Hunting Down Saddam
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Authors: Robin Moore
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CONTENTS
St. Martin's Paperbacks Titles by Robin Moore
Outstanding Praise for Robin Moore's Gripping Real-Life Accounts
DEDICATION
To SFC Bill Bennett, MSG Kevin Morehead, CSM Jerry Wilson, and all of the hundreds of brave servicemen and -women who have given their lives during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and the Global War on Terror.
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“To those who have fought for it, life has a special flavor that the protected will never know.”
âMotto of the Special Operations Association
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Dedicated to those who have fought for freedom in Iraq, and in places far flung and unsung. Too many of you have paid the ultimate price.
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This book is also dedicated to those who are still Missing in Action, from “Mad Dog” Jerry Shriver to Scott Speicher, and all the warriors before and after.
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You are not forgotten.
FOREWORD BY MARK VARGAS
Just after midnight on an early December morning at Baghdad International Airport, my colleague Peter Lofgren and I were waiting patiently onboard a C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft, destined for Kuwait. Without notice, a military chaplain appeared out of the darkness near the ramp of the aircraft, and announced that the plane would be carrying three of our soldiers who had been KIA (Killed in Action). Instantly, there was staunch silence among the fifty or so passengers, the majority in uniform. Following the chaplain's announcement, a provisional honor guard carried onboard the first fallen comrade and rendered honors. Without direction, we rose in unison and snapped to attention, holding a salute as each casket was loaded onto the aircraft.
Stirring and emotional events like these tend to be far removed from the American public. These were America's sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, who placed their lives in jeopardy to uphold the right of freedom.
As a former Special Forces soldier (Command Sergeant Major (D), Ret.), veteran of Operations URGENT FURY, DESERT STORM, and several Special Category Missions, I was honored to be asked to write the foreword to Robin Moore's
Hunting Down Saddam
, a book that brings to light the triumphs and tragedies behind Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and the hunt for Saddam Hussein. Moore is a Special Forces brother, an icon, and esteemed expert on the past and present lineage of Special Forces.
Robin Moore's illustrious career spans four decades as an author and supporter of Special Forces and the U.S. military, and cannot be measured in words or deedsâthere are far too many. Moore is the only civilian to have received special permission to attend, and thus pass, the Special Forces Qualification Course and Airborne School. He was subsequently deployed to Vietnam with the 5th SFG (A) to Vietnam in 1964. He used his experiences to bring to the world an inside glimpse into the life of the Green Beret, in his book
The Green Berets
.
I was fortunate to make Robin Moore's acquaintance in 1981 while attending the Special Forces Qualification Course in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As was true of most other soldiers in my position, Robin Moore and
The Green Berets
meant something to me personally. I remain very proud of Robin's devotion to our country and countrymen who are fighting and supporting the U.S. Global War on Terror (GWOT).
I was with Robin in Iraq in October and November 2003. I was there in my role as Area Security Manager for KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root), stationed in Tikrit at Camp Speicher/Camp Ironhorse, alongside the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division. Robin was there to write this book. For his most recent bestseller,
The Hunt for Bin Laden
, Moore had spent nearly a month living next to the men of the 5th Special Forces Group (A) in Afghanistan. For
Hunting Down Saddam
, Moore did it again. Celebrating his seventy-eighth birthday in Baghdad, and suffering from Parkinson's disease, Moore still had the internal strength and fortitude to obtain firsthand accounts of battlefield experiences of our brave young men and women in uniform. In
Hunting Down Saddam
, he brings to the page his brilliance, authority, and determination in illustrating and capturing significant battles and the daily challenges of the soldiers and leaders of the 3rd, 5th, and 10th Special Forces Groups Airborne, as well as those of the 101st Airborne Assault Division “Screaming Eagles” and the 4th Infantry Division “Regulars,” culminating with the capture of Saddam.
The content and characters in
Hunting Down Saddam
are a part of my life. Moore writes of the Green Berets with whom I used to fight, and he writes of the private contractors and reconstruction efforts in Iraq that I am involved with. Moore writes about Major General (MG) Ray Odierno, for whom I served as Force Protection Officer in Operation ALLIED FORCE, in Albania. And he writes of Odierno's 4th ID, who were behind the raid that captured Saddam, and who initially detained him a few hundred meters from my worksite in the Tikrit Palace compound. Incidentally, Robin Moore had spent time here during his trip to Iraq. He was given a tour of the Palace Compound, none of us knowing that Saddam himself would be brought there as a prisoner just seven weeks later.
In typical Robin Moore style, he unflinchingly examines the daring and emotional accounts of our fellow countrymen who are risking their lives as the U.S. military machine accomplishes its first objective of the war, regime change, and progresses toward the arduous objective: building a secure and free Iraqâfree from lawlessness, terrorism, and oppression.
