American Soldiers in Iraq: In the Crosshairs

MARGARET WARNER:

It's been a bloody few days for U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Yesterday, residents of Fallujah celebrated an attack that had killed two American soldiers. While the details are hazy, U.S. Central Command said two local men targeted a U.S. armored vehicle with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. The Americans fired back, killing the two attackers. A U.S. helicopter at the scene crashed, too, though it's unclear whether it was shot down. The incident is one of several that U.S. commanders find troubling.

CAPT. DAVID CONNOLLY, U.S. Army:

Some of them were clearly planned attacks on our forces. However, yesterday's events alone do not necessarily indicate a trend as some may have reported.

MARGARET WARNER:

Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, has been the site of several recent clashes involving American troops. Many Saddam Hussein loyalists still live there.

MAN ( Translated ):

We will shoot down their aircraft with these small bullets. They come to Fallujah every day at 11:00, and block the road and they will not allow anyone to pass through, even sick and injured people. They insult and humiliate the people.

MARGARET WARNER:

U.S. troops have also come under attack in western Baghdad. Yesterday, a rocket and grenade attack at a U.S.-controlled police station injured two American soldiers. And on Monday, a U.S. soldier on patrol in Baghdad died when his humvee hit an explosive, possibly a land mine, in its path. A U.S. officer on the scene called it a clear ambush. Earlier that day, in the western city of Haditha, Iraqi gunmen ambushed a U.S. Supply convoy, killing one U.S. Soldier and wounding another. The new attacks have prompted U.S. commanders to step up patrols in Baghdad; 20,000 additional soldiers have been sent to Iraq, bringing the total number there to 163,000.

For more on these attacks and the implications for the U.S. presence in Iraq, we're joined by Patrick Tyler of the "New York Times." I talked to him in Baghdad late this afternoon. Hello, Pat. Tell me, what do U.S. Military authorities think about these attacks in terms of whether they're connected, in terms of whether they're a sign of any kind of organized resistance?

PATRICK TYLER:

I still think that they… the military doesn't think that there is a direct connection between, say, the series of attacks that occurred in the last few days. As best they can tell from the intelligence they're gathering, and I think that is spotty at best from the street, because some of the streets are hostile, there are unorganized groups, gangs, former Ba'athists, former military types, former Fedayeen martyrs-of-Saddam types out there with weapons, with these RPG's that are mounting attacks on U.S. military convoys.

Now, they read the news and hear the news like everybody else, and the word has gone out to supporters of Saddam, defenders of the nation, and those who are in opposition to the American and British occupation to take on the American presence here, and to use what weapons they can.

These are the same weapons we saw them use during the military campaign. They came at U.S. forces in pickup trucks, as you remember, with RPG's and heavy machine guns. And they were almost suicidal in their lack of effectiveness. The military thinks they are, and continues to refer to them as kind of harassment attacks. But, of course, U.S. soldiers are dying, they're getting wounded, and these attacks are creating and perpetuating the kind of instability and hostility in the streets that makes it very difficult to get life back to normal in Iraq.

MARGARET WARNER:

But you're saying that, for now, at least, that U.S. authorities think that the people doing this, that there is a political motivation, these just aren't local folks who are unhappy with the living conditions under the U.S. occupation.

PATRICK TYLER:

I think, in some cases, there may be some differing motivations. When I was out in Fallujah last night, I was struck by how many people who supported the attacks on that convoy, who were happy that there had been an operation against U.S. forces, said that this was vengeance for the residents of that town who died on April 28 and 29 in the clashes between U.S. Forces that had entered Fallujah, were based in a school there, and when local authorities tried to take it back, there was a crowd scene, there was some shooting going on, U.S. soldiers fired back toward the crowd, and as many as fifteen people died; about three dozen were injured. So there's hostility there. And in the clan culture of that area, it's blood for blood. And you hear that in the streets, that people are looking for vengeance.

In other parts, you're just dealing with the Fedayeen, loyalists to the old Ba'athist regime, or as Secretary Rumsfeld has referred to them from time to time, "dead enders," people who are cashiered from the ex-Iraqi military that's now been dissolved, who are not going to get new jobs, who are not going to get a future in the new Iraqi military, who were part of the Ba'athist structure supporting the totalitarian regime. They have nothing else. And they have turned against U.S. forces. I think this is going to be an ongoing problem for security for those forces here, and for general stability in some places. In some parts of Iraq, it's quite stable already. For some reason, just west of Baghdad between here and the Syrian border, you have some knots of very hard resistance.

MARGARET WARNER:

We've read reports here that the first armored division, which has gone into Baghdad now, that the commanders want these troops to be a less threatening-looking presence: To get out of their tanks; more in humvees; maybe even foot patrols. Are U.S. soldiers in more vulnerable positions now than they where, say, when they first came in, more vulnerable to these attacks?

PATRICK TYLER:

I don't think there's any question when you take a soldier out of armor and put him on the street, even if he's wearing his helmet and flack vest, he is more vulnerable than he was inside that tank or armored vehicle. This new push to get out of the static positions and to get out and meet the people and patrol the streets on foot is something that comes with Paul Bremer, the new civilian administrator here. He's very keen to step up security. We hear that there are more than 50,000 troops in Baghdad now. And he's looking for a way to beef up the police function in a way that it connects with the population.

And in some neighborhoods it's working. If you go out in Baghdad today, you can find humvees parked on corners with G.I.'s sitting on top of them with the neighborhood kids bringing them popsicles and coca-colas. The relationship and the bonding is going on in some places. It is successful, just as it has been successful in the United States. But where you're in a hostile scene, where you've got hardened Ba'athist or former Fedayeen or some kind of criminal element out to do violence against U.S. forces here, they're going to look for vulnerabilities, and that soldier on the street is more vulnerable.

MARGARET WARNER:

So, what are U.S. troops doing to protect themselves in areas that are hostile?

PATRICK TYLER:

Well, you're not going to see any foot patrols, I don't think, for a while in places like Fallujah and Ramadi and Ba'qubah, where a woman came up and tried to throw grenades at a building that was retaken by U.S. forces from the Islamic group, Syrie, that's under Ayotollah Hakim. In Fallujah last night, what was very conspicuous was that U.S. forces were behind razor wire on the business end of their machine guns, with the barrels pointing out toward the street in full battle dress. There was no interaction. It was rather tense. And when they move in convoys, they move with their hands at the ready on those machine guns, and there's not much meet-and-greet going on with the local population in those tense and hostile conditions.

MARGARET WARNER:

So bottom line, do the U.S. commanders you talk to think they've got sufficient forces on the ground?

PATRICK TYLER:

I haven't heard a U.S. military commander in public not say that there weren't enough troops here. And I haven't heard of a military commander who's had a private conversation with someone he could confide with not talk about his concerns about not having enough forces in the country. As I said, they've moved tens of thousands of troops into Baghdad to take over the police function, because there was that much alarm that the capital was slipping away from them into anarchy. Much of that is back under control now, because they are so many troops in the city.

But it is a huge country, the size of Texas, and the number of forces here is still, if you allocated them out across the cities, as were the police forces under the regime, you still have a very lightly patrolled and garrisoned country. And where you have Saddam Hussein still on the loose, a number of key members of his revolutionary command council, a number of hardened Ba'athists, and all of these commanders and middle-ranking officers of the special Republican Guards and the Republican Guards, who were high- ranking Ba'athists and have nowhere to go, you have the makings for a lot of trouble and guerrilla attacks out there. They don't… as I say, they don't look systematically organized at this point. But when you see the string of them that we've seen in the last few days, you have to ask the question: Are they getting organized?

MARGARET WARNER:

Patrick Tyler, thanks again.

PATRICK TYLER:

You're welcome.