Reporting with Marines in South Central Iraq
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get back inside of Iraq right now. Marty Savidge has come up for air yet again. He's with the Marines, somewhere in south central Iraq. He's live today with us. Marty, what do you have, Marty? Good afternoon.</s>MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, we've been telling you about the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines and the job they have, which is securing the very vital supply lines, also going out to try and find, and if need be, destroy these paramilitary units, so- called death squads, according to the Pentagon, that the Iraqis have, that have been harassing their supply line and also striking at U.S. military units. What we want to show you some of how that operation is conducted, take a ride with what is referred to as CAAT Blue. CAAT means Combined Armor Anti-Tank Teams. These are basically highly mobile heavily armed Humvees, or jeeps that the military uses. They work in platoons. There are about nine of these jeeps that have all sorts of weaponry on them. And moving in on an industrial complex here. They study the maps. This area had been swept before. But today, they had to go room to room, house to house. It's risky work. It's stuff they train for, but this time, it was the real thing. Take a look as they got inside. What they're obviously checking for, is making sure that that complex was not in any way, shape or form being used by these paramilitary units, perhaps as a hiding place, somewhere they could base themselves and then strike out against the U.S. Marines and other military units that are in the area. The only thing that CAAT Team Blue found inside that complex was a number of civilians, all of them males. Now, one of the things they checked was they detained them. They are civilians, but they want to make sure that they're civilians. So they searched them carefully. They'll be looking to see if they carry any of the traditional green Iraqi I.D. cards, or any identification that would say they were part of the military. They did not find any of those things on any of those men, so they were set free. The only thing that was shot at CAAT Blue Team today was a friendly wave as they left. Bill, that's sort of how it goes on a daily basis up here for the 1st Battalion 7th Marines.</s>HEMMER: A camera shot that way, too. Thank you, Marty. Martin Savidge, South Central Iraq.