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7th Cavalry Fights in Sandstorm

Aired March 25, 2003 - 13:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Blinding sand and enemy fire. The U.S. 3-7th Cavalry crossed the Euphrates River today on a booby- trapped bridge during a desert sandstorm and under mortar and machine gun fire. All dangerous, extremely dangerous ingredients.
CNN's Walter Rodgers is with the cavalry unit.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The important thing is that the elements of the 7th Cavalry did increase -- did, indeed, cross the Euphrates River this morning, and that means that Saddam's grip on southern Iraq is greatly weakened.

Recall, he sent his elite troops down there, the Fedayeen commanders, plus his Republican Guard, to hold cities like An Najaf and Ash Shamiyah (ph), where we had been bogged down, and down to Nasiriyah and over to Basra.

He gave orders that that Euphrates River line should be held and the 7th Cavalry has, indeed, punched through it.

We have been under heavy fire for the past couple miles. Mostly, a small arms fire, but the sandstorm has enabled Iraqis to come very close to the road. And if I sound a little nervous, it's because we're in a soft-skin vehicle and everybody else is in armor.

It's very difficult to police this road at this point because of the sandstorm. Again, if you imagine yourself standing on a football field, the sandstorm is so dense that if you were on the goal line, you probably couldn't see much beyond midfield at this point, just yellow sand everywhere. And so preventing Iraqi vehicles from passing is impossible.

We're now going through an Iraqi farming village. And behind any one of those buildings could be an Iraqi soldier with an RPG ready to shoot out at the convoy you now see in front of you. The sandstorm is acting as a smoke screen, which is giving the Iraqis a fair amount of tactical advantage, at least in terms of small arms fire.

The sandstorm greatly limits the visibility for the -- for the gunners aboard any of these vehicles, the tanks or the M-113s or the, again, the Bradleys. In other words, the Iraqis could be out in those fields and could be crawling up.

Here's a time when night vision goggles don't help you and it's very difficult to see, because the sand and the grit is constantly in your eyes. So it's possible for an Iraqi to creep on his belly through these alluvial fields, these agricultural fields and come within, oh, 100 yards of that vehicle or with perhaps even something as large as a rocket-propelled grenade, which wouldn't do much damage to the Bradleys or the tanks, but any thin-skinned vehicle, like the one we're riding in, would be in a sorry predicament.

The pictures you're looking at now are three Iraqi prisoners of war, taken just a few moments ago. This is, of course, a very precarious moment for soldiers, because you never really quite know if one of these prisoners is carrying a grenade.

The other two are lying on the ground over to the left. They were taken just a few moments ago on the move north after the 7th Cavalry crossed the Euphrates River defense line.

The Iraqis have just simply been moved from a position before where it was determined that where they were they might, in the sandstorm, get run over by a civilian vehicle. So the U.S. Army, after having bound their hands with plastic ties, has put them together again. They have two guards, two Cavalry men standing guard over them.

We don't know if the POWs speak Arabic or not -- excuse me speak English or not, but there appears to be some sort of intercourse going on between one of the U.S. Army guards and the Iraqis. Again, they're waiting to be taken to the rear. The only mistreatment is that which we all suffer, which is to say an abuse of Mother Nature by a sandstorm.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: CNN's Walter Rodgers with the troops. And after crossing the Euphrates, Walter and the 3rd Squadron of the 7th Cavalry kept pushing north, eventually leaving the enemy snipers behind. The 3-7th is leading the 3rd Infantry Division towards a confrontation with Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired March 25, 2003 - 13:02   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Blinding sand and enemy fire. The U.S. 3-7th Cavalry crossed the Euphrates River today on a booby- trapped bridge during a desert sandstorm and under mortar and machine gun fire. All dangerous, extremely dangerous ingredients.
CNN's Walter Rodgers is with the cavalry unit.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The important thing is that the elements of the 7th Cavalry did increase -- did, indeed, cross the Euphrates River this morning, and that means that Saddam's grip on southern Iraq is greatly weakened.

Recall, he sent his elite troops down there, the Fedayeen commanders, plus his Republican Guard, to hold cities like An Najaf and Ash Shamiyah (ph), where we had been bogged down, and down to Nasiriyah and over to Basra.

He gave orders that that Euphrates River line should be held and the 7th Cavalry has, indeed, punched through it.

We have been under heavy fire for the past couple miles. Mostly, a small arms fire, but the sandstorm has enabled Iraqis to come very close to the road. And if I sound a little nervous, it's because we're in a soft-skin vehicle and everybody else is in armor.

It's very difficult to police this road at this point because of the sandstorm. Again, if you imagine yourself standing on a football field, the sandstorm is so dense that if you were on the goal line, you probably couldn't see much beyond midfield at this point, just yellow sand everywhere. And so preventing Iraqi vehicles from passing is impossible.

We're now going through an Iraqi farming village. And behind any one of those buildings could be an Iraqi soldier with an RPG ready to shoot out at the convoy you now see in front of you. The sandstorm is acting as a smoke screen, which is giving the Iraqis a fair amount of tactical advantage, at least in terms of small arms fire.

The sandstorm greatly limits the visibility for the -- for the gunners aboard any of these vehicles, the tanks or the M-113s or the, again, the Bradleys. In other words, the Iraqis could be out in those fields and could be crawling up.

Here's a time when night vision goggles don't help you and it's very difficult to see, because the sand and the grit is constantly in your eyes. So it's possible for an Iraqi to creep on his belly through these alluvial fields, these agricultural fields and come within, oh, 100 yards of that vehicle or with perhaps even something as large as a rocket-propelled grenade, which wouldn't do much damage to the Bradleys or the tanks, but any thin-skinned vehicle, like the one we're riding in, would be in a sorry predicament.

The pictures you're looking at now are three Iraqi prisoners of war, taken just a few moments ago. This is, of course, a very precarious moment for soldiers, because you never really quite know if one of these prisoners is carrying a grenade.

The other two are lying on the ground over to the left. They were taken just a few moments ago on the move north after the 7th Cavalry crossed the Euphrates River defense line.

The Iraqis have just simply been moved from a position before where it was determined that where they were they might, in the sandstorm, get run over by a civilian vehicle. So the U.S. Army, after having bound their hands with plastic ties, has put them together again. They have two guards, two Cavalry men standing guard over them.

We don't know if the POWs speak Arabic or not -- excuse me speak English or not, but there appears to be some sort of intercourse going on between one of the U.S. Army guards and the Iraqis. Again, they're waiting to be taken to the rear. The only mistreatment is that which we all suffer, which is to say an abuse of Mother Nature by a sandstorm.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: CNN's Walter Rodgers with the troops. And after crossing the Euphrates, Walter and the 3rd Squadron of the 7th Cavalry kept pushing north, eventually leaving the enemy snipers behind. The 3-7th is leading the 3rd Infantry Division towards a confrontation with Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com