Hunting Down Saddam (8 page)

The flag of the Kurds, called “Iraqi Kurdistan,” is a blazing yellow sun over the center of the Iraqi flag of red, white, and green. Since the first Gulf War, the Kurds in the “autonomous zone,” the mountainous areas of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, western Iran, and eastern Turkey, have developed viable political, military, and social structures. The one structure that the Kurds lack is a solid economic base, and it is exactly this that the four Kurd-occupied nations fear the most.

If the Kurds gained their independence, it would, according to official sources, have a “Domino Effect” of destabilization on all of the four nations, Turkey being the most affected. With border control, thriving trade routes, and a fairly large standing army, Iraqi Kurdistan has fought tooth and nail for everything they have gained over the last decade, and is very reluctant to give up what land they have gained since 1991.

Kurds became persona non grata in their own homelands after World War I, with the division of the Ottoman Empire. These indigenous peoples were left out in the cold—literally and figuratively, when they weren't factored into the postwar division of the lands, in part prompted by the discovery of oil in Mosul.

Given the large number of Kurds displaced from their homes and businesses during Saddam's “Arabization,” many problems lie ahead in the resettling of cities like Mosul and Kirkuk.

Camp Loki

It took a couple more days' worth of coaxing and negotiations to get Mustafa and his men to assist the Green Berets in retaking the Northwest Irbil Airfield, especially given that the CAS had been halted by the inclement weather. The men of 10th Group explained to General Mustafa that without the airfield, they could not ship in the necessary weapons, ammunition, and supplies to adequately equip their joint forces.

Iraqi Minority Areas

Iraq's
two ethnic minorities, the Kurds and the Shi'ia, or “Marsh Arabs,” were the subject of Saddam's genocide and torture experiments. The Northern and Southern No-Fly Zones were established to protect these oppressed minority groups.
Courtesy:
CIA (a Map Folio, 1992) and the University of Texas

The Green Berets told the Pesh that their first vitally important operation to date would be to clear out the AAA positions surrounding the airfield. It would also be their first challenge. The AAA batteries surrounding the Northwest Irbil Airfield made it impossible to land a C-130 supply plane, or even fly by close enough to airdrop supplies to the troops. Without supplies, the situation could only get worse.

On March 26, the Kurds and the U.S. troops prepared themselves, and the combined forces assaulted the airfield in a wave of strength and righteousness. With Javelin man-pack antitank missiles, the Special Operators fired on the Iraqi tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs), and AAA guns that were dug in around the airstrip. The Peshmerga rebels assaulted the enemy positions with their AK-47s and other small arms. A small contingent of Kurds also manned several mortars and heavy machine guns.

That same day, 10th SFG (A) and a contingent of Pesh fighters secured a DZ (Drop Zone) for the 173rd Airborne Brigade's insertion into northern Iraq in the same vicinity. The 173rd would be the first regular infantry unit to infiltrate into Irbil, followed by 2nd BN (Battalion) 14th INF (Infantry), and the 10th Mountain Division, who were to set up security and guard the airfield. The first helicopter stationed in northern Iraq, a 352nd Special Operations Group MH-53, landed at Irbil on March 26, as well. The 26th of March was a victorious and productive day for TF VIKING and their new airfield. The old SUVs were replaced with armored Land Rovers (nicknamed “pinkies” by the Brits), which afforded more protection, maneuverability, and hard points to mount crew-served weapons such as .50 caliber machine guns, Javelin missiles, and Mark-19 grenade launchers.

The armored “pinkies” positively bristled with radio antennae and portable satellite uplinks. Rucksacks, gear, and ammo were strapped along their front and sides, giving the Rovers an otherworldly appearance.

The Northwest Irbil Airfield was renamed “Camp Loki,” after the mischievous Norse god, and an apt name it was, as its members were true to the Nordic spirit of Task Force VIKING.

