Its most significant section, however, deals with the required actions of the brothers after capture. The Manual orders them to insist on proving that state security inflicted torture on them. They must “always complain of mistreatment or torture while in prison.”
The pure deviousness of this always frustrated former US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. “These detainees are trained to lie,” he stated. “They are trained to say they were tortured...their training manual says so.”
And that’s not all their training manual decreed. In its opening pages were the words: “The confrontation we are calling for knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing and destruction. And the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun.”
Ahmad Hashim Abd Al-Isawi was a disciple of al-Qaeda, and like the rest of his kind, he lived by the Manchester Manual. And right now he was trying to prove he was mistreated while in US captivity. That much was obvious to anyone. All he needed was a lawyer.
Lieutenant Jimmy, Echo Platoon’s officer-in-charge (OIC), found himself right in the middle of a dangerous controversy. He had observed the prisoner’s lip injury and the blood on his robes, and he had provided a new dishdasha (a long usually white robe traditionally worn by men in the Middle East) before handing him over to the Iraqi police along with the $6,000 Matt had confiscated.
Lieutenant Jimmy had checked that the chief medic, Paddy, had given the detainee a clean bill of health after screening him inside the holding cell, and he’d awakened everyone who could possibly shed any light on the matter.
By 0830 every Team 10 SEAL who had laid eyes on Al-Isawi since he was escorted to the holding cell was called into Danny’s, including the rookie master-at-arms.
What Lieutenant Jimmy wanted now was answers. If any one of his SEALs had whacked the Butcher, he wanted to know, because he, Jimmy, was obliged to write and then file a military report on precisely how Al-Isawi came to have blood on his dishdasha—blood and an injury that the Iraqi police had plainly seen.
And he knew his SEALs well. They are inherently unable to lie. They are too well versed in the one rule of the US Navy that is hammered into slabs of polished marble, the one rule that will cause any midshipman to be thrown out of the Naval Academy that day: lying cannot be tolerated.
From the youngest age the issue of truth is paramount. Serving combat officers in a warship that has been hit and burning cannot do anything for anyone except report the truth. There can be no versions, withholdings, or varnishing of the truth. It has to be the plain, simple, shining truth. Otherwise no one knows what the hell to do.
Navy SEALs, equally with battle commanders, have this stamped onto their hearts during BUD/S. No SEAL would dream of lying. All of them innately believe, regardless of whether they admit it, that the wrath of God would somehow strike them down for lying to an officer or, indeed, to anyone who wears the Dark Blue.
Simply stated, they would be too darned scared. But in the US Navy fear is not the sole guardian of honesty. The creed of truth at all times is a part of naval law. It’s the bedrock of the silent service. No matter the misdemeanor, every serving officer knows that when he asks, he will be told the truth. It’s in the DNA of every one of his men.
SEALs, as they must, believe themselves superior to all enemies. For any one of them to stoop to commit the naval sin of lying would be to break some kind of a sacred trust. Lieutenant Jimmy knew one thing above all else: when he asked his men whether anyone had punched Al-Isawi in the mouth or anywhere else, he would receive an honest answer.
This knowledge did not, however, lighten his mood. Because, as the officer in command of Objective Amber, he was empowered to investigate but obliged to report. Senior command would come straight to him for an explanation of the possible abuse of the prisoner while under the care of SEAL Team 10’s Echo Platoon.
Lieutenant Jimmy called the informal meeting to order and briefly outlined the situation: Al-Isawi had come out of his cell with blood around his mouth and on his robe, with a minor cut inside his lower lip.
“Who knows anything about this?” he said. “Because the CO is going to want answers. Prisoner abuse, as you all know, is taken very, very seriously around here.”
The officer gazed around the room. Gazed at his brave and dedicated SEALs, and it was immediately apparent that no one had the slightest idea what he was talking about. Certainly not the principal outsider, MA3 Brian Westinson, the duty guard and a non-SEAL who Matt said was making it clear that he saw nothing, heard nothing, and knew nothing.
