There was a distinct feeling of deja vu from 1994 in the air this week. Back
then, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak saved the international community from
embarrassment by physically forcing Yasser Arafat to sign the Gaza-Jericho
agreement on live television.

This week, Mubarak sent the commander of his intelligence service to repeat the performance. General Omar Sulieman came to Ramallah on Tuesday and literally forced Arafat to meet with his deputy, Dr. Mahmoud Abbas, and accept Abbas's cabinet.

As in 1994, the US and Europe heaved a collective sigh of relief at Egypt's
manhandling of Arafat. The question is whether Arafat's seeming capitulation
now will prove as fraudulent as his behavior then.

When last June US President George W. Bush called on the Palestinian people
to reject the regime of PLO chief Arafat and to elect leaders 'not
compromised by terror,' he underscored the necessity of a complete overhaul
of the way the Palestinians perceive their national identity.

No longer could the Palestinians conceive of their nationalism as something
that must necessarily supplant Jewish nationalism in order to reach
fruition. Rather, a new group of leaders was called on to rise up who would
understand that the realization of Palestinian aspirations can come about
only after the Palestinians accept Israel's right to exist as the Jewish
state.

Today, responding to British pressure, the Bush administration stands poised
to preside over new talks between the Israeli government and the PLO under
the nascent leadership of Abbas, Arafat's deputy of four decades. The
announced aim of these talks is the speedy establishment of a Palestinian
state.

But before any such talks begin it is vital that all concerned parties, but
especially Israel, pause a moment and consider the reason for Oslo's abject
failure.

The Oslo process was predicated on a set of false assumptions. The primary
assumption was that the PLO, an organization founded with the expressed aim
of destroying Israel, no longer sought our liquidation. Instead, what we
found with Arafat's rejection of Ehud Barak's offer at Camp David is that
the PLO had not changed. Not only would Arafat not yield the Palestinians'
so-called 'right of return,' he also denied that the Jewish people have any
historic and legal claims to Jerusalem.

And for this stand he received a hero's welcome by the Palestinians upon his
return to Gaza after the summit.

The Oslo process also posited that the PLO had forsworn its armed struggle
for the destruction of the State of Israel. Yet Arafat himself formed the
Aksa Martyr's Brigades, which as Thursday's suicide bombing shows, is still
actively conducting terrorist operations against Israelis. Then, too, even
before the Palestinian Authority launched its terrorist war against Israel
in September 2000, its security services never made any sustained effort to
destroy Hamas or Islamic Jihad terror infrastructures. To the contrary, PA
military commanders like Col. Muhammad Dahlan embraced Hamas leaders like
Muhammad Deif. Already back in September 1996, Arafat showed that he had no
compunction about using the weapons Israel had given him to fight terrorism
to kill Israelis.

Finally, the Oslo agreement wrongly assumed that the PLO could be trusted to
abide by its signed commitments to Israel. It could not. From allowing the
free flow of sewage into riverbeds streaming into Israel to amassing
arsenals of prohibited armaments to registering tens of thousands of
vehicles stolen from Israelis, the Palestinian Authority breached every
single commitment it made to Israel at the negotiating table.

Now we are told that all of this is passe, because under the Abbas's
leadership the Palestinian Authority is reformed. We are told that Arafat,
who this week was feted by the entire international community in an effort
to have him accept Abbas's proposed cabinet - a cabinet that looks almost
exactly like Arafat's cabinet - no longer holds influence over what happens
in the Palestinian Authority.

Yet even if we accept the dubious assertion that Arafat is now neutralized,
we still must ask ourselves the question, why would Abbas be any different?

Abbas received his doctorate in 1983 from Moscow's Oriental University.
There his dissertation topic was 'The Secret Relationship between Nazism and
Zionism.' In his dissertation, which was adapted into a book published in
Jordan in 1984, Abbas argued that, as opposed to what is commonly believed,
'even fewer than a million Jews' were murdered by the Nazis.

He further argued that the gas chambers were not used to kill people but
rather to disinfect them and to burn bodies to prevent the flow of disease.

Abbas claimed that Hitler did not decide to kill the Jews until David
Ben-Gurion provoked him into doing so by 'declaring war on the Nazis' in
1942. It was the Zionist conspirators, Abbas explains, who created the myth
of six million murdered Jews in order to force the world to accept the
establishment of Israel.

To date, neither the Israeli government nor Abbas's main champion, German
Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, have asked him to retract his statements
of Holocaust denial.

Then too, the US plan to base new rounds of negotiations with an Abbas-led
PA on the Quartet's 'road map' has never taken into account Abbas's
expressed agreement with the maximalist Palestinian demands set out by
Arafat at the Camp David summit. In an interview with Kul al Arab radio in
August 2000, Abbas said of the Palestinian demand for the 'right of return,'
'It is only natural that each refugee return to his home.' In the same
interview he also directly threatened Israel, stating that if Israel does
not accept the Palestinian demands, 'We will open up the records of the past
and demand the country in which they live' - that is, pre-1967 Israel. He
also stated that he does not believe that Solomon's Temple ever existed in
Jerusalem.

A year later, in an interview with the PA's Al-Ayyam newspaper, Abbas
explained why any flexibility in the Palestinian demands toward Israel is
unacceptable. 'When a Palestinian says that we have missed an opportunity or
a tempting or a beneficial offer [by rejecting Barak's offers at Camp David
and Taba] it weakens the Palestinian position since [consequently] the
Americans and Israelis say, 'Here is a Palestinian who agrees with our
position.' Such things, unfortunately hurt the Palestinian position.'

So much, then, for Abbas's alleged moderation. Then there are the claims
that Abbas, unlike the rest of the PA, is untainted by corruption. Yet both
Abbas and his Security Minister-designate Dahlan are some of the
Palestinians most associated with PA corruption. Both men made a fortune
from kick-backs from the cement monopolies in Gaza. For years, photographers
were prohibited from taking pictures of the multi-million dollar villas in
Gaza both men financed by bilking the public trough.

Abbas has also shown that his Soviet education rubbed off on him. Speaking
of reforms in May 2002, Abbas explained that the reforms need to take
economic power away from Palestinian civilians and transfer all power to the
Palestinian Authority. Abbas argued then that a necessary reform would
involve preventing international NGOs from distributing monies directly to
Palestinian NGOs. All those funds, he argued, must be transferred to the PA,
the sole organization responsible for deciding how it should be apportioned.

It is true that in some recent statements, Abbas has argued that the PA's
terror war against Israel did not serve the national aspirations of the
Palestinian people. But these sort of statements, while encouraging, should
be seen for what they are: an argument about tactics, not strategy,
certainly not morality. They are not denunciations of terrorism per se, only
of terrorism that doesn't work. Together with his record of as anti-Semitic
ideologue of the Palestinian 'revolution,' it ought to be enough to dampen
anyone's enthusiasm for Abbas as an improvement over Arafat.

Learning the lessons of Oslo means placing the full burden of proof on the
Palestinians. Abbas, not Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, must be challenged to
show that he wishes to make concessions for peace. He must be challenged to
recant his denials of the Holocaust. He must be called to accept
Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. He must forswear his insistence
on the 'right of return.' He must be called on to accept publicly the
existence of the Jewish people whose national, spiritual and political roots
are in Jerusalem.

None of this is meant to humiliate Abbas. After all, no one believes that
Sharon is humiliating himself when he says he will accept the establishment
of a Palestinian state. Rather, all of this is necessary to ensure that not
only will a peace deal be reached, but that the peace will hold. If we
learned anything from the past three years it must be this: Unless the
Palestinian Authority under Abbas is actually willing to abide by the
commitments taken on by the PLO a decade ago, there is no point in cheering
his rise, no reason to negotiate anything with him, and certainly no reason
to sigh in relief that Arafat again has done Mubarak's bidding.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

After three weeks of intense fighting, the American military offensive
against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq more or less ended last Saturday.

The military operation can be compared to smashing down pieces on a chess
board by a violent hand and rearranging them according to a new guiding
logic. The manner in which the pieces of the Iraqi regime were smashed down
and are now being rearranged will serve as a basis for the work of
politicians and an inspiration for military planners for years to come.

