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"The Era of Osama lasted about an hour, from the time the first plane hit the tower to the moment the General Militia of Flight 93 reported for duty." 
Toward FREEDOM
Posted on 05/19/2004 10:25:07 PM PDT by Jewels1091
CAMP BLACK JACK, Iraq — Any way you look at it, it was a big score.
First Cavalry Division officials are analyzing artillery shells that were part of a weapons cache seized Saturday night outside Baghdad.
Ordnance experts are analyzing the shells, trying to determine if they’re conventional 155 mm artillery shells or if they contain other substances, including sarin nerve gas or phosphorus, said Maj. Derik von Recum, spokesman for the 1st Cav’s 2nd Brigade.
On Saturday, a roadside bomb using a 155 mm shell filled with sarin exploded in Baghdad. It’s unclear whether that bomb is connected to this weapons cache.
Some of the shells were leaking, according to soldiers on the scene. Even if the shells turn out to be conventional, it would still be one of the most significant weapons seizures during the Fort Hood, Texas-based 1st Cav’s four months in Iraq.
A team of Dark Horse scouts from 2nd Platoon, Troop D, part of the 1st Cav’s 9th Cavalry Regiment, seized the cache, which included 43 artillery shells, each weighing about 90 pounds.
Slowly, word began to filter back to the scouts from explosive disposal soldiers that the find might be more significant than first thought.
“Frankly, it meant more to me when it was 4,000 pounds of explosive,” said Spc. Owen Starlin, the M-240B gunner who spotted four Iraqis unloading the cache. “That’s just [really] huge.”
Starlin and other soldiers say that even if the find turns out not to contain sarin, it’s still 43 fewer roadside bombs, the only way insurgents can use howitzer shells.
The night started out routinely, with two teams of scouts working observation points in a rural area northwest of central Baghdad.
Starlin said he was scanning outside his sector — looking past an earthen berm concealing his position — with high-powered night surveillance equipment when he noticed four Iraqis pull up and start working with irrigation equipment.
He didn’t pay much attention: “They’re always messing with irrigation.”
But on a second scan, he saw the men begin pulling munitions out of the small flatbed truck.
“I yelled to [Pfc. Keith] Haynie, ‘Hey, we got a lot of rounds!’ At that point, we knew it was huge,” Starlin said.
The men kept pulling out 155 mm artillery shells, one after another, he said.
At a relatively close range, Starlin said he could have taken out the men with his 240B.
“I said, ‘I’ve got eyes on them. You need to let me light them up?’ That’s an easy shot.”
Instead, the order came to try to capture the men along with their cache.
As scouts closed in, the men ran for it. A poor decision.
“I saw four running. [Spc. Mike] McCormick and I probably fired 200 rounds each. Then I looked and only saw one running,” Starlin said.
After that, the two gunners fired on the palm grove where they believed the remaining man was hiding, but found no bodies in the tall grass.
What they did find was artillery shells and fuses, four Russian-made AT-3 Sagger anti-tank guided missiles, an improvised rocket launcher capable of firing nine rockets simultaneously, and assorted weapons including a G-3 Heckler and Koch German-made assault rifle, said Haynie.
“When we walked up there, there were five or six holes, each 3 feet across and 4 feet long,” Starlin said.
Each hole was full of artillery shells, with more rounds set in between the holes, he said. He considers the night “an early birthday present,” with the seizure coming two days before his 21st birthday, Starlin said.
The seizure is one more in a string of productive nights for the Dark Horse scouts, who’ve killed or captured at least 30 insurgents since March. They have also scored major intelligence coups, including lists of insurgent leaders and addresses, as well as lists documenting attacks against U.S. soldiers.
“Usually, the main emphasis is firefights,” Stalin said. “That night, no one cared about the firefight. It was so big that everyone realized firefights are one thing … but we all knew when we saw [the cache] we had saved a lot of lives that night.”
We've been on this merrygoround before, but I feel good about this one.
Some of the shells were "leaking."
Wow.
I hope John Kerry is about to have an "Oh sh*t" moment.
This is the only place I saw this story. We won't see much more unless there was a chemical agent in the shells.
bttt
Sometimes you have to let the roaches run around in the dark before you spray the RAID....Anyone want to bet when we find stock piles of this kid of stuff that the lame stream media will pretend that they ain't there? They'll be too busy reading Bill's book and the Commission report or the latest photos that mean nothing...
Good job, guys!
You wonder why the media hasn't/won't report this? Because it's positive. They can't blame Bush for this.
bttt
One wonders how many 155 shells containing serin have been destroyed already.
The bad news is that they apparently did not capture any of the guys. I would be very interested whether or not they are special shells in knowing if there is a "ammo dump" these guys are tapping into?
No more WMD joke material.
Take that, Hans Blix.
"Maj. Derik von Recum" Interesting name. Wehrmacht background?
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"The Era of Osama lasted about an hour, from the time the first plane hit the tower to the moment the General Militia of Flight 93 reported for duty." Toward FREEDOM
Lookie here P !...........Stay Safe !
Maybe Fox will have something on this!
cause john f'n kerry said it aint news . .
Seriously, if they found a underground warehouse packed with dustproof palletised srinkwraped nukes with green cresents and red stars on them it would not make the Hooterville Star Democrat Reporter Police Blotter on the back side of the dog food ads.
Just keep saving articles to hard drives. When the day comes and the "historians" are telling the students that the USA stopped the bombing in Viet Nam because "we ran out of bombs" (no lie, FOR REAL, at UT Arlington in Texas) It will be time to lay a big fat dose of reality on the little pinheads.
One can only guess at how much "stuff" is buried around Iraq. Very difficult to find. It takes a great deal of luck to find the caches as exampled in this article.
ok I will admit my newbie ignorace what does "bttt" mean?
Back To The Top
Remember, Hans Blix says that we haven't yet found enough WMDs to be considered to have found WMDs. Until we find a Bondesque secret facility hidden in the desert with some sort of nefarious doomsday device ready to launch with 10 seconds notice, Bush lied about WMDs.
"What they did find was artillery shells and fuses, four Russian-made AT-3 Sagger anti-tank guided missiles, an improvised rocket launcher capable of firing nine rockets simultaneously, and assorted weapons including a G-3 Heckler and Koch German-made assault rifle, said Haynie."
You know, if all the guns they captured in iraq were converted from FA to semi only and sold here in america to us law abiding gun-nuts, they could raise a pretty good chunk of change to fight the WOT.
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