“Brian also admitted he had been absent from his post,” said Matt. “Which, despite the plain implication of wrongdoing, opened up a window of opportunity—that someone else had sneaked in there while Brian was absent and attacked Al-Isawi.”
But the rest of the SEALs seemed merely bewildered. As indeed was Lieutenant Jimmy, who would very soon confirm that his men had never shown any behavioral issues while under his command and that they were all disciplined professionals.
In that room there was an unmistakable feeling of disbelief that any one of these trusted, supremely responsible servicemen would have done such a thing—and then stood right here and told a barefaced lie to their officer in command, right in front of everyone.
“There was something weird about the whole thing,” recalls Jon Keefe. “I just could not imagine any of the guys I worked real close with—you know, Matt, Sam, Eric, Rob, or Jason, and certainly not Carlton Milo Higbie the Twelfth—could have possibly behaved in that way. For what?”
(Jon provided himself with endless amusement by constantly increasing and varying the birth numbers after Carl’s name. This was, however, probably the final time he would ever find anything remotely funny about anything even distantly connected with the case of “Who Punched the Handcuffed Butcher of Fallujah?”)
No one could help. And for Lieutenant Jimmy this was a matter of extreme concern. Even after the meeting was ended and some of the SEALs stood around talking informally, the officer was given no clues. No one could remember anything that might have shed light.
Lieutenant Jimmy and Leading Petty Officer Sam Gonzales could not even help themselves. In the past hour they had escorted Al-Isawi to the handover and had both noticed that Ahmad Hashim’s behavior had changed dramatically when he came in sight of the Iraqi police. He suddenly started moaning and acting as though he were in pain, spitting blood from his mouth.
But this only deepened the mystery. Had someone really punched him? Or had he just braced himself and then bitten his own lip, more or less in accordance with the teachings of the Manchester Manual?
At this point it was obvious that Lieutenant Jimmy was most seriously on the hook. Because it was he to whom the high command would look for some kind of an explanation. Any kind. But something. And right now he had nothing.
And the principal military powers in Iraq were still neurotic over the worst military scandal to involve the United States for years: the outrages at nearby Abu Ghraib Jail (2004-2006), involving a whole string of incidents—human rights violations in the form of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, with reports of torture, rape, sodomy, and homicide of prisoners.
The US Army’s Criminal Investigation Command report had led to soldiers of the 320th military police battalion being charged under the Code of Military Justice with prisoner abuse. And the entire catastrophe burst into public awareness with a spate of national television programs and magazine articles.
It made the US military look pretty bad in front of its own people, but it raised hell among the public and was probably the United States’ military public relations disaster of the century. The Defense Department removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and they charged eleven soldiers with dereliction of duty, maltreatment of prisoners, and aggravated assault and battery.
Eleven soldiers were convicted by courts-martial, dishonorably discharged, and sentenced to military prison, one of them for ten years. The CO of all Iraqi deten
tion facilities was reprimanded for dereliction of duty and demoted from the rank of brigadier general to colonel.
Never had the US armed forces suffered such humiliation. And the notorious Abu Ghraib Jail was situated a mere eighteen miles from Camp Schwedler, right on the old road to Jordan, which crosses the desert west of Baghdad and meanders across the sand, all the way to Amman.
The sprawling penal center had earned the name “House of Horrors” long before the US military gave it everlasting notoriety. But the incidents, which led to those multiple courts-martial, enraged the Arab and Muslim worlds and caused a huge upsurge in new recruitment to the al-Qaeda armies.
The new buzzword was “prisoner abuse,” and the media seized upon it, with the words “Abu Ghraib” immediately following. US military commanders can deal with almost anything, including attack, war, death, and mayhem. But nothing—repeat, nothing—sends them into quite a collective tailspin as the claim “prisoner abuse.”
