KEENE, N.H. (AP) – The Army colonel from Keene who led a daring daytime attack into Baghdad last year says it was a harrowing attack, completed as his soldiers and tanks were running out of fuel and ammunition after hours of fighting.

“I knew tactically the Iraqis were no match for us on the battlefield, and I knew my soldiers would do whatever it took to get the mission accomplished, but if you don’t have fuel and ammunition, it doesn’t matter how good they are,” Col. David Perkins said. “No amount of training and discipline can overcome an empty tank.”

Perkins commented to the New Hampshire Sunday News after word of an official Army report that said his decision to attack into the heart of Baghdad last April may have prevented weeks or months of all-out street fighting.

He captured the center of the city, but said he worried his troops might be cut off.

“You can imagine 1,000 soldiers in a city of five million, surrounded, out of ammunition, out of fuel. It really could be a bad news story quickly,” he said.

Instead, it turned into a military and psychological victory, as Perkins’ tanks took control of the so-called “regime district” of Baghdad.

containing Saddam Hussein’s palaces and a major military parade field. He likened it to an invading army seizing the Mall in Washington, D.C., between the Capitol and Washington Monument.

Before taking the city, Perkins’ troops had to race along one highway, Route 8, which was heavily defended with hidden tanks and well defended bridges.

Perkins said making sure his tanks and troops could get more ammunition and fuel was a constant concern, and meant controlling three main overpasses to the city.

Infantry fought for the overpasses as the tanks and Bradley personnel carriers sped into the city, blowing a hole right through Iraqi rings of defense. The Iraqis, Perkins said, expected the Americans would put the city under siege “and trade shots back and forth.”

The Iraqis were facing outward to defend against attack; now they had to turn around and defend themselves from the center of their own capital.

“What I told our guys was our advantage was to go in quickly with a lot of fire . . . and create as much chaos as possible,” Perkins told the paper.

So groups of four tanks began peeling off to key intersections, bridges and traffic circles “so everywhere he went, there were four to eight tanks rolling down the street at him, and it just paralyzed him.”

But the tanks were burning fuel and using up ammunition and an infantry commander reported the fighting at the overpasses was intense, meaning no fuel or ammunition supplies could get through for some time.

“They were highly outnumbered, and they might be overrun,” came the report, and they had only one hour of ammunition left.

Perkins ordered the tanks in Baghdad to shut off their engines to conserve fuel and called for a refueling and rearming mission to head toward the infantry.

Around the time he had to decide whether to remain in the city, Perkins learned a refueling mission had been attacked. Five ammunition vehicles and two fuel trucks were on fire.

“When you look at it intuitively, you would look at it and say it’s probably time to cut your losses and pull out again,” he said. “To the credit of all involved, everyone was determined to make this work and not give up, and press on.”

A captain in the ambushed supply convoy instructed several soldiers to drive away the vehicles that were not burning “straight through this gauntlet of fire” to the waiting troops.

Perkins said he later noticed all the windows of one vehicle had been shot out; he asked the young soldier how he managed to get away. “He said, Sir, we just got in these vehicles, scooched down and got below the dashboard, stepped on the gas and drove as fast as we could, and stuck our rifles out the window and fired.”

With fuel and ammunition supply lines established, Perkins knew his daring plan had worked. It wasn’t something he had taken lightly.

“What you want to make sure is you’re not making a decision that was reckless and not thought through, that in the end someone needlessly lost their life,” he said.

Perkins brigade lost eight men in the attack.

The colonel now works at the Pentagon as executive assistant to the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He called it “a very educational and broadening experience” but said he misses his soldiers.

“I owe a debt of gratitude to them, in many cases my life,” he said. “Just being around soldiers on a daily basis, and working with them and seeing all that they do, not for personal gain – that is what I miss most.”

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Information from: The Union Leader, http://www.theunionleader.com

AP-ES-07-04-04 1454EDT