Weapons of Mass Destruction (2 page)

Sinclair thought he heard cheering in the distance, an ominous sound in the wake of the Blackwater ambush. But it was probably just boys playing soccer, which they continued to do even in the midst of sporadic urban combat. He was stationed on a rooftop in Queens. Fallujah was laid out on a strict grid, like Manhattan, so the US Army had renamed neighborhoods after the Big Apple. They even posted makeshift signs next to Arab street names. Sinclair had taken these substitutions for granted until they heard the news that four desecrated bodies were hanging from Brooklyn Bridge. Somehow it brought barbarism too close to home.

His battalion had been redeployed to Anbar Province just two weeks before the attack. They had spent a furlough back in the States after having distinguished themselves in the Battle of Baghdad. Most of them were raring to get back to Iraq. They were enlisted men, not National Guardsmen, lifers and patriots who answered the call of duty after 9/11. They hadn’t joined the US Marines to get an education. If the War on Terror wasn’t a holy war, it came pretty damned close.

The first two weeks in Fallujah had seemed hopeful. They only realized in retrospect they had been kidding themselves. The departing Eighty-Second Airborne Division was disillusioned, but that was typical of the army. Marines were far more versatile. They were better equipped to carry out the next phase of operations, building a new free Iraq from the ground up. Sinclair’s battalion had already helped restore municipal services in several Shiite towns on the Tigris River. They prided themselves on a history of humanitarian campaigns, including the peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Winning the hearts and minds of the people of Fallujah seemed entirely possible after the liberation of Baghdad.

Scores of military engineers and private contractors flooded into Fallujah. With the exception of occasional raids to round up suspected insurgents, marines shouldered their guns and worked with locals to rebuild the city’s infrastructure. They handed out candy and yo-yos to bashful kids with reticent mothers. Sinclair was usually stationed atop buildings, to make sure nothing happened to his buddies mingling with the crowd below. The idea was to neutralize the enemy by cultivating local support. Psychological operations units called it meet-and-greet detail. Hard-core gunners like McCarthy called it shooting the shit, a poor substitute for shooting bad guys.

“Looks good on paper,” McCarthy said. “Not so good when you’re meeting and greeting suicide bombers.”

A PSYOP officer pulled out an official report. They were always quoting statistics, like anyone gave a damn.

“It worked in Habbaniyah,” he said. “Meet and greet outperformed search-and-destroy missions two to one.”

“Habbaniyah isn’t Fallujah,” McCarthy said.

“It’s a Sunni town.”

“It’s Disneyland compared to this snake pit.”

Sinclair was less skeptical. But then he was a sniper, not a gunner, more apt to bide his time than rush headlong into battle. The mood on the streets seemed to support the long view. Fallujans appeared optimistic, almost buoyant. Looking back, Sinclair wondered if it had all been an act. Either the people were complicit, or anticoalition forces hadn’t yet successfully infiltrated Fallujah.

The Brooklyn Bridge debacle derailed everything. Sinclair’s outrage was more nuanced than that of the average consumer of the evening news. Those four security contractors had no business traipsing through Fallujah without military authorization. No doubt they were in a hurry, trying to squeeze in one last supply delivery before payday. Anything to make an extra buck. It wasn’t the first time Blackwater guards had taken matters into their own hands, threatening the success of the peacekeeping mission in Anbar Province. So much for meeting and greeting the Iraqi people.

Central intelligence had identified the ringleaders responsible for the mutilations on the bridge. Within a day or two, US Special Forces would be ready to start hunting them down one by one. With such highly specialized assassins on hand, there was no earthly reason to launch an attack on the city. A full-force assault would only fan the fire of resentment smoldering in Fallujah, giving Ba’athists and jihadists the momentum they needed to recruit a steady stream of insurgents. Fallujah had not yet reached the tipping point. There were still more allies than enemies among civilians.

The general of the Marine Expeditionary Force was already on the phone with Washington, explaining the volatile situation on the ground. He had never spoken directly with the White House, not even during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The voice on the other end of the line was peremptory. Impatient. The spectacle of hanging bodies dominated the conversation.