Which was why, essentially, Lieutenant Jimmy of SEAL Team 10, famous for the efficiency of its command and its training and preparation, was right now on the very edge of his nerves as the rumors of prisoner abuse swept through their desert camp.
Meanwhile the men of Echo Platoon were allowed to go back to bed. But not for long. After another couple of hours they were awakened again in response to a report from the Iraqi police that they could not hold the prisoner in Al-Karmah because he needed to be moved to Baghdad.
A few of the more imaginative SEALs put this down to the probable fact that the desert cops were still scared to death of Al-Isawi and everything he stood for, that he might somehow get free and come after the Iraqis’ families. They probably would not want him anywhere near them and had come up with some reason to hand him back to the Americans.
Anyway, they all had to drive over to Al-Karmah and collect the prisoner. And this resulted in endless delays while the Iraqis filled out the correct forms. And during those hours, naturally, all of the $6,000 Matt had confiscated went missing somewhere in the police department.
And so the SEALs took Al-Isawi to Baghdad, to the US holding facility, and handed him over. Lieutenant Jimmy signed a similar number of forms to those required for the unconditional surrender of the German army in May 1945.
Finally they were finished and drove back to Camp Schwedler, most of them hoping never again to hear the name Ahmad Hashim Abd Al-Isawi except when someone hanged him for murder. Didn’t much matter who.
There is a distinct form of bush telegraph in all military camps. Without one single announcement or phone call, the most outlandish pieces of information somehow drift around among the personnel. People seem to find things out by osmosis. Sometimes things are not even stated, but everyone still knows what’s afoot. It was no different in Camp Schwedler.
Jon was possessed of a particular sensitive set of antennae that would always serve him well in combat. And by Thursday morning, September 3, he and Matt both knew something was going on. Lieutenant Jimmy had asked for “shooter statements,” which are individual accounts of Wednesday’s events from everybody who had seen the Camp Schwedler detainee after his arrival at the base.
This included almost everyone, because they had all called into the holding cell to catch a glimpse of this most famous terrorist who was then under Team 10 supervision, thanks to their own efforts.
No one knew any details, and no one had read the latest reports from Baghdad. But there were rumors—as ever when dealing with al-Qaeda commanders—that wild accusations had been made, including very definite claims that the prisoner had been abused. That was all standard.
What no one knew, however, was that Ahmad Hashim Abd Al-Isawi, a member of the most flagrantly dishonest “military” organization on earth, had effectively cried “ABUSE!” He told US authorities he’d been badly beaten at the Camp Schwedler SEAL base. He said he’d been punched, kicked, hurled to the ground, and had his head stomped on—pounded in the face, chest, body and ribs.
Slightly contradictory to this was the fact that he did not have a mark on him. But it still put Lieutenant Jimmy in one hell of a spot. The bloodied prisoner he’d handed over had made a formal complaint accusing the SEALs of violence against him. No one—least of all Jimmy—had the slightest idea what was going on. But the words “prisoner abuse” were bouncing out of that report like a couple of whizbangs.
Officers in Baghdad, Fallujah, Ar-Ramadi, and Qatar were caucusing, and the old familiar, dreaded words and phrases were being stage whispered all over the desert: Abu Ghraib, maltreatment, beatings, lies, lack of protection, court-martial, human rights, dereliction of duty, proper care, dishonorable discharge, demotion, loss of rank, military prison.
There’s nothing quite like those two words: “prisoner abuse.” And the military, though to a far, far lesser degree than other huge organizations, is not averse to locating of a couple of decoys in order to divert blame from principal executives.
For decoys, read scapegoats—two or three guys to take the rap, that is—because the military hardly dares to claim that no one was responsible or that the prisoner was a liar. That would invite a media onslaught, alleging a major cover-up or whitewash. And when the media goes into one of those paroxysms of self-righteous innuendo, it makes everyone look utterly dishonest.
In the case of the Battered Butcher, the high command in Iraq would not be unhappy with two or three convictions they could write off as the actions of a couple of “bad eggs”—not at all like the honorable professionals they really are. Which is all well and good, unless you happen to be one of the sacrificial eggs.
