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Analysis: 101st Airborne Division Can't Unload Equipment Due to Windstorm
All Things Considered: March 7, 2003
101st Airborne Readies for Combat
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
In Kuwait today, the weather put a crimp in US military preparations for a possible war with Iraq. The first of five ships carrying equipment to the Army's 101st Airborne Division arrived in port, but a vicious windstorm meant the USNS Dahl couldn't be unloaded as planned. Washington Post correspondent Rick Atkinson is stationed with the 101st at Camp Doha west of Kuwait City.
Rick, what happened with this windstorm?
Mr. RICK ATKINSON (The Washington Post): Well, about 11:00 last night our time, a storm began to blow through and, in fact, is still blowing through. Out in the desert, they estimated that the winds were blowing at roughly 60 miles an hour. You had a very dramatic scene of soldiers on the ground, exposed, clutching their sleeping bags, their cots, the wind howling through. Soldiers with scarves wrapped around their faces, trying to keep the sand out of their mouths and their eyes. There were soldiers outside holding onto the guy ropes of those tents that had not yet blown away--in some cases, deliberately collapsing the tents and throwing sandbags and boxes of meals ready to eat on it, anything to hold it down.
BLOCK: Well, windstorms, sandstorms like this, I suppose, are not just an inconvenience. They can put military missions in peril.
Mr. ATKINSON: Well, it's a big factor for the military here, and it's a particularly big factor for aviators. There was a crash here late last month. A Black Hawk helicopter in a sandstorm. The two pilots were disoriented, plowed into the ground in a fiery crash that killed all four crewmen. And this has really been a sobering thing to the aviators here. The 101st Airborne alone has about 260 helicopters. So if you're an aviator, or if you're concerned about aviators, this kind of weather can be very problematic, to say the least.
BLOCK: Now some of these helicopters, as I understand it, were on the ship that could not unload today.
Mr. ATKINSON: Yes. Well, the 101st has all of its helicopters basically on those first two of the five ships that are coming, the Dahl and the Bob Hope, which is a couple days behind it. And the fact that the Dahl was not able, because of high winds and waves, to get to the berth and begin unloading, the 101st cannot put together its helicopters, get them out to the camps and begin training, which very important in this kind of dusty environment.
BLOCK: How much of a setback is it that they don't have the equipment yet?
Mr. ATKINSON: It's not a showstopper. These kinds of storms this time of year in this region are common, but they're in a hurry. There's a clear sense of urgency here. There's a clear sense that something is going to happen, something momentous. And that something will certainly involve the 101st.
BLOCK: Once the helicopters are unloaded, there's training that has to take place? Do the soldiers know how to fly in those condition where you are now?
Mr. ATKINSON: They're very proficient in flying in a lot of conditions, but, you know, they're based in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, and this doesn't look anything like Kentucky. It's very flat, very open, extremely dusty. And it's estimated that a 12-knot wind, which is really just a breeze, will cut visibility here almost instantly to half a mile, so you got to get used to that.
BLOCK: Have you gotten a sense of how long it would take for the 101st to be ready?
Mr. ATKINSON: Well, I think the helicopters can probably be ready in, I'd say, a week to 10 days.
BLOCK: A week to 10 days seems pretty quick.
Mr. ATKINSON: A week to 10 days for the helicopters is pretty quick, and I'll tell you, there are a lot of people that aren't sleeping much, because there really is a sense of urgency here. The schedule that they've laid out for training and for getting the helicopters put together--it's a four-to-six-day process basically.
BLOCK: Rick, you covered the Gulf War in 1991. I wonder how what you're seeing now compares with what you saw back then.
Mr. ATKINSON: Well, we had a lot more friends with us back then. That's obvious. I think there were 37 nations in the coalition in 1991 when the war began. Here, you see some Brits around, and you don't see many other nationalities. So there's a lonelier sense in that regard. That actually bothers some of the soldiers, to be honest with you. You hear them talk about it. It nags at them a bit that the country is a bit divided. They don't doubt the country's support for the soldiers individually and collectively, but they do worry about the lack of unity in the country and also the lack of international support.
BLOCK: Thanks very much, Rick.
Mr. ATKINSON: Thank you, Melissa.
BLOCK: Rick Atkinson is a corespondent with The Washington Post. He is assigned to, or as the Pentagon calls it, embedded with the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Doha in Kuwait.
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