The “bare bones” of Camp Loki quickly took shape with hard work from VIKING's TF SPT (Task Force Support) and the soldiers of Bravo Company, 528th SOSB (Special Operations Support Battalion). The headquarters for CJSOTF-N was moved to Irbil from Salah ad Din on March 29, the same day that the first MC-130 landed on the airstrip. Within weeks, Northwest Irbil Airfield would support over one thousand five hundred soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and the large contingent of Kurd warriors.

The Special Forces contingent tasked with defending the Irbil sector (AOB 040) was a company-sized element of nine ODAs, commanded by MAJ (Major) Eric Howard and SGM Tim Strong, and code-named ALPHA 210. It was an area of over one hundred kilometers of “frontline trace” to cover, stretching from the northwest up to Aski Kalak, down to Shaqlawah, Mahkmur, and Dibs, with a total area of between 10,000 and 15,000 kilometers of ground to cover, with little more than one hundred Green Berets to do the job.

Consequently, intelligence was minimal, and based on terrain analysis and past skirmishes. Because of the way the Iraqis had attacked Irbil in 1996, MAJ Howard decided it would be best to defend the key avenues of approach, and allocated teams to those “high-speed avenues” that would most likely be used in an attack by Iraqi armored and mechanized forces.

MAJ Howard's A-Teams set up Observation Posts on the best terrain available before asking the KDP guerrillas to join them. This cautious approach to setting up a defense would keep the signatures low and minimize the risk of being attacked by Saddam's forces before the Green Berets of TF VIKING were ready.

Objective STONE

Every day, the numbers of the Kurdish forces grew in VIKING's sector. The ranks of Mustafa's indigenous fighters swelled significantly after they witnessed the devastation that the Special Forces unleashed on the Iraqis' defenses, and the precision with which the air strikes were directed. The Green Berets' air assets flew in from every direction in support; from Navy carriers, and from airfields practically everywhere: Jordan, Afghanistan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, to name a few. The Peshmerga realized they would finally have a fighting chance against their oppressors.

By April 3, TF VIKING's commander and General Mustafa agreed that they had enough forces in their sector to start launching multiple hit-and-run guerrilla attacks on the front lines of Iraqi armor, which were dug in to protect a bridge at Aski Kalak.

10th Group's ODAs began sending recon elements to find weak points in the Iraqi lines near the bridge. Probing the Iraqi defenses was not without its dangers; there were a large number of Iraqi troops in the area, and the A-Teams and their Kurdish allies came under heavy volumes of fire, from both enemy small arms and tank rounds. The Green Berets were lucky; they came out unscathed. The Pesh suffered casualties, but very few. The bridge at Aski Kalak and the Iraqi armored company that stood their ground there was code-named Objective STONE, and was the focus of a combined Special Forces/Pesh offensive operation.

It was ODA 065's mission to seize Objective STONE. ODA 065 was commanded by MSG (Master Sergeant) Pat Quinn and CPT (Captain) Carver. The battle over the bridge lasted a bloody seven days, with vicious fighting back and forth. On three occasions that week, a QRF (Quick Reaction Force) consisting of two ODAs (043 and 045) and a force of Kurds had to roll into the area surrounding the bridge, because ODA 065 was on the verge of being overrun by the Iraqis.

On April 5, the last day of the fighting on the bridge, MAJ Howard observed from a hilltop as the Green Berets and the KDP guerrillas advanced six times, were beaten back six times, and finally took the bridge at Aski Kalak on their seventh try. The Green Berets and their Kurdish allies took heavy fire from machine guns, mortars, and artillery. Iraqi tank rounds ricocheted down the streets at the troops, tearing the bumpers off cars parked along the street to the bridge and wreaking great havoc.

The Iraqi armored task force that was dug in around the Aski Kalak Bridge attempted numerous counterattacks, but the Green Berets were unstoppable. Every piece of enemy armor was destroyed with CAS and the Green Berets' Javelin man-pack missile systems. “Not a single [Coalition] tank was available, nor needed,” said one Special Operator, to support Task Force VIKING in their attacks on the entrenched Iraqis.

Before the end of the first week, the combined U.S./Kurdish forces and their QRF had fought their way through the Iraqi armor, and were on to planning an offensive operation on an enemy stronghold near the town of Debecka, the gateway to the city of Mosul.

