1st Cavalry Division Takes on Baghdad Responsibility
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 15, 2004 – Task Force Baghdad, made up mostly of the 1st
Cavalry Division, has assumed responsibility for Baghdad and its environs from
the 1st Armored Division.
Maj. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey handed over the responsibility to Maj. Gen. Peter
W. Chiarelli in a "no-fuss, no-muss" manner. "We weren't going to have a
ceremony for this," said Army Lt. Col. Jim Hutton, the public affairs officer
for Task Force Baghdad. "Our people have more important things to do."
News reports indicate that at least portions of the 1st Armored Division, which
has its headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, will remain in Iraq as part of the
combat force plus-up that Army Gen. John Abizaid, U.S. Central Command
commander, requested.
Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers visited the headquarters of Task Force Baghdad
as part of a visit to Iraq. The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman has stopped at
Tallil and visited with Italian members of the coalition, and at Hillah, where
he visited with the Polish commander of the Multinational Division Central. He
is meeting here with Combined Joint Task Force 7's commander, Army Lt. Gen.
Ricardo S. Sanchez, and Coalition Provisional Authority administrator
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III.
The transition of authority to the 1st Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood,
Texas, was a long process. The Army identified the division as the replacement
last year. Planning went into high gear. CJTF 7 officials did not want to lose
the experience that the 1st Armored Division had painfully built up in a year in
Baghdad.
Officials from the 1st Cavalry Division visited their counterparts in Baghdad,
and 1st Armored Division personnel began sending information to Fort Hood. The
cavalry division went through training at Fort Hood, the National Training
Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., and the Joint National Training Center at Fort
Polk, La., before deploying.
The Fort Hood unit also began getting raw data from Baghdad and running its own
analyses. They then matched their conclusions with those of the 1st Armored
Division people in Iraq.
The 1st Cavalry Division's initial party deployed in January. Key staff people
met with their counterparts, and the initial party laid the foundation for
follow-on groups. They began a "left-seat/right-seat" training regimen. Under
this program, 1st Cavalry Division people observed 1st Armored Division people
doing their jobs. They would then switch; the 1st Cavalry person would do the
job and the 1st Armored Division person would critique the soldier's
performance. "This went right down to the squad level," Hutton said. "It was
enormously important."
But the 1st Cavalry Division did not just duplicate what the 1st Armored Division
did. For example, the cavalry unit is not based at the Baghdad airport, as the
armored division was. "Eventually, the airport will revert to the Iraqi people,
and they will need the space," Hutton said. "Plus, here force protection is a
bit easier."
Hutton said the division can still get to trouble spots quickly from its new
location.
The big shoulder patch of the 1st Cav is now apparent at military checkpoints
through the city, and, unfortunately, the division has already lost people –
seven soldiers died and 51 were wounded in an attack April 4.
Division officials said the 1st Cav faces a small number of enemies but a threat
that is constantly evolving. They said the division faces former regime
elements, foreign fighters and illegal militias of all stripes. The main focus
of concern is the Thawura area – also known as Sadr City. "Our job is to keep
the area safe, and we are doing that," Hutton said. "We can still go on any
street we want to go on. We can go anywhere we want to go. No government
building is occupied by enemy forces, nor will they be."
Biographies:
Gen. Richard B. Myers
Gen. John Abizaid
Lt. Gen. Ricardo
S. Sanchez
Maj.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey
Maj. Gen.
Peter W. Chiarelli
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer
III
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