War Stories

by Oliver North

  We head up the highway, averaging at least twenty-five kilometers per hour. Between taking and making calls on his encrypted PRC-119 FM radio, the captain informs me that they will be setting up their tubes directly behind the RCT-5 CP, so I shouldn’t have any trouble finding the CH-46s with Joe Dunford’s command group. As we’re riding up the road he notices that I’m jotting notes with my left hand and says I ought to give lessons to Capt. Jason Frei, “A” Battery commander, 1st Battalion, 11th Marines. Frei lost his right hand to an RPG that struck his Humvee when his artillery convoy was ambushed in An Nasiriyah. “That isn’t going to happen to us tonight,” the captain explains. “We’ve got you along.”

  I decide not to tell him I’ve turned into something of a metal magnet over here. But thankfully, we do make an uneventful forty-kilometer run to the RCT-5 CP at Hantush, on Route 27, northeast of the intersection of Routes 1, 8, and 27, arriving just after 2300. A few hundred meters up the road I find a circle of LVTs and Humvees with “5>” painted on their sides—the distinctive RCT-5 tac mark. The four HMM-268 CH-46s are parked in a field about fifty meters north of the CP. When I climb aboard the lead helicopter, the crew is asleep, but Capt. Dave Roen, one of the pilots, awakens and says, “You aren’t going to believe what happened while you were gone.”

  “What’s that?” I respond.

  “The war is on hold.”

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #19

  With HMM-268 and RCT-5

  Near Hantush, Iraq

  Friday, 28 March 2003

  2115 Hours Local

  As Griff and I hook up our satellite gear in preparation for our regular report on Hannity & Colmes, we learn from FOX News Channel that CENTCOM has ordered an “operational pause” for all ground combat units so that supplies of food, water, and ammunition can catch up with units about to make the final push on Baghdad. We’re stunned by the information, for there has been no serious shortages of any of these items thus far in the units that I have seen. In fact, for the eight days since the war started, the Marine logisticians back in Kuwait have done an amazing job of pushing all necessary supplies—plus spare parts and the myriad items of equipment needed to keep a military force of this size and complexity on the move day and night. Further, stopping where we are, well within the fan of chemical weapons that can be launched by Saddam’s artillery in a last ditch effort to save his capital, seems to add considerable risk to what had thus far been a remarkably successful campaign.

  When the sun rises as it’s supposed to—clear, without a tinge of sand in the air—I make my way to the RCT-5 CP to scrounge a cup of hot coffee and the latest hot scoop. It turns out that we’re not just going to “pause” in place. The new command is “to the rear, march.” Topic number one for everyone is a new order: RCT-5 has been directed by CENTCOM to reverse march forty kilometers back down Route 27 to Route 1 and stand in place. While I’m talking with “Hamster,” the RCT-5 assistant air officer, Col. Dunford walks out of the CP. He looks not only tired but exasperated as well. I ask him if he can give us an interview. He looks as though he might spit nails, but then softens and says, “Not on camera.”

  When I ask him to fill me in on what’s happening for documentary purposes, he tells me that CENTCOM is concerned that we’re inside the “red zone” for chemical attack and that we have to move south until V Corps, which has seen a lot of action at Najaf, can be resupplied with food, water, and ammunition. Using my map, Dunford shows how leaving RCT-5 in place this far north on Route 27 risks compromising the very closely held I-MEF/1st Marine Division deception plan for crossing the Tigris.

  Until the “operational pause” had been ordered, I-MEF had planned to deceive the Iraqis into thinking that RCT-5 and RCT-7 were planning to charge straight up Route 1 to Baghdad, while RCT-1 forced a crossing of the Tigris at Al Kut. It was hoped that the elite Baghdad division of the Republican Guard defending Al Kut would be so intent on stopping RCT-1 from crossing the Tigris that the Iraqis would be fixed in place and unable to respond when RCT-5 and RCT-7 made a surprise move up Route 27 to cross the river at An Numaniyah. All of this would be in jeopardy if RCT-5 remained “parked” on Route 27, so the regiment dutifully turned around and rolled back down the hardball to the Route 1/Route 8 interchange.

