Hunting Down Saddam (20 page)

Jones was accepted by the board and began the rigorous Delta Force training. By the time Jones began his Delta training, he had already completed the other Army schools and programs that are considered by professional soldiers to be the most demanding. He questioned what this new training course would offer that he had not already experienced. He soon found out—between keeping up with the high standards of the organization, the intellectual aspect of the training and the peer pressure, it was one of the most demanding courses he had ever completed. Jones learned skills and concepts that would serve him well for the rest of his life.

He also came to respect COL Beckwith well above other officers he had served with during his career and felt that COL Beckwith also respected him. Perhaps Beckwith admired Jones's unconventional “the ends justify the means” approach, while Jones clearly admired the brilliance and ferocity of the Special Forces legend.

Jones was now a master sergeant in the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta, or SFOD-D, also known as Delta Force. Among the many missions Jones and Beckwith took part in, the Delta Force mission with particular lasting impact on war planning and on Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was Operation EAGLE CLAW.

EAGLE CLAW

In April 1980, Delta Force was alerted with a potential mission to rescue American hostages held by Iranian militants in Tehran, Iran. COL Beckwith would be the ground commander. The rescue mission would be very complex; members of all four branches of the Armed Forces were involved and the plan included the use of twenty aircraft.

Four MC-130s were to bring the Delta team, the Air Force combat controllers, and the Ranger Company into the staging area/helicopter refueling point outside Tehran, code-named Desert One. Beckwith began planning in earnest, and requested that ten RH-53 helicopters be available for the mission. The Air Force was only able to provide eight birds, their reasoning being that only eight RH-53s could fit onto the deck of an aircraft carrier.

While Delta Force was to perform the actual rescue, a platoon from Charlie Company, 1st BN/75th Ranger Regiment was to provide security for the men and equipment once it landed at Desert Two, the staging area where the hostages would be brought after they were rescued from Tehran. Unfortunately, the mission never made it past Desert One.

The combined rescue force assembled in Egypt on April 21, 1980. Three days later, a fleet of C-141 Starlifters carried the 120-man force to Masirah Island, off the coast of Oman, where they transferred to three MC-130 Combat Talons, accompanied by three fuel-bearing EC-130s.

The Delta Force/Ranger task force landed two hundred miles southeast of Tehran at 2200 hours and waited for the arrival of eight RH-53D “Sea Stallion” helicopters that had lifted off the deck of the aircraft carrier USS
Nimitz
. A twelve-man road watch team, composed primarily of Rangers, was along to secure the site while the helicopters refueled. The team would return to Egypt on one of the Combat Talons.

Before dawn on April 25, SFOD-D was to be flown to a predetermined coordinate by the Sea Stallions, where they were met by CIA assets, who led them to a nearby safe house. The helicopters would remain at their own hide site until the assault on the U.S. embassy compound where the American hostages were held. The plan was to use the helicopters to ferry the hostages to waiting transport.

Beckwith's most important HUMINT ground asset was retired Special Forces legend Dick Meadows, who was in Tehran under the cover of an Irishman. Meadows had conducted the surveillance of the objective, and if the mission had been a “go,” he would have taken COL Beckwith on a recon mission prior to the Delta team's insertion.

The task of the Rangers was to secure a landing area for the transports. The Rangers were to fly from Egypt to Manzariyeh, Iran, and secure the airfield there. They would land if possible, or parachute in if enemy resistance was offered.

Once the airfield, which was thirty-five miles south of Tehran, was secure, the Rangers would hold it while C-141s arrived to airlift the hostages and the Delta Force team back to Egypt. The Rangers would then “dry up,” or remove all signs of their presence, render the field useless, and be airlifted out themselves.

Taking over and securing a hostile airfield within enemy territory is one of the primary components of the Ranger mission. They were prepared to hold the field as long as necessary if there were not enough transports to take everyone out in one trip. During their training, the Rangers worked out all probable scenarios on a mock-up of the target airfield in Iran.