Objective ROCK

The next fierce assault on Iraqi armor units took place along the ridgeline of the Debecka Gap, code-named Objective ROCK. The first time the Special Forces laid eyes on the massive expanse of embedded Iraqi armor, it was, in the words of one of the operators, “phenomenal, and pretty scary.” There were literally entire battalions, perhaps even a division, dug in and protected, as far as the eye could see.

Debecka was an extremely hard TIA (Target Interdiction Area). Hard-core Ba'ath Party commandos dug into a remarkable system of three- to four-feet-deep trenches along the ridgelines. Bomb after bomb was dropped on the enemy ridgelines by U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers that circled the area in lazy figure eights, barely visible at their extremely high altitude. Still, the Iraqis hung on and defended their positions with tenacity.

By April 6, there was a clear path that ran approximately eighteen kilometers through the gap, straight to the bridge. The “run” down through the Debecka Gap, staying low and avoiding enemy fire, became known as “Sandoval's Run,” named after SGT (Sergeant) Tom Sandoval.

Sandoval's team went straight through the gap in the ridge, and all the way down to the crossroads of Highway 2. The ODA and their Pesh fighters now had several avenues of approach. The problem, however, was that the Debecka crossroads were also protected by Iraqi armored battalions.

Elements from the 3rd Special Forces Group accompanied the 10th Group strike teams. They carried Javelin Weapons Systems, which they launched at the Iraqi armor on their way down Sandoval's Run.

10th Special Forces Group (A) ODAs from FOB 102 and their Peshmerga counterparts assaulted the ridgeline and destroyed a company-sized element of Iraqi tanks and APCs, again with the use of Javelins. Special Forces were really starting to appreciate the surface-to-surface antitank missile at this point. They would later be dubbed “Javelin aces” in
The
New York Times
.

The Javelins were an impressive piece of weaponry. Once launched, the Javelin missiles would arc high in the sky before coming straight down on the tops of their targets and detonating, catching the Iraqi units completely off guard. Without horizontal flight paths to trace back to the missiles' origins, the Iraqis had no idea where the Javelins were fired from, or where to shoot back.

One 10th Group officer remarked: “Those things [Javelins] just fly, and they go up and come down [seemingly out of the bare sky], so when it hits two or three tanks, the tanks don't detect it. And so the people, the tank, the other tanks were like ‘Where are these coming from?'”

Unfortunately, the Special Operators didn't have that element of surprise when it came to their other weapons. The
thump-thump
of Mark-19s and the tracer-fire of their M2HB machine guns made it easier for the enemy to pinpoint the location of the attack.

Objective STONE and Objective ROCK were TF VIKING's first two primary obstacles to a huge push in forward momentum for the American/Pesh combined forces, and it wasn't long before both of the hostile objectives were cleared.

These objectives may have been the most important ones, but they were not the only offensive operations in the first few weeks of the war. One Special Forces source on the scene said that there were a total of thirteen A-Teams on the ground in this sector of Iraq between April 2 and April 10, and all thirteen were engaged in offensive operations, either against Iraqi “task force armored battalions” or Iraqi infantry “regiments.”

There were ODAs on the ground, as well as the CA (Civil Affairs) and PSYOPS (Psychological Operations) units attached to them. Accounts of the numbers of Pesh with the ODAs vary depending on the source, with one estimate conservatively placing their numbers at over six thousand of General Mustafa's KDP soldiers now under Special Forces command, while others have claimed the number to be around twenty thousand.

General Mustafa's KDP “division” was trained by the Special Forces and fought alongside them, but they were not armed by them. The Peshmerga had their own weapons and equipment, in varying states of usability. The Green Berets helped them service, clean, and maintain what they already had, and trained them on effective weaponry. Preventative Maintenance Checks and Services, or PMCS, a concept previously unheard of by the Pesh, could make all the difference in the world when bullets started to fly. Weapon or equipment failure was a matter of life and death, and the Green Berets needed to minimize that variable to the best of their ability.