War is an exercise in the uncontrollable and unpredictable. War is volatile, unattractive, and disconcerting, at the same time explosive and gripping. Moore chronicles the dimensions of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and the Global War on Terror, redefines the fundamentals of the unconventional warfare (UW) mission of Special Forces, and underscores the modern-day urban battlefield tactics of light and heavy U.S. Army Divisions. This book is a must-read for those seeking to understand the art of unconventional warfare, one of the premier trademarks of past and present-day Special Forces. Employing modern weaponry, tactics, techniques, and procedures, the outnumbered Green Berets overcame the odds on the battlefield, using non-doctrinal strategies to defeat and outwit the enemy. Although the best technology and weaponry are prolifically applied, the Special Forces credo of brotherhood continues to be the underlying strength that forges the cohesiveness of this special breed of men.
Unpredictably, the challenge to Coalition forces was exponentially increased after President Bush declared the cessation of major combat activity. At home, the American public tuned in and began to express euphoria. All the signs were present, the stock market was up and news broke that our men and women would be coming home soon.
Challenged daily with implausible and hearsay intelligence, the light and heavy forces of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Assault Division, led by MG David Petraeus, and the 4th Infantry Division, led by MG Ray Odierno, continued to attack at the heart of the insurgency, initially in a reactionary posture, reacting to the hit-and-run tactics of the Iraqi Fedayeen, Former Regime Loyalists, Al Qaeda, the al-Zarqawi Network as well as Ansar al-Islam, the Syrian Fedayeen, and other outside terrorist groups. Employing hit-and-run tactics, a strategy of guerrilla warfare, these insurgent forces appeared to be gaining an edge on an irregular and undefined battlefield. Attacks were occurring within minutes of each other within a three-hundred-kilometer area; an Area Network, a criterion of UW was now firmly established. Who was leading it? Saddam? Was and is it his remaining generals? How could the Coalition break the back of the insurgency? What level of involvement do outside forces have? Deaths were mounting and the Coalition needed a monumental event to break the will of the insurgency.
The U.S. war machine began to reinsert and employ hard-hitting and aggressive tactics, fueled and achieved through credible and real-time intelligence, and designed to punish those supporting the insurgency. In July of 2003, a series of informants seeking reward money came forth and began providing indeterminate information on the whereabouts of Saddam's sons. The U.S. Army intelligence collection efforts capitalized on this information and began linking the pieces of the puzzle. With what proved to be actionable intelligence, a brigade from the “Screaming Eagles” of the 101st Airborne Assault Division, led by Colonel (COL) Joe Anderson, and the ultrasecret Task Force 20, conducted a successful raid “to capture or kill” Uday and Qusay. This event would achieve a major milestone toward cracking the insurgency's command and control network and span of control in the northern region.
Hunting Down Saddam
details the moments prior to, during, and after significant victories such as the raid on Uday and Qusay Hussein, the taking of the city of Kirkuk, and, of course, the capture of Saddam himself. But Moore doesn't just simply give us his interpretation of the events; he includes firsthand accounts from soldiers themselves, from an embedded reporter, from a general, a commander, and others. Moore spent time interviewing and visiting the Special Forces (3rd, 5th, and 10th Groups), the 101st Airborne, the 82nd Airborne, the 4th Infantry Division, the security arm of Kellogg, Brown & Root, news stations, and embedded reporters. So many of these groups were eager to share their thoughts and insight into the war effort, providing personal recollections, letters to friends and family, diaries, military reports, after-action journals, and more. For example, Dana Lewis, embedded reporter for NBC and later FOX News, supplied Robin Moore with invaluable personal recollections and an ongoing report of the efforts of the 101st, with which he was stationed.
In an equally significant contribution, Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Steve Russell, Commander of the “Regulars,” 4th Infantry Division, shares the good, the bad, and the horrors of war through a series of personal dispatches. His account of the daily rigors of fighting the counterinsurgency war is an emotional roller-coaster ride, filled with motivating moments of victory and solemn moments of grief and loss. On December 13, 2003, at approximately 2030 hours, after eight months of hunting down Saddam, LTC Russell's cohorts in the 4th ID, led by COL Hickey and working with Task Force 121, finally nab High Value Target #1!
Robin Moore delivers the inside story of the long search for and eventual capture of Saddam Hussein. Transitioning on dangerous supply routes, flying over vulnerable Iraqi airspace, and even experiencing Iraqi insurgency indirect-fire attacks, Moore got the report firsthand, and from our nation's finest men and women. Moore embraces his devotion to his country and his craft in bringing the true story of patriotism to the people of America and beyond.
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of Liberty.”
