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Army division with deep peacekeeping experience set to take over

Thursday, May 22, 2003

By Jack Kelly, Post-Gazette National Security Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Army's 3rd Infantry Division, which spearheaded the invasion of Baghdad, is getting ready to go home and handing over responsibility for security in the Iraqi capital to the 1st Armored Division.

The only armored division still in active service in the U.S. Army, the 1st is also the division with the most experience in peacekeeping operations, having performed similar missions in Bosnia and Kosovo.

The primary difference between an armored division and a mechanized infantry division is one battalion. An armored division has five tank battalions and four mech infantry battalions. A mech infantry division has four tank battalions and five infantry battalions.

"The biggest challenge is protecting the force while trying to help [Iraqis get back on their feet]," said Lt. Col. Jeff Bannister from Rome, Ga., a task force commander for 2nd Brigade Combat Team. "It's a lot harder figuring out who the bad guys are now."

The handover is accomplished by what are called "right seat, left seat" rides. First, the 3rd Infantry soldiers drive through their areas of operations with 1st Armored Division members as passengers. They show what they have been doing and why, and introduce the 1st Armored soldiers to Iraqi contacts. The next day, the 1st Armored soldiers conduct the patrols, with 3rd Infantry soldiers riding along to see that they are doing it right.

The right-seat, left-seat handover was personal for Lt. Paul Meyer of Wheaton, Ill., a military intelligence officer for the 3rd Infantry, and Lt. Ben Dykstra of Palatine, Ill, a signal officer in the 1st Armored Division.

The two had been roommates at Wheaton College. And it was three years to the day since Meyer had been a groomsman at Dykstra's wedding when they met by chance in Saddam Hussein's al-Salaam palace in Baghdad, recently renovated by the U.S. Air Force.

Meyer gave his old college roommate some tips on surviving in Baghdad. "Get a mosquito net and a cooler," he told Dykstra.

Most of the Iraqis whom Meyer has encountered have been friendly. "If I hadn't read what I've read in the papers, I wouldn't think there were any problems," he said.

Dykstra said he was ready for whatever lies ahead. "We're going to have a lot of challenges, different from these guys," he said.

The 1st Armored Division likely is better suited to stabilizing Baghdad than the 3rd Infantry, Meyer acknowledged. "We don't have a peacekeeping mentality," he said. "These guys might be better at it."

What Meyer is most looking forward to upon returning to the United States is eating something other than the military's MREs , or Meals Ready to Eat. "I have this craving for Taco Bell," he said.

Maj. Scott Slaten, the 1st Armored Division public affairs officer, tries to put the Army's role in Iraq into a long-term perspective. He was a University of Louisville history major and is an archaeology buff.

Slaten thinks the 1st Armored will be helping to fix something that has been broken since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. Iraq was cobbled together by Britain from three separate parts of the old Turkish empire; it threw together rival Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims and Kurds.

Nevertheless, Iraq has enormous potential, he believes. It is the only Arab country with abundant supplies of both oil and water and has the highest level of education of any country in the Arab world, Slaten noted. Iraq also has great potential for tourism as well, he said, because "history began here."

But Iraq's potential has been blunted by Saddam's rapacious regime and its Baath Party. Iraqis have never had rulers who didn't exploit them, nor, in 3,000 years of history, have they known an invader who tried to help them, which is why many Iraqis remain wary of the Americans, Slaten said.

"[The Iraqis] don't know that this is going to end. We know it's going to end. We want to go home," Slaten said.

When it becomes clear to the Iraqis that the Americans do aim to help them, attitudes will change, he predicted.

The attitude that Slaten said was typical of U.S. soldiers now in Iraq was expressed by Spc. Mahendra Thomas, 25, a native born Jamaican who now calls Fort Lauderdale, Fla., home. "We're doing God's work here," said Thomas, who works in the battalion intelligence shop.

"There are a whole lot of kids here who need things. We're going to help them get them," Thomas said. "I tell my wife we are blessed, blessed to have all we have."

Jack Kelly is currently embedded with the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad.