U.S. Forces Enter Kirkuk Unopposed
By Steve Vogel
KIRKUK,
Iraq, April 10 -- U.S. Army troops rolled unopposed into this key northern
city tonight, securing an airfield and an oil facility after a Kurdish
uprising ousted Iraqi forces.
Two battalions from the 173rd
Airborne Brigade moved south from positions in the Kurdish autonomous
region, passing a landscape filled with victorious Kurdish militia waving
AK-47s in the air and abandoned Iraqi armored vehicles.
Prepared to
fight Iraqi forces, the light infantry unit found itself battling nothing
but cheering crowds and a huge traffic jam caused by the convoys carrying
more than 2,000 troops in over 100 military vehicles.
At the Kirkuk
military airfield, taken earlier in the day by Kurdish pesh merga
militias, the arriving U.S. soldiers found abandoned guard shacks with
uniforms on the floor. "They dropped their uniforms, changed into civilian
clothes, and bolted," an Army officer said. "They didn't even bother to
turn off the lights."
The commander of the U.S. force said the goal
of the move into Kirkuk was to preserve its critical oil industry and
bring stability to a highly uncertain situation. The United States did not
want Kurds to occupy Kirkuk, fearing that such a move would incite Turkey
to send troops into northern Iraq, but proved powerless to prevent it.
"I'm principally worried about the oil [facilities], making sure
nobody takes them over or destroys them," said Col William Mayville,
commander of the brigade. "We want to make sure they're available for a
post-Saddam government."
Iraqi forces were largely cleared from
Kirkuk today by the Kurdish forces, but Iraqi units of significant
strength remain just south of the city, U.S. officers said.
The
173rd had been preparing to launch an attack toward Kirkuk next Tuesday,
backed by M1 Abrams tanks that are being flown into the Bashur airfield in
the Kurdish autonomous zone.
The collapse of the Iraqi regime's
power and Kurdish advances forced U.S. commanders to scramble and move a
force toward Kirkuk immediately, unsure of what kind of resistance they
would meet. Tanks rolled from Bashur to Irbil this morning to join the
operation, but at the last moment they were left behind because of
concerns that they would break down without proper equipment on hand to
repair them.
"This is going to be a fly by the seat of your pants
type thing," Capt. William Jacobs, commander of C Company of the 1st
Battalion, 508th Infantry, told his platoon leaders as they prepared to
move. "This could be a war, or we could walk across like it's a Sunday
picnic."
The U.S. advance in the north was decidedly more the
latter. Plans for a cautious, phased movement to Kirkuk went out the
window as the convoy found complete freedom of movement on Highway 2
leading from Irbil to Kirkuk.
It was a military invasion preceded
by a victory parade. Thousands of happy Kurds lined the road leading out
of Irbil, slowing the convoy to a crawl where the crowds pressed forward.
Some waved banners or AK-47s in the air, and the occupants of one black
sedan threw candy at the passing Humvees.
"It's like we just won
the World Cup," said Jacobs, an Oklahoman who commanded the battalion's
lead element from a Humvee without doors.
At the airfield here
tonight, officers who had expected a deadly fight to reach Kirkuk were
incredulous at the turn of events. "I didn't think we'd get here this
quickly, cruising right in here," said Maj. Bob Hanley. "Wow."