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The war in Iraq is now well into its second week, and hopes for a quick, easy victory are gone. The logistics unit of the 3rd Infantry Division (3ID) I'm embedded with has been in this same location, two thirds of the way to Baghdad, since Mar. 24. As we wait to resume our advance, fear and frustration are building daily because the longer we sit here, the greater the chances we could be attacked.
This was supposed to be a two-day stop. Now no one knows when we'll get moving again. Every day the camp feels more permanent. Today we strung up concertina wire between stakes around the perimeter. Yet I'm assured that this pause was necessary as bad weather and security problems have led to delays of up to six days, allowing logistics teams to catch up with the front. "Tactical vehicles have no problems over this terrain," says Captain Chris Carlson, "but logistics have been having a nightmare."
Lieutenant Brad Gogats is uniquely placed to appreciate what happens when the supply chain is stretched out too thin. He's in charge of pushing forward fuel, food, and ammunition to the 3-7 Cavalry, which has probably seen more fighting than any other unit. After a five-day pitched battle outside the city of An Najaf, lasting longer than the entire ground campaign in the Gulf War, supplies of Baretta 9-millimeter rounds and ammunition for M-16 assault rifles were virtually exhausted. "We were pretty screwed," he recalls.
"PREPARE YOURSELF." Like many soldiers I've spoken with recently, Gogats was cynical about the way the Army miscalculated Iraqi resistance. "We thought all these towns were going to capitulate. We were waiting for a parade with American flags. It really didn't go down like that."
A few yards away, I could hear the chaplain giving his sermon to five soldiers standing in the afternoon sunshine. "I've never come so close to looking death in the face as I do here," he intoned. "You must prepare yourself to be received by the Lord." His words carried special weight. Earlier this week, 3ID lost its first soldier, the victim of a sniper attack. Then, earlier today we got word that four soldiers from the division had been killed in a suicide car-bomb attack at a checkpoint north of here.
I'm worried that such casualties will become increasingly common and that our logistics unit is particularly vulnerable. Whereas tactical battalions travel in tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles that can withstand most kinds of armed assault, regular supply trucks and Humvees have virtually no protection. For example, the vehicle I'm traveling in has canvas doors that wouldn't even stop a knife, let alone a few rounds from an AK-47 or a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).
"GAME OF LUCK." Making matters worse, convoys are woefully ill-equipped with communications. Take the 14-vehicle convoy I saw leave our camp on Mar. 29. In addition to 12 fuel tankers, a Humvee was in the lead and was followed by a 1950s' era truck -- the kind with canvas covering the cargo section. It had a 50-caliber turret gun mounted on the cab. But only the Humvee and the last tanker were equipped with radios, meaning there was no way of alerting the turret gunner of danger ahead. Somehow this problem seemed to bother me more than the man controlling the trigger. "It's a game of luck," said Private Rich Pinion. "A radio wouldn't do too much for me."
I wasn't convinced, and expressed my misgivings about this risk to Lieutenant Colonel Steven Lyons of the 3ID's logistics arm. I suggested that in the absence of radios in every vehicle, at the very least the convoy could work out some hand signals to indicate danger ahead. Lyons agreed. "We could certainly use more security on the convoys," he said. "There's no doubt about it."
The problem is beefing up security on convoys involves diverting tanks and Bradleys, which should be on the battlefield. And U.S. ground forces are already spread pretty thinly as it is. For the sake of Lieutenant Gogats and the others in my unit, the sooner more troops arrive to help share the burden, the better.
Balfour, with the 3rd Infantry Division camped outside Baghdad, is normally a BusinessWeek reporter based in Hong Kong Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
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