  By mid-afternoon we are back to within a kilometer of where we had been when I had gone on the VIP flight with HMLA-267. The HMM-268 pilots and aircrews have all been briefed on the reason for reversing course and seem to understand. But that’s not the case with many others.

  For the grunts who gather around our tiny TV set to watch what’s being said back in the States and around the world, both the pause and the move to the rear have created consternation. They wonder who it is that’s out of supplies when they hear news reports that the Marines have had to stop because they outran their supplies. While we’re getting ready to go on the air, a Marine C-130 makes a pass over the highway that they had rolled over yesterday. I turn on my camera and catch the giant, four-engine cargo craft as it lands to disgorge tons of supplies and then pump thousands of gallons of fuel into waiting tank trucks and fuel bladders.

  Back in the United States, second-guessing of the Pentagon is well under way. Much of the media back home apparently believe that Operation Iraqi Freedom has run afoul of bad planning. Once again, retired generals are on the air with dire predictions that the war in Iraq could cost up to three thousand American and British deaths. The word “quagmire” is mentioned now as if coalition forces were bogged down in a swamp. Some commentators are comparing the situation to Vietnam.

  One of the troopers watching the news on our little TV set asks, “Is that right, Colonel North? You were in Vietnam. Is this what happened there?”

  He’s clearly too young to have been alive while I was at Khe Sanh or Con Thein or know much about Hue city, where Ray Smith led a rifle company during the Tet offensive of 1968, so I try to explain how different the two wars really are.

  “From their safe haven in North Vietnam, the rulers in Hanoi invaded South Vietnam with conventional military forces and simultaneously orchestrated an indigenous insurgency,” I tell him. “Other than a bombing campaign, we never seriously threatened Hanoi. That’s not the case here in Iraq, where we’re taking the fight directly to the despot who has attacked his neighbors and oppressed the Iraqi people for more than three decades. Here we face a conventional indigenous army and some ‘guerrillas’—mostly foreign fedayeen on a jihad.

  “In Vietnam, the Viet Cong guerrillas were operating as a ‘wholly owned subsidiary’ of the North Vietnamese. Here, we’re being attacked by criminals released from prison just before the war started and by Baathists who want to restore their power and prestige by orchestrating the attacks, along with jihadist foreign fedayeen who are coming here to become ‘martyrs.’ But none of these groups are coordinating their efforts and activities.”

  The young Marine nods, seeming to understand the differences.

  Iraq isn’t the “quagmire” that Vietnam became, at least not for anyone but the Iraqis, who have been leaderless since the beginning of the war. Saddam may have survived thus far, but the Iraqi military is essentially on its own. There is little, if any, command-and-control structure. No one seems to be giving orders to the enemy commanders in the field. And while some Iraqi soldiers fight bravely, there is no evidence of any real coordinated defense—only a series of point-to-point engagements that have hardly slowed the coalition attack.

  Quagmire? I don’t think so.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #20

  With HMM-268 and RCT-5

  Near Hantush, Iraq

  Monday, 31 March 2003

  2300 Hours Local

  Early this morning we got the word from RCT-5. The so-called “operational pause” is officially over. The 1st Marine Division has resumed the march on Baghdad. Though we haven’t been “advancing” toward Saddam Hussein’s capital, the last four days haven’t been devoid of combat: 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, p
art of RCT-7, has been busy clearing Route 17 of fedayeen like those who had shot at our Hueys over Al Budayr on March 27. And RCT-5 has had gunfights every day, most of them engagements against irregular units, small bands of roving Iraqis who have not surrendered despite the disappearance of their senior officers, or in other cases, the foreign fedayeen.