However, the Rangers did not cross-train with Delta Force, the Air Force flight crews, or the Marine Sea Stallion crews. No one had cross-trained, and there was no dress rehearsal before the green light came on. This would turn out to be an issue for a congressional investigation conducted after the tragedy that soon unfolded.

Two of the helicopters suffered excessive hydraulics malfunctions within four hours of leaving the deck of the
Nimitz
on the Arabian Sea; once grounded, one of the hydraulics repairs was too extensive to be performed on-site. The other six choppers were lagging behind due to bad weather. Having “go/no-go” authority, and refusing to risk leaving anyone behind, COL Beckwith aborted the mission.

After Beckwith's order, one of the Sea Stallions crashed into an EC-130 Hercules while trying to refuel on the ground, creating a huge fireball that engulfed both aircraft. The tip of the Stallion's main rotor had clipped the cockpit area of the EC-130 as it jockeyed into position for refueling. This dangerous refueling practice was known as “hopscotching,” and has been largely replaced by air-to-air refueling because of the safety hazards involved. Five Air Force crewmen and three Marine helicopter crewmen perished.

There wasn't enough time to destroy what remained; in the rush to “un-ass the AO” the Sea Stallions were left in place, and the whole scene was under the Iranian military's control by the next day. Moreover, the ground assets were compromised and almost killed. Although planning for a second mission was begun immediately, it was never attempted.

Later, at the congressional investigation, Beckwith was questioned as to why he hadn't gone ahead with the rescue mission, despite the loss of the helicopters.

“I promised the President of the United States that we would not go through with the mission if we lost even one hel-icopter,” Beckwith answered. He had been under direct presidential orders, although that was not known by any of the other commanders at Desert One.

The congressional investigators then questioned Beckwith about the problems with Operation EAGLE CLAW.

Beckwith responded with his own question. “Sir, if you had a professional football team with the line practicing in New York, and the backfield in California, and the first time they met up was the day of the big game, how would you expect them to play?”

This was a turning point in combined special ops missions, and led to the founding of JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command, less than eight months later. Critical mission failures were directly related to a lack of training, communication, proper rehearsal, and commanders who were unwilling to work with others as part of a joint operation with just one ground commander who has distinct authority over others. The standard Cold War operating procedure of compartmentalization could seriously affect the mission outcome, so JSOC was activated on December 15, 1980, and based at Pope AFB, North Carolina.

Although JSOC's official purpose is to provide a “unified command structure for conducting joint special operations and exercises,” numerous reports indicate that JSOC is actually the command responsible for conducting U.S. counter-terrorism (CT) operations. According to published reports, JSOC also commands the U.S. military's Special Missions Units (SMUs). SMUs are tasked with conducting CT operations, strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas, and “special intelligence missions.” JSOC's patch is symbolic of the cooperation between the Armed Services, with four swords crossing each other over a globe.

Despite its failure, Desert One brought together some of the greatest minds in special operations, including Dick Meadows, Charlie Beckwith, John Jones, and Pete Schoomaker. Schoomaker was a Delta Force Squadron commander on Operation EAGLE CLAW; after twenty years, GEN Schoomaker was back in the desert sands of the Middle East yet again.

Schoomaker commanded SFOD-D squadrons through three decades (1978–1981 and 1989–1992) on and off, and had a mastery and appreciation for unconventional warfare that few could match.

Schoomaker retired as commander of U.S. Special Operations Command at Ft. Mac Dill AFB in Florida in November 2000, and many felt that his knowledge of Special Warfare was lost forever in the post-9/11 Global War on Terror—a campaign in which such knowledge would be needed the most. Things were about to change, though, as for only the second time in the history of the United States, an officer would be taken from retirement and put back on active duty by a president. The first time was by John F. Kennedy, when he asked retired U.S. Army GEN Maxwell Taylor to serve as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962. George W. Bush made his mark on history, and asked Schoomaker to step up to the plate.

On June 17, 2003, President Bush nominated retired GEN Peter J. Schoomaker to be the Army's thirty-fifth chief of staff. The Senate confirmed Schoomaker before he took up his new duties, and on August 2, 2003, GEN Pete Schoomaker replaced GEN Eric Shinseki.

