This post was mostly written by Vince Heintz, who deserves most of the credit, both for the article, and for the positive events of our tour in Iraq. I made a few changes but it's narrative, I did spend most of the tour he describes in his Cargo Pocket.
In 2004 our battalion was stationed 10 Kilometers south of a central Iraqi Airfield known as Anaconda/Balad. Our Operational Area extended west to a road designated Route Golden, which included the Muthana chemical compound, as recently Identified in a NY Times Article. All within the area known as the Sunni Triangle. None of our soldiers, to my knowledge, were burned or injured by the weapons stored there, but we knew they were there and assumed the insurgents did too, particularly after word went our in May or June 2004 about a chemical IED going off somewhere else on the battlefield (which, based on the timeline, is the same one noted in the article as addressed by General Kimmett).
In 2004 our battalion was stationed 10 Kilometers south of a central Iraqi Airfield known as Anaconda/Balad. Our Operational Area extended west to a road designated Route Golden, which included the Muthana chemical compound, as recently Identified in a NY Times Article. All within the area known as the Sunni Triangle. None of our soldiers, to my knowledge, were burned or injured by the weapons stored there, but we knew they were there and assumed the insurgents did too, particularly after word went our in May or June 2004 about a chemical IED going off somewhere else on the battlefield (which, based on the timeline, is the same one noted in the article as addressed by General Kimmett).
We conducted several operations at the Muthana Site in order to
capture or kill insurgents trying to dig into the bunkers to retrieve those
weapons. To my recollection, our scout snipers may have wounded some guys
doing some digging, but those detainees later claimed that they were just
looking for scrap metal to sell; as I recall, there was no way to confirm their
intent, and I think that they were patched up and cut loose.
Enemy activity generally seemed to be picking up near the
area in May and June. There is no doubt that there was a lot of insurgent
movement through that space, which formed a loose line of communication
among Fallujah, Baqouba and Samarra. In May or June, the 1st Infantry Division Commander directed our brigade to clear the area of insurgents (not chemicals),
and our brigade commander directed the staffs to plan a robust operation that
would have involved most of his combat power for a time. As the sole
light infantry task force in the brigade, we were designated the air assault
element with the task of moving by Blackhawk Helicopters to occupy blocking positions
across an arc some clicks away from those giant bunkers to disrupt enemy
egress from the objective.
This would allow our brigade's main
effort, a reinforced battalion task force of Bradley Fighting Vehicless and Abrams tanks, to
seize the objective and begin clearing operations. The operation would
have taken days; as the facility is huge. Then, after
final rehearsals including a full table-top combined arms
rehearsal through at brigade HQ in Tikrit, the operation was called
off. We never learned specifically why. It may have simply been
more activity was occurring on MSR Tampa, the key supply route through the Sunni Triangle, and our main focus, but who knows..
We handed off our operations out in December 2004, leaving another infantry battalion from the Minnesota National Guard in our place. I know that
they continued reconnaissance and security operations around the Muthana site. I once heard
a story that they sustained casualties moving to or from the site from the
FOB south of Balad. If true -- I don't know if it is but I can find out
-- this suggests that the enemy came to understand that the complex
was an enduring concern for us, such that by tempting our reconnaissance assets, our forces
might be baited into making the trip our there, allowing the enemy a chance at an IED ambush.
The enemy's intent remains unknowable. What is
perfectly clear, however, is that everyone knew that there were chemical
weapons out there. That compound and the threats it housed were important
both to us and to the enemy, and it all had to do with these
"defunct" munitions. And just like troop quoted in your
article, after hearing about the chemical IED and visiting Muthana, many of
us felt that the whole notion of Saddam not having chemical munitions (on
the basis that these weapons didn't "count" because they were
pre-1991) was stupid and bogus, particularly when a critical
threat supposedly being mitigated by the entire operation was that Saddam
or his operatives would give "terrorists" these types of munitions
for use against civilians. The chemical IED and subsequent warning put
the lie to the notion that such use requires state-of-the-art delivery systems,
particularly by assymetric operatives who may not have the sophistication to
know (or simply may not care) how unstable that material is.
Along with many of my unit I never understood why the Bush Administration never pointed out the problems that this toxic site posed, and how it verified concerns about Saddam's WMD, as there were few options to keep Saddam from using these unstable chemicals, secured as hey were by weak UNMOVIC locks. The Times and the rest of the WMD deniers know the story now.
Thanks again to Lt Col Vince Heintz, both for the article, and for the success of our tour in Iraq.
