Able Fire: The Next War - 2025 and Beyond

Chapter 22

As darkness folded itself over the deserts of Southern Iraq, the 1st Marine Division was revving up to make its push north from the Kuwaiti border. The official “invasion” of the country had begun earlier that day for them, when 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment cleared the port of Umm Qasr. The rest of the division was lined up to cross the frontier after sunset and by 20:00, they were pushing north.

On their left, 3rd BCT of the US 1st Armored Cav Division and the King Khalid Armored Brigade swept through the southern reaches of the vast Rumailah Oil field. Behind them came 1st and 2nd Armored BCTs of the Big Red 1, which had pushed rapidly north through the open desert that day.

The entire region was replete with oil. The troops of the 82nd Airborne Division, which had air lifted the previous day to cut both Highway 1 and 8 were now securing the smaller outlying Suba Field. Directly east of their position was the Ratawi Field with 10 billion barrels in reserves, then came Rumailah North, with another 10 billion barrels, and Rumailah South with 8 billion more. Behind the long 40 kilometer reaches of those fields, the Tuba Field held another 6 billion barrels and then the Zubayr Field further west had 4.5 billion more totaling over 38 billion Barrels of oil in the ground. The less developed reserves north of Basrah at Qurna, Majnoon, and Narh Umr held about the same amount, some 34.6 billion barrels. Taken together, that amounted to 75 billion barrels of oil, and that was what this war was really all about.

Iraq and Iran had thought to enlarge their hold on the world’s oil by seizing Burgan in Kuwait and Ghawar in Saudi Arabia two supergiant fields that were the heart of Saudi and Kuwaiti production for decades. Now they were fighting simply to save their own oil from the avenging angels of the West.

It was the sweeping envelopment made by the US mobile brigades that was unhinging the Iraqi defense further east and south. If those troops did not retreat, they risked being cut off in a pocket, with their backs to the big water obstacle of the Shatt al Basrah, and the wetlands behind it. Tactically, all the ground south of Basrah itself was largely indefensible against a move like this, particularly when it was executed by well trained and superbly armed troops like 1st Infantry Division.

The Iraqi General Ayad in command of what was left of the old 1st Army could see his plight clearly enough. Once the frontier defense line had been breached and enveloped as it was, his only sound move would be to order an immediate retreat north to the line of the Shatt Al Arab. This was the swollen watercourse that carried all the waters of both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers after they met at Al Qurna. From there the Shatt flowed southeast, bending around Iraq’s second most populous city at Basrah and then flowed on through Khorramshahr and finally Abadan before it wound its way to the Persian Gulf at the oil terminal Port Fao.

That line was defensible, particularly because his own forces would be strongly supported by Iranian troops and Revolutionary Guard units. So as the Americans pushed, the Iraqis withdrew to escape that pocket, racing north in a mad rush through the night. Coalition air strikes found prime targets like columns of towed artillery, their bombs arcing down, guided by the infrared sensors that could see the warm columns glowing on their screens.

As his forces pull out to the north, General Ayad knew his position would strengthen with time when the front compressed. His only concern was Basrah itself, which was all mostly south of the Shatt al Arab. Qusay Hussein had sent him a direct order that the city should be held, and that any further movement by Coalition forces towards Al Qurna had to be stopped.

Thankfully, the terrain on the battlefield itself would heavily favor the defense. The most prominent obstacle was the wetland area known as the Mesopotamian Marshes, largely impassable to tanks and APCs or other vehicles. Extending from Basrah nearly all the way to Nasiriyah, these wetlands made the wide enveloping moves made thus far impossible. There were only a few areas where dry and firm land permitted them to be penetrated, and those would become bottlenecks or choke points favoring the defense.

As it approached Basrah, the Coalition would gain control of the existing production fields of Rumailah, but the two great untapped oil fields further north, West Qurna and Majnoon, would be difficult prizes to obtain. Above Al Qurna, the “Glory River” had once been a wide oblong shaped man-made channel filled with water from the marshlands and running north from that city for 50 kilometers before angling sharply northwest to completely screen Al Amara. Like a castle wall made of water, it was created during the fighting between Iran and Iraq before those countries reached an accord, and it was a natural barrier shielding the Majnoon Oil Fields. In recent years much of that had been drained, and a small canal now marked its western edge.

Any way you looked at it, the Generals on the US side were looking at the maps and scratching their heads, and many of the planners wondered if the mission to secure those last two fields ought to be abandoned. The Iraqi Foreign Minister was already promising the proverbial “Mother of all Battles” should Coalition forces enter Baghdad. Now they promised the same in the south, and they would not be alone.

US intelligence had noted the movement of Chinese military forces through Iran. A main line from Tehran ran south through the mountainous country to Ahvaz and then on to Abadan and Port Imam Khomeini on the upper Persian Gulf. That rail was a major artery allowing Iran to move reinforcements into the region, and that included elements of the Chinese 13th and 21st Armies.