I was privileged to bear witness to large swathes of the chess pieces
falling down. The 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion from the US army's 3rd
infantry division's first brigade whose forces I joined in the Kuwaiti
desert five weeks ago fought its way across Iraq from east to west, south to
north.

Its engagements began just west of al-Nasariya and continued through
a-Samwa, an-Najaf, Karbala, al Musaaib, Baghdad International Airport and
into Baghdad itself. When I parted from the troops on Sunday evening, they
were resting in western Baghdad at a luxurious villa outside a presidential
palace.

The battalion's resident military strategist is operations officer Maj. Rod
Coffey. Coffey, a 41-year-old, blond-haired, blue-eyed, square-jawed former
actor and student of the Catholic priesthood, is an avid follower of the
work of retired IDF Brig. Gen. Shimon Naveh. He believes that what the US
military accomplished in its offensive has shown that as Naveh argues, the
German all-out combined arms operations from World War II is not necessarily
the key to winning in modern warfare.

'What we did here on an operational level has never been done before,'
Coffey explains. 'We showed that if your objective is to destroy a regime,
you do not have to engage at every location. We made very clear to the
regular Iraqi army before we invaded that it was not our target. We also
signaled very clearly to the Special Republican Guard that it was our
target. We rightly assumed that the Iraqi people themselves would not fight
for Saddam's regime.

'All of these actions and presumptions informed our military planning and
operations. We did not get bogged down. we moved straight to our objective.
Our messages were received by the proper Iraqis and they behaved
accordingly, ' Coffey concludes.

Because the US forces had a clear military objective - ending Saddam's
regime - they did not allow themselves to be diverted by pockets of
resistance.

'Brute force and ignorance' is how Lt. Col. Scott Rutter termed his
battalion's offenses to his troops. 'Keep moving with brute force and
ignorance. Kill the enemy and move on,' he yelled repeatedly into the
battalion's radio network.

'I think one of the most significant aspects of our operation is that we
never stopped moving. The battalion commander said to keep moving and we
did. We drove for 18 hours straight and pissed in bottles, stopping only to
refuel. The enemy could never sway us from where we wanted to go,' says
25-year-old Steve Gleason, scout platoon commander.

On a larger scale, the focus, discipline and success of the US ground
offensive in Iraq has sent a clear message to terror-supporting regimes
throughout the region and the world.

'What this operation has done is to tell every regime in the world, 'if you support terrorism even tangentially, we will destroy you.' No doubt the regime in Iran, Syria and even Saudi
Arabia are taking note of this,' says Coffey.

'They will think twice about supporting terrorism in the wake of this operation in a way they never did before.'

AS FOR terrorism, the result of the offensive shows just how dependent on
terrorism Saddam's regime had become. While the 2-7 battalion was the only
task force to directly engage Iraqi tanks in battle, the most prevalent
fighting tactic of the Iraqi forces was indiscriminate RPG fire, small arms
and truck-mounted anti-aircraft artillery guns - that is terrorist warfare.

Interestingly, Baghdad itself was defended not by the Iraqi military, but by
a smattering of special Republican Guard troops bolstered by Palestinian and
Syrian irregular forces. It was these terrorist elements who fought hardest
for their patron Saddam, thus giving lie to the accusation that the US
operation in Iraq had nothing to do with its war against global terrorism.

An important lesson of the US offensive is that it is possible to deter the
use of weapons of mass destruction if one's offensive posture is
sufficiently strong. The 2-7 battalion acted as a buffer force on the
western edge of the city of Karbala as the rest of the 3rd infantry division
bypassed the city to the battalion's west. At the Karbala gap, a flat of
land only 8.5 km. wide, the Iraqis could have broken the US offensive at
least temporarily if they had used chemical weapons against the troops. Two
hours before the advance began, 3rd infantry division soldiers donned their
protective rubber boots on top of their protective chemical suits.

'I believe the Iraqis were deterred by our show of force. If some Lt.
Muhammad was ordered to chem us, he probably decided not to bother after he
saw our tanks and Bradleys plowing through,' says Gleason.

As it was, Iraqi resistance at the Karbala gap - where US forces were most vulnerable - was
negligible.

No doubt the most important and most daring aspect of the US operation in
Iraq is found in its name - Iraqi freedom. The attempt to bring freedom and
democracy to Iraq is the first time since the end of World War II that the
US has set for itself the aim of forcing freedom on a people that has never
been free.

Tonight, the Jewish people begin a week of celebrating our own emergence as
the first people in human history forcibly freed from bondage. We know that
had it not been for Moses we would have never left Egypt. In retelling the
story of the Exodus, we learn that while freedom can be won by the sword it
can only be maintained in the mind.

Watching thousands of civilians looting and plundering in the streets of
Baghdad, it was clear to me that the Iraqi people already have the first
inklings of what freedom can be. In raiding Saddam's store houses, they
quite clearly were saying 'no more' to his tyranny. In the days since, Iraqi
civilians have actively sought out US forces to point out weapons caches and
suspected chemical weapons depots.

At the same time, anti-US gunmen and terrorists proliferate. The sullen
faces of young men with neatly cut hair in civilian clothes are seen next to
the exuberant pillagers throughout the city. If these men, Saddam's
soldiers, are not separated from positions of influence they may convince
the people to return to their lives as slaves.

For Israel, the American experiment of bringing freedom to Iraq is
enormously significant. The core of Arab rejection of Israel is the absence
of freedom in Arab lands. Israel must be hated, otherwise our success in
making our desert bloom is proof that tyranny stands at the heart of Arab
backwardness and defeat. A free Iraq may be a seed for change in the
mind-set of the Arab world and hence the first seed of true peace for
Israel.

On the eve of the Seder, as we celebrate our freedom from bondage, we must
also celebrate the possibility that the same freedom may become the lot of
our neighbor to the east spreading from Baghdad to Damascus, Teheran,
Beirut, and Cairo.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

BAGHDAD - At first glance, the smiling faces of the Iraqi throngs who mobbed
the streets of Baghdad throughout Wednesday were cause for unadulterated
jubilation.

US and British forces, after 12 years, have finally arrived to liberate them
from the terror regime of Saddam Hussein.

The smiles on the faces of the pillaging mobs making off with every piece of
government property they could cart away and burning what remains registered
like a huge sigh of relief trumpeting through all sectors of occupied
Baghdad.

'USA! USA! USA!' 'Go Bush!' 'No Saddam!' The calls fell on the soldiers'
ears like confetti in a victory parade. And yet, after the initial sensory
overload, it quickly sank in that the situation is far from simple. The
rampant, uncontrollable looting for instance, while signifying the Iraqis'
sense that their terrorist regime had in fact collapsed, also signified a
total lack of public order.

US forces tried repeatedly to identify someone in the crowds who would be
able to get the message out to the people to go back to their homes, but to
no avail.

There was no one to talk to on Wednesday.

Although the Iraqis understand that the Saddam regime has collapsed, the
psychic distance they have yet to travel from being a people enslaved to a
murderous dictator to being a free and democratic society is long and
precarious.

For decades, the Iraqis, who never were under democratic rule to being with,
have lived their lives enslaved to Saddam Hussein.

Aside from Iraqi date palm trees, the only distinctive feature of the Iraqi
landscape is Saddam's face. Pictures of Saddam are found on the exterior
walls of almost every building in Baghdad. Saddam is featured carrying a
rifle in one hand and raising his other in a 'heil Hitler' salute. Saddam is
featured as a keffiyeh-clad desert warrior. Saddam is seen in a general's
uniform and a business suit. Saddam is seen kneeling in prayer. While some
of the pictures were torn down by mobs on Wednesday, the mark the Iraqi
dictator made on his people's psyche will not disappear overnight.

'Saddam is a great man,' a smiling Shi'ite named Yasseer said to me as his
neighbors and friends carted bananas away from a government warehouse they
later torched. The crowd of men who had up to that point not spoken any
English suddenly began nodding their heads in agreement.

'One of the most sickening things about this place is how the military is
everywhere,' said company commander Rob Smith Wednesday afternoon.

'Everywhere we go we either pass bunkers, or bases, or large party offices.
The regime has someone working on every block,' he said.

'Saddam is great because he is strong. He controls the people. The Iraqis
are very bad people. Look at how they steal,' Yasseer continued, giving the
troops pause to consider that he is a soldier, not a civilian.

