude "these people are not going to give up as easily as everyone expects. They're going to fight."
The encounters, often with attackers in civilian clothing, have confounded soldiers who said military commanders had told them to expect Iraqi public support and a quick campaign. Chief Warrant Officer Jesse Oliver said yesterday that before the invasion, an army general told him and other soldiers they would need "five days of hard fighting." Oliver added, "it's already taken longer."
Soldiers have reassessed their predictions of the length and difficulty of the campaign to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Standing inside his tent surrounded by desert near the front line, Lt. Brett Lewis, 33, of the Army's Third Infantry Division, said the war "is going to be harder than what we planned for in the beginning."
As combat pilots stood by at a makeshift helicopter launch area, relaxing on convas cots and receiving briefings, they remained determined and confident they would defeat the Iraqi military. Most said they would need at least two more weeks, and that was only to overcome Iraqi soldiers, leaving open the question of how civilians might react in Baghdad to U.S. forces. Some said the attacks in An Nasiriyah, from fighters hiding in the city, could portend a bloody street fight in Baghdad.
Although soldiers' expectations were set largely by military commanders, some also were influenced by their experiences in the 1991 Gulf War and by the minimal resistance on the first day of the recent invasion. Lt. Gen. William Wallace said two days before the invasion that a war would last "days, maybe weeks."
On the first night of the war nine days ago, Oliver, the chief warrant officer, flew an Apache helicopter armed with missiles, rockets and a 30mm canon from northern Kuwait to An Nasiriyah, saw little armed opposition and fired nothing. This confirmed what commanders had told Oliver and other pilots -- that Iraqi forces may well capitulate.
But the Iraqi forces in southern Iraq did not capitulate, and though they were defeated in a few days, militia fighters laid out ambushes causing extensive marine casualties.
"No one of us knew the extent of the resistance we were going to encounter in An Nasiriyah," Oliver said.
Chief Warrant Officer Mike Carman, 33, said that when he invaded Iraq as an infantry man in the Gulf War in 1991, soldiers and civilians "were almost happy to see Americans."
A similar reaction was expected this time -- although a better comparison might have been the Iranian invasion in 1986 that Iraqis widely fought. Lewis, the army lieutenant, said commanders had told troops two months ago that "people would be happy to see you coming in." Now, Lewis said, "it's going to be hard for us to sway their opinion."
Carman said Saddam's "propaganda" has kept Iraqis from turning against his regime, although U.S. strikes destroyed the government information building in Baghdad on Thursday. "They think we're trying to take over," Carman said.
Not all soldiers are surprised at Iraqi reaction. "We are invading their country," said Chief Warrant Officer Glen Woodard, 37. "I'd be by my window with a shotgun, too."
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