“Gentlemen, If the Chinese move one or both those armies to Ahvaz or Al Amara, then we have a completely different ballgame here. At present, the political leadership has not authorized strategic bombing of Iran to interdict these rail lines. So it’s a question of when, not if, we may be face to face with the Chinese Army in this thing. I don’t have to tell you that will increase the stakes in this war, and ratchet up the tension another few notches. In that instance, politics may take the field here as well. Until that happens, we continue on our objectives, and if we can get them first, all the better. The question then is whether and how long we can hold them….”

The road north from Kuwait was trailblazed by 1st Recon Squadron, USMC, and it was Oscar Mike.[7] They had passed through a region of gas tanks and pipelines, finally reaching and occupying a pumping substation near the Saddah Marshland. All was quiet on the road as it bypassed that substation to the left, but when they reached the settlement of Khor al Zubayr, small arms and RPG fire came at them thick and heavy.

About 18 miles south of the main city of Zubayr, the Iranian 45th Takavar had prepared blocking positions there on the main road, so the Light Troops called up the heavier companies to join the fight. It was the first action in a series of engagements that would light up the desert that night. Soon the battle would extend a full 50 kilometers to the west, reaching from the marshland all the way to the South Rumailah Oil Field. That line was held by the entire 1st Marine Division, and it intended to sweep right through the South Rumailah field and reach Highway 8 that day.

Fierce warriors when they were on the move, the Marines were hitting Iraqi motorized rifle troops and the Andan Republican Guards Division in the oil fields, and hitting them hard. Every attack they made shattered Iraqi company defenses and sent platoons retreating to the rear. Not even the Andan 12th Motor Rifle Regiment could hold its positions. It was the first time the entire Marine division had fought a major battle since WWII, and the men knew they were writing new history with every forward step they took, so it was a no holds barred fight.

The 1st Regiment had been mechanized, so it had a lot of Bradley AFV’s in the mix and some supporting Abrams tanks. The other two regiments of the division were motorized in trucks with lighter AFV support. 5th Marine Regiment was just west of the 1st Regiment, and they were advancing on the Tuba Oil Fields to put 6 billion barrels in the bank. On their left, 7th Marine Regiment was sweeping through the South Rumailah Fields. The Leathernecks were sweeping forward with any AFV’s in the company providing the close fire support. Eight or ten Iraqi tanks were encountered, and they were work for the Javelin teams, or the legions of Apache AH-64’s that were haunting the sky like unseen banshees.

Two thirds of all the helicopters the US brought to the fight were here in the south. The 82nd Airborne had a full aviation brigade, and in this organization of the Big Red 1, there were two Armored infantry brigades and an aviation brigade. That saw nearly 100 attack helicopters in the south, with scores of Blackhawks to move the 82nd Airborne troops wherever they were needed.

Just west of the Marines, the Saudi King Khalild Armored Brigade was manned with men who could smell all that oil in the ground, having had long experience in their own country. Now they were excited to be turning the tables on their Iraqi tormentors. On their right, all the US heavy metal was sweeping northeast through the desert, their first objective being the “liberation” of the Ratawi Oil Field. Long columns of tanks and APC’s were leaving trails of dust behind them, the telltale signs Rommel would look for in his desert wars.

That wide envelopment was being made by the reinforced 1st Infantry Division, where 3rd BCT of 1st Armored Cav was attached and leading the way. It was 95% of all the tanks and Bradley AFV’s in the south, as both brigades of the Big Red 1 were Armored BCT’s using the new Combined Arms Battalion structure. Each had four companies, two with mechanized infantry, and two with 14 M1A2 tanks each. That put 168 tanks in the field plus 70 more in 3rd BCT, 1st Cav, and thus far, they had encountered very little in the way of Iraqi armor.

The movement was basically a replay of the earlier Operation Clipper that had bagged five Iraqi Brigades and the Al Faw Republican Guard Division in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Determined not to repeat that disaster and lose all that remained of his army, General Ayad was ordering his troops to fall back towards Basrah. There was simply no way they could effectively defend those southern oil fields against the heavy Coalition forces now on the move.

Rumailah North was a particularly vulnerable spot, as marsh lined canals and lakes bordered that area to the north and west. There was one bridge over the canal near a section of oil tanks and two pumping substations, and that led the bulk of the motor rifle battalions north into the coveted Al Qurna Oil Field. Below that, and screening the city of As Zubayr, the Iraqi 11th Mech Brigade of the Andan Republican Guard consolidated in the Tuba Oil Fields, hoping to make a stand there.

