The one question that has been answered concerns how the U.S. Army's 3^rd Infantry Division managed to make it through the Karbala pass, a narrow passageway that many officers had feared might prove to be a bottleneck, subject to attacks—possibly chemical attacks—from Fedayeen and Republican Guard forces. As Gen. William Wallace, the Army's Persian Gulf commander, revealed in a May 7 press conference, some elements of the 3^rd Infantry feinted an attack up the pass. This drew Iraqi soldiers out of hiding, whereupon they were pummeled by air strikes and by much larger ground forces that came at them from another angle.