Hunting Down Saddam (17 page)

• Soldiers from the
[censored]
Brigade Combat Team and Iraqi Police Service Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams disarmed an improvised explosive device in the
[censored]
building at about 1345 hrs. A hand grenade was placed inside a soft drink can with the detonator protruding from the top.

• Task Force 1st Armored Division artillerymen conducted a counter-fire mission against a site confirmed as the point of origin within minutes after an earlier enemy mortar attack in northwestern Baghdad at 1915 hrs. Five 105mm artillery rounds were fired into the site, silencing the attack.

The above excerpt provides an inside glimpse of the day-to-day efforts in Iraq. Winning the “official war” isn't enough. Coalition forces, while certainly making marked progress, are still fighting deep pockets of resistance and ever-present danger.

Dana Lewis traveled back to Mosul over Christmas. He followed Joe Anderson on many raids … and even to his weekly radio and TV message. He found some extremely tired men, drained perhaps more by the loss of close colleagues, including their CSM Jerry Lee Wilson, than by the long deployment to Iraq itself.

Jerry Lee's murder had left everyone in shock in the Strike Brigade. A fellow sergeant major said that he and Wilson had joked about not taking security as they drove across town.

“Jerry Lee didn't want to make a fuss, didn't want to ask for gun trucks and security just to drive to another base in the same city,” he said. CSM Wilson paid for that decision with his life.

The killing of CSM Wilson and the downing of two Black Hawks in Mosul changed the direction of what until then had been the biggest success story in Iraq. The 101st went from velvet gloves to a new offensive in November.

In an intelligence briefing at the 101st, officers said they had arrested a handful of Al Qaeda in Mosul raids. “There is no doubt they are here,” said one officer. Why the Army brass didn't announce this, and confirm the facts, left everyone wondering. Perhaps it was because they didn't want to tip off Al Qaeda. Perhaps it was political. Or it may be that the 101st's intelligence gleaned in raids wasn't convincing enough. However, the intel unit
was
convinced.

According to COL Anderson, “We couldn't
not
respond to attacks. We launched a new offensive. I personally began to approve every target based on intelligence. We wouldn't wait days to confirm and watch and wait when we got information. We moved on everything.”

In one month, the 101st Airborne (AASLT) detained more insurgents than they previously had in four months!

In December 2003, in a background briefing in Baghdad, Dana Lewis recorded the comments of a senior military official: “We think Al Qaeda is here. But we also now know there are others who have joined the insurgency. Syrians, Iranians, Yemenis, and now for the first time we are tracking members of the Lebanese Hezbollah.”

The Hezbollah, or “Party of God,” which gained great experience fighting Israel in its occupation of a strip in southern Lebanon known as the Security Zone, is a group well experienced in guerrilla tactics, including explosives. Its emergence in Iraq has caused the U.S. Army great concern.

COL Anderson's new offensive had paid off. The attacks by insurgents seemed to decrease. The northern part of Iraq again seemed to be more peaceful. But postwar tactics in engaging the media were a roller coaster; Dana Lewis and his colleagues felt the pressure to keep reporting so-called “positive stories.”

In Baghdad, BG Mark Hertling invited reporters to background briefings with his boss, CG (Commanding General) Dempsey. It was the “silver spoon” approach. Embedded reporters were offered more patrols and better access, in exchange for showing a different picture. Indeed the embeds tried to report the positive side, which showed a success in raids against insurgents, but the military seemed immensely frustrated by the fact that embeds continued to report the deaths of soldiers and the ongoing rocket and mortar attacks on not only U.S. bases, but even the former Palace of Saddam Hussein—now occupied by Paul Bremer and the new Governing Council.

Almost every night, according to Dana Lewis, BG Hertling would write him long e-mails, either criticizing or praising his work. Hertling was incredibly informative, but also seemed demanding in his attempts to have editorial input. According to Lewis, Hertling may have done this not only with him while he was working at FOX TV, but also with other news agencies in Baghdad.

One night, Dana reported on a demonstration outside a mosque following a raid by U.S. forces, in which they arrested the Imam, or spiritual leader, and were accused of tearing a Koran. In the same report, Lewis reported on the denials by U.S. commanders that they had done any damage to the mosque, and further, that they seized a large amount of weapons inside and called the mosque “a center for criminal and terrorist activity.”

Despite what Dana Lewis thought was fair reporting, the curtain came down. BG Hertling sent a note to Dana's boss in New York, and threatened to cut FOX TV off because of their reporting.

In the previous week, Dana had asked for, and been promised, a profile on Hertling's CG Dempsey. The idea was that Dempsey would lead the reporter and cameraman through Baghdad, talking about the Army's successes and plans for the future. Suddenly, BG Hertling told Lewis that the granted interview was off until they (Dana's news crew) proved themselves! Here is an excerpt of that correspondence, provided by Lewis:

Dana, not trying to leverage one story against another, and not trying to start a “process.” Just trying to get you the things you need, within reason. And haven't threatened to “close down” anything, just telling you it will take more work for me to convince the CG that he should do a profile with Fox. Unfortunately, those are the consequences based on what he—and I—have seen lately.… [edit]

Not trying to shut you out … really. You must admit we have been more open with you and given you more things than any other network. But it's still our call in what we give you [as] sanctions to cover within the division footprint. Just like it's your call to decide what you report.

It amazed Lewis that the Army would be so shortsighted. They were giving BG Hertling and his boss CG Dempsey an opportunity. According to Lewis, the Army shot themselves in the foot by using it to leverage news coverage.

Lewis called his boss at FOX TV, John Moody, who supported his decision to write back to Hertling and inform him that he was removing his request for Dempsey. They needed to show the Army they could not influence news coverage by “leveraging access,” as Dana called it.

