“It caused an instant hands-up in many places,” Hawkins said.īoth Hawkins and Maggart stressed that the assault tactic gave Iraqi forces an opportunity to surrender. Stephen Hawkins, who helped devise the tactic, said it was designed in part to terrorize the Iraqis into surrendering and to destroy defensive positions for troops who might reinforce the defensive line. I’m not going to sacrifice the lives of my soldiers-it’s not cost-effective.” We’re going to bludgeon them with every piece of equipment we’ve got. “My concept is to defeat the enemy with your power and equipment. Moreno acknowledged that the attack was at odds with Army doctrine that calls for-but does not require-troops to leave their armored vehicles to clean out the trenches or to bypass and isolate fortified positions. “But it would be even nastier if we had to put our troops in the trenches and clean them out with bayonets.” “I know burying people like that sounds pretty nasty,” Maggart said. Moreno and Maggart said the tactic was used as a means of minimizing U.S. “As (Iraqi) soldiers saw what we were doing and how effective and fast we were doing it, they began jumping out of their holes and surrendering,” Moreno said. As the juggernaut rolled along, it had a dramatic effect on other Iraqi troops watching the operation. “What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with peoples’ arms and things sticking out of them.”Įvery American in the assault was inside an armored vehicle, impervious to Iraqi small-arms fire. “I came through right after the lead company,” Moreno said. Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Vulcan armored personnel carriers straddled the trench lines and fired into the Iraqi soldiers as the tanks covered them with mounds of sand. The tanks took up positions on either side of the trenches, most of them three feet wide and six feet deep. In most cases, two M1-A1 tanks with plows shaped like giant teeth were assigned to each section of the trench line.
forces at 56 sites during the ground war.
In fact, the only mention of burying Iraqi troops came when Cheney acknowledged that 457 dead enemy soldiers were buried by U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney made no mention of the 1st Division’s tactics in a recent interim report to Congress on Operation Desert Storm. Moreno and Maggart gave some of the first public details of the trench-line attack during a series of interviews with New York Newsday.
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