US forces are concentrating their efforts on locating and destroying any
remaining capabilities of Saddam's remaining forces. This includes blowing
up munitions and capturing soldiers.

The troops on the ground being confronted by civilians are forced to
interpret their orders in a way they can live with.

'We are Americans and Americans want to be nice to people. We want to help
them. We want them to like us. We just understand that many of them won't
like us no matter what we do, so it is hard,' said mortar platoon commander
Capt. Matthew Paul.

Street scenes that have become routine since Wednesday morning illustrated
the complexity of the situation and the American way of handling it. On one
side of the road, an Iraqi man who tried to steal a soldier's rifle sat
shackled next to a Bradley fighting vehicle. When he began shouting to his
friends, he was gagged.

Two meters away, an army medic worked to fix the broken leg of an Iraqi
child whose friend had carried him over, begging for help.

The mind-set of the Iraqi people that has crystallized over two days of
intense contact with US forces in Baghdad is one of total confusion and
curiosity.

'We began our patrol of our sector and almost no one came outside. Then we
blew up an armored car we saw hidden and suddenly men appeared on the street
motioning frantically or us to follow them. A squad went out and we found a
cache of two air defense artillery pieces and small arms,' Smith said. 'It
was like they were testing us to see if we are serious or not. When we blew
the first piece, we passed their test.'

The Iraqis are watching the Americans all the time to try ascertain their
intentions. Observing this and bearing in mind the almost indelible stain of
life under tyranny, it is obvious what is most essential today is for US
forces to maintain their vigilant stand against all vestiges of Saddam's
Iraq.

On a grander scale, Washington is also being watched as carefully by the
entire Arab world as the troops in Baghdad are being watched by the Iraqi
people. Just as every mood, glance, and motion made by the soldiers here is
interpreted as either a sign of strength or weakness, resolve or apathy, so
too the Bush administration's words and actions are being interpreted by the
authoritarian Arab regimes throughout the region. There is no doubt that
Iraq is a litmus test for the US's unprecedented plan to bring democracy to
the Arab world.

This week those intentions are being tested in two separate ways. Retired
lieutenant general Jay Garner, whom US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
has appointed to run the US military government in Iraq, is being attacked
by Arab leaders in the US. The bone of contention is that Garner signed a
statement in October 2000 blaming PA chief Yasser Arafat for the terrorism
in Israel. Arab leaders have for the past several days demanded Garner's
replacement for having dared to stand up in defense of a strategic ally and
friend of his country.

If the Bush administration heeds the call to replace Garner, whose job is to
facilitate a transition from tyranny to military occupation to democratic
self-rule in Iraq, this action will be interpreted not as sensitivity to
Arab sensibilities but as surrender to Arab hatred and backwardness.

Just as the troops in the cities must continuously prove their distinctly
American firmness by helping innocent civilians while giving no quarter to
opposition, so too the administration must keep focus on attaining a stated
objective of forcing the Iraqis to discard the mantle of hatred and slavery
and take on the burden of freedom.

The second front where US intentions are being tested on a strategic level
is in the administration's relations with Britain. There can be no doubt
after the fiasco in the UN Security Council forced US President George W.
Bush's decision to invade Iraq without a Security Council resolution that
the UN will not be a force for democratization in Iraq.

And yet, Prime Minister Tony Blair, already isolated from his EU
counterparts and leftist political base at home, demands a governing role
for the clearly incapable UN. In his Belfast press conference with Blair
earlier in the week Bush made an ambiguous statement regarding the UN's
future role here. Ambiguities may be the proper public attitude towards the
international body now openly dedicated to prolonging tyranny and
undermining democratic governments like the US and Israel.

But on a practical level, for the Iraqi people to accept freedom, the only
force capable of guiding them will be a US military government.

As an Israeli observer of this unfolding drama, it is impossible not to draw
parallels to the situation back home. The discovery that Palestinians were
among the last holdouts defending Saddam's regime in Baghdad earlier in the
week only strengthens the comparison.

Against the advice and wishes of practically the entire world, the Bush
administration invaded Iraq to depose an illegitimate terrorist regime.

Until Wednesday morning, critics maintained that it couldn't be done even as
the Iraqi military fell apart like a house of cards. Critics continue to
maintain that the Iraqi people will never be brought around to support the
US, and yet a combination of firmness and kindness has already begun, after
only two days, to induce the Iraqi people to cooperate with American
soldiers.

Why should the Palestinians be forced to live under their terrorist leaders
at the same time the Iraqi people are being forced to part with theirs and
to accept a life of freedom? We have been told that there is no option other
than the PLO to lead the Palestinians for more than a decade, yet the PLO
has proven beyond a doubt that like its sister regime in Baghdad it is
capable neither of leading the Palestinians nor of living at peace with free
peoples.

If the US maintains its commitment to its aim of bringing democracy to Iraq
with the same fortitude it brought to their deposing the Iraqi regime on the
battlefield, America will no doubt be successful. The long term benefit that
will accrue to the US for establishing a friendly democracy in the heart of
the Arab oil fields will be as enormous as the human, diplomatic, and
military sacrifices required to accomplish this most moral and vital
mission.

For Israel, there can be no greater aim than destroying the Palestinians'
ability to wreak havoc on the lives of our citizens. But the daily terror
the IDF prevents militarily will only cease to be a threat after the
Palestinians themselves are forced, like the Iraqis are today, to break
their addiction to tyranny and hatred. This can only be done after Arafat's
regime is as wholly destroyed as Saddam's regime has been these past three
weeks.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

BAGHDAD - A smiling burka-clad Shi'ite woman gave a big thumbs-up to the US
forces she passed as she walked along the road in southern Baghdad, dragging
a bathtub she had just looted.

'Go Bush! Yes America!' she called out.

Thousands upon thousands of Iraqi civilians took to the streets of Baghdad
yesterday, smiling and waving at US forces as they looted government and
military warehouses. By nightfall the soldiers in the 3rd Infantry Division
had poised to make their final linkup in north-central Baghdad along both
sides of the Tigris River, thus completing the occupation of the Iraqi
capital.

All over the city from north to south and east to west, civilians, who had
largely remained at home over the past week since US ground forces began
their push toward Baghdad, took to the streets. Wednesday morning there were
reports that anti-regime forces in Saddam City in central Baghdad hanged
Baath Party officers from a bridge on the Tigris river.

The Iraqi Army's 10th Brigade surrendered en masse to marines in
northeastern Baghdad Wednesday morning.

Citizens looted warehouses throughout the city, unabashedly carrying away as
much as they could by any means available. In southern Baghdad a donkey
collapsed under the weight of a cart of goods taken from a government
warehouse. Children and mothers dragged porcelain bathtubs through the
streets. Men stole vehicles, including heavy trucks. Many vehicles had empty
gas tanks and were pushed down the street filled with bananas, screws,
rivets, shower heads, and garbage cans.

One warehouse was stripped. Civilians set it on fire, causing a thick cloud
of black smoke to billow up to the sky.

Civilians approached US forces with cigarettes, pita bread, and bananas. The
Iraqis called out, 'No Saddam!' and 'Go Bush!' as they waved and smiled at
the soldiers. In the center of the city civilians ran to embrace marines and
3rd Infantry Division forces.

Pictures of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, which aside from Iraqi date palm
trees are the most prominent feature of the Iraqi landscape, were torn down
from billboards, traffic circles, and public squares by jubilant mobs.

'This Iraqi came up and gave me this flower,' said Sgt. Gavin Hale as he
patted a rose on his ceramic vest. 'I also got about 40 cigarettes,' he
added with a bemused smile. Similar stories abounded.

'Although no one wants to say it outright,' said Battalion Commander
Lt.-Col. Scott Rutter, 'today was the beginning of the transition from
Saddam's regime to the new government.'

Because there is, to date, no transition government to speak of, Wednesday
was completely anarchic. The cheering crowds were far from unanimous
regarding their thoughts on US forces. 'We are glad that Saddam is gone, but
we want the US and Britain to leave too,' said Ali, a young man who refused
to assist US troops with crowd control for fear of 'upsetting my mother.'

Yaseer, a young man in southern Baghdad, stood along a railroad track that
had been recently ripped out and carried off, along with another 30 men and
boys, smiling and laughing. When I asked him what he thought of Saddam, he
responded, 'He is a great man.'