The US 5th and 7th Marine Regiments moved up to front that line, preparing for a two regiment assault at noon on the 22nd of January. The big mechanized pincer would sweep the Ratawi and Rumalia North fields, then execute a bridging operation on the canal screening the West Qurna Field. In that they were already being aided by the intrepid 82nd Airborne, which leapt over the canal with two brigades in helicopters landing to secure a bridgehead. There were only a few sites suitable for bridging where the ground wasn’t too marshy on either side of the canal, and their engineers threw up one bridge that night, which allowed the Recon Squadron of 1st ABCT to cross just before sunrise. There they would soon have their eyes on the prize—West Qurna, with 15 billion barrels in proven reserves.

There were now four motor rifle battalions forming a rudimentary defense on the southern edge of that field, and they included a few companies of special forces. These were strengthened with the arrival of a battalion of tanks from the Iraqi 10th Armored Brigade, 30 Type 85-II Chinese built tanks in all, a model that was basically the Chinese copy of the Soviet T-72.

The Recon Squadron that had crossed into the 82nd bridgehead now moved rapidly forward to engage the enemy line at the edge of the oil fields, while 3/66th ABCT Battalion raced east along the north bank of the canal towards the only fixed bridge. Just as the Iron Rangers of the 1/16th ABCT pushed up to that bridge from the south, it was blown by Iraqi special forces. Now the arrival of 3/66th would fight to clear the north side of that bridge so the engineers could get in from the south and rebuild or repair that span. In the meantime, the US artillery was raining down on Iraqi positions north of the canal sending up dark plumes of smoke and sand that were soon twisted into smoke devils by the rising wind.

Everywhere, the smell of diesel and burning oil mixed with cordite and gunpowder, and it was the aroma of battle that would never be forgotten by any man who fought this oil war. Realizing what was now on the table, the Iraqis committed the other two battalions of their 10th Armored Brigade, their last armored reserve in the south. It began rolling in to the West Qurna Fields at 15:00, past the gaunt silent metal rigs and scattered drilling equipment and pipe stands. The decision had been made to send it there, while Qusay Hussein was on the telephone from his new roost in Tikrit, haranguing the Chinese in Beijing to get them to commit forces they had sent to Iran.

There, on the border south of Ahvaz, the Chinese 13th Army was assembling. Their 37th Motor Rifle Division was on the Iraqi frontier near Amara, reinforced by the 17th Armored Brigade with 81 Type 99 Tanks. The 37th Division had been scheduled to restructure as independent combined arms brigades, but when the Siberian war came, it remained a three brigade motorized infantry division. At Ahvaz itself, the Chinese 149th Motor Rifle Division could be quickly sent to Abadan or Basrah as a defensive formation.

But the Chinese were hesitating….

Committing either part of that force would put it right in the middle of a ground war, on foreign soil, with the United States. This army, and the 21st Army further north at Kermanshah, were now thousands of miles from the Chinese mainland. If they entered the war on the ground in Iraq, it would be a come as you are party, because that 2000 mile supply line from the Iraqi border to Xinjiang Province in northwest China was, to the say the least, overstretched. The movement of those troops had been a political move as much as a military one, meant to show their resolve to the West and throw down a proverbial gauntlet. Yet now the United States was poised to enter and seize the West Qurna Fields, where China had lucrative development contracts, and something had to be done….

Chapter 23

By sunset on the 22nd the crushing battle for the Tuba Fields had become a grinding chaos in the darkness. The Marines were advancing with night vision, sending tracer rounds like hot lead through the darkness. In places oil flare pipes were burning like vents from hell, and dark acrid smoke hung over the scene. Artillery fire directed at the regimental level plowed into the ground. Though they avoided any operational rig or well site, several pipelines were blasted open and began leaking dark crude. In places this caught fire, and silhouetted infantry on both sides, painting a macabre landscape that seemed to be writhing with demons on the oily field. The Andan Division was slowly being ground down, and in serious danger of being pocketed on that nightmarish battleground.

General Ayad was shouting orders over the radio until he was hoarse, ordering his battalions to get off the open ground of the Tuba Fields and fall back on As Zubayr and the Shaibah air field to the northwest. The men straggled back across the Shaibah airfield, occupying a factory and refinery area near the town of Tuba al Hamra. The rest of the Andan division, remnants of the 12th MR Brigade, joined the defense of Zubayr.

Only in the West Qurna Field did he try to stand fast, committing the 10th Armored Brigade there as US forces were impeded by that canal. As more US troops crossed the two bridges that had been laid down, the weight of that attack began to build, and the Abrams tanks began tearing up the platoons of Iraqi tanks from 10th Armored, bringing their counterattack to a halt. The 10th Brigade was not going to stop the powerful American armored forces, but it was trading blood and steel for time.

As the scattered Iraqi companies fell back, the General noted that Basrah itself had very little in the way of regular army defenders at that hour. The Mahdi Militias had all risen from the Mosques, their eyes glowing with the newly fanned flames of jihad. They were irregular forces, none heavily armed, but the urban maze of the city would make them a great nuisance if the enemy came there. The Iranians had moved the last three companies of the once vaunted 92nd Armored, all to guard the three main bridges over the Shatt al Arab. This was the best position forward of the Iranian border, so it was better to fight there than anywhere else.

