Union Tribune April 5, 2003 U.S. planes support Kurds Bombs thwart Iraqi tanks in seesaw battle By MARCUS STERN COPLEY NEWS SERVICE KALAK, Iraq – Rolling across undulating green hills, retreating Iraqi tanks shelled Kurdish fighters pursuing them on foot. Overhead, coalition warplanes periodically bombed the Iraqi tanks, giving the Kurdish peshmerga fighters on the ground an emotional boost and a badly needed tactical advantage. But on this wheat-field-turned-battlefield, the advantage seemed to swing back and forth yesterday with each appearance, disappearance and reappearance of coalition B-52s and fighter jets. The Kurdish forces surged forward when contrails cut across the blue sky. As soon as the planes and their vapors were gone, the Iraqi artillery began pummeling the peshmergas anew. The apparent seesaw nature of the battle underscored the huge importance of the U.S. military presence here in northern Iraq where, for the past 12 years, the Kurds have controlled virtually everything except two crucial oil-producing cities – Mosul and Kirkuk. Without the U.S. military presence, the peshmergas, armed only with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov assault rifles, were no match for the Iraqi tanks and artillery. But the Iraqi forces were no match for the bombs and missiles that rained down on them when coalition planes rumbled overhead. The missing ingredient for any serious advance on Mosul or Kirkuk is armor. The Kurdish forces have none. U.S. war planners had hoped to bring the armor of the 4th Infantry Division into northern Iraq, but the Turkish parliament refused to allow tanks and artillery to move across its soil. After a far more modest agreement was reached this week between the United States and Turkey, some equipment finally could be seen yesterday moving through northern Iraq. Military convoys snaked their way south from near the Turkish border, but they weren't flat-bed trucks carrying tanks and artillery. They were small convoys of eight to 10 new, white pick-ups driven by U.S. soldiers. Kurds along the road, longing for a greater U.S. military presence, seemed heartened by the arrival of even these modest convoys. The battle west of Kalak remained a daylong shoving match. One minute, the Iraqis seemed in retreat, and the next, the peshmergas. Back and forth it went throughout the afternoon. The lowering sun briefly blinded the peshmergas looking west toward the Iraqi positions. A B-52 dropped a large load of bombs that raised a long curtain of black smoke along the Iraqi positions just as the sun settled onto the horizon. Then dusk created a silhouette of peshmerga fighters, smoking, pointing, looking out on the battlefield below where the artillery and bombs where exploding. At times, the peshmergas lay low in the wheat for protection or comfort. Other times, they stood for a better view. Also in the wheat field was a small team of soldiers, their American flag patches displayed on the shoulders of their desert cammies. Sitting in the knee-high wheat, one used a sighting device to help fix the targets for the planes. A second lounged nearby watching the distant light show. Then night fell. Flashes came from a ridge six or seven miles away. Forty seconds later, the shrill sound of an artillery shell and then an explosion. The shells landed a safe distance from where the soldiers were sitting. It seemed erratic, almost random. Tracers rose from the ridge as the Iraqi soldiers fired their heavy machine guns at the most forward positions of the peshmergas. Then more Iraqi artillery fire was directed toward the wheat field where the U.S. soldiers were sitting. Finally, the U.S. soldiers and peshmergas hurried from the field toward the rear as word spread that Iraqi tanks were advancing. Without any planes in the sky or allied tanks, there was nothing to do but retreat.