One of the Biggest Gulf Battles Came After Cease-Fire

By PAUL HOUSTON

May 10, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — One of the biggest battles of the Persian Gulf War--a fiery encounter in which U.S. forces obliterated an elite Iraqi division retreating toward Baghdad--occurred two days after President Bush had declared a cease-fire, an Army general testified Thursday.

Providing fresh details of the little-known engagement, Maj. Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey told a Senate panel that U.S. forces destroyed at least 630 armored vehicles, rocket launchers, artillery, trucks and other equipment after Iraqi units “blundered into” American positions in the confusion of darkness near Basra.

He gave no estimate of the number of Iraqis killed and was not questioned on that point. He did say that one American was killed and that a U.S. tank and a Bradley Fighting Vehicle were destroyed.

McCaffrey justified the March 2 attack by saying that the retreating Iraqi units seemed to be a huge threatening force, with some opening fire. He said that many Iraqi vehicles in distant locations were deliberately spared from tank, artillery and air assaults.

“They were overwhelmed by the attack,” McCaffrey declared. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee raised few questions about the incident and, in fact, effusively praised the overall performance of McCaffrey’s 24th Mechanized Infantry Division.

The 24th, based at Ft. Stewart, Ga., spearheaded the devastating left hook delivered by coalition forces in the ground campaign, sweeping around Kuwait from Saudi Arabia and driving deep behind enemy lines in Iraq.

In response to a question about the March 2 battle from Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the panel, McCaffrey said that field commanders had permission after the cease-fire to protect their troops, if threatened.

McCaffrey showed slides and a brief video that portrayed several scenes in the March 2 encounter. But he did not present a much lengthier version of the Army’s film footage, which was obtained by Newsday and described in that Long Island newspaper Wednesday.

According to Newsday reporter Patrick J. Sloyan, the video showed scores of elite Iraqi soldiers apparently wounded or killed as Apache helicopters raked the Republican Guard Hammurabi Division with laser-guided Hellfire missiles.

“Say hello to Allah,” one American was recorded as saying moments before a Hellfire obliterated one of 102 vehicles blasted by the Apaches, Newsday said.

In his testimony on the battle, McCaffrey said: “I don’t know for sure what happened, but throughout the day we had enemy forces bumping into us. Some of them didn’t fire and surrendered and some of them did (fire).”

In the pre-dawn darkness of March 2, McCaffrey said, his forces came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades--a weapon fired by an infantryman’s rifle--and a Soviet-made T-72 tank as the Iraqis retreated from Basra on the road to Baghdad.

“We elected to destroy the force” that was in the near vicinity, he said, and one infantry brigade, three tank task forces, five artillery battalions and an Apache helicopter battalion “conducted a classic attack.” Actual fighting took only 15 to 30 minutes, he said.

“Most of the enemy fled. There were thousands of little muddy footprints running to the east, hiding in ditches, pipelines and whatever.”