The Bremer Detail

by Frank Gallagher,John M. Del Vecchio

  Brain Mac came to me and said there was a chance we would be departing a little sooner than 30 June. I told him to keep me posted. Everyone from the top down was very concerned about keeping the ambassador alive. The 30 June date was also well known to the bad guys and had become a huge target for them. If they could kill him on that day, it would be a major score. And, inversely, a really bad day for us.

  The rocket and mortar attacks against the Green Zone increased in frequency as we got closer to the end. The bad guys were getting more brazen, and hostility oozed from the locals every time we went out with the ambassador. The guys were on edge. Car bombs, suicide bombers, every type of potential attack had been warned against. Each trip seemed to last an eternity. Every time we got back to the Green Zone there was a great sense of relief. We never knew when, or if, today would be our last day; but that was never the point. The point always was the mission. One didn’t do this job if he had a strong sense of self-preservation. You couldn’t afford that. It has been said that guys who do this type of work don’t usually come from happy homes. Maybe. But maybe that’s what gives them the mental edge. Like the old samurai warriors, we live each day to the fullest knowing it could be our last day. Yesterday is gone, a fleeting memory. Tomorrow may not come. But today—today is the most important day of our lives. Today is all that counts. Look ahead to tomorrow and you could lose focus on today. Then there will be no tomorrow. When doing a dangerous job like this PSD gig, our teammates become our family. We rely heavily on them and the camaraderie comes to take on added significance. We are there for each other with a single common goal. The people back home have no idea what we are doing or how we are doing it. They don’t understand. All they know is that we are not there. On the ground, with our brothers in arms, everything is real. It is as real as it can possibly get. We keep each other grounded and focused.

  A line from the Clint Eastwood western movie The Outlaw Josey Wales became sort of a mantra, “Whooped ’em again, Josey!”

  They never got Clint Eastwood and they still had not gotten us.

  Behind the scenes, and known to only a handful of people, the date of 28 June was tentatively selected as the day for the transfer of power to take place. After seventeen months of U.S. rule, Iraq would once again be ruled by an Iraqi, as power passed from Bremer to Allawi. The insurgents did not like Allawi at all. Plans were being made to get the ambassador out as safely as possible, and leaving two days ahead of the publicly announced date was an excellent idea. The bad guys were gearing up for a final run at the ambassador, and we would throw them a curveball. Unfortunately for us, on 27 June a C-130 departing Baghdad airport came under heavy small-arms fire. An AK-47 round managed to pass through a window and strike a DOD civilian employee in the head. He died almost instantly.

  The ambassador had always flown out on a C-130. Now the bad guys were shooting at them, perhaps practicing for the ambassador’s plane. It was not great news for him, or us. The ambassador, as always, took the news stoically.

  My focus now centered on the hours between the transfer of power to the Iraqis and when we got the ambassador to the airport and off the ground. That would be more than enough time for the bad guys to set up positions to fire antiaircraft missiles, RPGs, or small-arms fire at any and all departing C-130s. FUCK.

  No one on the team, and only a handful of people on the ambassador’s staff, knew we were leaving early. There had been a lot of travel arrangements made for his staff and my team to get seating aboard a C-17 that would fly us to Germany and then on to the United States. Parties were being planned for arrival in the United States on 1 July.

  Late on the night of 27 June, Brian Mac called me and said to pack my bags and be ready to go in the morning. The decision was not set in stone, so I told no one. I packed up and tried to keep the fact quiet from everyone. I did not even tell any of my guys. Loose lips still sink ships.

  Brian called me at 0800 on the 28 June and said we were definitely leaving. The transfer was to take place at 1000. I stayed behind to finish all the stuff I had to get done before I left. I called the guys and told them that Bremer and I were leaving. Blackwater still did not know. I set it up for Drew B to call them after we had wheels up from the airport. Blackwater did not have to know that we were leaving early. With all the issues at the team house, I did not want to risk letting anyone there know the new plan. I called the new detail leader and asked him to swing by my trailer. When he showed up, I wished him well. All he was worried about was that I gave him the keys to my trailer so he could ensure he did not have a roommate. I gladly gave him the keys and schlepped my gear to the staging area.

  Word began to leak out—the transfer of power had taken place. By 1100 when Ambassador Bremer arrived back at the palace, quite a few people were there to say good-bye. I thought the hand shaking and tearful good-byes would never end. The ambassador shook every hand and posed for every picture. Even some of my guys asked for photos with him. He took every picture that was asked of him. To the last day he was approachable and nice to every person who had sacrificed their time and energy to the mission of rebuilding Iraq.

  We went to LZ Washington and I took a long look around at what had been home for the last eleven months. It was almost over. Now we just had to get to the airport and fly out. The military sent two Chinooks for the move. There was a lot of baggage and quite a few folks accompanying us to the airport. And, of course, the obligatory press conference and picture taking that would document the departure. We boarded the Chinooks for the trip to the airport. We were so close.