'Then why are you happy being out here with American troops?' I asked him.

'Because there were bad men working under Saddam, but Saddam is a very good
man,' he said.

Yaseer said he thought that Saddam was great 'because he controls the
people. The Iraqi people are very bad. They need to be controlled.'

Interestingly, Iraqi civilians seemed to have no fear of American forces.

'They see us as economic saviors, not as rulers,' said US airman Allen
Lefko. 'They are already beginning to separate fact from fiction. They see
we are not ten-foot-tall storm troopers come to shoot them,' he said. 'Let's
just hope they will be able to accept the truth about Saddam just as
easily,' he added.

At the same time, many Iraqis expressed distaste for the British. While some
unfurled British Union Jacks to welcome the US troops into their
neighborhoods, others called out, 'No England, only America.'

Khader said, 'England will stay here, America will go.'

Iraqi civilians had countless questions for the US troops. While they
expressed a vague curiosity about their new government, they were keen to
restore electrical power, which was turned off last week. Then, too,
civilians repeatedly asked when humanitarian aid would arrive as government
hospitals were reportedly closed.

'We are all Fedayeen,' a voice in one crowd called out. The US forces waved
back and smiled.

For their part, the troops were cautiously sympathetic to the civilians.

'They seemed happy to see us,' said Cmdr. Rob Smith of a Sunni Muslim
neighborhood in southern Baghdad his company had taken over. 'And yet they
only started to really approach us after we blew up an armored personnel
carrier that had been hidden beneath a tarp.'

Saddam's remaining forces in the capital are largely in hiding. On Wednesday
morning, the 4-64 Armored Battalion from the 2nd Brigade, now located in
north-central Baghdad, was attacked by small-arms fire and RPGs fired from
within a mosque.

The Iraqis, according to US military sources, are unable to organize beyond
the company level. US forces believe terrorist attacks are now their largest
single threat.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

HIGHWAY 8, SOUTH BAGHDAD - At nightfall Monday US forces had taken over
footholds in large swaths of Baghdad.

The 3rd Infantry Division's Second Brigade was located at the center of the
city. The 3rd Brigade was located in northwest Baghdad and the Marines were
located in the city's northeast. The 1st brigade was still securing the
airport, with the exception of the 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion, which
was located in southern Baghdad along Highway 8.

The 2-7 Battalion's soldiers and commanders started the day thinking they
would be able to relax and use the shower facilities in Saddam International
Airport while awaiting their mission set for Tuesday - the storming of the
presidential palace north of the airport.

But shortly past 10 a.m. the order came from division: the 2-7 Battalion
would link up with the 2nd Brigade, whose forces had reentered Baghdad early
in the morning with the aim not simply of driving through, as they had done
on Saturday, but of seizing territory.

'Finally!' shouted the battalion's operations officer, Maj. Rod Coffey.
'They figured out that we don't need four battalions to defend an already
largely secured airport,' he added with no small amount of irony in his
voice.

The atmosphere throughout the battalion was one of excited anticipation.

Vehicles drove hurriedly to fuel tankers as soldiers folded up the laundry
they had done the night before. By 11 a.m. the entire battalion was lining
up to move into travel formation. The mission was to travel up Highway 1,
then turn onto Highway 8, to hook up with the 2nd brigade's 3-15 Battalion
in its blocking position along the highway inside southern Baghdad's
industrial zone, less than a kilometer from downtown Baghdad.

Coffey left the airport before the rest of the battalion to coordinate the
handoff with 3-15. The battalion led by Alpha company commander Capt. Rob
Smith moved out first, heading toward Baghdad at 11:15.

'Get out of our way, we're going to Baghdad!' bellowed Battalion Commander
Lt.-Col. Scott Rutter at tanks and other vehicles blocking his forces' move
out of the airport. Shortly after moving onto Highway 1, reports came over
the radio indicating it would not be an easy day.

As the battalion zipped past farmlands and buildings, loosely hidden by
eucalyptus trees, reports streamed in of a battle against 2nd Brigade
battalions that were moving through Baghdad to the north and east. By noon
those forces had engaged and destroyed eight suicide trucks, scores of
dismounted infantry, armored personnel carriers, and tanks.

As information flowed in through the radio, outside visibility deteriorated
as the sky turned white and a sandstorm seemed poised to blow through the
city.

The unit's mission was to secure lines of communication for the 2nd Brigade,
to enable transport of troops and supplies. By 12:30 p.m. the battalion was
speeding along Highway 1 toward Highway 8 in full attack formation. The
remains of white pickup trucks - the Iraqi version of Japanese kamikaze
planes - littered both sides of the road, blown up by 120-mm. Abrams tank
rounds. Then, too, the bodies of enemy infantrymen bloodied the sides of the
road.

'Our mission is to secure the lines of communication by killing the enemy,'
Rutter exhorted his troops. 'Bad guys on our left, bad guys on our right.
Any threat will be engaged immediately and destroyed!' he said.

At 12:50 p.m. the force moved off the road to bypass a minefield. Moments
later the news came over the radio that there were three killed, two
reporters and one soldier, in an attack on the 2nd Brigade's Headquarters
Battalion. It later emerged that the journalists and the soldier were killed
by a missile.

At 1:10 p.m. the battalion reached the industrial zone in southern Baghdad.

Smith reported an ambush against his company. No one was hurt. The forces
destroyed an APC.

Immediately thereafter a truck bomber attempted to attack Rutter's Bradley.

Gunner Jason Trombley destroyed the truck by firing an armor-piercing 25-mm.
round. From then on, the fire on the forces was continuous.

As the horizon narrowed under the weight of the swirling sands and black
smoke, the Iraqi date palms lining the highway gave the scene of burning
suicide trucks, nearby tanks, and Bradleys a surrealistic edge. Alpha
Company reported engaging three suicide trucks and RPG rounds. All were
promptly destroyed.

Moments later Coffey, who was already with the 2nd Brigade 3-15 Battalion,
reported coming under heavy RPG fire. His driver then reported that Coffey
was down - hit in the leg by a shrapnel blast from an RPG. Rutter called for
medical evacuation as he and Alpha Company closed in on Coffey's location.

The shooting against the forces was emanating from an eight-story apartment
building just north of an overpass where the 3-15 had been located. Sniper
fire and RPG rounds were also being launched from a three-story industrial
complex bedecked with a portrait of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein clad in a
keffiyeh, west of the underpass.

Just after Coffey and two radio operators were wounded, the 2nd Brigade
reported that the enemy forces firing by the overpass were not Iraqis at all
but Palestinians and Jordanians. 'They executed an integrated attack,' said
2nd Brigade's operations officer over the radio. 'They utilized snipers and
accurate artillery as well as suicide bombers and RPGs.'

The information on the identity of the forces was gleaned from prisoners of
war caught during the fighting. It was reported later that the defense of
Baghdad is largely being carried out by some 5,000 Palestinian, Syrian, and
Jordanian troops. The Republican Guard's units were already largely eroded,
the Hammurabi unit as well as others down to 25% of their original numbers.

Coffey returned to his radio and continued to assist in directing combat
operations, recommending the eight-story building from where he was shot be
destroyed from the air.

As his gunner killed two enemy soldiers running toward his Bradley, Rutter
told Coffey to move to the rear to be examined by a medic. In the meantime,
airstrikes were called to destroy the apartment building. At the same time
2nd Brigade reported two soldiers killed by a suicide ambush. Later in the
afternoon it was revealed that Iraqis surrendering to US forces had
detonated explosive belts strapped to their bodies as the Americans
approached them.

A directive went out in the evening to force all surrendering Iraqis to
undress before approaching US forces to prevent a recurrence of such
incidents.

For their part, the Iraqis were reporting US bombing of the Rashid hotel in
Baghdad. Attempting to understand the report, which had no basis in reality,
2nd Brigade forces assumed the Iraqis were attacking the hotel with RPG
rounds in the hopes US forces would be blamed for attacking the home of the
foreign press corps in Baghdad.

US forces were uncertain Monday of the status of the Iraqi government. It
was unclear to commanders if there was in fact any government, as most of
the fighting was being conducted by foreign and paramilitary forces. The
option of capturing the Iraqi propaganda minister and accepting a surrender
from him was being weighed.