Shinseki had disagreed with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the size of the U.S. force in Iraq. Was the war in Iraq turning into another Vietnam? The parallel was increasingly drawn between the two conflicts, as the Coalition's time spent in Iraq mounted.

The most frequent comparison in the special operations community was the similarity of pro-Saddam Iraqi insurgents and the Viet Cong. How do you fight an ideology? The dangers that Coalition forces faced did not meet them on the field of battle, and did not carry a flag or obey the rules of engagement. The skills and lessons learned in Vietnam-era guerrilla warfare could prove to be of great worth in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.

Schoomaker understood the complexities and nuances of unconventional warfare (UW) and counterterrorism (CT).
De Oppresso Liber,
the motto of Special Forces, was a focus of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, while “Speed, Surprise, and Violence of Action,” the motto of SFOD-D, would also come into play when U.S. forces were able to focus on and strike a definitive enemy force.

The toughest thing to do, then, was to identify the enemy. John Jones, also on the EAGLE CLAW mission, left Delta Force after Beckwith did in 1981. Jones recalled that Beckwith had become a broken man after the incident at Desert One, and lost his shot at becoming a general.

Jones went to Texas after leaving Delta Force. Coincidentally, Texas was home to Halliburton and KBR, though it wasn't until 1999 that Jones joined KBR, finding a perfect niche for his skills. This time with KBR, he went to Baghdad, and Delta-mate Pete Schoomaker was with him (figuratively) as well. As head of Iraq security for KBR, and headquartered in one of Saddam's palaces, Jones works on the security concerns in Iraq.

According to Jones, there are four groups of Saddam loyalists that are of major concern since the defeat of the Iraqi Army. The first group of Saddam supporters is motivated by money or their former positions, which they may have lost and would like to regain. Perhaps they've lost family members supporting Saddam. They are willing to attack Coalition forces, although in Jones's opinion, “they are not willing to commit hari-kari and be suicide bombers. They're willing to do ambushes, but they want to get away and get the money they're being paid by pro-Saddam groups for doing the ambushes.”

The second group of Saddam supporters is the Shi'ite Muslims in the south of Iraq, who are funded and supported by the Iranians. The Iranian motivation for this is that they do not want a democracy in the Middle East. An Iraqi democracy could be a model that other countries might want to emulate, which would weaken Iran's monarchy. So, it is to Iran's advantage that the Coalition fail in Iraq.

The third group is comprised of people with purely terrorist motivations, such as Al Qaeda. They will work with Shi'ites, others, or just by themselves. They will pound on U.S. military forces just for the sake of pounding on them, much as they brought down the World Trade Center, showing the world that America was vulnerable.

The fourth group is the Palestinians. The Palestinians are coming into Iraq to draw attention to and further their cause in Palestine. Not one of these four groups of Saddam supporters is concerned with the well-being of the Iraqi people. The Saddam supporters “are all out for themselves,” Jones said. Only the Coalition forces are truly concerned with encouraging, protecting, and perpetuating the well-being of the Iraqi people.

According to Jones, “The Coalition forces are here for the right reasons—the Iraqi people. We are willing to hedge our bets, and we are willing to risk our young men and women to make that happen.

“When the U.N. and other organizations stand up and criticize us—the Coalition; the Brits, the Spanish, the Australians, whoever is here trying to make that happen … it's so much bullshit, and the American people buy into it. They should stop and really consider what was going on. But we [Americans] buy into the news media's thoughts of why we are doing this. The news media is presenting a negative picture that we're buying into, as we did with Vietnam. What people don't realize is that Iraq is a pretty big country, about the size of California, eight hundred miles long and three to four hundred miles wide.”

Substantial ground to cover and the simple fact that Coalition forces are so outnumbered by Iraqi population give the Coalition only one choice—to win the support of the Iraqi populace. “We have to
win
the peace, not
force
the peace,” Jones explained. “This is only my humble opinion,” he added.