Richard Natonski, who took over the 1st Marine Division from Mattis in 2004.Īs the Americans raced north, “Saddam’s martyrs” sniped at their supply lines, slowing the advance. Others simply went home.ĭuring the march to Baghdad, some of the fiercest fighters were the tattooed paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam, recalled retired Lt. “We stayed awake with a lot of caffeine, and 15-minute cat naps - more like passing out.”Īlthough the jubilation of welcoming throngs of Iraqis would be short-lived, the Americans were greeted along the way with shouts of thanks and “I love George Bush!” Iraqi soldiers folded their uniforms and placed them on the ground beneath their boots, then walked down the street in their underwear with their hands up or waving a white flag. Bryan McCoy, who led the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment and a tank company from Twentynine Palms during the invasion.
“It was like one marathon, a 100-meter sprint at a time,” recalled retired Col. John Toolan, now commanding general of the Marine force at Camp Pendleton, took charge of Regimental Combat Team-1. Joe Dowdy stalled in the face of heavy combat near An-Nasiriyah and gave a sleep-deprived, babbling explanation about how he couldn’t stand losing so many Marines. Too much money spent in Iraq for too few resultsĬol. Their biggest fears were not the Iraqi army’s dilapidated tanks, but the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction used to sell the war - chemical, biological and nuclear - that were never found. The Marines, along with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division and British troops, pushed ahead dressed in charcoal-lined suits, gas masks ready. Days went by without sleep, a month with no shower. He shot all the way up to just outside the defenses of Baghdad,” Kennedy said. “They didn’t think you could move a heavy force along this unfinished highway in the middle of the desert. Instead, Mattis led the division straight up Highway One, bypassing most major Iraqi divisions. The Iraqi regime expected an attack along the Tigris River or an end-run around the desert. View the photo gallery: Marines in Iraq: Ten years on Paul Kennedy, who was Mattis’ plans officer for the invasion.
The goal was to surprise the regime and prevent a repeat of the environmental and economic disaster of blazing oil wells during the first Gulf War, recalled Brig. Ground forces began racing toward Baghdad without waiting for a prolonged air campaign. “Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi army who choose to surrender,” but to move swiftly and aggressively against the resisters. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)Īs a lifetime scholar of warfare, Mattis warned before the kickoff of Operation Iraqi Freedom to expect chemical attacks, the use of innocents as human shields and other treachery. Central Command, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 5, 2013, before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2014 and the Future Years Defense Program. A few days before crossing the line of departure, Mattis circulated a message to his Marines and sailors that some keep framed on their wall to this day. Central Command, led the 1st Marine Division to war. James Mattis, now a four-star general preparing to retire as head of U.S. military doctrine, shift the concurrent campaign in Afghanistan, harden a new generation of combat veterans and shape future wars. The legacy of its involvement - from leading the first conventional ground troops into Iraq during the invasion to flipping Sunni tribes in Anbar province - helped rewrite U.S. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force headquartered at Camp Pendleton, which includes the air wing at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and other troops at Twentynine Palms and Yuma, played key roles in the war. military, adding heroic chapters to its history as well as blood-soaked lessons in counterinsurgency, tribalism and the rise of the improvised explosive device, or IED, as Achilles heel to the superpower’s juggernaut of high-tech weaponry.
The Iraq War also had a profound impact on the U.S. By then the conflict had deeply reconfigured Iraq and the balance of power in the Middle East. war ended in December 2011 when the last American convoy drove out of the country. Violence still troubles Iraq, but the U.S. For exiled Chaldeans, Iraq war is far from finished
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