Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 25, 1991 TAG: 9102250114
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: EASTERN SAUDI ARABIA LENGTH: Medium
Then, dressed in chemical protective suits, thousands of U.S. Marines launched the long-awaited allied attack into Kuwait on Sunday.
"G-Day," as the troops had dubbed it, had the potential to be a nightmarish spectacle, a grisly scene filled with flaming oil ditches and deadly mists of biological and chemical gas. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had repeatedly threatened that this was to be the "mother of all battles," with thousands of casualties.
It did not happen that way, as even the weather cooperated with the allies Sunday. Unexpectedly this past weekend, the wind shifted. Rain fell. The noxious smoke from burning Kuwaiti oil fields, which had filled the sky for days, blotting out the sun and blackening the horizon, dispersed on G-Day.
And for the Marines - some of whom had crept across the border on foot Saturday and used simple plastic pokers to probe for mines in the dark - the largest U.S. military campaign since World War II started off easily.
"It's gone too smoothly," said a worried Marine commander, Lt. Gen. Walter Boomer, about six hours after the first waves of Marines stormed over the Saudi border at 4 a.m Saudi time Sunday and quickly broached Iraqi front lines. "Any commander gets concerned in that situation."
The rain-drenched Marines met only sporadic resistance as they quickly cleared lanes through Iraqi mine fields and raced northward throughout the day.
Indeed, the biggest problem by nightfall Sunday was finding enough buses and trucks to ferry the many prisoners being taken, most of whom surrendered without a fight.
At dawn, under the protection of heavy artillery fire, the mechanized 1st Marine Division task force (called "Ripper") broke through Iraq's first line of defense, the "Saddam Line," 12 miles from the L-shaped heel of Kuwait's southwest border with Saudi Arabia.
Other Marine task forces, code named "Grizzly" and "Poppa Bear," launched simultaneous attacks and feints along the border to confuse the Iraqi defenders and mask the major thrust.
The Marines' 2nd Division surged across the border at 5:30 a.m. to attack Iraqi positions northwest of the giant Al-Wafra oil fields. They punched holes through the first mine fields and defense lines within two hours, according to the division commander, Maj. Gen. William Keys.
The Marines faced scattered artillery and machine-gun fire and detected a "wee, little bit" of chemical gas about 10 miles inside Kuwait, Keys said. The gas apparently was released by buried mines, rather than Iraqi artillery, he said.
The initial assault was aimed at a double line of Iraqi fortifications, called the obstacle belts. The first was more than a half-mile deep, with multiple rows of anti-personnel and anti-tank mine fields, rolls of razor wire, dug-in infantry positions and targeted artillery "kill zones." A second, similar belt is about five miles farther east.
The 2nd Division Marines roared across the muddy desert flats in six columns of tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, armored personnel carriers and infantry. Special mine-clearing plows and explosive line charges helped blast lanes through the deadly sands of the first line as Marine AV-8B Harriers, A-6 and FA-18 Hornet attack planes and Cobra helicopter gunships roared overhead for protection.
Moving to the northeast, two columns reported that they had reached the second defensive line inside occupied Kuwait by 7:50 a.m. Two other columns bogged down midway between the two barriers because of an oil pipeline and a heavy concentration of mines.
"On the other side of the barrier, they are putting up stiff resistance," said Lt. Col. Jan Huly.
Boomer said he expected heavier fighting from entrenched Iraqi forces deeper in Kuwait. "The farther we move, the harder the fight will become," he said.
The wind also played havoc with the Iraqis. When it shifted and blew away the smoke and haze, it exposed almost 100 camouflaged Iraqi artillery pieces. They were quickly destroyed by allied attack planes. "The weather has changed to our advantage," said a Marine aviator aboard the USS Nassau, command ship for amphibious forces in the Persian Gulf.
by CNB