Long-planned attack begins

American and Iraqi troops seize peninsula, secure bridges as they start campaign to rout insurgents from city attack begins

BY MATTHEW MCALLESTER | STAFF CORRESPONDENT

November 8, 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq - American and Iraqi forces attacked the insurgent-held city of Fallujah last night in a bid to sweep the town of rebels and turn it over to the interim Iraqi government in the run-up to the country's scheduled first elections in January, American military commanders said.

As an AC-130 gunship targeted suspected car bombs in the town, and artillery pounded suspected rebel positions, the first of more than 10,000 American and Iraqi troops began to push into this city of 250,000, military sources said.

Working from a battle plan weeks in the making, Marines and an Iraqi commando squad made the first thrust - seizing a peninsula on the western side of the town, which is separated from the rest of the city by the Euphrates River, military sources said. On the peninsula is a hospital that the American commanders wanted to secure as soon as the fighting began. Troops secured two key bridges over the Euphrates at both ends, an American commander said.

American commanders said shortly before the airstrikes began that the forces amassed against the estimated 3,000 insurgents in Fallujah were overwhelming.

"That town's going to be lit up tonight," said Army Maj. Tim Karcher, operations officer for the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, an army unit that a Newsday reporter is accompanying.

Hours before the attack began, Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, addressed 2,000 to 3,000 Marines at a base near Fallujah.

"You can feel the energy," Sattler told them. "You can feel the chemistry. You're going to give that to the Iraqi forces as they join that fight. God bless you, each and every one. You know what your mission is. Go out there and get it done."

What military commanders said was the start of the much anticipated attack began on a day in which the interim Iraqi government announced a state of emergency for 60 days in all of the country except for the Kurdish-controlled north.

Insurgents continued what appeared to be an escalating campaign to distract coalition and Iraqi forces elsewhere in the central region of the country. The bombings, executions of police officers, assaults on police stations and other acts of violence against Iraqi and American targets brought the total of those killed over the weekend to more than 50.

Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said yesterday, shortly before the attack started, that action could be near. "We can't wait indefinitely," he said. "We have made our case very clear, that we have nothing with the people of Fallujah. On the contrary, the people of Fallujah have been asking us to really intervene as fast as we can and to salvage the people. They have been taken hostage by a bunch of terrorists and bandits and insurgents who were part of the old regime. They had been involved in atrocities when Sad- dam was around. Our government is determined to safeguard the Iraqi people."

Tense time for soldiers

With violence erupting around the region, tension has been building among the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, which was once led by Lt. Col. George Custer at Little Big Horn.

The men here have seen major action before, unlike many in Iraq. Most of them were involved in the intense battle with Shia insurgents from the Mehdi Army in the city of Najaf in August.

Each night, soldiers have lain in big blue-and-white tents in a camp outside Fallujah on dark khaki cots, watching DVDs on their laptops, chuckling in the private oblivion of headphones. Others have sat in corners with a pack of cards, a voice rising with a win, others groaning.

Somewhere nearby an artillery battery has for days been booming irregularly but often, targeting Fallujah and making even some of these experienced soldiers leap.

"You need new underwear, you just let me know," they like to call out to each other when they spot each other flinching.

Soldiers have not been coming to Chaplain Jonathan Fowler with jokes. They have been coming to him "to get good with God," he said. These are young men, some 19 years old, and they know that they might not come back from this fight.

One soldier new to the unit - he signed up five months ago - has been suspiciously quiet, said Staff Sgt. Carlos Santillana, 24, of Abilene, Texas, himself already a veteran of the fighting in Najaf.

"What's wrong, man?" Santillana said he asked the soldier on Saturday.

"I'm scared," the young soldier told him.