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In 1991, American and allied forces swiftly defeated Iraq, mainly by confronting Saddam Hussein’s troops in the open desert. If the US invades Iraq, this time the decisive battle may occur in the streets of Baghdad. Today we begin a week-long series War in Our Time. This morning we have two reports, First, WNYC’s Fred Mogul followed the 10th Mountain Division from its home in Fort Drum, New York, down to Fort Polk, Louisiana, for a training exercise in urban warfare.

In some parts of central Louisiana, death has a very distinctive sound: “Beeeeeppp!” A soldier has just been hit in the military’s version of laser tag, called "Miles," or Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System. Some 6,000 soldiers are out in the woods and swamps of Fort Polk, and most are wearing Miles gear as part of a three-week war game.

McKee: Every time you hear the MILES beeper going off that symbolizes somebody you might have to write letter home to, or that’s somebody’s father; brother. So it’s very sobering, especially as a leader.

Lt. Matthew McKee is with the 10th Mountain Division. He’s helping Alpha Company ‘rehearse’ for tonight’s assault on Shugart-Gordon Village, a mock "city" with 29 buildings and a water tower. McKee expects to hear a lot of beeps.

McKee: If there’s 34 men in a platoon, it would be substantial number of casualties, probably, maybe 8 or 9 guys would walk out under their own power.

Why so few survivors? First-Sergeant Jeff Keogan explains, while he directs the soldiers of Alpha Company to pack their ruck-sacks and get ready for the attack on Shugart-Gordon Village.

Keogan: You are going to take more casualties, just because of the surprises around every corner. Buildings are dark, even during the daytime. You’re firing ammunition in close quarters - that’s always dangerous. You’d just be best prepared, and make sure that the guys, that it’s engrained in their minds, that they’ve drilled over and over again, that they always take the path of least resistance, and that they stick to that.

Experience in urban warfare is in-demand, particularly as military planners look toward an Iraqi campaign that could take American forces into the heart of Baghdad a sprawling city of 5 million people. Retired Marine Colonel Gary Anderson conducted a two-year study of urban warfare for the Defense Department.

Anderson: From Hussein’s standpoint, that’s the battlefield of last resort. Everything else is pretty open country. What I think will probably actually happen is there’s gonna be very few people willing to fight and die in the streets of Baghdad for Saddam Hussein. But having said that, you have to train for the worst and hope for the best case, and I quite frankly think it will be somewhere in-between.

According to Anderson’s research, an assault on Baghdad ideally would require 36,000 troops extensively trained in urban combat. He thinks the exercises at Fort Polk are too brief. Their value is mainly to signal to Iraq that U.S. forces are ready to fight and die in city streets. If US forces invade Iraq they'll use other methods to show their intentions. Psychological operations, known as psy ops, may include dropping leaflets on Iraqi troops urging them to surrender, or broadcasting over powerful megaphones.

"Surrender, and you will be treated well. Fight, and you will die…"

Back at Fort Polk, the loudspeakers are pumping up the 10th Mountain soldiers in the woods outside Shugart-Gordon village, waiting to begin the assault. That’s right: Led Zeppelin and Johnny Cougar -- the fife n’drum of the 21st Century.

“Been a long time since I rock n’rolled…”

Lt. Tom LeMay, great nephew of Strategic-Air-Command-founder General Curtis LeMay, has already hiked two miles through woods, forest and swamp to reach this point, and he’s eager for the showdown to start.

LeMay: Once we get into the city, we actually get inside, it’s gonna be ‘on.’ Adrenaline’s gonna be pumping, people gonna be yelling, a lot of explosions, a lot of noise, we’re gonna be rockin and rollin…

The assault begins after the moon sets, around 2am. The Opposition Forces, or "Op-For," can turn every building or room into "kill-zones" – the areas soldiers try to stay out of. Op-For puts land mines in some buildings, and in others, uses civilians as human shields. Entire units are killed by fake pyrotechnic grenades and missiles. Staff Sergeant Arthur Ray Young Jr. and his whole team were "gunned down" by "Op-For."

Young: I wanted to go right around the buildings, but we had to go left, we came into an open space and Op-For killed us in the street. I mean, sometimes it takes sacrifices - you have to give up four bodies to get a hundred in. So we already know that. Families already know that. We just gotta hope that, you know, everything goes the way that the plans, but, we know that plans always get busted when the heat starts.

This $49-million-dollar training center is a reminder of how far wrong things can go in combat – even when a massive force of American soldiers is sent in to root out a handful of insurgents. The village is called Shugart-Gordon, to honor two Delta Force commandos who died in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993. Staff Sgt. Young was there, with the ground convoy that finally saved the surviving soldiers.

Young: I was really, really scared, ‘cause I just came out of basic training, I was just a private. I really didn’t know nothing. They just put us in the field. I was scared. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t I really never thought I’d really ever go to war.

Eighteen soldiers were killed that day in Mogadishu, and President Clinton quickly withdrew American forces. Since 1993, the American military has learned a great deal about fighting in cities. But that hasn’t made urban combat any more politically palatable - or safe. In today’s exercise, Alpha Company started with almost 150 soldiers…pause…All but 14 were killed or wounded. Still, Lt. Colonel Robert Nye, the battalion commander, says the assault was a success.

Nye: We achieved our mission. We cleared the town. And I’m not sure you look at it in terms of high casualties. I think you look at it in terms of the mission and the requirements we had to do.

Nye and others claim the 10th Mountain is "over-training" -- fighting a tougher, deadlier enemy in the mock village than it would encounter in the real world. The Pentagon, the politicians, the public - and, most of all, these soldiers - hope American forces won’t have to go into Baghdad to find out. For WNYC, I’m Fred Mogul, at Fort Polk, Louisiana.