Still, there was no proof of any crimes being committed at Camp Schwedler. At least that’s how it had seemed when the SEALs left to transport Al-Isawi. But the atmosphere was different the next day. There was something accusatory in the air, as if someone had suddenly admitted seeing something or even committed something.
Nonetheless, the SEALs, to a man, said no one had raised a finger against this Al-Isawi, and no one had seen anyone else touch him. He’d passed the medical examination without the slightest trouble, and according to the report in Baghdad, he remained unmarked. This was basically still rumor, but apparently true.
Later that Thursday afternoon, however, things took a sudden and unexpected swerve in the wrong direction. Matt, Jon, Sam, and Paddy were ordered to Camp Ramadi, home of Special Operations Task Force-West. They were ordered to leave almost immediately, and they swiftly discovered there were three vehicles going.
It was no surprise when Lieutenant Jimmy joined them, but the SEALs were all startled to see MA3 Brian Westinson also making the journey. The fact that Brian had all his bags packed and was plainly pulling out of Schwedler for good unsettled them even more.
This was all fairly obvious. What was very much under wraps was that Brian, the MA3 who at least twice had been missing from his post guarding Al-Isawi, had gone to the senior command at Schwedler and claimed that he saw Matthew McCabe punch the prisoner and knock him to the ground while he was in the holding cell.
The presence of Westinson in the same little convoy suggested that something was happening—something that concerned the “prisoner abuse” case. Because Matt, Jon, and Sam had gone into the holding cell together, Paddy had been the examining medic, and Lieutenant Jimmy had been the OIC. Westinson fitted nowhere, unless it was to do with Al-Isawi.
Matt asked Lieutenant Jimmy if he could tell them anything. But the SEAL officer would only say, “I cannot talk. But it’s not good.”
“At that moment I knew this was all bad,” said Matt later. “But I still had no idea what we were supposed to have done. I guess I should have been worried, but I wasn’t. I knew only that I had not done one wrong thing. And neither, so far as I knew, had Sam or Jon.
“None of us touched the prisoner. And none of us saw anyone else touch him. Sonofabitch had attacked himself with his wonky front teeth. Any damn fool could see that.”
Anyway, they all climbed aboard the vehicl
es, Brian with his possessions all packed up and the three SEALs with nothing. There was little discussion on the forty-mile journey to the city of Ar-Ramadi, where there was a sizeable US military base and a special SEAL Base, Camp Shark. It was home to the square-jawed SEAL Commander Hamilton, a senior SEAL officer.
This particular naval commander was known to be an absolute stickler for the rule book, and Matt now understood that Hamilton wanted to see all three of the key operators from Objective Amber: Big Jon, who had fearlessly led them in; Matt, the assault Team leader, and Senior Petty Officer Sam, the comms expert who had handled the radio right across the ops area.
Apparently the medic, Paddy, was also required to attend. But his examination of the prisoner had revealed nothing. And all four of them were completely in the dark about what precisely they were doing in Ar-Ramadi in the middle of the night.
When they disembarked inside the camp it became clear that the young master-at-arms, Brian Westinson, was entirely separate. He gathered up his bags, assisted by a guy they did not know, and, according to Matt and Jon, disappeared into the night.
“Wherever the hell he was going,” said Matt, “it was nothing to do with us.”
At which point Lieutenant Jimmy advised them to hang tight and then left to speak to the commander. This took just a few minutes, and then all three SEALs plus the medic who had walked with them into the desert lair of Al-Isawi were taken two hundred yards away to the commander’s office. This was a big room, adjacent to a very large, two-level TOC, about ten times the size of the one in Camp Schwedler, and bristling with flat screens, radar, and computer screens.
Honor and Betrayal : The Untold Story of the Navy Seals Who Captured the Butcher of Fallujah -and the Shameful Ordeal They Later Endured (9780306823091) Page 14
