I've often wondered if we'd ever hear details of the 'Thunder Run' into Baghdad last April. I don't know how I missed this story (published in December), and I had no idea just how close-run a thing it was:
Back home, Americans learned of the victory in sketchy reports that focused on the outcome—a column of armored vehicles had raced into the city and seized Saddam Hussein's palaces and ministries. What the public didn't know was how close the U.S. forces came to experiencing another Mogadishu. Military units were surrounded, waging desperate fights at three critical interchanges. If any of those fell, the Americans would have been cut off from critical supplies and ammunition.Read the whole thing. Posted by Chris at March 20, 2004 11:53 PM
Embedded journalists reported the battle's broad outlines in April, but a more detailed account has since emerged in interviews with more than 70 of the brigade's officers and men who described the fiercest battle of the war—and one they nearly lost.