Hunting Down Saddam (30 page)

We found some evidence that an RPG probably knocked down the helicopter but it was hard to be sure. It might have been a surface-to-air missile as well. COL Hickey brought the Brigade Reconnaissance Troop over to secure the site and we searched about one hundred vehicles along the road into the villages.

We found nothing—although informant tips a couple of weeks later led us to some of those responsible. We recovered the wreckage from the farm field and brought it to the 4th Aviation Brigade's airfield, once again firm in our dictum that no Iraqi will ever dance on our equipment in our area of responsibility. The helicopters were from the 101st Airborne Division and were flying around special visitors. Though rattled, they were unharmed.

A Writer's Visit

We received an unusual visitor on the 26th, whose stamina for a seventy-eight-year-old man amazed me. Robin Moore—author of
The Green Berets
and
The French Connection
—paid us a visit to gather interviews and information on a new book he was writing. It was quite a treat to meet and listen to him.

Our normal embedded press also continued to report the work of our great soldiers. We have learned a tremendous amount about how the press operates since we have been here. They are largely very professional, are not afraid of risks, and they file accurate stories for the most part. Even in cases when they are not accurate, it is more a function of inaccurate things given to them rather than speculation on their part.

We have also learned that the editors of their news organizations may never pick up the many good things that they file. A sense of frustration develops even among them when a story they worked gets bumped for the splash headline of “Another Soldier Killed in Iraq Today.”

They acknowledge that the public has the right to be informed of our casualties, but the reporters on the ground also concede that it does not convey the true picture when that is all that gets reported. Our raids continued to be covered well but the impacts of them would only be appreciated later.

The evening of October 28 was a sad one. Our intelligence officer, CPT Tim Morrow, was wounded by gunfire while on a patrol in the city focused on leaflet distribution. Fortunately, he is a tough man and we were able to get him to the aid station for life-saving procedures for a gunshot wound through the upper chest. He is now recovering well and is very near being returned to duty with us at this writing. His knowledge of our area and the enemy was hard to replace but we are thankful he is going to recover. CPT Clay Bell has since joined the Regulars to pick up where CPT Morrow left off and is doing a superb job.

As Halloween approached, we were nearly ready to implement a plan we had worked on for some time. Prior to my emergency leave, I told my staff I wanted to solve the problem with Owja—Saddam Hussein's birthplace. This town of about thirty-five hundred people continued to be a thorn in the side. Every time we broke up a former regime cell or captured a funder or planner, they all seemed to have ties to this town. Ultimately, we hoped they would still have ties to Saddam.

I thought through the problem of how to keep the insurgents from “swimming” in the population at large, finding safe harbor to plot their evil deeds. I wanted to scoop up the insurgents into a “fishbowl” to view them better. I remembered studying Napoleon's actions with a census in the Rhineland to root out insurgents and took note of techniques used by the French in Algeria. To counter insurgents in the Rhineland, Napoleon had his men conduct a census of sorts. They would ask at each home who lived there. Then they would ask who lived next door on each side. Then they would go to the next house. If the answers varied, they would focus on the missing names that people did not list but that their neighbors did. It proved effective. In Algiers, the French isolated the Wilayas to prevent insurgents and weapons from passing through. Though both of these efforts were on a much larger scale and were not the same, there were certainly aspects of the operations that we could use for ourselves.

The Census

I told my staff I wanted to fence the entire town and conduct a census. They wondered if I had somehow lost my mind. But without a complete cordon, only the fairly honest people would show up. If the town was locked down, then the only way they could get out was to register.

It was a monumental undertaking but one I felt we could do and still carry out our other missions. The benefits would be several: if the criminal elements stayed, their movements would be known; if they left, they would have to give up their operational support base and would be much more visible and vulnerable to being fingered living in their mud huts on their farms; and if they stayed and changed their ways, that would still have desired effects.

