Hunting Down Saddam (27 page)

At the end of August, information came our way via a well-established network of sheiks. Developing this network was no small task. By custom, sheiks can be appointed to represent several families or can represent thousands. How do you determine who represents forty people vs. forty thousand?

When we arrived, every man claimed he was the sheik that the Americans should deal with and as such, he was also entitled to special privileges, badges, weapons, cars, and even women should we have them—whatever we can provide. They in turn would “guarantee” everything from security, support with the Coalition, promises of uranium, “vital” information, and even Saddam—should they see him, of course. So our challenge was how to separate these men of grandiose importance from the real sheiks that clearly commanded the respect from the locals.

The solution seemed simple enough: create a meeting of sheiks on a weekly basis and make it open to all. Those who would attend would probably be supportive somewhat or they would not come. Secondly, those who would sit on the front row would probably be the “real” sheiks. And so it was. Within a few weeks, we had identified those to whom everyone seemed to defer. By the end of August, we had solidified a “Council of Sheiks,” with ten representatives from the controlling tribes that represented about two hundred thousand people in our region.

One of these sheiks had been very cooperative with us already. Although secretive—Iraqi Arabs seem to revel in the thrill of private liaisons and somewhat theatrical trappings—he provided us with important breakthroughs regarding those resisting our efforts. Now he wanted a private dinner meeting east of the Tigris on one of his tenant farms. I have come to call these rendezvous “lamb grabs”—the slaughtered goat or lamb consumed for dinner by being pulled from the bone with bare hands. While the information provided that late evening in August was noteworthy, I will remember the dinner more for the kids.

The tenant farmers had a solitary mud house where they housed their four families and twenty kids. Unlike other “lamb grabs” we had attended, the wives and children were necessarily present. This allowed for some wonderful interaction among our soldiers. The laughter of the kids as they ran like kittens, chasing our weapons' laser lights was a lift. Soon, my men were teaching them all sorts of games. By far the most enjoyable was the American favorite where the children are tapped on the head while in a circle, and dubbed a various waterfowl. One titling causes the child to have to run after the name caller—“Duck, Duck, Goose” had come to Iraq.

Criminals, Convoys, and Catwalks

While my men and I enjoyed this out-of-place respite near the foothills of the Jabal Hamrin Ridge east of the Tigris, our C Company soldiers on patrol spotted a white car in downtown Tikrit with bullet holes in it. They immediately stopped it and subdued four males with three AK-47 rifles. To the north of the city, near the village of Mazhem, C Company, 3-66 Armor soldiers began the opening round of what became the “battle for the ammunition supply points.”

On the night of 28 August, the “Cougars” found fourteen people living inside a bunker bloated with munitions. The bunkers are roughly the size of gymnasiums. The outer walls are double, forming a catacomb around the structure and also allowing the criminals to hide in the nooks and crannies in complete darkness. Our men must clear them much like we would a tunnel, with the same associated risks.

The enemy hired looters, brought in from Samarra for about two dollars a day. They had an entire operation going with 57mm anti-aircraft shells. First, they removed the rounds from the boxes. Next they took a hammer and cracked the rounds' seals with the brass cases—an indicator of their intelligence. (Of course, all of this works best while smoking.) Then they emptied the powder pellets into bags, stacked the brass, and bagged the warheads. The warheads are the type most commonly used for roadside improvised explosives. The propellant is used to make other types of bombs, and the brass is melted down into ingots and sold. All of the proceeds go to supporting your local terrorist.

We knew of the operations, but did not have enough manpower to cover all the areas. Consequently, the improvised-explosives war manifested itself significantly in our area—partly because we were killing the enemy in the direct firefights in the city and partly because they could salvage munitions without much risk from our patrols.

I assigned the task of ending this operation to CPT Jon Cecalupo's C Company, 3-66 Armor. Although this was not a tank mission, we needed the manpower. Jon, the son and brother of an Infantryman, aggressively put his talents into the mission and established a series of ambushes with his dismounted tank crews.

