BAGHDAD, Iraq ---- The U.S. Marines watched with cautious amazement Wednesday as their arrival here unleashed jubilant chaos across the city ---- thousands of Iraqis cheered, looted and ran through the streets of the capital.

"Look out there ---- it's a damned party in the streets," said Master Sgt. Keith LaFrance, stunned as hundreds of vehicles drove along and people ran by with piles of looted goods.

Pausing after cordoning off a huge chunk on the eastern side of the city, the Marines with the Camp Pendleton-based 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment stood back and absorbed the welcome in an open field at the edge of Saddam City.

Backed by a peaceful, middle-class suburban neighborhood, they were faced on three sides by throngs of cheering, chanting Iraqis who inched closer and closer to the Marines' lines. The crowd was hard to control.

"Thank you! Thank you!" a group of men cheered together, closing in around a dumbfounded Marine.

"Get back! Get back," Capt. John Chau, Lima Company executive officer, yelled in Arabic, trying to keep the crowds from surrounding several other Marines and a vehicle.

Some Marines standing nearby quickly rounded up concertina wire, borrowed a few truck tires and tore down a chain link fence, which they dragged into the streets to form a barrier.

Gunnery Sgt. Wayne Hertz, of North Dakota, ran around to push some men back, until he found an Iraqi man who spoke English.

"It was like this in Somalia," he said. "I just tell him that we appreciate it ---- we know that you are happy to see us ---- but you cannot impede our mission. They seem to take care of the rest in their language."

The man warned his ecstatic compatriots not to cross the tire and rubbish barricade and he helped pry groups of young men from Marines as they tried to touch them, hug them and get their picture taken next to them.

"They're happy as hell to see us. We don't want to be too forceful with them," Hertz said, relaxing a bit as the Iraqi man was joined by a few sympathetic helpers. "I can't believe we're here. It's Baghdad! It's 150 percent positive. If we come back a year from now, this country will be a totally different place."

While enjoying the cheers in their honor, some Marines stood off a bit from the crowds.

While horns blared, and people waved flags and cheered from the backs of pickup trucks that sped every which way in the chaos on Baghdad's streets, shots also rang out from the distance, keeping the troops on edge.

"It's a fiesta, but I don't trust it," said Lt. Harry Thompson, 28, who stayed away from the crowd, ready to call in artillery if an organized enemy force was sighted nearby. "Marines need to keep their eyes open til we get home. They need to stay skeptical and alert."

Others were even less ready to accept the cheers as genuine or let their trigger fingers relax. The Iraqi people are survivors, and have learned to wave to those with the ones holding the guns, they said.

"I think it's more from fear than from happiness," said Cpl. Johnny Lassiter, 33, of San Bernardino. "I think they'd be doing the same thing if the Iraqi Army was rolling through the streets in a victory parade."

Lassiter, who manned a roadblock along with several other Lima Company Marines Wednesday, shared the caution with his leaders.

"I'd love to be able just cut loose and get into it, but I can't," Thompson said. "I'd say 99 percent of them are really happy to see us. But I'm just waiting for that one who'll want to blow us away."

You must be logged in to comment.