Eye-Witness to the Surrenders: ABCNEWS.com

Eye-Witness to the Surrenders: ABCNEWS.com : ABCNEWS Journalists Report From Gulf: Mike Cerre, with the 1st Marine Division north of the Tigris river 11:30 p.m. ET Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. Iraq

At dawn, buses filled with military-age men coming from Baghdad started approaching our lines asking to surrender. It's been going on for the past two hours now. It started with a bus and a van. There's now several buses. As I look down the road behind me, people are streaming out of the city just to our north and approaching our lines, asking to surrender.

Most are military-age young men who say they are civilians but you can see they have military boots. Some of them have military belts and they all have short haircuts, presuming that they are military who've been fleeing Baghdad. We were able to talk to one of the translators who said they left Baghdad last night. They got weekend passes from their officers who knew they would probably be deserting.

They're trying to make it to American lines where they feel they are safer, because if they stop at one of these towns, they'll be pressed back into service by the local political parties. The Marines are trying to process as many as they possibly can.

Another Hat Tip to Blogs of War