The War in Iraq

ON HIGHWAY 9, Iraq -- Gen. Buford Blount, commander of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, yesterday toured the site of a car-bomb blast that killed four of his soldiers and signaled the new kind of war facing U.S. forces.

WITH THE 2-7 INFANTRY, central Iraq -- Out here in the desert, Maj. Rod Coffey wakes up and goes to bed thinking about one thing.

NEAR NAJAF, Iraq -- In an apparent suicide bombing, four soldiers in the U.S. Army's 2-7 Infantry were killed yesterday while searching a taxicab.

NEAR AN NAJAF, Iraq -- One soldier was killed and six were wounded, some seriously, when their Bradley Fighting Vehicle plunged 40 feet into a 20-foot-wide concrete hole while the crew was returning to its camp early yesterday morning.

Romney, who regularly dispatches top aides to testify before legislative panels, steered clear of a session that featured anti-death penalty testimony from families of victims of the Sept. 11 and Oklahoma City terrorist attacks.

NEAR AN NAJAF, Iraq -- He was known as the kid, the private who loaded ammunition into tanks and dreamed of becoming a sergeant. He loved the Army and singing karaoke at a bar back home in Georgia. He loved his wife, Ruthann, and 1-year-old daughter, Gwen. He kept a picture of them in his pocket and one in the tank where he died.

NEAR AN NAJAF, Iraq -- One soldier was killed and six were wounded, some seriously, when their armored Bradley fighting vehicle plunged 40 feet into a 20-foot-wide concrete hole while the crew was returning to its camp early this morning.

Providence Journal staff writer Michael Corkery filed this audio report on Friday, March 28, from his assignment in Iraq with the 800 soldiers of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, 2nd Battalion 7th Infantry Regiment.

NEAR AN NAJAF, Iraq -- This enemy is everywhere. It's in the soldiers' ears and covers their teeth. It limits their abilities to see at night and clogs their mounted machine guns.

NEAR AN NAJAF, Iraq -- It looked like a scene from a science-fiction movie. A sandstorm had turned the afternoon sky the color of tangerines. Packs of wild dogs chased after Bradleys and Humvees, snarling and howling at the tires. Visibility was near zero.

NEAR AN NAJAF, Iraq -- Their nighttime mission was to set up a roadblock and prevent forces fiercely loyal to Saddam Hussein from moving south.

AL KHIDR, Iraq -- At least five Iraqi soldiers were killed and at least seven were taken prisoner yesterday after a U.S. Army convoy that had come under surprise attack returned fire and stormed a building near this village.

WEST OF AN NASIRIYAH, Iraq -- Stretching in every direction for as far as the eye could see, columns of armored vehicles rolled into Iraq yesterday at a slow and deliberate rumble.

A written report by Corkery will be published in The Sunday Journal and on projo.com.

The vanguard of the invading force was to be followed within hours by the balance of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division, according to U.S. military commanders.

AT THE IRAQI BORDER, Kuwait -- An eery calm settled over the afternoon. Capt. Michael Bliss stood outside his armored vehicle, supervising the bulldozer that was punching a hole in a sandy berm.

SIX MILES FROM THE IRAQI BORDER, Kuwait -- With the border finally in sight, the Bradley squad could attend to its final and critical combat preparations.

NEAR THE IRAQI BORDER, Kuwait -- On the first day at the camp, the medics warned us about scorpions in our sleeping bags.

ON IRAQ'S BORDER, Kuwait -- 1st Lt. Mark Padien commands four armored vehicles that can level a city block in minutes.

3RD INFANTRY DIVISION HEADQUARTERS, Kuwait -- Inside a tent, under the sweltering desert sun, the soldiers of the 422nd Battalion face a large map of Iraq and plot their operation.

Hundreds of tanks, attack helicopters and Bradleys, armored fighting vehicles that carry munitions and troops, rumble swiftly, kicking up sand. The convoy drives through a large gap in a barbed-wire fence and past military police waving them north.

ON IRAQ'S BORDER, KUWAIT -- It's dark, just before twilight. The desert is silent, except for the crackle of tent flaps blowing in the wind. The only light comes from the tactical operations center parked 20 miles from the Iraqi border.

CAMP CHAMPION MAIN, Kuwait -- It doesn't matter how many times he's jumped. Sgt. Ryan Hannah is still afraid of heights.

Someday -- maybe sooner, maybe later -- Saddam Hussein will be gone from power. Then Iraq may rebuild.

Maj. Gen. Buford C. Blount III, who commands nearly 20,000 soldiers in the mechanized division, said the troops have finished much of their training, have moved out of their camps and are assembled in a swath of Kuwait desert, ready to roll.

Michael Corkery is on assignment to cover U.S. military operations in Central Asia for The Providence Journal. Corkey's last overseas assignment for the newspaper was last spring, when he went to Afghanistan to chronicle the feldgling government after the fall of the Taliban.