  Yesterday afternoon, there was a major fight with more than two hundred of these irregulars near Ad Diwaniyah that continued until well past nightfall. Earlier today, Griff and I went to interview the Marines in the unit that had discovered the enemy force. VMU-2 is one of the squadrons of RPVs that has done a remarkable job of finding the enemy here in the desert. Flown like remote control air planes, these vehicles currently provide the capability to locate, observe, and assess enemy targets through the use of a small, high-powered camera that disseminates imagery back to the aircraft control center. This information can then be passed on to air or ground units to assist forward assault and capture of enemy assets. We videotaped the takeoff and recovery of several Pioneer UAVs, the less expensive predecessor to the now-famous, sleek new Predators.

  Hurled into the sky from an elevated launch rail by compressed air, and recovered on a highway, the boom-tailed Pioneers have a GPS tracking system, cameras, emission detectors, and electronic sensors jammed into their fuselage. And even though each one costs nearly a million dollars, they are all flown under remote control by young enlisted Marines.

  When an RPV spots an enemy force, emplacement, or equipment, the VMU-2 can bring artillery fire or strikes from fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft to bear on the target in a matter of minutes. The VMU-2 control van also has the ability to transmit the image of what the RPV sees in real time to ground combat unit commanders or print out aerial photos of the area over which the RPV has just flown.

  Yesterday afternoon, when one of these Pioneer UAVs spotted a large Iraqi unit massing east of Ad Diwaniyah, the area was first hit with artillery fire and then a half dozen Cobras followed up for several hours after dark. The attack was so devastating that, throughout much of today, small groups of Iraqis have been wandering into RCT-5 positions to surrender.

  This morning, in a surreal scene worthy of a M.A.S.H. or Hogan’s Heroes episode, Griff, armed with only a Sony camera, took Iraqi prisoners! We were recording the capture of another group of Iraqis when two young men wearing thobes and carrying white flags walked up behind him and surrendered. We quickly summoned Maj. Sara Cope, the CO of the Military Police detachment, and she had them taken into custody. She later told us that they had given themselves up because they were hungry and thirsty—somewhat deflating Griff’s claim that they had done so because he looked so tough in his FOX News Channel baseball hat.

  At 1400 this afternoon, as we were setting up our camera and satellite gear to go live on our network morning show, FOX & Friends, the producer called me on my satellite phone to say that the New York Times, the Washington Post, and several other newspapers were beating the drum about the Marines being out of food, water, and ammo. I complained that it just wasn’t true, but if they liked, I would be glad to put on some Marines to tell the American people how things really were.

  New York agreed that would be a good idea—probably thinking that I would interview a general or at least a colonel. Instead, I grabbed a gunnery sergeant and asked him if he could produce two enlisted Marines to stand on either side of me. In an instant, Sgt. Jason Witt was on my left and a young lance corporal was on my right.

  Without having time to brief the young Marines on what was happening, I hear Steve, E. D., and Brian talking to me through my earpiece. Their first question is about the Marines having outrun their supplies. I turn to Sgt. Witt and ask, “Have you guys been hungry out here?”

  “No, sir,” he replies. “We’ve been well taken care of.”

  “And how about thirsty?”

  “No, sir . . . we’re good.”

  “And ammo?”

  The sergeant grins and answers, “Good on ammo, and morale is good, sir.” Relishing the chance to send another message as well, Witt goes on to say hello to his wife, Melissa, his parents, and his twin brother back in Tyler, Texas.

  And when the lance corporal has his chance, he responds the same way when I put the questions to him.

  “The New York Times says the Marines are out of food, water, and ammo. Are you hungry?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you thirsty?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you short on ammo?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, what do you need?” I persist.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, the young Marine replies, “Just send more enemy, sir.”

  To some, these two leathernecks probably sounded as if they were spouting typical Marine bravado. But in fact they had all been told before they left Kuwait that they were going into the attack “light” on supplies. Marines were instructed that two MRE rations per day, consisting of five thousand calories, were what they would be getting. They were also told, “Potable water will be delivered in bottles, so don’t waste it on showers. Ammunition and fuel are the number one priorities for resupply, so don’t waste them either. When you can, shut off your engine—and if you find uncontaminated Iraqi diesel fuel, use it.”

