Battle of Rumaila The Battle of Rumaila , also known as the Battle of the Causeway or the Battle of the Junkyard , was a controversial engagement that took place on March 2 , 1991 , near the Rumaila oil field in the Euphrates Valley of southern Iraq , when the U . S . Army forces , mostly the 24th Infantry Division under Maj . Gen . Barry McCaffrey and air elements of the 101st Airborne Division , engaged and nearly annihilated a large column of withdrawing Iraqi Republican Guard armored forces during the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War . Battle . Iraqi Republican Guards were engaged by the U . S . forces while attempting to reach and cross the Lake Hammar causeway and escape northward toward Baghdad . Most of the five - mile - long Iraqi caravan of several hundred vehicles was first boxed into a kill zone and then in the course of the next five hours systematically devastated by the U . S . 24th Infantry Division , including its armored forces , AH - 64 Apache attack helicopters , and five artillery battalions . Helicopters of the 101st Airborne Division ( from the 101st Aviation Regiment and the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade ) also joined in for the attack and were credited with destroying 14 armored personnel carriers , eight BM - 21 Grad multiple rocket launchers , four enemy helicopters , 56 trucks and two SA - 6 radars , and with seriously damaging a bridge across the Euphrates . The attack continued until the trapped vehicles were all destroyed , including at least 39 T - 72 tanks and 52 other armored vehicles from the elite 1st Armored Division " Hammurabi " , resulting in the destruction of one of its brigades . McCaffrey reported the elimination of 187 armored vehicles , 43 artillery pieces and over 400 trucks . The battle was one - sided and Iraqi attempts to return fire proved to be almost completely ineffective , as during the engagement only one U . S . soldier was injured and two U . S . armored vehicles were lost ( an M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle damaged by enemy fire and an M1 Abrams tank set on fire by a nearby explosion of an Iraqi truck ) . A bus with women and children was also reportedly destroyed , which later troubled many U . S . soldiers . Surviving Iraqi soldiers were either taken prisoner , fled on foot or swam to safety . Controversy . The all - out attack on the Iraqi column , sparked by Iraqis opening fire on an U . S . patrol which had wandered into their path of retreat , took place two days after the war had been officially halted by a unilateral U . S . ceasefire and just as the Iraqi government and UN coalition forces were scheduled to begin formal peace talks the next morning . These circumstances provoked a heated debate over whether McCaffrey was justified in his decision to destroy the column , and why had the 24th Division moved during the ceasefire into the path of the withdrawing Iraqis in the first place . U . S . Lt . Gen . Ronald H . Griffith said to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh , " It was just a bunch of tanks in a train [ transported by trailer truck ] , and he Barry McCaffrey made it a battle . He made it a battle when it was never one . " However , McCaffrey was exonerated by an Army inquiry , and an inquiry by the U . S . Congress also did not find any fault in the incident .