For Marine Unit, Fallouja Is ‘One Big Ordnance Dump’

The origin of the greenish mortar rounds found Saturday along a row of demolished houses was unclear. Their killing power was not.

“They’re Chinese, probably,” said Marine Master Sgt. Michael Dailey, leader of the Delta Team responsible for explosive ordnance disposal. “The green ones are most likely Chinese; the Russian ones tend to be more gray.”

The battle for Fallouja may be over, but the military is continuing its effort to find and dispose of thousands of ordnance rounds, some left from the U.S. assault on this Sunni Triangle city and others from insurgent stockpiles.

The hunt has taken on new urgency with the Pentagon’s acknowledgment Friday that insurgents are packing increasingly large amounts of killing power into the improvised explosive devices that are taking a near daily toll on U.S. convoys.

Part of Fallouja’s significance, officials said, is that it was a “safe zone” for insurgents to store ordnance and assemble roadside bombs.

“This whole city was one big ordnance dump,” said Marine Capt. Joe Winslow, part of a project to write the official history of the Marines in Iraq.

Within minutes of arriving at the site where patrolling Marines had found the mortar rounds, Dailey’s team had taken the ordnance, along with a fragmentation grenade, into a nearby field, away from troops and a row of homes.

Two packs of malleable plastic explosives called C-4 were kneaded and strapped on top of the bundle. “If you work it enough, it feels like pizza dough,” said Sgt. Edward Weis, as he applied the C-4 and a two-minute timer.

The heavy metal cylinders were positioned so that the blast to destroy them would be absorbed by the soft earth.

“Fire in the hole!” Dailey yelled, issuing the traditional warning that an explosion was imminent.

With the Marines at a safe distance, the explosion sent a cloud of dirt into the air.

Mortar rounds are a common component of what the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, often set along a road and detonated by remote control as a convoy passes by. These mortars have a “killing radius” of about 27 yards.

The effort to clear ordnance from the Fallouja rubble began weeks ago, as combat troops were pushing southward to kill or capture insurgents. “We were right behind the front-line troops, clearing things as soon as we were out of frag radius,” Dailey said, referring to the distance covered by deadly metal shards.

American troops in Fallouja have found missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, antitank rounds, mortar rounds of several sizes, grenades and ordnance from virtually every industrialized country. Some caches consisted of thousands of munitions. Homes, schools, businesses and even an ice cream truck were found packed with the explosives.

Although it is unclear where all the weaponry has come from, some of Iraq’s largest munition dumps were looted when they went unguarded or underguarded by U.S.-led troops who invaded the country in March 2003. At the sprawling Al Qaqaa ammunition site south of Baghdad, hundreds of tons of high-grade explosives apparently were hauled off in trucks, according to U.S. troops, who said they were unable to halt the theft because they were outnumbered.

Most caches found recently in Fallouja could be exploded in place, but some were so large that they had to be packed carefully into 7-ton trucks and taken to an isolated area for destruction.

Officials are concerned that residents returning to their homes could be killed or wounded by leftover munitions. Residents are encouraged to contact Marines when they see something suspicious.

Dailey, who has spent 15 of his 23 years as a Marine in the explosive ordnance disposal unit, served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and in missions in Somalia and Kosovo. Somalia, he said, was packed with explosives. “It was an EOD technicians’ playground.”

But nothing compares with Iraq, particularly Fallouja, in terms of the amount, diversity and lethal capacity of ordnance in the hands of insurgents. “This one takes the cake,” Dailey said.

There are indications that when the Iraqi economy was in near-collapse, ordnance became a kind of currency, with civilians being paid with grenades or rockets, which could then be bartered for food and other goods.

Combat troops said it was not uncommon to find homes with entire rooms used as warehouses for ordnance, much like an American home might have a spare room with athletic equipment or housecleaning tools.

To a degree unanticipated when the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, insurgents have proved resourceful in cobbling together roadside bombs to kill and maim U.S. troops. Larger munitions, such as antitank shells, have been known to destroy even the sturdiest of U.S. vehicles.

The Pentagon acknowledgment suggests that insurgents have added explosive power in response to the U.S. move to add armor to Humvees and other vehicles, making the roundup of loose ordnance even more important.

“It feels great,” Sgt. Jason Tinnel said after the mortar rounds were destroyed. “I’ve seen the aftermath of IEDs, the mangled bodies in Humvees.

“It’s good to know that these particular items will never be used to attack our troops.”