U.S. Marines dressed to handle a chemical attack stormed across the Iraqi border from Kuwait on Friday and raced north to seize a key oil facility that commanders called the “jewel in the crown” of the ground invasion’s early objectives.
Commanders of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment said the facility is a crucial, delicate piece of Iraq’s Rumailah oil field, which produces 14 percent of the world’s oil supply, but they requested that details regarding the site and its location not be immediately disclosed. Marines continued to search the complex late into the evening Friday, but officers considered the site in U.S. control.
Though U.S. commanders had braced for an act of sabotage and potentially heavy casualties, no explosive devices or chemical weapons were found, said the 1st Battalion’s commander, Lt. Col. Christopher Conlin.
“The workers here did what we wanted, which was keep the place safe,” Conlin said. “If this had been rigged to blow, it really would have been a disaster.”
Working in midday heat in heavy suits and boots designed to protect against chemical weapons that Iraq is alleged to possess, the battalion of more than 1,000 Marines met virtually no resistance as it stormed the sprawling complex, suffering no American casualties while wounding one Iraqi security guard.
Elsewhere in the Rumailah oil field, one Marine from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force died during the attack, and another Marine died in the battle for Umm Qasr–the first two Americans to die in combat.
The infantry force was supported by helicopters and other aircraft and teams of Special Operations forces.
Marines took about 30 enemy prisoners of war, identified as those who resisted, fled or possessed military identification. Thirty-four civilians were detained and later released.
For the 1st Battalion, crossing the border and seizing the complex culminated a tense and tiring three-day journey since leaving their camp in northern Kuwait. The Marines had set out Tuesday afternoon from the camp known as Living Support Area 7, situated some 20 miles from the Iraqi border.
After six weeks in Kuwait, the Marines’ news of their imminent departure set off anxious final preparations. Hundreds of Marines burned personal letters and photos that they did not wish to have in their rucksacks if they were captured. Intelligence officers added to the fires reams of maps and documents, many marked “secret” in red letters.
`This isn’t a controversial war’
Other Marines used their last minutes in camp to write letters home.
“I wrote to my fiance and told her that if this is the last time she ever hears from me, to know that I love her,” said Edgar Figueroa, 18, of Anaheim, one of the many rookies at the front of the Marine force.
Some unit commanders gathered their men for earnest speeches.
“This isn’t Vietnam,” Capt. Tom LaCroix told his men in 1st Battalion’s Charley Company. “We’re here to liberate this country. You’re here to do a good thing. Don’t lose sight of that.”
Packing into armored troop transports and Humvees, the massive convoy set off for a staging area closer to the border, where they dug deep into the hard desert floor, fashioning two-man “sustainability holes” in the event of artillery or missile attacks. Electric lights were banned, and reporters traveling with the unit were barred from using cellular or satellite phones.
Those holes in the sand got frequent use the next day, when four missile attack alerts sent Marines scurrying for cover and scrambling to affix their gas masks within the prescribed nine seconds. The Marines set off again late Thursday evening, moving north to an “attack position” just beside the border with Iraq. By now, their movements had a name: Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“I wonder if they’ll change the name if the Iraqi people fight back,” said Navy Corpsman Greg Serdynski, 22, as he bedded down for his last, brief night in Kuwait.
Once again, they raced to dig into the desert floor. Within minutes, the warning rang out for “lightning”–or incoming artillery, which left soldiers huddled in barely dug depressions in the sand until the warning was called off. Artillery, both U.S. and Iraqi, boomed throughout the night as members of other Marine units that were poised to cross the border swapped fire with Iraqi units.
Most noticeable, however, from the barren plains beside the border, was the cascade of U.S. firepower falling on Safwan Hill, the main Iraqi listening post overlooking the northern Kuwaiti desert. Continuous shelling into Friday morning leveled the Safwan post, Marine commanders said.
Setting off again Friday, the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment reached the border around noon, plunging armored personnel carriers through breaches in the sand berms separating Kuwait and Iraq.
The border also is defined by a demilitarized zone that was, until the invasion, supervised by United Nations troops.
Residents wave at convoy
Rumbling into the Iraqi borderland, the Marines passed thinly populated towns and farming communities. With armed sentries training their sights on any passing vehicles or pedestrians, the heavily armed convoy raced past the squat, drab houses, hardscrabble fields and sun-bleached portraits of Hussein, while seemingly unsurprised local residents looked on. Some people waved at passing convoys, and Marines, both surprised and wary, waved back.
Overhead was a steady stream of helicopters. On the radio came word of sporadic firefights along the road ahead. Haltingly, the convoy moved on as Cobra attack copters equipped with anti-tank Hellfire missiles beat forward up the road. Minutes later, the convoy passed the flaming remains of three Iraqi tanks.
The Marines reached the oil complex by midafternoon and launched their long-planned operation.
They are expected to hand off security duties to another force within days, before moving on to other objectives.
A key factor in the success of the operation appeared to be a leafleting campaign done before the assault. Army aircraft dropped leaflets in recent days urging workers to assist the assault and foi l sabotage plans.
Sgt. Eric Strause, 32, of San Antonio was among the first to arrive at the site and said many workers unfolded the leaflets.
“I really thought we were going to run into more problems,” he said. “We were prepared to get to this thing and have it already be engulfed in fire.”