General Ayad knew that none of those forces would be enough if his troops near As Zubayr were destroyed and the enemy came here in force, but he was playing for time, hoping they could hold the Coalition forces off long enough for more help to arrive.

That night, the Chinese General Staff finally obtained permission from the General Secretariat and Party elite in Beijing, and orders were sent to the 13th Army to cross into Iraq and secure the interests of the People’s Republic of China. That sent two long columns moving in the darkness, one from Amara on the road to Al Qurna, with the 37th MR Division and 17th Armored Brigade, and the other on the road to Abadan further east.

A little after midnight, a flight of four Strike Eagles that had been up flying support missions for the Marines was given the order to strike that column as a warning shot. But when a plane was shot down by an unseen J-20 fighter, the Eagles had to retire. The Chinese weren’t stopping, and the ground war in the south would soon evolve into a new monster that neither side really wanted or anticipated when all these plans were drawn up months ago around the map tables.

Instead of a well-justified reprisal for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the US had morphed its operations into a grab for those oil fields. The West had already cleared the Suez Canal, opened the Red Sea, and liberated both Kuwait and the Saudi Kingdom. Now it wanted more, and for that, it was looking at a great power war on the ground in the Middle East. Chinese J-20’s had risen from fields in Iran, and the heretofore uncontested airspace would soon become heavily embattled again by dawn on the 23rd of January. The dominoes had fallen, one oil field after another, but now China was making its great gambit to salvage its overall political position in the Middle East and “get some” where all that oil was concerned.

Far to the north near the Iraqi capital, the hard nut of Fallujah fell that night as a full brigade of the 101st Airborne Division swept through the town like a hard wind. That city had anchored the Iraqi defense on the Euphrates River west of Baghdad, and behind it there was open desert, with the next hard point being Abu Ghraib and its nefarious prison site another 25 kilometers to the east.

From Fallujah the US line extended northeast with 3rd Infantry holding the ground between Fallujah and Al Karmah, and then 1st Armored on the line Al Karmah to Al Taji. All the ground between that city and the great Tharthar Lake was now US controlled, and the two reserve Stryker Brigades had swept north to take over Balad AFB and screen off Iraqi forces mustered in Samarra.

As for the two BCTs of 1st Armored Cav, they were relieved at Balad and given a new mission, just as Sergeant King and Corporal Neal had surmised. A big operation would be staged across the Tigris River, with the aim of cutting off Baghdad from the north, and encircling the city. So that night, the Light Troops of 1/7th Cav moved south from Balad through big fields of thick stalked sunflowers. Their mission was to identify possible crossing sites for the engineers, and on the map, the town of Tarmiyah that Neal had fingered earlier offered a makeshift ferry site across a narrower segment of the river that was only 550 feet wide. On the far side of the river, there was a small road that led east through a heavily cultivated area, dense with orchards and olive and date groves.

“We got us a river crossing operation,” said Sergeant King, smiling broadly.

“But there’s no bridge here,” Corporal Neal complained.

“That may be so, Neal, but there are boats, and we’re gonna e-ffect a rapid cross river assault here, just like we trained. So we’ll line up the Humvees and leave the gunners, then the rest of us round up those boats and get on over.”

“Oh great,” said Neal. “Now we get to walk to Baghdad. What about our VIP? The CIA guy gets to walk too? It’s a perfect way to meet all the locals and see the countryside.” He smiled, feigning excitement.

“Don’t get loopy on me, Neal. We ain’t walking anywhere. Our mission is to cross this here river and then strongpoint on the other side. The brigade engineers are coming up here to lay down a pontoon bridge, and then you can walk back with Sanchez and lead the vehicles on over.”

That was the plan, simple enough it seemed, and the darkness of the night was offering good cover. They got all the vehicles lined up, their guns pointed across the river and the troops scanning the far bank with night optics. All seemed empty and quiet there.

“What about me?” asked the Weasel.

The Sergeant frowned. “Was you at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas for Operation River Assault 2024, Mister reporter? If you were, I didn’t read nuthin’ about it in the papers. So you ain’t qualified. Stay here with Duran and pass ammunition if he needs it. You can come on over when Neal comes back for the vehicle.”

Todd frowned, folded his arms in resignation, and settled in for the wait. He wouldn’t get any good photos in this darkness anyway, and of course the Sergeant wasn’t going to let him use a flash while his men were supposed to be making a surprise river crossing. So he watched as the men all moved down to the west bank, commandeering any boat they found there, about eight or ten as he counted them, There were two short wooden piers extending about 60 feet out into the river, and they used them to board the boats.

