The principal Middle East office of Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) was located there. This effectively put two kingdoms side by side on one Arab Peninsula—that of the absolute monarchy of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, the richest nation on earth, and that of General Cleveland, commanding officer of SOCCENT, a man unaccustomed to being interrupted, never mind argued with. He would stand in ultimate authority over Matt, Jon, and Sam.
In Ar-Ramadi there had been a strong suggestion that this would end in a letter of caution for the SEALs, who would then be sent on their way with only a mild slap on the wrist. In the Navy, however, there is a major difference between a “caution” and letter of reprimand, the latter of which can be a career killer.
The “caution letter” traditionally has no impact whatsoever on a man’s career, and despite their certainty that they were 100 percent innocent of any and all charges, the SEALs would have been inclined to accept that should it have been offered. At least then Commander Hamilton and Lampard might possibly stop treating them like escaped convicts.
During their days at Al-Asad there had been indications that the Navy was as anxious as they were to dispense with the entire matter and to agree that there was, at the very least, an element of “reasonable doubt.”
So far as the SEALs were concerned, in these utterly tenuous cases against them “reasonable doubt” was approximately the size of the Grand Canyon.
“I hate to say it,” says Matt, “but we’d have been better off in the Lubyanka, Article 49 Russian Constitution, right? Innocent until proven guilty. Everyone except for us.”
6
SCAPEGOATS OF EMPIRE
The barbarities of war ... are committed in situations where the ebb and flow of everyday life have departed, and have been replaced by a constant round of fear and anger, blood and death ... soldiers at war are not to be judged by civilian rules.
The one hundred-mile-long peninsula of Qatar juts upward like a giant thumb from Saudi Arabia into the Persian Gulf. There were, however, no thumbs-up for Matt, Jon, and Sam when they finally left Iraq and arrived in yet another ancient Arab land.
After three almost unbearably frustrating weeks, their questions came raining in to anyone who’d listen: And how about the letter of caution? Where do we stand with complete exoneration? Is this Westinson guy still making these accusations? Do we have a lawyer yet? Right now we’d take an out-of-work Bedouin.
But no one was listening. In the kingdom of Major General Cleveland military politics and the dreaded “politically correct” was elbowing its way to the front.
The case, which had begun before sunrise on September 2, when the blindfolded Ahmad Hashim Abd Al-Isawi had complained that a mysterious punch to the stomach had made his lower lip bleed, was now moving inexorably toward a courtroom.
On their first morning in Qatar the three SEALs were led into an office of the legal department, where a senior officer awaited them—a naval commander, legal assistant to General Cleveland. In turn a paralegal Army sergeant assisted him. According to Jon, this now made fifteen people who were all lined up alongside General Cleveland to help.
“We, on the other hand, had no one,” said Jon.
They were then taken to another room, where the sergeant placed one piece of paper in front of each man. It stated that Matt was charged officially with assault, the other two with dereliction of duty and making a false official statement.
“This was the first time,” said Matt, “any of us had seen the charges all written down, complete with references to Article 128, and 92 [dereliction of duty].”
Now it should be noted that there could not have been one living person who had breathed the desert air anywhere around the SEAL bases who was not acutely aware that all three of them were denying the charges vehemently.
And here were these three pieces of paper being thrust in front of them, with a total stranger demanding they each sign them, here and now, admitting their guilt.
“I’m signing nothing,” said Jon.
“Sign there,” repeated the paralegal, pointing to the signature space on Jon’s document.
“None of us are signing anything,” said Matt.
“You guys are being charged with these violations,” he replied. “That’s where you sign.”
Matt’s mind was in overdrive. He recalled the many conversations they had sat through in Ramadi, especially the one in which the authorities had seemed to accept that there was an element of doubt here that would almost certainly end with a letter of caution—not even a reprimand.
All three SEALs had intimated they would accept the mild rebuke of a naval caution letter, despite being completely innocent of everything. And now, here was this Army sergeant effectively throwing the book at them, leveling charges of the most damaging nature against them and trying to slide the gravity of the matter right past them, almost by sleight of hand.
“Just sign the papers, right where I instruct,” he repeated.
And quite suddenly the pure subterfuge of the military case against them and the methods being utilized in order to lead them into a trap stood starkly before all three SEALs. Jon, Matt, and Sam were suddenly very frightened. And they turned and looked at each other. Their lifelong goodwill toward the US military system of justice and fairness seemed to crumble away.
Simultaneously, they all recall, they knew they were up against a big and all-powerful enemy who would stop at nothing and would say anything in order to put them behind bars. Promises meant nothing. In the future innuendoes must be ignored. This new pressure point was a game changer.
Jon said simply: “They were trying to trick us. I don’t know why. And I never will. That Army guy just wanted to get us into a corner, where we were trapped, not able to escape. They were trying to deceive us, trying to pretend this was all routine stuff, just three little signatures. That was all they wanted.
“Three little signatures, just a little paperwork formality to them. No big deal. Yeah, right. Those signatures would have been a death warrant to us. And they knew it. But we knew all about signed warrants and how they signified life and death. There was nothing we didn’t know about signed warrants. And we refused to comply.”
