Spec. Edward Gonzalez spun the turret around quickly and locked it into place with a loud clank, training his machine gun on the traffic behind him. The radio had just crackled with a warning: A suspicious vehicle was moving in close on the Army convoy.
"What kind of car was it, again?" Gonzalez, 28, of Alice, Tex., belted out, ducking his head momentarily into the rolling armored Humvee, which has "Big Country" emblazoned on the windshield. First Lt. Jeffrey Porter, 25, of Tomahawk, Ky., dropped the radio and turned to his left, calmly describing a white 1995 Volkswagen Brasilia and telling his gunner he had been warned that the car might be rigged with explosives.
Dangerous, necessary route
Some people call this road, the only way from the airport to Baghdad's Green Zone, the most dangerous highway in Iraq. Lately it has become a magnet for enormous, fiery explosions. People boast that they've traveled it, are relieved when they make it from one end to the other. To the Army, it's just Route Irish.
"There he is, there he is," Gonzalez said, turning the turret again. "He's coming up on the right side. He's ahead of the rest of the traffic. Okay. He's pulling off at the exit. There he goes."
Every minute on this roadway is tense. From the beginning of November through last week, there were nearly 20 car bombs here targeting U.S. convoys and government officials, leading the U.S. Embassy to warn its staff not to travel the road.
Army officers and soldiers with the 4th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery Regiment are charged with protecting Route Irish, and they say the road isn't nearly as bad as it is portrayed. They acknowledge that the attacks have created a significant perception problem, scaring people away from the route and causing the U.S. military to dramatically increase its number of patrols.
New tactics devised
The 2nd Brigade of the Army's 10th Mountain Division is planning to bring in another battalion of soldiers from the United States specifically to boost the military presence on the airport road. The plans are being developed, officials here said without providing specifics, but a few hundred more soldiers will probably be added soon.
Maj. James Fischer, acting commander of the unit, said he believed that the November car bomb attacks were part of a campaign of intimidation by insurgents. Several people were killed in the attacks, but most of the casualties were bombers.
"In the big scheme of war, it's nothing," Fischer, 39, of Jefferson, Wis., said about the attacks. "It's not as bad as it looks. Unfortunately, the enemy has caused a lot of people to worry. We're out there trying to keep it safe." While every death is a tragedy, he said, new procedures on the road have for the most part prevented additional casualties.
The Army previously sent regular convoys to patrol the road; now soldiers are armed to the teeth and bring along tank-tracked Bradley Fighting Vehicles. The Bradleys are equipped with special magnification tools that allow soldiers to peer into and under cars from a safe distance to determine whether they are a threat. New tactics have quelled most small-arms fire on the road, and improvised bombs are rarely planted on the roadsides because constant patrols have left insurgents without time to place them.
Every car a risk
The car bombs, however, are a different story. There is almost nothing the military can do to stop suicide bombers, short of identifying them early, forcing the vehicles off the road or attacking them. The soldiers use profiles — including certain makes and models of cars and nervous or erratic behavior — to intervene as early as possible. They fire warning shots before putting bullets through a car's engine block. As a last resort, they will kill a driver if the threat appears great enough.
The explosions from the suicide missions leave blackened divots in the asphalt, and their sharp blasts rattle the windows and doors in nearby camps Liberty and Victory, where the soldiers live. The sulking carcasses of civilian vehicles sit like smashed Matchbox cars on the road's shoulders. Safety fences along overpasses dangle amid broken metal poles, evidence of attacks from weeks or even months ago.
As soldiers pass by these landmarks, they remember those who were killed by the bombs, the moments of helplessness they felt as they saw vehicles careering toward them.
Gonzalez and Porter, members of Assault Battery with the unit, speak softly when they mention their harrowing experience with a car bomb on Nov. 6, an attack that killed an American gunner in a Humvee directly behind theirs.
"He was clean-shaven and in a white car," Gonzalez said, perched in his turret, the sun reflecting off his blast-proof sunglasses. "As soon as I saw him, I knew it. He was nervous. He swerved to the far right lane, and by the time he got to the convoy, I shot."
Gonzalez hit the driver in the chest with one round from his M4 rifle. By the time he had fired a second shot, the middle of the car was erupting in a magnificent ball of orange and white light. Gonzalez ducked and avoided injury. Gunners, who are shielded by armor plates but are slightly exposed, endure the most risk.
"I got two kids at home," Gonzalez said. "For a few days, I was worried about all of this. But it kind of fades with time."
Security a daunting task
Porter said the road can be dangerous, but that attacks are sporadic and largely ineffective against armored U.S. vehicles. A recent explosion merely scuffed a Bradley, and two explosions last week blew out the tires of Humvees and pockmarked the heavy armor plates that surround their frames.
The troops are vigilant, slowly stopping to assess broken down vehicles, cars parked at odd angles along a residential section of the road near the city, or debris that looks like it could be a bomb. On a patrol last week, Porter hopped out of his seat when the convoy spotted two men on the side of the road huddling around a white jalopy. Dwarfed by a Bradley, the car was inspected by Porter and two other soldiers before it was deemed safe.
"They just ran out of gas, I think," Porter said. "We'll try to get them some help."
A four-door sedan being pushed along an entrance ramp — which soldiers say is not an extremely unusual sight — drew some attention, as did a car idling on the side of the road, parked up against a palm tree. One man ran out into the middle of the highway to explain why his car was sitting in the left lane.
The Army routinely patrols through the neighborhoods that line the highway. Soldiers have discovered in recent weeks that insurgents have used nearby middle-class neighborhoods to stage attacks, meeting along residential side streets before driving out onto the highway.
On this afternoon, soldiers rumbled through the Al Ameriya neighborhood that lines Route Irish. The homes are walled-in, some with delicately ornamented gates, and they house doctors and lawyers and engineers. The soldiers are so familiar with this trek that some stopped and said hello to the residents, carrying on conversations that picked up where they left off a few days ago. Cats slipped over stone and stucco walls, palm trees swayed in the breeze.
Building trust
Sgt. Ahmad Ansari, 21, of Eagan, Minn., found himself in the position of interpreter, not because it's his job but because he speaks Arabic. It was his idea for the soldiers in Delta Battery of the 216th Air Defense Artillery Battalion, a Minnesota National Guard unit from Monticello, to wear Iraqi flags on one arm of their uniform and U.S. flags on the other, in an effort to show Iraqis that they care. Ansari connected with several residents as he patrolled, trying to gather information.
"There are many thieves," said Fatima Saeb, 14, standing at the gate to her home with her younger brother. Fatima, who speaks English, said her parents would not let her walk outside because children have been kidnapped and held for ransom. The thieves — her word for the insurgents — are often in the neighborhood, she said. "My parents told me not to talk to the U.S. Army, but I'm not afraid."
The Bradleys and Humvees stopped periodically to inspect license plates, running them against a list of known or suspected bombers. The insurgents rarely hold on to cars very long, so it can be futile to search for specific vehicles.
Samir Hamid, 54, walked out of his makeshift sidewalk store to speak with Ansari about the scarcity of electricity in the neighborhood and about how bad things have become since the war began. Hamid, an electrical engineer, now sells bags of chips, cigarettes, fly swatters and chocolate bars out of his garage to stay afloat.
"Of course, we're the victims," Hamid said, Ansari translating his exasperated Arabic.
As the soldiers left Al Ameriya to head back out onto the highway, they stopped again and inspected a black car that they said might belong to an insurgent, or perhaps to a family. Ansari looked to the left side of the street, where white graffiti marred a green wall.
"Jihad is the answer in Fallujah," Ansari translated. Someone had spray-painted a large black line through the words.