Sergeant King quieted everyone down, and from then on they were all business, making the swift crossing with paddles and without a single shot being fired by anyone. They reached the far bank, leaping out of the boats and then running ashore to secure the road where it met the river there. Peering through some night optics, Todd could see the men fan out to either side of the road, and then they slowly disappeared into the thick groves. The three light troops then took up defensive positions about 350 meters further on, where the dirt road ran into a paved road that ran north to south.

The groves were thicker to the north, but thinned out to the south, opening on flat cultivated ground. All was still quiet until the engineers arrived and started that busy work of bridging the river. Trucks brought in the floating bays, and the men got them positioned. Training on the Arkansas River had seen them build a 300 meter floating bridge, but here the crossing was only about 157 meters, and so it got done quickly enough. Just after midnight, that bridge was in place and anchored to the far side, and Neal was one of the first men to saunter back across with Sanchez. In little time, the drivers were all back on the west bank, and the Humvees thrummed to life again. Recon was on the move.

It wasn’t until they had pushed a little over three kilometers on that they ran into the first sign of enemy units. 1st Regiment of the Iranian 84th Lorestan Division, which had crossed into Iraq days ago and moved as far as Baqubah, about 20 kilometers to the northwest. That regiment was really more a battalion in actual strength, and it had been coming down Highway-2 towards Baghdad, scouting ahead of the rest of the troops mustering at Baqubah. It once had six tanks with it, but they were all destroyed by coalition air strikes in the last couple days. Now it was mostly an infantry force in trucks, with a few towed guns and lighter scout vehicles.

The light troops formed up, and then got the order to engage and stop the Iranian column. They broke the silence of the night, lighting up the leading vehicles with those heavy MG tracers, and causing quite a bit of chaos. Behind the light troops, the Stryker and Bradley mounted squadrons were already crossing the river, so it was not long before they got strong support. In a sharp attack, 1/7th Cav pushed the Iranian troops east off the road, seeing them flee into the darkness across a narrow irrigation canal.

The 2nd Regiment of that Iranian division had taken the secondary road due south from Baqubah, called “Baghdad Street,” with orders to reach and occupy a small airfield near the town of Khan Bani Sad, but the third regiment came down Highway-2 behind the first.

It was King’s troop, scouting up the road, that first spotted them.

“Got us another column Sarge,” said Neal when they stopped to peer through night optics ahead. Sergeant King wasted no time calling it in.

“Harrier this is Falcon-1. We have a column again, about two miles out on Highway-2, Over.”

“Roger that, Falcon-1. Relay estimated grid coordinates.”

That order always meant an air strike was brewing, and it wasn’t long after that before they saw a series of big explosions on the road. They thought that would be the end of it, but that column just kept on coming. King reported the enemy was moving to contact, and they had tanks.

They were actually six Type 80 Chinese built self-propelled AA Guns. The vehicle was a Type 59, with a twin anti-aircraft autocannon mounted on the chassis of a Chinese Type 69-II main battle tank, an old warrior dating from the 1980’s. Those twin 57mm cannons could tear up a Humvee pretty bad, and when King saw them, he thought it was time to be elsewhere.

“Time to egress,” he said, and he called for the Bradleys, the only vehicles in the battalion that had armor and guns enough to deal with that threat. They were lucky that was all that came down that highway that night, for there was another Iranian division, the 77th Khorasan, settling in at Baqubah.

Time, however, was favoring the US forces, and the Combined Arms Battalions of the 1st BCT began to cross that bridge and expand the bridgehead. This put heavy armor east of the Tigris for the first time, and pretty much ruled out any chance of an effective counterattack by the Iranians in that sector.

The tentacles of the Coalition military were now surrounding the Iraqi capital on all sides. South of the city. EUROCORPS had pushed north from Alexandria and engaged the Hammurabi Division. The US had already battered the Al Medina Division with its 3rd I.D., and now it was preparing to engage the Qusay Division between Fallujah and Al Taji. The only reserve that remained in the city was the Baghdad Republican Guard Division.

Seeing the steel trap closing around the city, Qusay, his brother Uday had already made an escape to the east, taking nondescript pickup trucks and keeping to secondary roads to avoid air strikes. By the time this happened, they were already in Tikrit wrangling with the Chinese authorities in Beijing to send help. That promised, their plan now was to take a circuitous route into northern Iraq, rally the tribes, and organize the defenses there. So even if Baghdad fell, Qusay’s plan was still in effect, and the greater part of Iraq would remain unconquered.

In the north, the battle for Baghdad still lay ahead, and General Bakir’s predictions of what would happen seemed to be coming true. South of the city, the British, French, and German brigades were going to be more than a match for the Hammurabi Division. West of the city, the Al Medina Division was already worn down to 50% nominal strength, and the Qusay Division was next for that buzz saw. Now, with the Americans moving two armored cavalry brigades across the Tigris north of Baghdad, he would have to send his last reserve division to watch that flank.

