U.S. troops, ships take battle positions
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DOHA, Qatar — In the hours before the U.S.-imposed 48-hour deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face war, the general commanding the Army's 3rd Infantry Division — the only heavy armored unit in Kuwait — packed up his headquarters and started moving his 10,000 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, Humvees and trucks toward the Iraqi border.
The mechanized infantry unit known as the "Iron Fist" would be the only U.S. armored division in the fight, and would likely meet any Iraqi defenses head on.
"We will be entering Iraq as an army of liberation, not domination," said Capt. Philip Wolford, of Marysville, Ohio, directing the men of his 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment to take down the U.S. flags fluttering from their sand-colored tanks.
After a brief prayer, Wolford leaped into an impromptu desert war dance. Camouflaged soldiers joined him, jumping up and down in the sand, chanting and brandishing rifles carefully emptied of their rounds.
Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Smith predicted that "once we get into Baghdad, it's going to be just like we were going to your hometown trying to kick you out."
"You are going to fight for everything you are worth, that's your home, that's your town, so I imagine once we get to Baghdad we are going to get a good fight."
At sea, the top admiral commanding the U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf told his sailors that he had informed the president that the fleet was ready to go to war against Iraq.
And from the sky, the United States dropped 2 million leaflets over southeastern Iraq, many of which instructed Iraqi soldiers on how to surrender, advice apparently taken by 17 who gave up even before a shot was fired.
Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, the 3rd Infantry's commander, told reporters at his dusty tactical operations center yesterday morning that he would be tearing down his headquarters that afternoon as part of his division's move toward the border.
"Most everything's going to be moving either today or tomorrow," he said.
The commander of U.S. naval forces in the region visited all three aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf yesterday to rally them for the airstrikes.
"I do not yet have the execute order, but it is more than less likely in the short term," said Vice Adm. Timothy Keating. "I believe it's coming, perhaps in the very short term."
The planning for this campaign was over a year in the making, he said, and will be "unlike anything in the history of war." Keating wouldn't give any details, but did say that naval aviation would play a major role in its execution.
The assembled naval force here, he said, is "unprecedented in history in terms of lethality, endurance, precision and speed. The plan is designed to reduce, "if not eliminate, noncombatant casualties."
U.S. aircraft dropped 1.98 million leaflets yesterday, and 1.4 million on Tuesday. The leaflets dropped yesterday for the first time contained specific instructions to Iraqi soldiers on how to surrender, according to the U.S. Central Command in Qatar.
The Military Times and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