“Sign here,” repeated the sergeant.
“Why don’t you go fuck yourself,” Matt almost growled. But instead he said, “We were told in Ramadi by the acting CO we were being given a letter of caution. Not a reprimand. And certainly not a charge, or a General’s Mast.”
Matt’s words were delivered with that straightforward respectful sense of protocol all SEALs are taught to employ when dealing with their superiors. But deep within Matt, as a direct result of this latest encounter, there rose a sudden and unmistakable iron curtain of pure defiance—battlefield defiance. SEAL defiance: I am never out of the fight. I will get back up every time.
Sam and Jon experienced the precise same thing—a kind of rising anger at being knocked back, over and over, by an enemy who was indifferent to their plight and cold to their helplessness.
“It was as if they were trying to rush the formalities as fast as possible before we got lawyers,” said Jon. “Because they knew we’d had no legal advice, no help from anyone. And I guess they understood that if we ultimately did hire lawyers, we would suddenly have a whole new set of legal rights.”
The sergeant said that he knew nothing about letters of caution nor anything about what had been said in Ramadi. But he would check that out right away.
When he returned he declared, “There’s nothing of that on the record. You guys are being charged, and you are to sign these sheets of paper right here.”
Again all three SEALs refused, and the sergeant retreated, leaving the three accused men in the room.
For a full minute they sat together in silence. A thousand thoughts swept through their minds, but not a word was spoken. “I guess we knew right there,” said Matt. “We were suddenly in a fight to the death against the high command of the United States A
rmed Forces. They were prepared to smash our lives to avoid accusations of US military bullying and prisoner abuse.
“All we wanted was to prove our innocence beyond all doubt and to regain our honor. Because that’s a big thing in the SEAL Teams. Every class had its honor man. That’s what we’re taught. And we had done nothing to deserve anything less.”
At midafternoon in the burning heat of the Qatar Air Base, 480 miles closer to the equator than the city of Baghdad, the SEALS were again summoned to a room adjoining the legal offices. This time the tactic was to speak to them individually and separately. Master Chief Lampard was now working with General Cleveland’s senior enlisted adviser, Master Sergeant Bob, and there was an unusual attempt to make this a more friendly atmosphere. Cans of soda and candy bars were laid out, and it began with just a general discussion about the case.
Matt has a vivid recollection of the day. “I allowed myself a cold Dr. Pepper,” he said. “And I was told that if I admitted my ‘crime,’ I would be helped. There would just be loss of rank and pay. However, if my Team 10 command wished to take away my Trident, these guys, Lampard and his Army cohort, would fly home on their own time and stand character witness for me, stating that I was a stand-up kind of a guy.
“Huh? Right about now I thought the whole place had gone crazy. For the past three weeks I’d been treated as if I was a murderer or something, now I’ve got a general’s senior assistant claiming that he’ll fly halfway around the world to swear to God I’m a good guy. Really!? What is it with these people?!
“I was not, however, fooled by this. Because I knew that Abu Ghraib had reared its ugly head all over again.”
Petty Officer McCabe knew as well as anyone that the alleged punch that felled Al-Isawi was not yet public nor was the al-Qaeda killer’s allegation of prisoner abuse. But these kinds of military secrets never stay secret for long. And when these allegations finally hit the airwaves, almost certainly through the Al Jazeera television network, the liberal press in the United States would jump all over it—on the side of the detainee, no matter what his background.
And the Pentagon would have one overriding desire: to have their spokesmen assure everyone the matter had been sternly dealt with. Heads had rolled.
“What they wanted,” says Matt, “if this went ahead, was moral righteousness, a confirmation that they disapproved of US bullying in Iraq. They wanted headlines that would state,
NAVY SEALS STRIPPED OF RANK
DISHONORABLY DISCHARGED FOR IRAQI PRISONER ABUSE
Lack of discipline will never be tolerated in the US Armed Forces.
—General Cleveland
“We, of course, agree with the general,” Matt said. “But there was still no reason to treat us as they had done so far. You can’t get better people than Jonathan Keefe or Sam Gonzales, and I hope they would say something similar about me.
“There was not one thing in our actions or backgrounds which could be held against any of us, nothing to justify this vicious assumption of our guilt. I could only conclude the authorities had their own agenda, and they were happy to make us sacrificial lambs.”
Sacrificial lambs have occasionally been slaughtered in various militaries down through the years, perhaps the most celebrated being the three Australian lieutenants in the Bushveldt Carbineers, all charged with murdering prisoners in the second Boer War (1899-1902).
The British Army’s chief of staff, Field Marshall Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, intended to bring the war to an end with a peace conference. But when it became public that Boer prisoners had been shot, Lord Kitchener provided a demonstration of his willingness to judge his own soldiers harshly if they disobeyed the rules of war.
He ordered a court-martial of the Australians. And he wanted a guilty verdict—no ifs, ands, or buts. Harry “The Breaker” Harbord Morant, Peter Handcock, and George Witton were doomed before they set foot in the courtroom.
