U.S. Marines In Battle: An-Nasiriyah, 23 March-2 April 2003 [Illustrated Edition]

Colonel Rod Andrew Jr. USMCR

• Publisher: Tannenberg Publishing
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781782893912
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Includes over 9 maps, 23 diagrams and illustrations.
On 23 March 2003, 5, 800 U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy Corpsmen-the warriors of Task Force Tarawa-began fighting a ferocious battle in the city of an-Nasiriyah, Iraq. As the first large-scale battle fought by U.S. Marines in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Nasiriyah became a test of the Coalition's ability and resolve to defeat a determined, resourceful foe that relied on a combination of conventional units and tactics and irregular forces willing to violate the laws of war. Task Force Tarawa's Marines adapted quickly, and the battle of Nasiriyah, with its asymmetrical warfare, emphasis on combined arms and joint operations, and Coalition forces' ability to react quickly and aggressively again stun expected enemy tactics became emblematic of the 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom campaign.

The Battle of An-Nasiriyah by Colonel Rod Andrew Jr., USMCR

Iraq and An-Nasiriyah on the Eve of War

On 23 March 2003, 5,800 U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy Corpsmen—the warriors of Task Force Tarawa—began fighting a ferocious battle in the city of an-Nasiriyah, Iraq. As the first large-scale battle fought by U.S. Marines in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Nasiriyah became a test of the Coalition’s ability and resolve to defeat a determined, resourceful foe that relied on a combination of conventional units and tactics and irregular forces willing to violate the laws of war. Task Force Tarawa’s Marines adapted quickly, and the battle of Nasiriyah, with its asymmetrical warfare, emphasis on combined arms and joint operations, and Coalition forces’ ability to react quickly and aggressively again stun expected enemy tactics became emblematic of the 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom campaign.

Nasiriyah lies in a date-growing region along the banks of the Euphrates River in Dhi Qar Province about 225 miles southeast of Baghdad. Its population, made up almost entirely of Shi’a Muslims, was an estimated 560,000 in 2003, making it the fourth most populous city in the country. It was founded in 1840 near the ruins of the ancient city of Ur, the birthplace of Abraham.

The events that brought the Marines to Nasiriyah, however, were far more current. Only six days before they stormed into the city, President George W. Bush had issued an ultimatum giving Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his two sons 48 hours to leave Iraq. The United States had viewed the Iraqi government with heightened concern since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Hussein’s regime was believed to sponsor global terrorism and also to be building and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction—nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons for use against its neighbors and Western nations.

Soon after 11 September, it became clear that the immediate source of the terrorist who carried out those attacks was Afghanistan rather than Iraq. Even during the offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, however, the Bush administration anticipated the need to topple Hussein’s regime, leading the U.S. military to start planning for a possible invasion of Iraq. Hussein had ignored or violated 16 United Nations resolutions, many of them requiring him to disclose what had become of the mass destruction weapons his country had once possessed and to allow international inspectors to search for them or verify their destruction. In light of Hussein’s intransigence, the Bush administration concluded, as did many experts around the world, that Iraq still harbored those weapons, and with aggressive intent.{1}

Planning and Deployment

Task Force Tarawa, whose name was a colorful designation for 2d Marine Expeditionary Brigade (2dMEB), had existed as a standing, fighting organization for less than three months. The 2d MEB originally consisted only of a staff and commander, Brigadier General Richard F. Natonski. Marine expeditionary brigade staffs had been discontinued due to budget cuts of the 1990s and were only revived in 2000. When the Marine Corps revived them, it tried to do so economically by assigning Marine expeditionary brigade billet titles to the staff personnel of II Marine Expeditionary Force (IIMEF). Thus, every staff officer and staff non-commissioned officer of 2d MEB had another, primary duty as a member of II MEF’s staff. Until December 2002, the attention they were able to devote to Marine expeditionary brigade planning was limited by their primary duties as members of the II MEF staff.{2}