In the meantime, Coffey, having been checked by medics, had limped back to
the battlefield by 4 p.m.

While he was gone the apartment building had been reduced to rubble by a
direct hit from an F-16 with a JDAM bomb. The building had been hit on the
west side with high explosive rounds and was smoldering.

Enemy forces killed a US combat engineer, and were run over by an Abrams
tank and killed.

As the battalion assumed position along Highway 8 at nightfall, the
assessment was that the major threats for the night and the next day were
suicide bombers, RPGs, and dismounted infantry men. Paramilitary forces
gathered Monday night at the University of Baghdad along the Tigris River
and threatened to attack US forces in the central and northern section of
the Iraqi capital.

'If you see something move that isn't ours, kill it,' Rutter instructed his
troops after ordering Coffey to go to sleep.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

SADDAM INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - US forces continued Sunday to destroy Iraqi
Republican Guard Units in and around Baghdad in their bid to overthrow
Saddam Hussein's regime. By the afternoon, 3rd Infantry Division and Marine
Corps units had enveloped some 90 percent of Baghdad.

The 3rd Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade destroyed a Republican Guard tank
battalion on Sunday. In the fight, 23 Iraqi tanks were destroyed from the
ground and the air and 125 Iraqi infantrymen were killed.

The brigade, stationed to the north of Baghdad, engaged the Republican Guard
forces as they attempted to flee their posts and reposition themselves
within the capital. The US siege of Baghdad has blocked both military and
civilian traffic to the city.

In the meantime, US forces from the 1st Brigade continued to defend Saddam
International Airport. A US military cargo plane landed at the airport late
Sunday, the first known US aircraft to arrive in the Iraqi capital since the
airfield fell into American hands, the US Central Command said.

Navy Lt. Mark Kitchens, a Central Command spokesman, confirmed the C-130
cargo and transport aircraft had landed at the airport but gave no details,
citing operational security.

US forces say they have effective control over the airport, despite sporadic
attacks including one Sunday against the 101st Airborne Division that left
two Iraqis dead.

The United States has renamed the sprawling airfield Baghdad International
Airport.

The coalition Land Forces Command is set to move from Kuwait City to the
airport in the days to come. Military sources say that the US and British
intend to use the airport as the interim seat for a new provisional Iraqi
government when it is eventually formed.

The main threat to US forces located at the airport proper comes from its
subterranean complex of tunnels. The US military believes that the Iraqi
regime built tunnels connecting the airport to Baghdad, as well as along
Iraq's north/south oil pipeline, and along main roads. These tunnels can be
used for transporting Iraqi forces to attack US forces.

The 101st Airborne Division's 3-187 Battalion found one such tunnel Saturday
underneath the northern-most section of the airport's three passenger
terminals. 'We came across the tunnel by accident,' said battalion commander
Lt.-Col. Lee Fetterman. 'We were told not to break down all the doors in the
tunnel and so we actually did not attempt to open the door that would have
led to the tunnel,' Fetterman said.

'We discovered it because Iraqi troops inside unlocked the door to leave
when my soldiers saw them. They chased them back into the tunnel and
followed them.'

Fetterman's men found themselves in a tunnel three meters high and a mile
long. 'It looked sort of like a metro station,' he said. This tunnel
connected the northern passenger terminal to the airport's control tower.

'We found food, water, ammunition as well as bedding and personal items,'
said Fetterman.

In a chase through the tunnel that last several hours, the 101st Division
soldiers were unable to locate the Iraqi troops. 'We took all their food and
water so they will probably be up soon,' Fetterman said. Although the army
is still attempting to locate the central power source for the airport,
which itself is strewn with the rubble of bombed out planes and buildings,
the tunnel, made of concrete, was well ventilated and illuminated by
electricity.

Fetterman notes that exploring the tunnel, located about two meters
underground, was a nerve-wracking ordeal for his soldiers. 'When one of the
guys got out he heard someone walking toward him and couldn't make out what
it was. It turned out to have been a dog. My soldier was so surprised, it's
amazing he didn't shoot him,' said Fetterman.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

BAGHDAD AIRPORT - A call came over the radio at 2:30 p.m. Saturday: Two
truckloads of Iraqi civilians, displaced when the US Army took over the
Saddam Hussein International Airport in Baghdad late Thursday night, would
be moving through the lines escorted on either side by Army vehicles.

The call was a warning not to shoot; the civilians had already been
interrogated by the 3rd Infantry Division 1st Brigade and were cleared to
relocate inside the city.

This call was necessary because US troops, fearful of terrorist attacks,
have orders to shoot any civilian vehicle attempting to come through the
lines.

These instructions are well placed. Three US soldiers were killed by two
Iraqi women suicide bombers on Friday and four soldiers were killed in a
suicide car-bombing a week ago. There have been numerous attempted attacks.

During the 3rd Infantry Division's advance across the Karbala Gap on the way
to Baghdad Wednesday night, the Iraqis repeatedly tried to ram US forces
with pickup trucks rigged with explosives. Two white pickup trucks were
destroyed by tanks as they drove full speed toward them.

'I think the Iraqis are pathetic,' said 1st Brigade commander William
Grimsley. 'What can a '74 Datsun do against an M-1A-1 tank? They don't seem
to understand that these tanks can see as well at night as they do during
the day and can shoot exact targets from 3,500m.'

Fear of harming civilians apparently kept the air force from bombing special
Republican Guard enclaves around the airport ahead of the ground forces'
advance on the target late Thursday night. These Republican Guard units then
used the bases to attack soldiers from the 1st Brigades' 2-7 Mechanized
Infantry Battalion on Friday morning. One soldier was killed and six were
wounded during the ensuing exchanges of fire.

The battalion commander, Lt.-Col. Scott Rutter, expressed anger at the
reluctance to bomb the Iraqi bases prior to his battalion's entry to the
area.

'If you are expecting casualties, you have to be willing to accept
collateral damage,' he said. For his part, Rutter focuses his men on one
simple goal for their mission: 'Kill the enemy,' he exhorts his officers and
soldiers at every opportunity.

When reports came in Friday afternoon that the Iraq government was calling
for civilians to march on the airport at 3 p.m. that day to retake it,
Rutter was unmoved.

'You have to assume that in any civilian crowd there will be one guy with an
RPG for every 10 civilians. Your mission is to protect the force and kill
the enemy,' Rutter told his troops.

Iraqi civilians stayed away from the airport Friday - and Saturday's
civilian convoy passed through the line without a hitch.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

BAGHDAD AIRPORT - 'We are on an offensive-oriented mission. Our job is to
destroy the enemy. We defend the airfield by destroying the enemy around
us,' explained Lt. Col. Scott Rutter, commander of the 2-7 Mechanized
Infantry Battalion, at a command briefing to his officers Saturday
afternoon.

The 2-7 Battalion, together with the 3-69 Battalion from the 3rd Infantry
Division First Brigade, took over Saddam Hussein International Airport on
the western edge of Baghdad late Thursday night.

The airport is surrounded on all side by sites of vital importance to the
Iraqi regime. These include Special Republican Guard headquarters, barracks,
and bases, two presidential palaces, one of which is Saddam's official
residence. There are also two suspected chemical and biological warfare
plants located in close proximity to the airport.

While 3-69 took over the main terminal building, the 2-7 Battalion is
stationed at the entrance to the airport complex on Highway 8 connecting
Baghdad to the airport.

'We are blocking potential enemy reinforcements along Highway 8 from the
city of Baghdad. This protects friendly forces securing Baghdad
International Airport. It is a major enemy avenue of approach in their bid
to kill soldiers and interdict operations,' said Maj. Kevin Cooney, the 2-7
Executive Officer.

Friday morning, while forces stationed in the terminal met with light
pockets of resistance from Special Republican Guard forces still within the
airport complex, the 2-7 Battalion was barraged by enemy fire.

From 7:30 to 11:30, Iraqi forces attacked the battalion with tanks, mortars,
artillery, RPGs, and light arms fire, most of this emanating from a
presidential palace 500m away from battalion headquarters.

The Iraqis also attempted to attack the battalion with an explosives-laden
fire truck that was destroyed by an M- 1A-1 Abrams tank round. During Friday
morning's fight, soldiers destroyed three Iraqi T-72 tanks with shoulder-
launched Javelin anti-tank missiles.