These were the last cohesive units he considered of any decent caliber in the army. In Northern Iraq, there was still the Mosul and Erbil Divisions, and a good number of Iranian troops, but none were the equal of the force he had there at Baghdad.

“Do you want these divisions destroyed here?” he had asked Qusay Hussein before the President left the city. “That is what will happen if we try to defend Baghdad.”

“What is the alternative?” said Qusay.

“We can yield the city, and take these good divisions to join those we still have in the north. In that instance, we might still have something we can remotely call an army left, but if I lose the Republican Guards at Baghdad, then the North will surely fall as well.”

“Can they not fight like tigers in Baghdad? We can fight house to house, street by street, and cause them a world of pain.”

“Perhaps, but in the end, we will lose, and they will still have Baghdad, only that fighting will destroy those streets and neighborhoods, including all the palaces, museums, hospitals and government buildings. There will be chaos!”

“Isn’t that what we want?” asked Qusay. “Let them try to impose order on 7.6 million Iraqis in Baghdad, and see what happens.”

“And what if they simply ransack all our government buildings and then leave? Who will impose order on the country then? Do you think you could do that with the Mosul Division… With the Erbil Division… With the Tribes? And remember there will be Iranian troops all over the country, licking their chops to settle in on a permanent basis. They will be setting up little fiefdoms and spreading their Shiite blasphemy. We made Peace with them to satisfy the Chinese, but where are they now?”

“The Chinese? You will see, General Bakir. Yes, you will see. Their troops have moved into Iran they will come to Baghdad soon. Then let us see how long the Americans wish to reap the whirlwind they have stirred up here”

He smiled…. But he was wrong.

Chapter 24

General Wang Fanlong was a conservative man, short and stocky, dark haired even into his later 50’s, and a believer in protocol and performance when it came to the units under his command. The Western Theater forces would often train in Xinjiang Province, where the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts created terrain very much like the deserts of Iraq. So he knew his men would not be intimidated by the harsh terrain, and he knew he had trained them well. In the latest Sino-Siberian War, his 21st Army had fought along the Songhua River near Mulan, and his 13th Army near Lake Khanka. Though they arrived late, they still got good experience in mobilizing, moving to assembly, and deployment for battle, with many defensive engagements fought in those operations.

Since the Armistice was signed, both those armies were pulled off the line, refit with more modern equipment, and then he had swelled with pride when he was summoned to the General Staff conference room in Beijing and told he was to command a most important expeditionary mission to the Middle East. China was going to back its allies there, and the armies of the Western Theater would do the backing. 13th and 21st Armies were ordered to make the long strategic move immediately, and 47th Army would stand ready to move as a general reserve if needed.

Before the Siberian war, the forces of these armies existed as combined arms brigades, containing about 5 battalions each. After the war, several of these brigades were expanded and built out to nine battalion division structures, and now the armies selected for the move had three of these, the 37th, 149th and 61st Divisions that had moved into Iran. They were then supported by 12th and 17th Armored Brigades, and the 62nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade. Four more brigades composing the 47th Army stood ready in Xinjiang Province. This would commit three of the five armies in the Western Theater to this operation, designated Da Feiyue, or “Great Leap.”

There was certainly no lack of manpower in China, and in the interval after the armistice was signed, the Army had replaced all its losses from the fighting with the Siberians easily enough… but the inverse was not true. China had an inexhaustible pool of manpower to draw upon, but Siberian soldiers came at a premium, and were never easy to replace.

The Americans want a ground war, thought Wang Fanlong. So that is what they will get. As long as we can preserve that long line of communications back to China, and keep my armies supplied, then they will find the PLA will not be bested so easily. We are not the Iraqis, and God forbid, the Iranians. Yes, their men are brave and determined, but not well equipped. I was given all new Type-99 tanks for my armored brigades, and so we will see how they fare against the American tanks now.

My mission is to protect and preserve China’s national interests in Iraq, and that means the oil under those deserts. I am to take and hold both West Qurna and Majnoon, the two fields where we have signed the contracts for future development. So be it. I am told the Americans are already fighting the Iraqis in the West Qurna Fields, so my first official act will to invite them to withdraw. Should they decline… then I get all the rest of my official acts in a long line that will not end until I have obtained my objectives.

Beijing suggested it may be necessary to intervene in the fighting for Baghdad, but then more reasoned thinking prevailed. There is no oil under Baghdad, and we have no great interest in seeing Qusay Hussein remain in power in Iraq. So I have been ordered to commit both 13th and 21st Armies to the south, for that is where we can guard all those billions and billions of barrels of oil, and keep them from the greedy hands of the West.

