With a deafening bang, the Humvee span violently out of control
and I was thrown out through a back door into the middle of a
busy dual carriageway in Baghdad's dangerous western suburbs.

Seconds later, one of the three young American soldiers with whom
I was travelling rushed over, clutching his ribs with one hand and
his gun in the other. "Just stay down sir," he yelled, as if we might
be under attack.

There was no incoming gunfire, however, and it quickly became
clear that there had been no bomb. Instead we were victims of
something almost as commonplace and sometimes as deadly -
a high-speed car crash involving American troops.

Only minutes earlier the three young GIs had set off from near their
base, taking me to join a patrol from their company, fresh from
America. Soon they were hurtling along the highway towards
Baghdad - in completely the wrong direction. Told of their mistake,
they attempted a high-speed U-turn, apparently oblivious of the car
following close behind.

Miraculously, the Humvee passengers escaped with only cuts and
bruises, but those in the following vehicle were not so lucky:
an American contractor from Halliburton appeared to have a broken leg.

The dazed young GIs, barely out of their teens, had only been in Iraq
for a fortnight.

They were without their flak jackets

and there was panic in their eyes.

A passing convoy of soldiers from an engineering unit, grizzled
and weary veterans after a year in the country, stopped to help.

"I've gotta get out of this country," one engineer said,
shaking his head at the sight of the damaged Humvee.

It is a sentiment shared by the thousands of American soldiers
who are nearing the end of their year-long duty in Iraq and
preparing to make way for fresh units.

In the biggest US troop movement since the Second World War,
over the next three months 14 brigades will briefly overlap with,
and then replace, 17 brigades now in Iraq, reducing the number
of divisions from four to three, and the total US force from 130,000
to 110,000. The rotation brings high risk as inexperienced soldiers
grapple with their first real taste of combat in a complex,
dangerous and alien country.

Despite intense training beforehand in simulated Iraqi towns and
villages, nothing can fully prepare the new troops for the mixture
of anti-terrorist action, defending civilians and policing Iraq, that
they face. Commanders know that relationships forged over many
months with Iraqi officials, tribal chiefs, and religious leaders
cannot be duplicated overnight.

Gen Peter Schoomaker, the US Army chief of staff, told a House
Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington last week:

"We're very, very sensitive to the fact that the great progress we've
made has much to do with
the understanding and relationships we've established at the local
level." Just days earlier near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, an incident
involving newly arrived soldiers of 25th Infantry division illustrated
the dangers.

A bomb had exploded next to a troop convoy and in the ensuing
panic, soldiers chased and shot a woman and her two daughters
who had failed to heed warnings to stop -killing one daughter and
injuring her sister and mother. No soldier was hurt, yet local goodwill
developed by their predecessors over almost a year was destroyed in
an instant.

Such matters are much on the mind of First Lt Justin Harper,
a platoon leader in 2-12 Cavalry, stationed near Baghdad.

In the three weeks since his unit arrived, their base has come
under sustained mortar fire and they have seen action.

He has written in bold letters, across the windscreen of his specially
armour-plated Humvee: "This ain't a movie."

From the unit his own has replaced, 18 of 64 soldiers were either
killed or injured, and among the dead was one of Lt Harper's
university classmates. He hopes that by drawing on the survivors'
experience, his own soldiers can make it through the next 12 months.

"We are fresh and keen, but that may change if we take casualties,"
Lt Harper said.

"I told the guys not to tell their families about these incidents,
but to save their war stories for when they get home.

It will just make them worry more - and, there's nothing anyone can do about it."

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.

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