CAMP GRIZZLY, Kuwait, 17 March 2003 — If US tanks and infantry storm across the Iraqi border from Kuwait, land mines will not stop their march to Baghdad, officers say.

Although Iraq’s borders are scattered with explosives from its past wars, the Marines say they can handily knock out any mine threat as they push their way north.

“If he (Saddam Hussein) is planting anything now, it’s too late to camouflage it,” said Capt. Brad Aiello, 29, who heads the Fifth Regiment’s combat engineers, responsible for clearing the deadly explosives.

“It takes a considerable amount of time to put in a proper, buried and undetected minefield,” he said.

One of Capt. Aiello’s field commanders, Lt. Randy Hooper, said southern Iraq has only scattered mines and none of the cunningly designed minefields found in other world hot spots.

The elite fighting force, famous for being at the vanguard of any US attack, believes it will see more mine threats as troops venture closer to Saddam’s stronghold and his Republican Guard units positioned around Baghdad.

Iraq would use mines to slow down American forces, which are pinning their hopes on knocking out Saddam’s regime with a quick thrust to Baghdad.

Capt. Aiello said Saddam would amass mines around his most valuable fighting resources, but the US force’s superior artillery and airpower could control enemy fire and skirt around the deadly explosives.

The combat engineers boast the latest in technology to take anti-tank mines out of action.

The Marines can shoot three rocket-propelled line charges laced with semtex explosives to destroy 15-20 pound anti-tank mines, and then using a plow clear the debris to the side.

The rockets propel the charges 100 meters and clear an area 16 meters in width.

A team then mops up after them, marking a safe path through the trouble zone.

For anti-personnel mines, Marines can launch one rocket attached to a pair of 60-pound backpacks crammed with 115 grenades to blast the way out of trouble.

What does alarm some of the Marines’ explosive experts is the scenario of bombs or boobytraps detonated by remote control as US troops enter oil fields and other sensitive places throughout the country.

“Homemade bombs would be a concern in any city or populated area,” said Master Sergeant Harold Dorsey, 47, who heads Combat Support Company 115’s crack Explosives Ordinance Disposal (EOD) team.

“We expect to see terrorist attacks.”

The six-man EOD team, which will guarantee safe passage for the frontline Combat Service Support Company 115, said those bombings could run the gamut from pipe bombs to explosives triggered by mobile phones.

The remote control devices are the one type of bomb that seems unstoppable, especially as troops rush to secure areas viewed as essential to any long-term reconstruction of Iraq.

“The concern is they would be using remote control devices they would detonate as we go into the area,” he said.

He conceded: “There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

Dorsey warned a remote control device could be as simple as the control for steering a toy car around a room.

Dorsey also predicted his team would have to defuse unexploded bombs and missiles still sitting in Iraq’s desert from the 1991 Gulf War.

One member of his team, Staff Sergeant Tanos Chavez, said they would also be called on to defuse or detonate any bombs or unexploded ammunition, containing chemical or biological weapons.

“We’re basically going in expecting the worst, hoping for the best,” the 30-year-old sergeant said.