U.S. Marine, Iraqi commandos work to safeguard vote in the triangle of death

By: ELLEN KNICKMEYER - Associated Press | Wednesday, January 19, 2005 9:39 PM PST ∞

CAMP KALSU, Iraq -- The sound of boots clattering up helicopter ramps at dawn kicked off a series of raids Wednesday by U.S. Marines, who are using everything from concrete barriers to no-parking signs to help secure Iraq's elections in 10 days.

Marines are working side by side with Iraqi SWAT teams-in-training and conferring with sheiks and police chiefs. They are clearing out health clinics to make room for potential casualties -- and prison cells for captured insurgents.

U.S. efforts to safeguard the Jan. 30 vote are as multipronged as any military offensive.

"It's going to be a surge of operations. We're hoping to keep them off-balance prior to elections; keep them guessing," Col. Ronald Jackson of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit said of his get-out-the-vote offensive in south Baghdad and north Babil provinces.

Dubbed Operation Checkmate, Jackson's series of raids opened Wednesday and will seek out suspected insurgents and munitions caches ahead of the elections. Marine commandos and Iraqis boarded the squat U.S. CH-46 helicopters in the dark of morning, in disciplined single-file silence.

The trainees are among 500 Iraqis being rushed through Marine reconnaissance force training in arms, tactics and martial arts before election day.

The SWAT teams will form the Iraqi front line of defense at the polls. Other Iraqi SWAT members and Americans will be ready as backup.

Americans, and many Iraqis, are adamant that U.S. forces hang back, recognizing that the vote needs to be seen as Iraqi run if it is to have any hope of winning legitimacy.

The opening raid by Marines and new Iraqi police assault teams targeted a crossroads of farm houses and a chicken ranch near the town of Jaballa, where Marines had been told insurgents had buried 10 55-gallon drums of munitions.

The U.S. and Iraqi forces netted no weapons-filled drums -- only 11 guns -- but the firearms had been wrapped in plastic and hidden in oil, said Capt. Tad Douglas, the raid leader.

They also detained a suspected Saddam Hussein-era intelligence official and 14 other people with multiple passports and identification documents, Douglas said.

The evidence was enough for Marines and Iraqis to believe they had broken up an insurgent cell. "We hope more targets will come out of it," Douglas said.

American forces are concerned that Sunni-led insurgents are storing up for their own election offensive, stockpiling explosives and arms, Jackson said.

As a result, much of the U.S. effort in Iraq will be defensive.

The 24th Marines have requested 600 concrete blast barriers to transform polling sites into versions of the bunkers that now shelter almost all foreign nationals here.

Jackson also has ordered the no-parking signs to help protect streets from car bombs.

Everything from water to generators are being delivered on emergency terms to Iraqi police stations and other key election sites.

Marine officers have released most inmates from the tin-roofed cells at the Marines' Camp Kalsu to make room for an expected influx of new detainees.

Jackson's 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit has been responsible for the so-called "triangle of death" to the south of Baghdad.

The region, home to a volatile mix of Sunni and Shiite Muslims, saw several months in which more than 200 roadside bombs went off and other attacks were launched.

Sunni Muslims west of the Euphrates River control key roads to Baghdad and into Karbala and other important Shiite cities. Jackson's Marine infantry is camped on the grounds of a power plant that supplies up to half of Baghdad's electricity.

Jackson's officers credit stepped-up operations and better intelligence with what the 24th Marines says was the halving of insurgent attacks by December.

"We have a good plan," he said. "But you can't anticipate everything that can happen."