“Cut to the chase, General. Somebody needs to pay for this.”

“Special Forces will track down the Brooklyn Bridge insurgents. That way marines can keep cultivating local support.”

“Sounds like a mixed message to me.”

“Sir?”

“We need to broadcast, loud and clear, that nobody terrorizes Americans with impunity.”

“Make no mistake. Sparing the innocent won’t compromise our vigilant resolve to punish the guilty.”

“What about all those people cheering on the sidelines? You call them innocent?”

“I’m not following you.”

“Does the word
insubordination
mean anything to you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m handing you a big stick, General. Use it.”

Military men are trained to make strategic rather than emotional decisions, calculating the best way to achieve their objective with the least number of casualties. They never play to an audience. The image of those brutalized contractors, invading American homes on television, horrified the general no less than anyone else. But four bodies were never cause enough to put an entire battalion of soldiers at risk, let alone a city of civilians. The order to launch Operation Vigilant Resolve came from the top. The only traces of the general’s recommendations were the words
vigilant
and
resolve
.

In Washington, the tactical shift from meet and greet to search and destroy was initiated before the bodies were even lowered from the bridge. Engineers and contractors were airlifted from the city. Tanks and bulldozers rolled in from Ramadi. Usually they spent weeks planning and rehearsing major offensives. This time the attack was scheduled to begin in forty-eight hours. Three of the four mutilated bodies had already been surrendered to the authorities. The fourth was purportedly en route. Everything was under control in Fallujah long before the commander in chief intervened.

Back at the base after an uneventful night patrol, Sinclair and Logan prepared their gear for inspection. They had heard through the lance corporal grapevine that Special Forces were hot on the trail of the monsters responsible for the lynching. Presumably their platoon would back them up when they moved in for the kill. Sinclair and Logan never talked much. They both relished silence after the belligerent bravado of their buddies. Not that they didn’t love them. Military men seldom spoke of the bonds of blood that bound them. For all their talk of freedom and Christian values, or vengeance and retribution, the real reason they rushed headlong into battle was for each other.

Sinclair cleaned his machine gun rather than his rifle. Special Forces would bring their own snipers. Sinclair noticed Logan’s barrel rag was shredded, so he handed over his own. When he finished reassembling his automatic, he sat with the gun on his lap, half listening to Logan’s whispered prayers and the crackle of AK-47 fire in the distance. A soft breeze blew through an open window. Dusk was his favorite time of day. The last trace of desert sunset faded into darkness before he stretched out on his cot. Logan was already snoring overhead. He always slept on the top bunk.

“Closer to God,” Logan liked to say.

“More exposed to air strikes,” Sinclair pointed out.

“I’m not worried,” Logan would say. “He’s got me covered.”

The call came at 2100 hours. The platoon was instructed to report to the staging ground. Their battalion commander, Colonel Denning, was very old school. He always insisted that his troops hear official orders in drill formation. Captain Phipps was also on hand, along with several other company commanders. Colonel Denning approached the podium and adjusted the microphone. He towered over Captain Phipps, who stood by his side, stone-faced. McCarthy called them Mutt and Jeff.

“Central Command has issued the order to invade the city of Fallujah,” Colonel Denning said. “Code name Operation Vigilant Resolve.”

He waited until an almost imperceptible wave of excitement subsided in the ranks.

“Three battalions will coordinate offensives. 2/1, 1/5, and the Thundering Third.”

Colonel Denning turned to Captain Phipps. They exchanged salutes and Colonel Denning left the field. Captain Phipps stepped forward and grabbed the mike, yanking it down to his level with excessive force. Sinclair expected him to brief them on the rationale of the offensive. He was an approachable officer who believed in sharing strategic information with his men. But his presentation was short and sweet and inexplicable.

“Kilo Company will be responsible for clearing and holding the area east of Highway 10,” Captain Phipps said. “Platoon commanders will issue specific directives.”

Captain Phipps seemed to look each of his men in the eye. He paused, on the verge of continuing, and then apparently decided against it.

“Dismissed.”

“Rock and roll,” Trapp said, slapping Wolf on the back.