We began the effort at midnight on the 30th. I went to the tribal head sheik in the village and informed him of our actions and what would be required: all males over the age of fifteen must be registered and receive a pass to enter or to leave the town. To get the badge, they had to report to the police station and fill out the information form. Once badged, they could come and go as before but were subject to search at a single entry point into and out of town. All other exits would be closed off. He was shocked but complied fully.

By morning, rolls of concertina wire could be seen scattered along the bordering streets like tossed rings. Soldiers unraveled the wire. The scratch of the serrated steel wire on the concrete signaled the end to normal life in Owja. Soon the scratch gave way to pounding sledges for the reinforcing pickets. We buttressed the effort with about fifty Iraqi men from the local “rent-a-worker” group in town, complete with a paid contractor.

Simultaneously, the intelligence and signal staff readied the computer and camera databases to begin the issuing of badges. Scores of Iraqi men showed up at the police station by 0900. They waited for their badge and, once in hand, were allowed to exit the one remaining open avenue leading to Highway 1. By November 3rd, we had badged twelve hundred Owjite males.

The operation amazed not only the Owjites but the international press as well. They all seemed to be fascinated at the audacity of the move. Many drew comparisons to Gaza or Jerusalem but in reality, that never entered our minds. Nor was it a fair comparison. For one, we had an entire rifle company inside the wire with them. Second, we were not trying to separate one culture from another. Third, the town was not sealed but controlled—they could still come and go provided they had their identification. We did prevent the departure of about three dozen individuals and informed the sheik and tribal town elders that we would question them at a later time—which we did.

The impacts of the fencing of Owja were outstanding. We disrupted the enemy's command and control structure. If he fled, we were able to spot him in the villages. If he stayed, we could monitor his movements. The result had been that over the next several weeks we began to get intelligence and people we had been looking for since June and July.

A momentum and sense of excitement restored our belief that we could knock the supports out of Saddam's protective circle. While we did not know the extent that the cordon would have on the terrorist infrastructure or Saddam, we knew it had to have some kind of impact.

Cat and Mouse

On October 31, C Company found another roadside bomb. They dismantled it before it could be used. Later that evening, several thugs in the northern suburbs fired a 60mm mortar toward the “Cougars'” compound. Nothing was hit but our snipers observed the muzzle flash and were able to acquire the enemy at long range. They managed to get off enough rounds to wound two of the individuals.

Meanwhile, in a village toward the far north of our sector, our Recon Platoon observed several men fire AK-47s in the air. “Cougars” closed on the house and engaged the rooftops with small arms. Meanwhile, supporting Apache helicopters on patrol joined in and lit up the house with 30mm cannons. It turned out that several off-duty police were smoking hash and having a jolly time. They dove into a basement and were found there by our soldiers when we cleared it. It is a miracle they were not killed.

November finally clicked by on the calendar. It opened with a combination of raids that netted some important cell leadership and also with patrols that intercepted several roadside bombs. We began to see many varieties of explosive devices. Doorbell switches became a favorite, followed by keyless locks, toy cars, and in one case a pressure switch. Our sweeps continued to net the majority of them before they could be detonated.

In Owja, the enemy attempted harassing fire and mortar cheap shots—both without effect. Our men returned fire and an elusive hide-and-seek game developed. In the city proper, a black Opel or Toyota sped by and lobbed an RPG at a Charlie Company patrol. The men returned fire but as they did, a large Mercedes truck inadvertently pulled into the line of fire and the attackers escaped down a back alley. Other patrols netted eight mortars with some ammunition while the scouts raided the northern suburbs again—and took into custody the last of a set of brothers we had been pursuing for some time.

By the 4th of November, the Owjites seemed resigned to their new fenced routine. I met with the tribal sheik and the town elders. We had a series of frank and honest discussions about the need for the Bayjat tribe to reconcile with the rest of Iraq. They were concerned about this because they felt that without some reconciliation, they could have no future. They would be forced to fight or die. I told them that one would surely lead to the other and that the reconciliation should be pursued.

