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To the right of the French, the U.S. 101st Airborne Division mounted a deep- penetration helicopter assault into southeastern Iraq. Chinook helicopters, some skimming only 50 feet above the sand, others slinging Humvees, modern versions of the old jeeps, below their fuselages, ferried 4,000 men with their vehicles and equipment into the desert. The force established a huge refueling and resupply base, then jumped off again from there deeper into Iraq and struck out for the Euphrates River. Other units -- the British 1st Armored Division, seven U.S. Army divisions, and Egyptian, Saudi and Syrian units -- attacked at various times throughout the morning and early afternoon at points along the Saudi-Iraq border into the western tip of Kuwait. All moved fast and attained their most ambitious objectives. The 1st Marine Division, for example, by Sunday night had reached al-Jaber airport, half the 40-mile distance from the Saudi border to Kuwait City.
MONDAY: SPEEDING UP
Nearly all units continued moving at rapid rates: the Saudis and U.S. Marines in Kuwait toward the north; American Army units toward the Euphrates; British, other American, Egyptian and Syrian forces to the east. The French, having taken As Salman in 36 hours, stopped at midday on Schwarzkopf's orders to set up a defensive position guarding the units to their right against any Iraqi attack from the west.
Mass surrenders began almost with the first breaches of the Iraqi lines Sunday and by Tuesday had reached 30,000; the allied command stopped counting then. By war's end the number had easily passed 100,000. They came out of collapsed bunkers, waving handkerchiefs, underwear, anything that was white. Everyone on the allied side had a favorite surrender story.
Two striking ones: about 40 Iraqis tried to surrender to an RPV, turning round and round, waving their arms as the pilotless drone circled above. An Iraqi tank and another armored vehicle bore down on a U.S. Humvee driven by a lone soldier and stuck helplessly in mud. The Iraqi vehicles pulled the Humvee out of the mire; then their crews surrendered to its driver.
Schwarzkopf was careful to state that the mass surrenders did not necessarily mean the Iraqis were poor fighters. Most, he noted, had no belief in what they were doing and did not regard holding on to Kuwait as a cause worth dying for. They were starved, thirsty, often sick -- medical care was atrocious to nonexistent -- and some had been terrorized by their own commanders, who employed roving execution squads to shoot or hang troopers who had attempted to desert or defect. That barbaric method of keeping discipline backfired: soldiers gave themselves up as soon as the guns pointing at them were American, British or Arab.