The Iraqis ambushed the battalion engineering company that was securing a
POW collection point 500m from headquarters. One soldier was killed and six
were wounded by shrapnel. The wounded were medevaced to an army surgical
hospital in the rear.

At the same time, the 2-7 Alpha Company conducted room-to-room
search-and-destroy missions in a nearby Special Republican Guard compound.

The complex had already been bombed in air force operations Thursday night.
However, the soldiers, led by Rob Smith, engaged pockets of resistance still
holed up in the rubble. 'Most of the soldiers we saw were eager to
surrender,' Smith said.

In all, on Friday the battalion destroyed six tanks and eight armored
personnel carriers and killed five Iraqi snipers.

According to intelligence officer Derek Smits, 'From the accounts we
received from the soldiers after the shooting ended, the Iraqis were trying
to fight their way out of the airport and the presidential palace and escape
to Baghdad. The troops saw them attempting to blast through a wall to escape
the palace,' he said.

Iraqi Radio reported Friday morning that thousands of civilians would march
to retake the airport at 15:00. The US forces began precision aerial bombing
a Republican Guard camp at 14:30. 'Note the timing of the bombing,' Rutter
remarked; 15:00 passed with no Iraqi attempt by civilians nor military to
retake the airport.

Learning from the previous day's experience, the battalion beefed up its
offensive operations on Saturday, taking positions inside Special Republican
Guard headquarters and directly outside a presidential palace.

'Yesterday the Iraqis attacked us in an effort to put us on the defensive.
They tried to dislodge us from a blocking position on the highway, but it
did not work. By nightfall their attacks ended. Our one offensive yesterday,
which met with minimal contact from the enemy, was sufficient to stop their
operations,' said Rutter.

The ground troops have found that even after air force bombing reduced Iraqi
complexes to rubble, Iraqi forces often remain or attempt to return.
Infantry offensives are necessary to flush out these structures and occupy
them.

'We don't want to repeat the mistakes made in Vietnam when US forces took
terrain and then left - only to be attacked again from the same locations.
The infantry is the only branch of the military that can both seize and hold
terrain,' said Cooney.

As the battalion's Alpha Company used TOW anti-tank missiles to destroy two
Iraqi T-72 tanks and kill 10 Iraqi infantrymen still within the already
bombed-out presidential palace, Bravo tank company patrolled a bombed- out
Republican Guard training camp. There, evidence of precision Air Force
bombing from the previous night was clearly at hand. Buildings reduced to
smoldering gray brick rubble abutted others left largely unscathed. From one
such building, an Iraqi sniper shot at M-1A-1 Abrams tanks.

Rather than send in forces to find him, company commander Capt. Jimmy Lee
destroyed the building with high explosive charges. The sniper appeared
shortly thereafter. As he lay on the ground, he held up a press card and
claimed to be a journalist stuck at the compound.

'The guys asked me what to do,' Rutter, who was with Bravo tank company, said. 'I told them to handcuff him because he was just shooting at us.'

Earlier in the day, Iraqi television reported that US forces had not entered
Baghdad and that the Iraqi army had retaken the airport. This was
interesting news for soldiers, particularly from the 101st Airborne
Division's 3-187 Battalion that entered the terminal buildings on
search-and-destroy missions Saturday morning. Their initial search of the
VIP terminal turned up, 'gold, china, jewels, and other expensive items
hidden at the site,' said Maj. Rod Coffey, the 2-7's Operations Officer.

As the sun began to set Saturday evening, with black smoke billowing out
over an expanse of several hundred meters from the Special Republican
Guard's base, 2-7 soldiers took a sanguine view of their experience as the
most combat-tested battalion thus far in Iraq.

'Here we are at what two days ago was Saddam Hussein International Airport. We completed our mission to date and are thinking about our next one,' said Staff Sergeant Patrick
Taylor.

As he watched an Abrams tank tow a track from a disabled 1-33 armored
vehicle, Master Sgt. Timothy Cabell put things in perspective. 'We were able
to do something that many armies have tried in the past to do but failed. We
made it here to the airport at night through the maze of streets of the
towns along the Euphrates River. Thank God for our technology. Without our
night-vision, our GPS, and our troop grid tracking systems, I don't know how
we would have done it.'

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

I just finished my first 'Ranger pudding.' Sitting in the back of the
Bradley fighting vehicle, I followed the recipe instructions I received a
few days ago from one of the guys in the battalion: 'You take the cocoa
powder pouch in the MREs [combat rations], add a pouch of instant coffee,
fill the cocoa pouch with water, and stir.'

It was wonderful. I needed that coffee powder after spending the night
stretched out on the cold metal ramp of the Bradley, freezing in a borrowed
rain poncho. And this after sweating through 18 hours of continuous combat
in the back of the battalion commander's sweltering dusty Bradley.

A couple of hours ago, I saw my first dead body close up. I was eating my
breakfast when one of the guys pointed him out to me. I swallowed my cheese
and crackers and walked over to see. First Sgt. Benjamin Moore from Alpha
company shot him last night. It only later occurred to me to ask when
exactly he engaged him. As I was looking at the already stiff, bloody corpse
of the Republican Guard officer, it didn't register that he was only 20
meters from the Bradley had I slept outside of.

'I saw him crouching here next to the palm trees. I saw his blue clothes -
these sweat suits they wear under their uniforms and then when they see us
coming, they hide their uniforms so we will think they are civilians,' Moore
explained. 'I saw him move to get something so I shot him.'

Sounded good to me as I looked at the Republican Guard's Medina Division's
outpost hidden among the date palms and the mucky marshland. This was a
command post for the 14th Brigade. The 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion I
am watching fight this war destroyed a bunker facility some 100 meters away
from here Wednesday afternoon.

I returned to my breakfast, which was still waiting for me on the ramp of
the vehicle - as was Sgt. Jason Trombley, the battalion commander's gunner,
who killed five Iraqi soldiers yesterday with a Bradley 25-mm. main gun.

'I'm just doing my job,' he said to me. I know what he meant. I myself
didn't think there was anything strange when I called in a report to
Israel's Channel 2 while we were being shot at by RPGs and artillery shells.
Jason's job is to kill the enemy. My job is to report on his progress.

The folks at the station seemed most interested in the weather. This seemed
normal to me because the remarkable thing about the battle from where I was
sitting was how hot and sticky and dusty I was.

War is a very strange thing. I know that I am being fired on. I know that my
life is in at least a modicum of danger as RPG rounds and artillery shells
bounce off the Bradley, but I don't think of these things. I just trust the
people around me. At the same time, even though I have never approached the
level of filth and exhaustion I have reached here, I have never felt more
alive or more myself.

I am the only woman in the battalion. Last night as I got ready to go to
sleep on the ramp of the Bradley, three guys came by wanting to make sure
that I was warm enough. Just as I was starting to fall asleep, someone
looking for something groped at my leg. I pushed him away and said, 'Go
away' in Hebrew. He recoiled with a gasp and disappeared into the darkness.

When I realized what had happened, I couldn't stop smiling. No one wants to
hurt me or take advantage of me because I am a woman. They want to protect
me.

I finished my breakfast after I saw the dead Iraqi officer. Jason Trombley
and Benjamin Moore who killed yesterday teased me last night as I tried to
pound out my story of what they had just done, just as they always tease me
about being a woman, about being a writer, about being tiny and skinny, and
I laughed and told them to leave me alone so I could write about them.

There were several donkeys lining the road by Mussaib yesterday during the
battle. A white Arabian stallion raced after us for a while. This morning,
the battalion commander laughed, saying he would have liked to bring it back
home to Fort Stewart, Georgia.

I mentioned that the Palestinians have loaded bombs on donkey carts several
times over the years and that several Israelis have been murdered by this
tactic. He stopped laughing.

As the resident Israeli with the troops, I have taken on the role of
terrorism adviser. It comes with the territory, I suppose. These men have
deep respect for the IDF. When they discuss moving into built-up areas with
large civilian populations, they tell me, 'The Israelis are really good at
that. You've done some incredible work over the years.'

When they discuss fighting against an army of terrorists, they bring up
Israel's experience and express amazement at our army's successes and our
people's resilience.