Each night for a month, a “cat and mouse” war developed. The looters would come into the perimeter—most of the time armed—and set up shop for the night. In about thirty days, CPT Cecalupo's men had engaged scores of the enemy. They had killed 5, wounded 65, and captured over 100. For every night of bloodshed, a new day of the same awaited them.

Concerned, I met individually with the tank men doing the grisly work of separating the stupid and the lawless from the living. What I found was yet another example of how professional and dedicated our soldiers are. The men assured me that they fully understood the mission. They told me that for every bomb material supplier they killed, captured, or maimed, then one less bomb would be on the road. They were right. At the end of a month's hard labor, the battle of the ammunition supply point was won. But the bomb war continued to be waged in the streets and supply routes of Tikrit and its villages.

On August 29, we patrolled the streets of Tikrit much like any other night. Long shadows fingered out and then dissipated in the pale streetlight while the dogs roamed wild in packs. At about 2330, when we turned onto 40th Street, one pack assaulted us in an impressive wedge formation, with all dogs barking in support. They came to within five feet of our vehicles. While we were admiring them for their aggressiveness, a violent explosion silenced the barks and our thoughts. What was it? An acrid smoke filled the air behind us. The dogs made a disorderly retreat in full scamper.

The trail vehicles seemed OK. We immediately turned the vehicles around, covered both double lanes of traffic and headed south back toward the enemy. Once we arrived, we jumped from the vehicles and sought to engage the attackers. We shouted taunts at the enemy and attested with oaths and epithets to their incompetence. But none answered our challenge.

On the west-side curb at the corner were the signs of the explosion. A vegetable oil tin packed with what we determined to be ten blocks of TNT and a hand grenade was the basis of the bomb. Clearly legible on a piece of the metal were the words, “A Gift from Sweden.” The bomb did not have the forcefulness it could have due to the poor wiring of the explosives. The grenade and two blocks of TNT detonated but the other eight scattered in the blast radius. Our dispersion and tactics had lessened the effects of that blast.

A curious man unrelated to the incident observed us with amusement from the balcony above his restaurant. Seeing this, red rifle lasers soon lined up on this man's dress and he, like the dogs, beat a hasty retreat. The attacker could be one of several thousand people hidden in nearby houses and apartments. We resumed our patrol.

August 30 dawned with another bomb on the streets. C Company Infantrymen discovered this one—two sticks of C-4 hooked to batteries and tied to a bottle of diesel fuel. Our soldiers called the explosives experts who detonated it. Not far from the bomb, later in the afternoon, a C Company patrol dodged a volley of RPGs that missed wildly. One crashed into an Iraqi house, badly wounding a two-year-old child. Our soldiers immediately responded and saved the girl's life. She was stabilized and taken to the local hospital.

As this unfolded, we received a tip about a weapons cache of RPG launchers on a farm. We went to the house of the supposed farm owner. He was not there but a relative was. We told him there would be no trouble if he took us to the farm and pointed out the weapons. He complied.

We already had his brother in jail and he said he wanted no trouble with us. He would help. He did. After a ten-minute countryside journey, the man walked us to a deep irrigation ditch and pointed to a pile of cut hay at the bottom. As we pulled six sacks of weapons out, we realized that we stood little chance of ever finding these weapons without informants. We returned to our headquarters with twenty-six RPG launchers.

The next few days brought an attack on the governor's building, and more roadside bombs. September 2 was particularly noteworthy. It started with a discovery on the northern highway bypass. Several large-caliber artillery shells were “daisy-chained” together along the guardrails. We disarmed them before they could be put to use. C Company patrols discovered two more bombs in northern Tikrit and detonated both of them. At the southern highway bypass, a patrol from 299th Engineers discovered yet another one.

As long shadows signaled the end of the day a convoy, from our support company that was bringing supplies and soldiers returning from emergency leave, approached only a few kilometers from this bomb. No matter. Another one awaited.

A tire in the road instantly became a brownish cloud of sand, flame, and shrapnel. In the lead humvee, the officer in charge felt a sharp pain to his right knee and arm. An A Company sergeant sitting in the back was thrown sideways and into the middle of the humvee by the force, and suffered neck lacerations.