  All of this was accepted by the troops pretty much as “business as usual.” Marines who have been in the service for more than a few years like to joke that the official motto of the Marine Corps may be Semper Fidelis, but the real slogan is, “The Marines have done so much, with so little, for so long—we now can do anything, with nothing, forever.”

  Because they knew that they were expected to go farther and faster with less, many Marines came to resent how they were being portrayed by the media. This threatened to undo much of the goodwill accrued by having embedding correspondents directly with the troops. But consternation over the “hungry, thirsty, out of ammo” story was nothing compared with the firestorm created by another member of the U.S. media—this time from Baghdad.

  By nightfall on the evening of March 31, word was already spreading among the troops about the comments of Peter Arnett during an interview he had given on Iraqi state television. Arnett was well known for his coverage of the first Gulf War for CNN and for a televised “documentary” piece called “Tailwind,” which alleged that U.S. forces had illegally used nerve gas in Vietnam. Fairly or not, Arnett is widely perceived by many in the ranks to be antimilitary. Now he was in Baghdad “reporting” for NBC and National Geographic, and apparently apologizing to the Iraqis for the U.S.-led invasion.

  Though few of the troops actually saw the broadcast of Arnett being interviewed by an Iraqi in military uniform, almost everyone had heard some of what he had said. “The first U.S. war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan. Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces.”

  From what we were picking up on our satellite transceiver, the interview precipitated an uproar back in the United States. Here in Iraq, the troops wonder out loud why, with all our precision-guided munitions, Iraqi state television is still on the air. As for Arnett, they regard his comments to be treasonous, a personal affront, and have taken to describing his lineage in unprintable terms.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  OF RIVERS AND RESCUES

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #21

  HMM-268 Detachment with RCT-5

  Hantush, Iraq

  Tuesday, 1 April 2003

  2045 Hours Local

  The “operational pause” is over with a vengeance. Before midnight, the three reinforced battalions of “Fighting Joe” Dunford’s RCT-5 were on the move, back up Route 1, to the “right turn” on Route 27, following the hardball highway to Hantush. It’s the same path they had taken on March 27—before they’d been turned around and sent back. This attack north has been preceded by a dramatic display of artillery fire from the 11th Marines. Throughout the night, RAP rounds,
their orange trajectories arching over our heads like a fireworks display, pounded enemy positions that had been reoccupied when the Marines were told to reverse course for the “pause.”

  In the race north, I-MEF has left the remnants of at least four Iraqi divisions in its wake, some of them with enough residual strength to make mischief by setting ambushes for Marine resupply convoys—but none of them sufficiently intact to threaten the drive to the Tigris River. Now the Iraqi forces arrayed in front of the Marines are about to feel the full wrath of those who believed they had been wronged by the media and slighted by the decision to make the Army’s V Corps the “Main Attack” force on Baghdad.

  Though I’ve not heard a single Marine commander utter a word that could be construed as “interservice rivalry”—most have even praised the cooperation among the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines—many of the troops still feel that the USMC just isn’t getting enough credit where credit is due. The Marines were the first to deploy, and most have been “in-theater” since December or January. And even the most junior Marines are aware that the Corps has a far higher proportion of its combat power committed in Iraq than any other U.S. service.

  With the exception of contingents in Afghanistan and small detachments deployed with Marine Expeditionary Units elsewhere around the world, the Marine Corps has committed all of its tank and light armored vehicle battalions, over half its infantry and artillery, two-thirds of its engineers, all of its bridging equipment, over half of its helicopter assets, and nearly the same proportion of its AV-8 and F/A-18 fixed-wing aircraft to Operation Iraqi Freedom. In all, nearly 66,000 Marines, more than one-third of the entire Marine Corps, are in this fight. And so, when I-MEF was given the order to “get up and go” after the “tactical pause,” the Marines were more than ready to do just that.