The officers and men could not hide their disgust and fury when they heard
the Palestinians named a public square after the Iraqi who killed four
soldiers from this battalion in last Saturday's car bombing. The general
response was summed up most succinctly by Specialist Jennings Roberts from
West Virginia: 'Well, maybe when we're done here, we'll just have to go home
by way of the West Bank. You Israelis should take care of that for us.'

Company commander Capt. Rob Smith, from Cleveland, Ohio, normally a study in
self-control, could barely contain his rage when he heard how his men's
killer was being honored. After pausing for a moment, he said, 'They can put
up all the monuments they like. We'll have the best monument soon enough -
Baghdad.'

Living with this battalion, I feel a pride in America that I have never felt
before, even though America often makes me proud. But this is different.
These men are all willing to fight and risk death to protect their freedom.
In this and in the fact that these men from such different backgrounds,
races, and religions come together as one to serve a common purpose, they
are living proof that America is upholding the promise of its founding.

And yet, remarkably, being here with them, I have never felt more Israeli or
more attached to the land of Israel. Perhaps this attachment has always
existed, but it is only now that I have come to realize it. I never
understood what it means to miss Zion until I came to Babylon. I carry the
land of Israel with me wherever I go. I see an Iraqi date palm along the
Euphrates and I think of Tel Aviv and the Yarkon. I see a shrub in the
desert and try to remember if I saw the same type in the Negev. I walk
through the marshlands and imagine the shade of eucalyptus trees in the Hula
Valley. I smell the earth and I miss the Galilee.

But what is most striking is the light. The sunlight on the sand causes an
almost physical longing for Jerusalem. I look at the light and think about
how the Jerusalem stones change colors throughout the day as the Earth and
the city revolve around the sun. The sand, the light, and the sky all remind
me of Jerusalem.

I do not know what made me decide to come here. When the opportunity arose,
I said yes without a second thought. But I do know what I am getting out of
this experience. I have found my America. And I have discovered that I can
never leave Israel. It sits inside of me, strengthens me, and comforts me to
the center of my soul.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

About 30 minutes after a suicide bomber killed four soldiers from the 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion, Operations Officer Maj. Rod Coffey stood before the maps lying on the table of the battalion operation tent absentmindedly but violently smashing his plastic water bottle on the table.

Coffey managed the front-rear coordination of the operation to secure the checkpoint on Highway 9 that had just been attacked and to retrieve the soldiers' bodies. During each radio contact with the units concerned - ambulances, logistics, company commanders - Coffey would speak quietly and
calmly while violently smashing the bottle on the table again and again.

This continued for 10 minutes, when, at a particularly harsh smash, the bottle flew to the sandy floor with a boom. A sergeant quietly picked it up and handed it back to Coffey. Coffey took the bottle, and, realizing what had happened, gave an embarrassed glance to the soldiers and said, firmly, 'We're going to destroy these bastards.'

With that he took a sip of water, put the bottle aside, and went on managing the operation.

The scene at Saturday's suicide bombing was almost identical to scenes of suicide bombings with which Israelis are so tragically familiar. The response of the US forces on the ground in Iraq was decidedly different.

These men are not civilians, they are soldiers engaged in a great war, and this fact was not lost on them even for a moment.

While in Israel a terror attack's news cycle does not end until after the last of the victims is laid to rest, the battalion officers and soldiers did not interrupt their battle-planning activities even for an instant.

The battalion chaplain held a small memorial service on Sunday for the men. Soldiers and officers bowed their heads and cried for 15 minutes, and returned to their posts.

In the first 10 days of the US war in Iraq it became clear that during this war, the military will sustain more combat losses than it has in any confrontation since Vietnam. Reports filtering into the field from Washington and Centcom paint a picture for the troops of politicians and
generals at a loss to explain how it came to pass that American blood has been spilled again in a foreign land.

For the officers and troops in the field, the losses they have personally incurred over the past week did not catch them by surprise.

Tuesday morning, as they made their final preparations for the much-awaited push north to Baghdad, I spoke with a number of soldiers and officers in 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion of the Third Infantry Division's First Combat Brigade about the losses they have absorbed - six dead over the past week.

THE BATTALION'S air force liaison officer, Master Sgt. J. B. Bruening, compares the current situation with that in the 1991 Gulf War, in which he also fought.

'The big difference between the two wars is that in the last one the Iraqis all surrendered. The mission is completely different this time. Then we fought to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqis; now we're liberating Iraq from the Iraqis.

'Anyone who thought they'd just stand down was deluding himself. I am not surprised by the Iraqi resistance.'

Reflecting on the public scrutiny of the losses, Maj. Coffey says, 'I never assumed we would come back home with everyone, although I never highlighted this in conversation. By placing such great emphasis on the suicide bombing they are playing into the enemy's hand.

'You let terror succeed when you focus on it. This is no time for anyone to lose their nerve.'

Coffey is an intellectual. In addition to his duties as operations officer, he fills the role of battalion military historian. The blue-eyed, sandy-haired, square-jawed Rhode Islander is always on hand with a historical analogy or precedent.

On the question of the reaction to casualties, the 41-year-old Coffey sees a generational divide between the young officers and soldiers in the field and their older generals in command positions in the rear and in Washington.

'The generals remember not being supported in Vietnam. That is a generational memory. We grew up in the post-Cold War era, with a huge awareness of the terrorist threat. Starting with the Iranian takeover of the US Embassy in Teheran in 1979.

'We understand terrorism, we were brought up with it, so this sort of suicide attack is not a surprise to us.'

In short, he says, 'Our response is, 'OK, there was a car bombing, let's drive on.' To focus on it is to let Saddam succeed. We won't let him succeed.'

Battalion commander Lt. Scott Rutter echoes these sentiments and adds another layer to their thinking: 'The guys who died make it clear to the soldiers that they are fighting for each other. The soldiers now realize that death happens. This makes them even stronger in their fight for each other because our survival instinct is stronger.

'S.L.A. Marshall, a journalist who covered US troops in World War II, discussed this issue in his book Men Under Fire and concluded that more than mom, apple pie, or country, soldiers fight for one another.'

Speaking of the politicians back in Washington, Rutter considers, 'I guess they didn't realize that we would be confronted by the combination of regular enemy forces and civilians with bombs. Obviously in this situation defining what constitutes a threat is difficult.'

As for the generation gap, 40-year-old Rutter says that the older officers and politicians need to respect the soldiers' willingness to serve.

'They [the generals and politicians] are very sensitive to losses. Our generation is making sacrifices for our country and our way of life. These men all volunteered to serve. If we weren't ready, we wouldn't be here.'

ALPHA COMPANY Commander Capt. Rob Smith commanded five of the six soldiers who died this past week. His first man fell when the Bradley fighting vehicle he was riding in plummeted 10 meters into a ditch last Thursday night. The other four were killed by the car bomb at the checkpoint on Highway 9.

Smith, at 34, is the only company commander in the battalion who also served as an enlisted infantryman. He served as a soldier for six years before going to college and becoming an officer. Smith's colleagues speak of the stocky, apple-cheeked, brown-eyed officer with deep respect.

Alpha Company is a pure infantry company. For the war it traded a Bradley platoon for an Abrams tank platoon with another company. The four soldiers killed on Saturday were members of that platoon.

Alpha Company always moves first. The rest of the battalion follows. To this degree it is not surprising that Alpha would also be the first to suffer casualties.

Smith believes that as a commander, he fills the role of parent for his soldiers.

'I realize that I have the highest responsibility for the lives of 156 sons of other parents. I take care of my guys as I would take care of my daughter. It's that simple. That is how I stay focused.

'The parents are upset by the fatalities. The American people are upset. All that I can do is give these people the peace of mind that at least the Alpha Company commander is doing his best.

'When I find myself tired, hungry, and scared, I think what I would do if my daughter were under attack. This focuses the mind.'

For Smith, the lives of his men who were killed this week are part of a long history of selfless sacrifice for the United States.

'Being a soldier means not thinking about yourself. It is being a civil servant. Our forefathers risked execution when they rose against the British. Someone has to sacrifice for our freedom.

'I think of all the late nights I've worked, missing dinner with my wife and daughter. I missed my daughter's first Christmas. Hopefully, she'll understand that America doesn't exist because of selfishness, but because of individuals who made sacrifices for the greater good.'