Marine planners had long known, however, that 2d MEB would have a role to play in Operations Plan 1003V, the contingency plan to liberate Iraq. It would end up being one of four major combat organizations under I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), including 1st Marine Division, 3d Marine Aircraft Wing, and the 1(United Kingdom) Armoured Division. I MEF in turn would end up fighting alongside the U.S. Army V Corps. More detailed planning commenced in September 2002; at that time, 2d MEB was referred to as Task Force South. As planning proceeded, 2d MEB’s anticipated mission was to arrive in Kuwait after hostilities commenced, relieve 1st Marine Division in the Umm Qasr oil fields, and block in the direction of Basra. This would facilitate a rapid march north by 1st Marine Division, which in turn would draw attention and Iraqi combat power away from the Coalition main effort, which was the 3d Infantry Division of the Army’s V Corps. This plan was further articulated at planning conferences in mid-December in Kuwait and Qatar.{3}

Task Force Tarawa

Around the time of the December 2002 planning conferences, I MEF commander Lieutenant General James T. Conway asked Brigadier General Richard F. Natonski if he would like to choose a different name for the 2d MEB. A history major in college, Natonski had a keen sense of the historical importance of what he and his Marines were involved in. Conscious of being an East Coast (2d Marine Division) unit as part of a West Coast Marine expeditionary force, Natonski was intrigued with the idea of giving 2d MEB a name that evoked its 2d Marine Division heritage.

Natonski asked for ideas from the Marine Corps History Division, but none of the suggestions appealed to him. One day while visiting the I MEF Headquarters building, he noticed a plaque in the lobby commemorating the battle of Tarawa. Natonski decided to adopt the moniker “Task Force Tarawa” for 2d MEB, a name that recalled the legendary battle fought by 2d Marine Division against the Japanese in the Gilbert Islands in November 1943.{4}

It was also during the fall of 2002 that planners began to designate the forces that would constitute 2d MEB once it became a combat unit. The command element contained personnel drawn from the II MEF staff, 2d Intelligence Battalion, 2d Radio Battalion, 8th Communications Battalion, 2d Force Service Support Group, 4th Civil Affairs Groups, 2d Marine Liaison Element, and 2d Force Reconnaissance Company. The commander would be Brigadier General Natonski, a career infantry officer who had previously commanded at the battalion and Marine expeditionary unit levels. As a commander, he had led units in operations in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kuwait. Natonski was a large, powerfully built man with a deep voice. He spoke deliberately and forcefully but combined this strong demeanor with courtesy and tact.

The ground combat element was the 2d Regimental Combat Team (RCT-2), which in turn was built around the nucleus of 2d Marine Regiment, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The commanding officer of 2d Marines, Colonel Ronald L. Bailey, would command RCT-2. Bailey was a seasoned officer with broad experience in operational units. The bulk of his regiment had just completed a combined arms exercise in Twentynine Palms, California. The regimental staff and a large proportion of the regiment were still preparing for cold-weather training in Bridgeport, California, as late as early December. They had hints that they might be deploying to a completely different environment in Iraq instead, but never the less could not ignore preparations for Bridgeport. Thus the 2d Marine Regiment was in the position of having to prepare for parallel and mutually exclusive missions. Not until the planning conference in mid-December did Colonel Bailey learn that the bulk of his regiment would indeed be going to Iraq. From that point, he had a little over a week to call his Marines off holiday leave and get his regiment embarked and ready to sail.{5}

Regimental Combat Team 2 had three infantry battalions. The 1st Battalion, 2d Marines, was led by Lieutenant Colonel Rickey L. Grabowski, a former enlisted Marine and drill instructor and son of a Vietnam veteran who had subsequently spent a career as an officer in the U.S. National Guard. Tough, disciplined, and methodical, Grabowski worked hard to ensure that training emphasized small-unit leadership, particularly encouraging subordinates to take the initiative.{6} His battalion had recently returned from a combined arms exercise. It was augmented by Company A, 2d Amphibious Assault Vehicle Battalion, commanded by Captain William E. Blanchard, and was the only battalion in the task force that would ride into battle in FMC AAV-7A1s (amphibious assault vehicles, or “tracks”) and thus be “track-mounted.” Because of this, 1st Battalion, 2d Marines, would form the task force’s vanguard during the invasion of Iraq and bear a large brunt of the heaviest fighting on the first day in Nasiriyah.{7}

