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What happened outside the Palestine Hotel

Army New Service:

A coordinated terrorist attack was thwarted Oct. 25 by U.S. Soldiers at the Fidoros Square traffic circle in downtown Baghdad.

The attack, which occurred in three phases, began at 5:25 p.m., when under the cover of small arms fire, a vehicle packed with explosives tried to pierce the defensive barriers between the Sheraton and Palestine hotels.

Seconds later, a vehicle moving toward the traffic circle from the east was engaged by a private security firm and immediately detonated.

Spc. Darrell Green, a machine gunner from 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, was pulling security from an observation post at the Sheraton. Upon hearing the explosions of the first two vehicles, Green stood ready for what was to come.

As dust and debris from the explosions subsided, he noticed the defensive barriers had been breached and a cement truck was heading through the gap toward the Sheraton and Palestine hotel complex – a home for many international journalists in Iraq.

The vehicle was 50 feet past the breach when Green took aim and engaged the truck with his machine gun. As he shot and killed the driver, preventing the vehicle from going any faurther, the truck detonated.

“He was trying to kill people,” said Green, a Volusia County, Fla., native. “It was good we stopped him because he would have killed more people and destroyed the building.”

At the same time, the opposite side of the hotel was being bombarded with small arms fire and what Soldiers believed to be rocket propelled grenades.

“I don’t think capturing journalists was the goal,” said Capt. John Newman, commander of B Company, 3-15 Infantry, when asked if the terrorists were trying to capture journalists from the hotel. “If they were trying to capture the hotel or take someone hostage, they would have had a lot of dismounted (personnel) ready to pour through the breach. They were just trying to cause death and destruction, and get on the news.”

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This story further highlights the weakness of the enemy when it comes to attacking defended positions. It was the active defense of the US forces that thwarted the enemy. I still believe that the US and the Iraqis need to get a handle on where every cement truck in the country is located and put GPS readers on them so that they can be traced at all times.