In Baghdad, a battle that never came

Just before sending Baker Company's commanders off to prepare their Marines for battle Wednesday morning, Maj. Dan Healey reminded them of the importance of the mission that lay ahead: "The eyes of the world will be on the American forces," he told them, "and on what the capture of Baghdad will look like."

By the time night fell, Baker Company and thousands more Marines – the 1st Battalion's 7th Marine Regiment – had swept through the eastern half of Baghdad, occupying a vast swath of territory that included Bagh-dad University, several foreign embassies, a presidential palace and a home of Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

Some had helped Baghdadis pull down a statue of Saddam Hussain, a gesture televised worldwide.

Facing only mild resistance from snipers as they pushed through the city, the Marines basked in a warm welcome from residents, who lined the streets as if they were a parade route.

For several miles, civilians of every age and description clapped, wa-ved, gave the thumbs-up, winked and blew kisses with both hands in the most overt display of welcome the Marines had received since entering Iraq March 21.

One man wearing a white tank top, who appeared to be in his sixties, passed out roses to the crowd. But cheering was not the only activity: On the side of the road, men and women carried stereos, furniture and cardboard boxes loaded with consumer goods, all apparently looted. Many walked with shopping carts or dollies. A red double-decker bus drove around packed to the roof with electronic equipment.

As columns of Amtrac amphibious assault vehicles rolled down the streets – taking control of eastern Baghdad as tanks of the 3rd Infantry Division had taken over the western part, across the Tigris River – Charlie Company broke off from the rest of its battalion.

It seized a park along the river's east bank and then moved on to a five-building presidential palace, encountering virtually no resistance. The palace was abandoned and had already been damaged by heavy aerial bombardment over the past three weeks.

Charlie Company then wheeled over to an opulent four-story house it believed to be a residence of Aziz, Saddam's smooth-talking aide who for years has represented the Baath Party government abroad and in media appearances. It, too, was abandoned, although intact.

"There were sheets over the furniture like when you go on vacation," said Lt. Kohtara Terahira, the battalion's intelligence officer. He added that the home appeared to have been vacant for about a week. At both locations the Marines gathered up documents to be passed on to intelligence specialists.

The rest of the convoy moved past murals depicting Saddam in varied attire: full military dress, dark business suit, traditional Arab headscarf, and top hat and waistcoat fit for a night on the town.

At the entrance to Baghdad University, the Marines found a painting and a statue depicting the Iraqi leader in academic dress, complete with cap and gown.

The campus was equal parts leafy college and fortified military installation. Antiaircraft guns had been stashed between buildings, and sandbagged bunkers had been dug along the edges of most of the grassy lawns.

As they began to exit their vehicles, Marines from Baker Company were greeted by muzzle flashes and the crackle of gunfire from about halfway up a 20-story building in the courtyard of the College of Engineering. An explosion, whose origin could not be determined, rocked an adjacent computer science laboratory, setting it ablaze and spewing black smoke into the sky.

A brief but intense gun battle erupted, during which the Marines peppered the building with fire from their M-16 rifles. Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Boore squeezed off several .50-caliber machine gun rounds at a nearby bunker.

The Marines took fire from several windows and from pickup trucks with antiaircraft guns in the beds that could be tilted to fire at targets on the ground.

"I don't know about you, but we're taking all kinds of potshots," said an Amtrac driver over the radio mounted in his vehicle.

An M1 Abrams tank moved toward the tower and fired two earsplitting rounds from its main cannon. The fire from the building stopped.

The shooting ignited a weapons cache in one of the university buildings and started what the Marines call "a cook-off", filling the air with the cracks and bangs of exploding ordnance and the smell of gunpowder.

Within an hour, however, the campus was deemed under control. As a few Amtracs circled the perimetre, Brian Whelan, 21, a driver from outside Milwaukee, jumped out of his Amtrac to cut down an Iraqi flag flying outside the College of Education for Women.

Baker Company settled in for the night, still wondering whether it would awake the next morning and find out the war was over. Healey stressed vigilance to his troops, telling his platoon commanders, "The tendency will be for them to let their guard down. Don't let them."

At the beginning of this long day, as the 7th Regiment had gathered at the Zanfranyiah power plant southeast of the city to prepare for its swing through eastern Baghdad, Healey, commander of Baker Company, had made it clear that the war was at a decisive stage.

"Right now they're saying that the city is dead. People's escorts and handlers didn't show up for work," he said. "This could be the final push. When we set off there will be three-and-a-half hours of daylight left, and we want to own it by dark."

At 9 am, he briefed his platoon commanders about the potentially hazardous landscape that awaited them on their first foray into the densely populated city. "You can be hit anywhere at any time" in urban combat, he said. "So they need to be ready for a 360-degree, three-dimensional threat."

Civilians will be all over the battlefield, he added, so the Marines must make quick and accurate decisions about whom to target with their weapons.

Intelligence reports indicated that the Baghdad police were handing out rocket-propelled grenades to civilians to use against U.S. forces and reporting on the Marines' positions as they moved through the city. The Marines were told to treat them as hostile and to engage them on sight.

Because they would be operating in a district lined with embassies, including those of Belarus, Japan, Switzerland and Poland, the Marines were also warned not to fire on embassy security guards, who would be armed.

Healey also pointed out on his map an area marked with an 'X' where the Army had recently dropped 30 rounds of Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions, containing "bomb-lets" shaped like soda cans that could disable an armoured vehicle. But the battle they had been warned to expect never materialised.

"I expected coming in here just blazing, encountering a lot of enemy, tanks and personnel," said Sgt. Todd Barton, 21, of Hudson Falls, "That wasn't the way it was, but that's all right with me."

© Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service