I took it up as a topic with the Monday morning sheik council meeting and it provided for some lively discussion. They admitted it was needed but they would not welcome them back simply because they said, “I'm sorry.” They asserted that this was not their way. Reconciliation had to come from blood compensation. As I listened to all these men weave their tribal and feudalistic discussions, I was very thankful that I was an American.

That evening, the discussions did not seem to deter a band of thugs who engaged the “Gators” of A Company. Firing from the vicinity from an old air defense bunker, the cutthroats launched an RPG at one of our patrols. They also followed it with rifle fire. Undaunted, the “Gators” gave back in spades. The
thump, thump, thump
of a Bradley's 25mm chain gun preceded the
crack, crack, crack, crack
of 25mm shells impacting the bunker. The soldiers cordoned the area but the thugs were able to beat a retreat from a defiladed position before the cordon was set.

The next night, this cat and mouse game continued in Owja. Our soldiers remained alert as usual. Suddenly, the power cut out and the village became black. This preceded a clattering of small arms fire fired wildly but apparently within the wired village. The soldiers searched the town but the attackers blended into the village population. The next day, CPT Stouffer shut the only gate into and out of town. The attackers were not found.

November 6th did net one attacker though. On the “chevron” in the northwest part of the city, a C Company ambush observed a man setting up what appeared to be a roadside bomb. He began by tying wire to a lamppost and then proceeded to run it to a location across the road. He did not accomplish this immediately. Each time he saw military vehicles in the distance he would back off and then sit passively on the side of the road to appear as one of so many Iraqi men who squat on the side of the road. Watching the pattern, the “Cobras” clearly viewed his activities and confirmed he was planting a roadside bomb. The soldiers placed him in their sites. What followed next was a given. Their rifles popped into action, and the man dropped on top of his own device. Another Fedayeen dies.

November 7th dawned with somewhat cooler weather, but by mid-morning became a very pleasant day. GEN John Abizaid arrived to receive another update from the leadership of the 4th Infantry Division. He and MG Ray Odierno came to the 1st Brigade at about 0900 and all the battalion commanders met with him and our commander, COL Jim Hickey.

I had served with GEN Abizaid before in Kosovo and Germany when he commanded the 1st Infantry Division. The update went well and we had very open and frank discussions with him about the best ways we gathered intelligence. He was very open to our observations. He offered that our leads on Saddam were good and that we needed to have the confidence that everyone develops patterns—Saddam would be no different. He closed with some guidance to all of us as commanders and commented on how he saw the fight continuing.

Informants

While we were meeting, two Black Hawk helicopters headed south along the Tigris River in Cadaseeah. At about 0940 the lead helicopter suddenly burst into flames and nosed toward the river. The aircraft began to break apart even before it hit the ground. Soldiers from C Company, 3-66 Armor of our task force saw the craft in flames and disappear behind the bluffs.

The radio began to crackle. A helicopter was down. It was on fire and crashed near the river on a sandbar island near the bluffs in Cadaseeah. The command post received the report from Cougar 5, 1LT Phil Thompson. SSG McClean and SGT Jago of the “Cougars” got to the scene very quickly. What they saw was traumatic. They found the bodies of four soldiers—and the partial remains of a fifth. The helicopter scattered along a straight pattern. The lighter the pieces, the less they traveled.

The main body of the aircraft tumbled into a ball and burned profusely. 1LT Thompson and CPT Brad Boyd of Charlie Company, who had heard the radios and arrived shortly thereafter, worked together to do what they could. SGM Cesar Castro had been with the “Cobras” and followed them as well. The sandbar had bulrushes about eight to ten feet high. About a quarter of the island was on fire. The flames continued to spread.

I came out of the meeting at about 1000 hours. My driver and operations sergeant reported the news to me. We raced north to Cadaseeah. When we arrived, the island was leaping in smoke and flames.