General Bergman took the podium to lay out the latest intelligence and get the senior combat crew officers in the loop. “Gentlemen,” he said gruffly, “we’re about to have some uninvited dinner guests. The Chinese crossed the border into Iraq just after sunset, and they’re heading our way. Intel has two divisions moving now, a third in reserve at Ahvaz up here, and those mobile columns are each being led by a full armored brigade.”

The General put up a slide, showing the Type-99 main battle tank. “This is what they’re bringing, China’s most modern third generation tank, with modular composite and reactive armor, and a new 125mm smoothbore gun that can fire both regular ammunition and ATGM rounds. These brigades might normally field up to 134 of those each, but in this case, the Air Force says they think the companies are lighter. That said, we think we’re going to be facing about 200 of those goblins on the field, and as early as mid-day tomorrow.”

“Sir, why doesn’t the air force just clobber them?”

“Good question, but there’s a simple answer—the Chinese brought an air force too. General Goldman says the F-35 patrols have been mixing it up with J-20s since 18:00 this evening. The airspace over the battlefield has now been officially declared as contested, which means our own close air support is going to get thin, and the F-15’s may have to be grounded until we change that situation. So those tanks are going to have to be taken down the old fashioned way, but that’s a fight for the 1st Provisional Division.”

That was what they were now calling the two mobile brigades of the 1st I.D. combined with 3rd BCT of the 1st Armored Cav. That was where the muscle was when it came to dealing with heavily armored or mechanized forces, and the Leathernecks would be somewhere else, as Bergman explained.

“Alright, 1st Marine Division will clear As Zubayr and secure those oil fields tonight. Tomorrow we move on Basrah, which is work for infantry. Make no mistake, that isn’t going to be the cake walk we had today. We caught the Iraqis out on open ground, and kicked their ass today, but tomorrow, whatever they managed to salvage from that fight is going to be heading for Basrah, the second most populous city in Iraq. Once we get in there, we’ll be the uninvited guests, and there are over 2.5 million people in that city.”

The silence in the room told the story on that one. No one looked forward to urban warfare, but the Marines had trained for it, and they would get the appetizer tonight in Zubayr. That said, Bergman clarified what he was planning.

“Now we don’t want a block by block clearing of that city. The mission will be to envelop it on this side of the Shatt al Arab, and control key objectives that will be assigned to all brigade commanders. Our main effort will be west of the city in this gap between Basrah and the Al Jaz’ir marshland. There are three bridges right here, and we want them. If necessary, the engineers will also bridge here, west of the University. Once we get over that water barrier, we’ll be looking at our primary objective, the Nahr Umr Oil Field. If anybody knows how to pronounce that, clue me in, but you’ll smell it when we get close. There’s 6.6 billion barrels of oil in the ground up there. And further north at Majnoon, there’s more than twice that, though that field is not yet developed. I’ve no doubt the Chinese can quote those same numbers, and that’s is certainly why they’re here. They hold the development contracts on those fields, so that makes this personal.”

The General paused, hands on his hips, taking a moment to think. “I don’t have to tell you that this could now represent a major escalation in this war. Up until now, it’s been an air/naval war, but this is different. This is the kind of fight the history books record as real war, and don’t underestimate your opponent. The Siberians tangled with the Chinese Army, and gained ground, but most of it was taken before the defending armies were fully mobilized. After the armistice was signed, the Siberians counted their losses at 30% casualties, and that’s a lot of body bags. Chinese took worse, but here they are, 2000 miles from home, just like we are. That should tell everyone in this room one thing—these guys are coming for a fight, and by God, that’s exactly what we’ll give them. 1st Corps is going to engage, and prevail.”

1st Corps was the new designation for all US forces in the SOUTHCOM area of operations. With 1st Infantry, 1st Armored Cav, and 1st Marines, it was an easy handle to assign.

The arrival of the Chinese forces had certainly changed the entire complexion of the battle here. Without this intervention, the 23rd of January would have likely been a victory romp to clear and hold the final objectives. Now it was something quite more. US forces assigned here had were limited, and no more were in theater, unless they came from the Baghdad area of operations. Yet General Bergman did have a little good news to end his briefing.

“SOUTHCOM has been informed that the Saudis are going to commit two more brigades to our operations here, the King Fah’ad Armored Brigade, and the 11th Mechanized Brigade. They are moving to Kuwait now, and should be coming up behind the Old Breed tomorrow morning. In that event, I will most likely commit those troops here, west of Basrah. Saudi’s can smell oil ten miles away, so we’ll let them sniff out those fields north of the river. When they get there, I want leathernecks standing on the bridges. Understood?”

The guttural cheer in the room said it was.

On the night of the 22nd, the Iraqi retreat from their disastrous stand in the Tuba Oil Fields sent most of the Andan Republican Guard Division into As Zubayr. A city of 370,000 people, it was so named because the famous companion of the Prophet Muhammed, Zubayr ibn al Awwam, was buried there, commander of the Radushin Army in the 7th Century. If he could have been there now, he might have wept to see the chaos and disorder of that retreat.

