Marine Corps News: Reporter John Koopman and the 3/4 Marines during the Iraq War www.MarineParents.com

U.S. troops' 'blood is up' over fake surrender
Unit rumbling toward Baghdad stung by word of ambush
March 24, 2003

Central Iraq -- Word that the Iraqis used a fake surrender to attack and kill U.S. Marines deepened the somber mood and heightened emotions among American troops on their way north to engage in the battle of Baghdad.

"Their blood is up," said Lt. Col. B.P. McCoy, a battalion commander with the 1st Marine Division based at Camp Pendleton. "They know this starts a whole new atmosphere out here."

These Marines had fought in the battle for the southern city of Basra, where they encountered light resistance and took dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Iraqi prisoners, most of whom surrendered peacefully.

Those encounters in Basra -- as Marines searched the prisoners and turned them over to civil affairs units -- had been fairly unremarkable.

But news of devious Iraqi tactics -- in one case Iraqis had waved the white flag of surrender in Nasiriya, then opened artillery fire on a troop carrier to kill Marines -- changed everything.

The news prompted a Marine major to gather his officers around him for a briefing and explain the circumstances of the attack.

By all accounts, he said, it appeared that the Iraqis acted as if they would surrender and then waited for the soldiers to come to them before opening fire. He reminded his officers that the proper procedure is to aim at prisoners with rifles and machine guns and order them to come toward the Marines.

He also told his officers to remind their men that many prisoners of war sometimes approach with their rifles held high. He said the Marines should order them to drop their weapons and, if for any reason they don't, fire a couple of rounds in the dirt at their feet.

"What do you do if he still doesn't drop the weapon?" the major asked.

From the rear of the group came a voice that responded: "You light him up."

In training to prepare for the war, Marines had been instructed in how to deal with enemy prisoners of war and treat them humanely. They had also been instructed on how to handle civilians who might be among Iraqi soldiers.

They were told to make every attempt to spare civilian lives, but not at the expense of their own.

The fake surrenders were organized by members of the Fedayeen Saddam, specially trained paramilitary guerrillas, U.S. and British officials told the Associated Press on Sunday.

The Fedayeen are elite inner-circle soldiers totaling about 15,000 who report directly to Odai Hussein, the Iraqi leader's eldest son. U.S. intelligence believes they were dispatched from their strongholds in the Baghdad area to outlying areas over the last few weeks to embolden regular Iraqi troops, the officials told AP on condition of anonymity.

Intelligence indicates "they are there to enforce loyalty and to make troops more effective and keep them from defecting," one senior U.S. official said.

Officials said the Fedayeen and Saddam Hussein's personal security force, known as the Special Security Organization, have been behind the stiffest resistance that coalition troops have encountered as they raced from Kuwait through southern Iraq toward Baghdad.

"The majority of the resistance we have faced so far comes from Saddam's Special Security Organization and the Saddam Fedayeen," Peter Wall, chief of staff to the British military contingent in the U.S.-led coalition told the AP.

"These are men who know that they will have no role in the building of a new Iraq and they have no future."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

E-mail John Koopman at jkoopman@sfchronicle.com.