Central Iraq: Bloody, intense battle outside Kut

They waited while the Marines rolled through the outskirts of this city, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, firing away at buildings and vehicles, anything that looked military. And then, when the lumbering M1 Abrams tanks rumbled past the grove with the dug-in bunkers, the Iraqis opened up.

It turned into a slaughterhouse. Poorly armed and facing overwhelming firepower, about a dozen Iraqi soldiers and irregular fighters died where they stood yesterday. One was taken prisoner.

"We wanted to smack them down," said Lt. Col. B.P. McCoy, the battalion commander. "That was the sole purpose of this mission."

But the Iraqis got in their licks, too. Two Marines died in the action, including a young Marine corporal, and three others were wounded.

They were the first firefight casualties suffered by this unit, the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, in the war against Iraq.

The Marines had driven up from Diwaniya the previous day, following a path taken by another U.S. regiment. Death and destruction littered the route.

Iraqi bodies lay on the side of the road, jackets covering the faces of the dead. Military vehicles were smoking ruins. A herd of sheep lay silent, giving off the putrid smell of death along the highway.

The battalion arrived near Kut after dark and settled down for the night. Word came that Iraqis had been there as the Marines rolled up, and had left so quickly they left cooking fires alight.

Yesterday started grim, with 155 mm howitzers shaking the earth as they launched high explosive rounds into areas around Kut. By midmorning, the unit started advancing on Kut. U.S. forces learned early in this war -- from ambushes, prisoners taken and dead Americans -- not to take the smaller, irregular Iraqi forces outside Baghdad for granted.

The 3rd Battalion had already made a name for itself, having made "suppression runs" through towns where Iraqi irregular units were known to be. At Diwaniya, the battalion had killed an estimated 92 Iraqis and taken many prisoner.

The raid on Kut had a similar purpose: Track down the Baghdad Infantry Division, supposedly located here, and keep them at bay while the rest of the 1st Marine Division got into position to the east of Baghdad.

Tanks took the lead, followed by armored assault vehicles filled with heavily armed Marines. The plan works like this: If the tanks see enemy bunkers or armored vehicles, they fire. If they see infantry, they fire. And they call on the assault Marines -- like this unit -- to get out and find and kill the Iraqis.

The column crossed the Tigris River and moved slowly toward town, occasionally stopping to fire their 120 mm turret guns at a target. The staccato burst of a .50-caliber machine gun mounted atop the turret lit up targeted bunkers and armored vehicles.

There was little sign of Iraqis. Businesses and homes all seemed to be empty, as if residents knew a battle was coming.

And it was hot.

As the tanks crept past a palm grove to the right of the road, a gunner spotted a bunker in the grass and opened up with the .50-caliber gun.

Iraqis in the bunkers and hidden behind trees opened up with AK-47s and some light machine guns. The rounds plinked ineffectively off the thick tank armor.

An RPG hit the side of an armored vehicle, bounced and then exploded in midair. Apparently, it was shot from too close a range for it to arm itself. Otherwise, it might have opened up the vehicle and killed some or all of the Marines inside.

Armored personnel carriers, APC, drove up. The rear ramps came down and the infantry poured out, racing down a small embankment and firing into the trees.

A head popped up from behind a tree stump about 30 yards away. A rain of fire came from the Marines' position and the Iraqi soldier slumped over, dead.

The infantry fired hundreds of M-16 rounds into the woods. A young corporal, standing next to one of the APCs, fired a grenade launcher at an Iraqi bunker. He turned and caught a bullet in the gut. He went down.

A medic went to work on him while the firefight continued 20 yards away. He was awake and coherent, said Maj. Matt Baker, the battalion executive officer.

A Humvee pulled up and took the Marine back to a field hospital.

He died aboard a medevac helicopter before he could get to a surgical hospital in the rear.

In the grove, the Marines advanced, firing rapidly. They tossed grenades over bulldozed earth. The "whump" of the grenades shook the trees and earth around them.

Two other Marines were shot as they moved forward. Medics took them behind a dirt pile and bandaged them.

"God, it hurts," said a young Marine, gritting his teeth against the pain.

By then, it was about over. Marine squads had swept through the woods and come out the other side. They found caches of weapons and ammunition and burned them. Smoke filled the air, mixed with occasional explosions as some of the Iraqi weaponry "cooked off."

But the day's fighting was not quite complete. As the tanks continued to drive toward town, a half dozen Iraqis made what appeared to be a suicide charge. Running out over open ground, they charged the 65-ton tanks with just their AK-47s. The tanks mowed them down.

By the end of the day, about 30 Iraqis were dead and a dozen Iraqi tanks destroyed. Two Marines had died and three were wounded. In addition to the two infantry Marines who were hit, a tank commander caught a round in the hand. The Marines in this unit had never lost a comrade in battle before, and the shock was doubled because he had seemed all right when he was first evacuated.

After the fighting, hundreds of Iraqis streamed down the same road that had earlier been abandoned. They were headed back to Kut, some waving and smiling, others sullen and limping. Some took time to strip any valuables from the destroyed vehicles left along the side of the road.

John Koopman, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, is assigned to the U.S. Marines, 4th Division.