Tacoma News Tribune
January 27, 2004

Platoon Detects Radiation On Four Trucks

By Michael Gilbert, The News Tribune

The Stryker brigade's nuclear, chemical and biological reconnaissance platoon detected high levels of radiation on four trucks attempting to cross the Iraq-Turkey border, officials said Monday.

The trucks emitted radiation signatures of more than 100 centigrade per hour, which could be dangerous depending on how the measurement was taken.

Brigade officials said the platoon, from the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, was sent to the Habur Gate border crossing Monday after Turkish authorities called for U.S. military assistance. Officials said they had no information about why the Turks were suspicious of the vehicles.

The trucks were quarantined on the Iraqi side of the border, brigade officials said. The platoon also was inspecting other vehicles and a nearby scrap metal yard, they said.

A team from Iraq Survey Group, the Pentagon organization searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, was expected to arrive at the scene in the next day or so, officials said.

In other developments Monday:

*An estimated 2,500 former members of Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath Party formally denounced the organization in a mass ceremony in Mosul.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities have held similar "deBaathification" ceremonies across northern Iraq over the past several weeks, encouraging former soldiers, police, school teachers and other public sector officials to shed their former allegiance in public together.

Iraqis say the party's reach was pervasive, and virtually anyone who sought professional and business advancement was expected to join. Another ceremony is scheduled for today.

*The brigade's formal relief of the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade, covering the city of Mosul, is still several days away. But Stryker troops took over most daily operations in the city Monday.

"We are in the game, although officially the battle space still belongs to 2nd Brigade," said Maj. Mike Kasales, the Stryker brigade's operations officer.

As if to mark the passing of responsibility, insurgents shot at Stryker troops with a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms, and local children led soldiers to a hidden cache of weapons.

Soldiers from Bravo Company of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment came under fire about 3 p.m. near an Iraqi police station east of the Tigris River that had been attacked the day before.

Insurgents fired an RPG that missed a Stryker vehicle by about 50 yards. Troops searched a building where they thought the fire came from but found no one, officials said. There were no injuries.

Meantime, neighborhood kids led troops from Apache Company of the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment to a pair of artillery rounds, a 23 mm gun and a 60 mm mortar tube, officials said.

The mortar tube was found at the suspected point of origin of an attack on a U.S. base the previous day, brigade officials said.