Sinclair and Logan exchanged furtive glances. This game plan flew in the face of everything they’d learned about warfare in Iraq. Attacking the city to apprehend the Brooklyn Bridge insurgents would be like dynamiting a stream to catch a school of trout.

“Somebody’s in one hell of a hurry to make an example of Fallujah,” Logan said.

Sinclair refused to believe it. Military men were above scapegoating an entire city for the actions of a handful of embedded insurgents. Their objectives were more strategic, less symbolic. The logic of Operation Vigilant Resolve escaped him, but he blamed his own shortsightedness. No one trusted the wisdom of his superiors more than Lance Corporal Sinclair.

The platoon was ordered to prepare for a week’s foray into East Manhattan. Their base was several miles outside of Fallujah. They packed thousands of pounds of ammunition, leaving precious little room for anything else. Stuffed to capacity, their rucksacks held 3,200 cubic inches of whatever they needed to stay alive. Grenades and clean socks were about the same size. Foot rot was smelly and painful but not lethal. You do the math.

At 0800 hours they reported to the northern perimeter of Queens to help evacuate citizens to camps outside of harm’s way. Tanks with loudspeakers were broadcasting warnings of the impending attack. Fallujah’s elders and sheikhs had been asked to spread the word in neighborhoods, and local media outlets had been notified. They were too pressed for time to distribute leaflets promising clemency to allies and death to everyone else. Most of the population had already seen them anyway, the last time Americans blew through town.

Sinclair’s platoon proceeded on foot to Highway 10, which cut straight through the heart of the city. All four lanes were clogged with traffic moving slowly enough to allow inspection of passengers jammed beyond capacity into vehicles ranging from Mercedes-Benzes to patchwork taxis made of cast-off parts. Vast numbers threaded their way through the creeping cars, fleeing on foot. Teams of marines were responsible for patrolling an eighth of a mile of highway. Sinclair paired up with McCarthy. Interpreters were available in case Iraqis had questions or needed to be questioned. The evacuation was primarily humanitarian, but it was also considered an intelligence-gathering opportunity.

“Unbelievable,” McCarthy said.

“All these people?” Sinclair asked.

“All the time we’re wasting. Last I knew, we were marines. Not glorified traffic cops.”

“Damn right.”

Once the offensive was officially announced, even Sinclair was anxious to mobilize. McCarthy kept griping until a car bomb exploded fifty feet from their post. When the smoke cleared, they rushed over to the burning shell.

“Stand back!” Sinclair shouted.

A circle of spectators looked blandly at the approaching Americans. The studied blankness of their expressions conveyed the prevailing myth that no one was responsible for the flames leaping from the car. Feigned indifference on the faces of Fallujans was far more ominous than blatant hatred. You never knew where you stood with them.

“Fucking cowards,” McCarthy said.

Miraculously no one was hurt. The bomb was more a calling card than anything else, a greeting from insurgents camouflaged in the crowd. McCarthy stopped complaining about being a traffic cop. Sinclair adjusted his body armor to calm himself. They started rotating duty, taking turns directing the flow of so-called civilians and covering each other in case someone decided to take potshots at infidel invaders.

People rolled up their windows as they passed. Never mind the fact that the temperature had already topped eight-five degrees. Roasting in a closed car was presumably preferable to breathing the same air as Americans. This was their first evacuation, but Fallujans had heard plenty of horror stories about Baghdad. When asked to leave home for your own safety, odds were against having a home to return to when the threat subsided. Trunks were bulging with valuables, secured with twine to maximize the load. Refugees on foot labored under the weight of backpacks and suitcases. Anyone empty-handed was probably up to no good.

Usually only men and emboldened teens gave Americans dirty looks. Now mothers with crying children glared at them as they rushed by. Their burqas covered everything but their malice. Extended families followed wizened patriarchs, more abled generations supporting the enfeebled and carrying the very young. Men in the prime of life were conspicuously absent from the throng. Teenagers roamed in packs, pretending to evacuate. Two young boys pushed an old woman in a wheelbarrow, a rangy dog yapping at their heels. She alone seemed oblivious to the sweltering stream of hostility.