Lewis wrote CG Dempsey to discuss the matter but didn't get a reply.

It needs to be said that for the most part, BG Hertling believed passionately that the 1st Armored Division was winning the war against the insurgency, even as he upped his estimates from seven to ten cells operating in Baghdad (in November), to up to fourteen cells by December. He made an unprecedented attempt to engage Lewis to report their side of the story, giving him a great amount of access, and exchanging many e-mails nightly to help FOX TV get the facts right. But even the 1st Armored Division felt that the new Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) had badly organized press briefings. The Army's Central Command (CENTCOM) press desk was slow, and usually provided press releases on major news events twenty-four hours later, with little information.

If the Army had won the media war during the embed proc-ess and taking of Iraq, it lost a huge amount of ground in postwar hostilities by poorly engaging the media and getting its message out. According to Lewis, BG Hertling and CG Dempsey felt that the 1st Armored Division had to sidestep the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) and CPIC (Coalition Provisional Information Center) in order to reach out to the media, and the 1st Armored Division attempted to do so, with some success.

In the end, GEN (General) Dempsey did a FOX News interview. He invited Lewis to a briefing about the Army's success, and challenges ahead. BG Hertling later wrote Lewis a letter, in which he said that he had learned from his experiences. He started to write to Lewis again on an almost-nightly basis, telling him of raids carried out, and of captured bomb makers and financiers.

BG Hertling also praised Lewis for his coverage of the massive car bomb attack on the main Coalition compound in Baghdad on Sunday, January 18th, in which a suicide bomber detonated a thousand-pound bomb explosive outside the Assassin's Gate of the compound, killing more than two dozen, and wounding over one hundred people. As long as the reports included the Army's assertion that violence was on a decline, even in the midst of such a large attack, commanders felt “their side of the story” was being told.

Task Force DAGGER

LTC Christopher K. Haas

When I met with him in September 2003, LTC Christopher K. Haas was the deputy commander for 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). During Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, Haas was the commander of 1st Battalion of the 5th SFG (A).

At the start of the war, according to Haas, his battalion was about fifty vehicles strong, packed to the gills with Green Beret and Aussie commandos, ready to breach through the berm in western Iraq on the first night of the war.

The Special Operators and their support had driven through the deserts of Jordan, down to Saudi Arabia, where there was an ideal location for them to infiltrate. Their support would be a unit from the Florida National Guard, who was there to do the actual breaching, while the SF troopers kept an eye out for signs of the enemy.

LTC Haas said his men had trained well for taking care of the breaches, with several months of drilling and focus on their executions before the war began. This made the Western Desert breaches incredibly smooth—the soldiers had it down to a fine art. Now it was time to apply that training.

The 5th SFG had just won their trial by combat in the deserts of Afghanistan. Their code name in Afghanistan, Task Force DAGGER, was resurrected once more, as they prepared to enter combat against a new and deadly foe.

Task Force DAGGER

CJSOTF-W, or Task Force DAGGER
, was comprised of the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). They infiltrated into western Iraq through two berms along the Saudi Arabian–Iraqi borders, and moved into western Iraq to two locations, Ar Rutbah and Ar Ramadi. Some locations have been changed at the request of Special Operations Security.
Courtesy: CIA World Factbook 2003

The Breach

5th SFG (A)'s Bravo and Charlie Companies were poised in their vehicles, ready to hear the presidential orders that would give them the green light to simultaneously invade Iraq. A Florida National Guard Infantry Company was with them; the Guardsmen carried pickaxes and entrenching tools. By hand they would have to transform an impasse of dirt and stone marking the boundary into Iraq. They would do it, according to operators on the ground that night, in an inhumanly rapid time of two hours and fifteen minutes.

Picking the ideal spots for Task Force DAGGER to breach Saddam's barricades was not an easy task, however. Reconnaissance efforts were critical and Special Forces recon teams mapped out the best sites weeks in advance. The U.S. Air Force's Operation SOUTHERN WATCH flew sorties on Iraqi guard posts and ADA (Air Defense Artillery) nets or ground systems below the 38th parallel. Key enemy guard posts that could spot the breach and tip off Saddam were blown up ahead of time.

According to U.S. intelligence sources, Saddam's Iraqi border guards were “the weakest force they had in their inventory.” Losing the element of surprise was more of a concern than the fight they might put up, so SOUTHERN WATCH took flight and punched a few holes in Saddam's security belt, guided in by the SF recon teams.

Bravo Company had a caravan of seventy-five vehicles for their detachment alone, which included their Australian SAS (Special Air Service) counterparts. The humvees and Pinkies (Land Rovers) were loaded down with rucksacks and gear, strapped to the bumpers and sides of the vehicle. Antennae and satellite uplinks bristled along the tops, and machine guns and belt-fed grenade launchers were mounted everywhere. It was a scene from out of a
Mad Max
movie, and viewing it through the green light of NVGs (Night Vision Goggles) added to the weirdness.

Here and there an SF sharpshooter stood atop the berm, facing the wind, and scanning the black horizon for signs of trouble. Through the green filter of the NVGs, the darkness of the desert took on an alien-like quality, looking like a scene from the surface of the moon. Bleak, flat, rocky soil spread out in all directions, making this giant berm the only geographic feature in what seemed like a hundred square miles.

The breach spot was twenty miles northwest of Judaiat al Hamir. Charlie Company would cross there, and enter a system of
sha'ibs
and wadis. Bravo Company would cross at a point north of there. These dry riverbeds would hopefully conceal the Green Berets and their vehicles as they raced northeast.