'60 minutes': Building the Sadr City wall Video
'60 minutes': Building the Sadr City wall Video Transcript
^B00:00:00
>> But in the Battle of Sadr City, as we learned in a high level debriefing with the US commander in Iraq, the Americans overpowered the Shiite militias with high tech. The most advance, sophisticated, whiz-bang hardware and software on earth. Electronics, lasers, high-resolution cameras that can literally cut through the fog of war. To build the wall, Colonel Hort's Charlie Company began putting up massive T-shaped concrete slabs. Fighting erupted almost immediately as sniper fire came in from every direction. ^M00:00:38 [ Gunfire ] ^M00:00:41 Charlie Company retaliated with massive tank fire.
>> We fired 800 tank rounds in this fight. We haven't fired that many tank rounds since we started the war.
>> Colonel Hort said the building of the so-called T-wall became a magnet for every bad guy in Sadr City. This was one of the most intense engagements in the entire war, yet even as the battle raged, the wall went up.
>> It was literally concrete barrier by concrete barrier. And we just wasn't going out there putting up some barriers. I mean it was a fight every inch of the way, you know.
>> So you put them up under fire?
>> Guys would climb the ladders to unhook the crane change from the wall, unarmed, while people are firing at them. So it was high measure.
>> Lieutenant-Colonel Brian Eiffler's [assumed spelling] laid down cover fire, while some soldiers, wide open and exposed, unhooked the chains from the crane. On days when the shooting was particularly fierce, they were able to put up only slabs.
>> Every type of weapon system the enemy had, they tried to use against us up at the wall. I mean it was step-by-step-by-step, and fighting literally every hour of the day. ^E00:01:51
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