The cargo truck behind it collected a spattering of shrapnel that cut into tires, metal—and flesh. A specialist from our support company felt a deadening pain to his face and head and shoulder. Blood poured from the gums where several of his teeth had been. Another soldier facing the back took slicing shrapnel through his left foot.

Amazingly, no one was gravely injured. The soldiers gathered their wounded comrades and rushed them to one of our aid stations a few kilometers up the highway. We arrived and secured the area, equipment, and damaged vehicles. Big hunks of artillery shrapnel lay embedded in the asphalt. The tire was nothing more than an array of belted cords and loose rubber that had bounced in all directions. With our casualties and equipment secure, we quickly recovered everything from the scene. There will never be dancing Iraqis on our equipment. We will kill every one of them who tries.

On September 3, we had success against these bombers and others. An informant tipped our soldiers about a bomb maker in Tikrit. We planned a raid that resulted in the capture of C-4, propellants, sealants, clocks, timers, switches, wire, grenades, and rifles. Two individuals were also captured. Later that evening, six to nine mortar rounds impacted near the Tigris Bridge access road. All fell harmlessly into an empty lot. We received reports about the location of the attackers east of the river. Not being our sector, we alerted the Brigade Reconnaissance Troop commanded by CPT Des Bailey. But they were several kilometers north of the activity at that moment, so we decided to cross the river and go to the location in support of the troop's efforts. As we closed near the troop, their convoy came under RPG and small arms fire about four hundred meters to our front. They returned fire with .50 cal machine guns, grenade launchers, and rifle fire. The brush caught fire as a second outburst occurred. We lent support with Bradleys and Infantry.

The next morning, a bloody sandal was found in a concrete aqueduct. The charred area around the attackers' launch point attested to the one-sidedness of the fight. None of our soldiers in either attack were wounded.

By the 5th of September, we found ourselves guarding Tikrit and its environs in a most unusual way. We received instructions to ensure no attacks came for a four-hour window. No bangs, no booms, no fuss. A tall order but one we clearly understood.

The Secretary of Defense would be in Tikrit and it would be complicated if Mr. Rumsfeld appeared announcing the success of Iraqi security forces and clearly visible signs of progress to the backdrop of gunfire and bomb blasts. We secured the town without incident.

We also introduced to the Tikriti people our Iraqi Civil Defense Corps on this day. They were amazed. Only a couple of days from graduation, these young men walked proud on the streets of their countrymen. Bystanders looked in amazement. One woman clutched her heart and exclaimed, “Our army! It had returned!”

Our training efforts have been very successful in the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. Learning from my experience with the Afghan National Army project in the spring of 2002, we put together a program that was far lesser in scale but just as great in importance, given our geography and world attention.

We formed a cadre of officers and sergeants out of hide, led by CPT Jason Deel and SFC (Sergeant First Class) Robert Soden, to conduct the training and to select and hire the new force. We vet the males through the tribal sheiks. Each recruit has to be “guaranteed” by the tribal head in an official document.

Taking advantage of the local customs, we also guarantee that the force will truly be Iraqi because it is solely composed of those men that they choose. To date, we have trained over 350 in our battalion alone and we have had no problems of enemy infiltration. The Iraqi soldiers have proven themselves worthy of their new government and have not been afraid to take risks in our area of operations. We back them fully and conduct operations with them side by side.

Our battle for the streets of Tikrit continued. A sniper team placed near 40th Street to watch over that troubled area had a battle of their own. On September 6th, SPC Cantu and his team moved from a rooftop hideout to cover another location. As they did, three Iraqis engaged them with gunfire and then fled. Not satisfied with the outcome and undaunted by the terrain, Cantu led his team across catwalks and rooftops in the direction he believed the assailants had fled.

Once at the corner, they saw the men congratulating each other and flushed with their imagined heroics. Their victory party was soon shattered by the gunfire of our soldiers. Cantu and his team blasted the men, killing two and wounding the third. The same day C Company, 3-66 Armor continued the battle of the bunkers, killing one and wounding another. The enemy continued to pay a heavy price.