There would be a brief stand on the outskirts of the city, but the weight of the 1st USMC Division, now backed by two arriving Saudi brigades, was simply too much to stop. The retreat continued through the city, sparing the residents a devastating fight there as the Andan Division withdrew across the cultivated land outside Basrah. Some elements tried to cover the Basrah International Airport, but most took up positions along the Basrah Canal, that ran behind the airport southeast into the Saddah Marshes.

General Ayad was fortunate to have that division still at 60% strength after the retreat, and the men were disciplined enough to try and pull themselves together, particularly when he sent down good news—the Chinese had arrived. The leading elements of the 149th Motor Rifle Division had reached the Shatt al Arab, and Chinese Type-99 tanks were now near the As Sinbad Bridge, their long barrels looking strangely out of place near the Sinbad amusement Park.

This was one of the three bridges General Bergman had designated for capture, but it had not been possible to reach that area that night. The closest US unit was the Recon Squadron of 3rd BCT, Armored Cav, and it was about 12 kilometers to the southwest, approaching the Basrah airport. The Qarmat Ali was the water barrier the Marine General had planned to cross, and now it would be strongly defended by at least a full brigade of the 149th Division. That put the Nahr Umr Oil Fields out of easy reach, and it would not soon be added to the list of five fields the Coalition forces had already “liberated.”

That night the US had moved several battalions of the 82nd Airborne by helicopter to set up a blocking position at Al Qurna and Al Madinah on the Euphrates River to the north. That was just above the West Qurna Oil Field where the fighting was still going on in those pre-dawn hours. 2nd/325th Battalion of the Falcon Brigade landed in the heavily cultivated fields south of the Tigris, and the men moved up through the town of Ash Shahin towards the main bridge. The main segment of Al Qurna was on the north side of the river, and as the American paratroopers approached, they sent staff and HQ personnel of the 10th Armored Brigade into a hasty retreat across the bridge.

When the Paras came up to the bridge itself, they could see a lot of movement on the other side of the river. It was the Chendu Special Forces Brigade, a three battalion formation known as the “Leopards” that had spearheaded the road march south from Al Amara. So the US battalion set up defensive positions, informed Brigade of what they saw, and waited. They could still hear the sound of the big guns on the Abrams tanks where both Armored BCT’s were still fighting the Iraqi 10th Armored Brigade in the oil fields.

The only other bridge over the Euphrates was at Al Madinah about 15 kilometers west of Al Qurna, and as both bridges were blocked, the Iraqi forces in the oil fields now had nowhere to go. Their only recourse would be to withdraw towards the Shatt al Arab, which now carried the waters of both the Tigris and Euphrates after they met at Al Qurna. The other choice would be to fight and die there in that macabre landscape.

As the most Iraqis did not yet know the Chinese had arrived, they opted to head east for the Shatt. That basically ceded the valuable West Qurna Fields to the US, the greatest prize of the battle, with 15 billion barrels in reserves. The Big Red 1 had gotten there first, and if the Chinese wanted it back, they were now going to have to organize a cross river assault to get there.

To that end, units of the Iraqi 27th Motor Rifle Brigade had held out in Madinah just long enough for Chinese troops to arrive and find the bridge there still in friendly hands. They immediately sent the 8th Battalion of their 37th MR Division across, with a company of tanks. They were soon just a city block from the US forces, where the paratroops had been joined by two companies of the 1/18 Battalion of the Vanguard Brigade, 1st Infantry.

All that morning, more and more Chinese battalions arrived, covering all the ground north of the Euphrates between Al Madinah and Al Qurna. Others took a secondary road east of the Shatt al Arab, moving south. That line would put them between any enemy and the vast Majnoon Oil Field, making sure that would be kept from American hands.

As all these troops began to deploy, nobody fired any artillery on either side to indicate hostile intent. It was now a proverbial “Mexican Standoff,” but some decision had to be made about the battalions of the 82nd that had lifted in to the area just south of Al Qurna. As the Iraqis retreated from the oil fields, many went that way hoping to get to that bridge, and so now those paratroopers were cut off, and well behind the US main line, which was about 12 kilometers to the southwest. It was therefore decided to cede the bridge at Al Qurna, and strongpoint along a shorter line between the Euphrates in the northwest and the Shatt al Arab in the southeast.

2nd Armored BCT got that gig, with the 1st Armored BCT on their right, watching the Shatt al Arab to the south. So the Chinese got their bridgeheads over the rivers at Al Madinah and Al Qurna, but with those heavy US brigades in the front of them, they were not going any further. Both sides were now squaring off as night fell on the 23rd of January, and back in Washington and Beijing, men were leaning over map tables and reading the latest situation reports as the political leadership on both sides struggled to determine what to do next. The war against the Iraqis in the south was all but over. The question now was whether they wanted a war there against the Chinese.