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CNN SHOWDOWN: IRAQ
Army's 37-th Encounters Rough Conditions
Aired March 25, 2003 - 12:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: At the tip of the sphere as it's called is the U.S. Army's 3rd Squadron 7th Cavalry, and a little bit ugly doesn't begin to describe what that unit's been through in the past 12 hours. The 3-7th, as it's called, crossed a heavily mined bridge across the Euphrates River earlier today in a howling sandstorm with near-constant fire on all times.
Right in the thick of things, as he has been from the beginning is CNN's Walter Rodgers -- Walter.
WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A choking sand storm has once again slowed coalition forces progress north all across a wide front along the Euphrates River. However, the U.S. Army's 3rd Squadron 7th Cavalry did send back good news for the Pentagon. Earlier that good news being that they had outflanked the city of Al Samala (ph), and the elements of the 7th Cavalry had indeed crossed a bridge, and were now moving northward in Iraq. That bridge incidentally had been heavily mined, that is to say explosives were all along the bridge, and fortunately, the Army's engineers detected them quickly. They had not been wired, but the Iraqis clearly intended to blow that bridge and prevent the Army's passage northward.
Still, It was not an easy passage for the Army. Last night approaching the bridge, there was an enormous firefight. It looked like the 4th of July with tracers shooting across the sky, enormous fireworks display, except this one was lethal. We're told 300 to 400 Iraqi soldiers were killed in that as the 7th Cavalry battled toward the bridge, and then after crossing the bridge, the Army encountered mortars falling all around its convoy, small arms fire, snipers picking away at the Army for 45 minutes to an hour before it pushed away from that small concentration of snipers and mortars.
Walter Rodgers, CNN, with the U.S. Seventh Cavalry in Iraq.
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