Schofield's Iraq-bound troops learn destination

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Army officials said 4,800 Schofield Barracks soldiers heading to Iraq will be operating in a New Hampshire-sized chunk of territory around the northern city of Kirkuk, an oil-rich region where ethnic tensions are on the rise.

The 9,200-square-mile region populated by Kurds, Turkmen and Muslim Arabs is outside the so-called "Sunni Triangle" north and west of Baghdad where many attacks on U.S. troops have occurred.

But ambushes continue to take American lives in Mosul to the north of 418,000-population Kirkuk and to the south in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown.

In Kirkuk, a truck bomb last month killed five bystanders in an attack aimed at Iraqis cooperating with the U.S. occupation. On Dec. 22, thousands of Kurds demonstrated in favor of incorporating Kirkuk into the northern autonomous region.

"I think we're going to have a complicated mission," said Capt. Bill Venable, a company commander with the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment "Gimlets."

"We'll be involved in standing up and supporting the new Iraqi government in that area. We'll be sorting out the differences between the various ethnic groups there. We'll be assisting (with) the local economic infrastructure and getting oil fields back in operation."

Although there have been fewer attacks on U.S. forces in Kirkuk, Venable said, "Our assumption, in planning for this, is (that) the area we're going to remains a dangerous place."

The first contingents from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team deploying to Iraq for the year-long mission are expected to leave Hawai'i around mid-January. Soldiers will deploy into February.

For several months, the Schofield soldiers will be operating in Iraq under the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) out of Fort Hood, Texas, whose 17,000 soldiers, along with about 13,000 reservists, Special Forces and engineers make up Task Force Iron Horse.

The 4th Division's area of responsibility encompasses a much larger area from Kirkuk to Baghdad where American forces have faced repeated ambushes in cities like Samara, Baqubah and Tikrit.

"There's a lot of activity taking place in the 4th ID area," said Patrick Garrett, a defense analyst with Virginia-based GlobalSecurity.org. "Those units are under quite a bit of threat and are taking part in a lot of operations against insurgents and guerrilla forces."

More than 20 OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters, hundreds of Humvees — some with extra armor — and other equipment are on the way to Kuwait. From there, many soldiers will travel 600 miles by convoy over six days to get to Kirkuk.

Another 3,500 Schofield soldiers are deploying to Afghanistan in March and April for 12 months of "boots on the ground" in that country as part of the biggest combat deployments from Schofield since the Vietnam War.

Iraq-bound soldiers are being issued cold-weather overalls and jackets for duty in Kirkuk, where daytime temperatures have been in the 50s and nighttime lows are in the 40s.

"The soldiers that are there now are living in a combination of contractor-built facilities, tents with wooden flooring and former Iraqi government buildings," Venable said. "We'll probably fall in on that infrastructure when we go in."

The Hawai'i-based brigade will then be assigned to the 1st Infantry Division out of Germany. South Korea has moved to send 3,000 troops to Kirkuk in April, meanwhile.

The 2nd Brigade Combat Team originally was slated for duty in western Iraq as part of a massive troop rotation involving up to 250,000 troops coming and going from Iraq and Afghanistan next year.

That area of responsibility was changed to central and northern Iraq, and 25th Infantry Division (Light) officials this week narrowed that area of responsibility to the Kirkuk region, 150 miles north of Baghdad.

Under Saddam's reign, Kurds were forced out of the oil-producing city and replaced by Arabs. Tensions have mounted with Kurds flooding back into the city, seen as key to the future stability of the country.

The Kurdish call for autonomy and the possibility of an independent Kurdish state are opposed by the Turkmen and by Turkey, Iraq's neighbor to the north.

Venable said he has general information about the type of missions his company will be performing, and "it's right in line with the training that we've been conducting over the past several months."

Those responsibilities may include counterinsurgency, "presence patrols," training programs for the Iraqi army, and checkpoint control.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.

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