Warriors

Living with the men of the 2-7 Battalion for the past three weeks, the main word that comes to mind when I consider them today, just hours before battle, is 'warriors.' Their small talk relates to the minutiae of battle preparation - from having enough spare batteries to the best way to clean
their rifles. They talk of home and returning to their wives and children often, but with an understanding that first things are first.

Capt. Jason Hancock commands the First Brigade Reconnaissance Team of 81 Scouts that moves before the rest of the force to assess enemy strength. This is a necessarily precarious duty, and five of Hancock's men have already been wounded.

Although he talks a tough game, the stocky, Mowhawk-hairstyled Hancock wears on his wrist the ID bracelet of his friend and soldier Army Ranger S.P.C. Marc Anderson, killed in Afghanistan last March.

'I wear this bracelet because it keeps me focused. I trained my men hard to make them ready, and they are ready.'

Hancock expresses concern over what he views as the public's overreaction to the use of terrorism against US forces.

'Our enemy no doubt studied our experiences with unconventional warfare in Somalia and Haiti and sees how such terror tactics caused us to pull out. I just hope that the politicians understand that this is part of the war we fight, and that they will let us continue on and win.'

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

SOUTH OF BAGHDAD - The much awaited ground offensive toward Baghdad began at 2 a.m. Wednesday. By sundown, the US forces had decimated the Republican Guard
Medina Division's 14th Brigade and moved within 50 kilometers of the Iraqi
capital and into the 'red zone' defensive cordon, US military officials
said.

US forces from the 3rd Infantry Division were stationed on both sides of the
Euphrates River on the southern outskirts of Baghdad. The 3rd Infantry
Division's 1st Brigade moved across the Karbala Gap - a narrow 1.4-km.
strait of the Shi'ite city of Karbala - during the first nine hours of the
offensive.

'What we're seeing is a multipronged approach. The noose is quickly
tightening around the neck of this regime,' said Lt. Mark Kitchens, a
spokesman at US Central Command in Qatar.

Troops with the 1st US Marine Expeditionary Force moved north after seizing
the strategic town of Kut and an important Tigris River bridge. Marines
earlier routed the Baghdad Division of the Republican Guard that was
guarding the highway to the Iraqi capital, US officials said. There were no
reports of US casualties.

'The Baghdad Division no longer exists and the 1st Marine Expeditionary
Force is moving on,' said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, at US Central Command.

Crossing the Karbala Gap, however, was one of the major challenges for US
forces.

The fear was that Iraqi forces would attack US troops with chemical
weapons from Karbala, as there are no populated areas in the gap and, once
committed, there is no easy means of retreat. Due to fear of chemical
attacks, Iraqi artillery pieces along the gap were attacked with rockets, an
artillery battery, and air force jets for several days before the ground
offensive.

Two hours before the offensive began, US forces were instructed to don their
protective rubber boots to prevent exposure to chemical agents in the event
of an attack.

Additionally, the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade moved to
a staging area south of Hilweh, due east of Karbala, early in the week as a
diversionary move to distract Iraqi forces from the 1st Brigade as it moved
west of Karbala.

By Tuesday afternoon, military intelligence concluded that Iraqi artillery
capabilities around Karbala were sufficiently disabled to allow for the
start of offensive operations.

The 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion moved through the night to reach close
to Karbala's western edge, destroying Iraqi artillery and anti-aircraft guns
along the way, as two other 1st Brigade battalions moved farther west. By
the end of the night, two-thirds of the 3rd Infantry Division forces had
successfully moved north past Karbala and toward Baghdad.

During the Karbala Gap advance, US forces killed some 50 Iraqis and took
approximately 100 prisoners. The 2-7 Battalion was relieved by the 3rd
Brigade's 1-30 Battalion at 11:00 a.m. Thursday.

The 3-7 and the 3-69 Battalions of the 1st Brigade continued on to the north
and east some 20 km. south of Baghdad as the 2-7 Battalion moved east and
destroyed the 14th Brigade of the Republican Guard's Medina division around
the town of Mussaib.

During three hours of heavy fighting around the town, combined US ground and
air attacks killed some 500 Republican Guard forces, destroyed scores of
artillery batteries, RPGs, anti-aircraft guns and 40 tanks.

In addition, throughout the afternoon and evening, scores of Iraqi prisoners were taken. From their initial interrogations, it was discovered that Saddam's Republican Guard forces are in disarray. Ad hoc units have been patched together around Mussaib from the Medina, Hammurabi, Adnan, and Nebuchadnezer Divisions.

In the meantime, no casualties were reported among the US forces.

'We were able to use feints and multidirectional assaults to confuse the
enemy and force Saddam to divide his forces. As a result, resistance was
uncoordinated and ineffective,' said Maj. Rod Coffey, operations officer for
the 2-7 Battalion.

Despite oppressively hot and humid weather on Wednesday, the US forces
fought without interruption for 18 hours.

According to Iraqi prisoners taken along the Karbala Gap, Republican Guard
officers were holding militia and regular army forces at gunpoint to prevent
desertion. 'They waited for us to fire the first shot before surrendering,'
said 2-7 Battalion fire support officer Capt. Jason Happe.

Arms caches uncovered in the malarial marshlands around Mussaib included RPG
launchers, AK-47 rifles, grenades, and handguns.

'Some of the prisoners taken here are Republican Guard officers - we can
tell from their uniforms and general cleanliness,' said a dusty, glassy-eyed
1st Sgt. Benjamin Moore.

'What we have done today is what we do best - offensive operations,' said
2-7 Battalion commander Lt.- Col. Scott Rutter. 'Here we call the
initiative. We are most vulnerable when we are defending.

'When we stand in one place, we open ourselves up to RPGs, artillery
attacks, and terrorism. But when we move, with the integrated land-air
capabilities we bring to bear, it is impossible to stop us,' Rutter said.

With reporting from Associated Press

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post

Air attacks target Iraqi artillery near capital

SOUTH OF BAGHDAD - As I sat with US Air Force Master Sgt. J.B. Bruening in
the shade of his humvee, the voice of a special forces operative came over
his satellite radio calling in F-14 air strikes against a weapons cache and
artillery pieces in Karbala.

Bruening, 36, a 16-year veteran who fought in the Gulf War, is responsible
for coordinating air force integration with the 3rd Infantry Division 1st
Brigade's 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion.

Currently, the US Army has more than 1,000 air force officers and NCOs
attached to its field units from the battalion level and up to ensure full
integration of ground and air operations.

US ground forces in Iraq, particularly the 3rd Infantry Division, are poised
to continue their northward advance to Baghdad against Saddam Hussein's
Republican Guard units after a week-long hiatus.

Ahead of the coming battles, Bruening explained that air operations are
concentrating on destroying the Republican Guard's artillery capabilities.

'The corps commander wants to take artillery out, so the air force jets are
searching for artillery. The only thing that takes precedence over this
mission is assisting troops under fire,' he said.

Bombing missions are concentrating on areas around Karbala and Hilwah and
points north that are home to the Republican Guard's Medina Division.

Hunting Iraqi artillery serves two purposes. It is a major component of
Saddam's operations aimed at destroying armored vehicles and stalling their
advance. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly according to military
sources, destroying artillery capabilities will undermine Iraqi attempts to
attack advancing US forces with chemical weapons. Artillery pieces are the
most effective means of dispersing chemical agents.

For their part, 3rd Infantry Division forces were on the move Monday. The
3rd Brigade is moving north along the Euphrates River after securing the
road from Nasiriya. The area around Nasiriya is now controlled by marines.

The 2nd Brigade moved to the northeast Sunday and Monday from around Najaf
to western Hilwah. In its new position along a bridgehead on the Euphrates,
it drew fire from Republican Guard forces.

The 1st Brigade left its encampment Monday, moving west out of Iraqi
artillery range. By nightfall, soldiers and officers in their new location
were preparing for combat operations and readying their vehicles.

The 101st Airborne Division took over positions around Najaf, and together
with the air force is quelling pockets of resistance within and around the
Shi'ite city.

The Iraqis placed greater emphasis Monday on fighting internal dissent -
real or imaged - than on fighting coalition forces. In Basra, Ba'ath Party
militiamen decapitated 50 people. Civilians attempting to flee Karbala are
reportedly also being killed.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post