The 2d Battalion, 8th Marines, was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Royal P. Mortenson, the son of a World War II Marine who had been wounded on Guam. Articulate and charismatic, Mortenson was determined that none of his Marines would die due to his mistakes or neglect. His Marines had recently completed cold-weather training in the mountains around Bridgeport. Despite the now-likely deployment in Iraq, Mortenson never the less believed that the training had been useful because it had encouraged and naturally fostered small-unit cohesion and attention to detail. The battalion had been preparing for deployment as part of 1st Marine Division, so it was at full strength and at a high level of training and cohesion.{8}

Lieutenant Colonel Paul B. “Brent” Dunahoe commanded 3d Battalion, 2d Marines. He was a Virginia Military Institute graduate whom one officer described as “tough and pragmatic.”{9} Only days before deploying, this battalion reached deployable strength by the addition of more than 160 brand new arrivals—second lieutenants just graduated from Infantry Officers Course and raw enlisted Marines straight from the School of Infantry. Some of the latter had not even completed the full course but had been yanked out of training early and sent to Dunahoe’s battalion.{10}

The artillery unit was 1st Battalion, 10th Marines, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Glenn T. Starnes, a Texas A&M graduate described as “quietly professional and confident” but also quietly intense.{11} One of Starnes’s main concerns was the performance of the new family of digital communications and fire support equipment. He was also apprehensive about what he considered a lack of necessary logistical capabilities for a unit about to go into combat.{12}

Task Force Tarawa also enjoyed the support of a company of tanks. Company A, 8th Tank Battalion, was a Reserve company based at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Its commander was Major William P. Peeples, a city planner in Avon, Indiana. Brigadier General Natonski recalled that “we were very fortunate with our support from the Marine Corps Reserves.”{13} Major Peeples’s tank company mobilized, boarded buses, and arrived in Camp Lejeune within three days of receiving a phone call to mobilize. A reconnaissance company from San Antonio, Texas, had nearly an identical timeline. There was also a civil affairs group detachment from the Reserves, and augmentation by Reserve officers and enlisted personnel was vital for the 2d MEB staff as well.{14}

The combat service support element was Combat Service Support Battalion 22 (CSSB-22), 2d Force Service Support Group. Initially, Task Force Tarawa also had an aviation combat element, Marine Air Group 29 (MAG-29). The task force deployed with 7,089 Marines and sailors. Upon arriving in Kuwait, however, Task Force Tarawa had to detach MAG-29, thus losing its own organic air assets. The task force also lost formal operational control of CSSB-22 to 1st Force Service Support Group, although its first assigned tactical task in Iraq was direct support of Task Force Tarawa. Thus, by the time the task force crossed the line of departure into Iraq, it was simply a ground maneuver element, not a Marine air-ground task force. It then had roughly 5,800 Marines and sailors.{15}

It was not until late December that sub-ordinate commanders of what would become Task Force Tarawa got confirmation that they were indeed deploying as part of that unit. Once the word got out, things happened quickly. For example, Lieutenant Colonel Mortenson, commander of 2d Battalion, 8th Marines, which was originally envisioned as flying to Iraq to become part of 1st Marine Division, found out on 29 December that his battalion was instead sailing as part of 2d MEB. The entire battalion was called off Christmas leave and told to return on 2 January. In formation on the morning of the 3d, the Marines and sailors learned that they would be on ships by 5 January, and there was no way to know when they would be back.{16}

On 6 January 2003, 2d MEB was officially activated. By 9 January, loading began on the ships of Amphibious Task Force East at Norfolk, Virginia, and Morehead City, Wilmington, and Onslow Beach, North Carolina. Amphibious Task Force East shipping consisted of the USS Saipan (LHA-2), USS Bataan (LHD-5), USS Kearsarge (LHD-3), USS Ponce (LPD-15),...