In the 1980 film, Breaker Morant, there is a poignant exchange when Kitchener’s second-in-command explains to the Australian defense lawyer that the execution of his three clients would be a small price to pay for ending this long and bloody conflict on the hot plains of the Eastern Transvaal.
“Yes, I suppose so,” replied the lawyer, “Unless of course you happened to be one of the three Australians.”
“That was precisely how we felt,” said Jon. “Just because it seemed that no matter what we said or how many of our teammates verified our statements, there was a separate agenda, known only to the military high command, which deemed us guilty.”
There was also a quiet unease in the Iraq-based SEAL Teams that their brothers were being treated as though this was a civilian world, which it most certainly was not. And once more the words of Breaker Morant’s defense counsel, Major James Thomas, echoed down the years:
The barbarities of war ... are committed in situations where the ebb and flow of everyday life have departed, and have been replaced by a constant round of fear and anger, blood and death ... soldiers at war are not to be judged by civilian rules.
Those three Australians were not denying the killing of the Boer prisoners; rather, they were disputing their orders, and their defense was formidable. But it was all to no avail. Harry Harbord Morant and Lieutenant Peter Handcock were found guilty and swiftly executed by firing squad within days of the trial, outside the fort in Pretoria at sunrise, at six o’clock on February 27, 1902. Lord Kitchener personally signed their death warrants.
Both men declined a blindfold, and the Breaker’s last words were shouted, “Shoot straight, you bastards! Don’t make a mess of it!”
The younger Lieutenant George Witton was also found guilty but was released after three years in an English jail and returned to Australia, still heartbroken, to write the book, Scapegoats of Empire, which inspired both the stage play, the motion picture, and many, many books on the infamous court-martial.
Apparently blind to the inevitable surge of public outrage when SEALs of any rank are subjected to any kind of criticism or persecution, the military continued to go after Matt, Jon, and Sam. And one by one they sent them into that room with the soda pops and bizarre promises.
Jon’s memory of the proceedings casts the gravest doubt on the motives of General Cleveland’s staff. “They weren’t all that subtle,” he recalled. “They wanted me to say that Matt had hit the dude, and they didn’t seem to care much whether it was true, false, or made up. They just wanted me to say it and sign a paper that Matt was guilty of assault and that we were both guilty of dereliction of duty and accepted all charges.”
He was told, “Jon, this is not an interrogation. You can waive and revoke your rights. Then you can tell us off the record, if you like.”
“I just stood there,” said Jon. “And I was thinking, Do you guys think I’m that dumb, that I will just stand here and tell an outright lie about my buddy and teammate? I had nothing to say to them. So I said nothing.”
Jon was then warned this could go to “four-star level.” And he knew that meant to General David Howell Petraeus, the tenth commander of US Central Command, former commander of all multinational forces in Iraq, and future commander of US forces in Afghanistan.
“That was kinda big,” said Jon. “I simply could not believe how this thing had gotten utterly out of hand. Four-star level! What the hell were these comedians talking about? The punch that never happened on the lip of a lying little jihadist killer, who never had a bruise on him? And they’re calling in the head of the US Army? Someone, anyone, give me a break.”
It is not possible to exaggerate the effect all this had on Jonathan Keefe. His parents were God-fearing people, and his mother, Dawn, was proud of the fact that Jon had attended the same local Catholic church, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in which he was both baptized and made his first Holy Communion a quarter of a century earlier.
That long religious upbringing in a family of strict moral codes was an important part of the young SEAL’s character. And, of course, there had also be
en the strict US Navy doctrine of the truth, the whole truth, all of the time. Lying was pure anathema to him: his parents, his parish priest, and the US Navy had combined to outlaw in his mind the very concept of lying.
This was a genuine stand-up guy. Like Matt and Sam. Ask either of them a question, you’ll get a straight answer. And now here were these uniformed legal eagles almost imploring Jon to tell a deliberate, Southern-fried, copper-bottomed whopper: that he had indeed watched his best buddy whack Al-Isawi.
Jon stood before his inquisitors, unblinking, shoulders back, and silent. And through his mind raced the phrase, They’re asking me to tell a lie.
And now he remembered Master Chief Lampard telling Jon that he had personally been investigated seven or eight times and had always manned up and taken the punishment. Lampard had added that he had known SEALs in trouble who had run up legal bills of $40,000 and still been found guilty.
“We know you have loyalty to your team,” he added. “But if you’ll just tell us the truth, that the allegations are correct, no one will get into trouble. All you need to do is to stand in front of General Cleveland and confirm what Matt did.”
Jon said nothing. Like Matt and Sam, he knew perfectly well that this was no longer some kind of a softball sparring match. This was hardball, and these guys were trying to get him to comply with their wishes, and he was damned if they were going to succeed.
They again assured Jon that he could revoke his rights and tell them off the record that Matt had struck the prisoner. “No paperwork will be necessary,” they said. They then went further than that and said he could re-invoke his rights and get back on the record.
Jon had not spent time at law school. He understood little of the finer points of trials and justice. But even he understood this was utter rubbish. Revoke his rights? Off the record? Re-invoke your rights? No paperwork?
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 17