  We landed behind two C-130s, and the ambassador made his way to the VIP lounge where he met with a few other people. The press had been placed around the C-130 that had been identified as the one that would take us home. They were behind some stanchions and took pictures as the ambassador and I made our way to the waiting C-130. My guys kept a wary eye on everyone and everything that was going on around us—what we called “head on a swivel.” We were so close to success, and we so wanted to make sure nothing happened on the last mission we would do together and with the ambassador. The ambassador waved good-bye and climbed into the plane. I followed. My Bremer detail teammates began making their way back to the VIP lounge to load up and head back to the Green Zone. Their responsibility for Ambassador Bremer had ended. The crew closed the doors and fired up the engines. As the press left the area the ambassador smiled and he and I settled in for what seemed like an eternity. It was a strange feeling being on a C-130 alone with the ambassador. For eleven months there had always been a team around him or his staff and the press—usually anywhere from twenty to forty people. On this day, it was just the two of us.

  About fifteen minutes later, after the press had departed, following our prearranged plan the C-130 pilot radioed to a Chinook helo to tell the pilot that the press had departed. Two minutes later the crew chief gave the ambassador and me the all-clear signal, and he began to lower the ramp of the plane. The plane, which was in fact a decoy, had been loaded floor to ceiling with very real supplies destined for another location in Iraq. The ambassador and I proceeded to crawl over the cargo to the back tail ramp. C-130s are large, propeller-driven cargo planes with large tail ramps that can be lowered for ease of loading. This is also the easiest way for personnel to board or deplane. The pilots had parked the decoy plane in such a way that when they lowered the ramp no one could see us get off. After the previous day’s shooting that killed a guy on departure, we were taking no chances. Intel reports were coming in as late as our departure to the airport that the militants would shoot the ambassador’s plane out of the sky.

  The rear door touched the tarmac and we ran about fifty yards to a waiting Chinook. Not only was Ambassador Bremer now without his full Blackwater detail, I was his sole cover, and I was unarmed for the first time since September 2003. Getting arrested in D.C. with a weapon would have been the worst possible way to end the mission! As we jogged across the runway
I hoped that the ruse had worked and none of the bad guys had spotted us. I was still nervous. My job was not yet done. We climbed into the Chinook and were greeted by none other than Sue Shea, Colonel Scott Norwood, Brian Mac, and Dan Senor, who were anxiously awaiting our arrival. Everyone was smiling.

  After Bremer and I left the C-130, the pilots kept up the pretense by continuing to idle the engines. Once our Chinook lifted off, they shut down the C-130 and deplaned. To this day I hope that the insurgents who were lying in wait for us stayed in their positions for a few long hours baking in the June sun waiting for a C-130 to take off and fly over their positions so they could do whatever they had planned to do. No C-130s flew that day.

  The Chinook quickly took us to another area of the airport where a small U.S. government jet waited for us. Trying to look over both shoulders at the same time, I followed closely behind the ambassador as we boarded the small plane. In a few minutes­ The Bremer Detail would be over. We boarded and took off without incident. From Baghdad to Amman, Jordan, seemed like an eternity. It was actually ninety minutes. I had asked the pilots to let me know when we were out of Iraqi airspace. When they signaled back to me, I felt a great weight lifted from my shoulders. We had done it. Everyone was smiling and chatting. It felt great. The ambassador, of course, continued to work on the way home. He was a machine to the end.

  We landed in Jordan and transferred to a larger jet for the trip to Andrews Air Base. I called Kim and told her that I was safe, that we had done it, and I would be in the United States that night. The flight was surreal. It was the moment I had been trying not to think about because I did not want to lose focus on the mission. I tried to relax but could not. My thoughts went back to my team on the ground. I was hoping they were enjoying a tall cold drink and celebrating what we had accomplished. At that moment, I again reminded myself that we had not lost the ambassador, had not had a member of the team killed or injured, and we had not fired a single shot or killed or injured anyone in the course of our mission. I was satisfied and proud. All the hard work, sleepless nights, and worry had been worth it.

  “Whooped ’em again, Josey!”

  I was going home.

  Afterword

  We landed at Andrews Air Force Base, and the U.S. Secret Service met us and took over the security for the ambassador. The threats against him would continue for quite a while. For the Blackwater guys who worked with me, this, in and of itself, was probably the greatest testament to what we had accomplished. We had protected a man who would need the U.S. Secret Service to protect him while he was in the United States, and we had kept him alive in the most dangerous place on Earth at the time. This is fact, not fiction.

  Many things have been written about Blackwater in the years that have gone by. Some were good, some were very berating. I want to emphasize that the guys who worked with me were some of the finest professionals, and finest men, I have ever known. They did an excellent job for me. We accomplished our mission. Ambassador Bremer came home alive. In the following years I worked with many of those men, and in some pretty rough places.

  I am not in a position to comment about some of the accusations made against the larger Blackwater community. I was not there. I have read the news reports and the books, and I’ve spoken to some of the guys who were on the ground when some of the incidents took place. What I do want everyone to know and to thoroughly understand is that The Bremer Detail was not involved in any of those incidents. I am extremely proud of the fact that my team of guys never fired a single shot while we were protecting the ambassador. To paint all the guys who worked for Blackwater as mercenary thugs who killed people is beyond irresponsible. My guys did none of that. The OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of the guys who worked for Blackwater did none of that. It is the few who have sullied the patriotism, professionalism, and history of what the rest of us accomplished. We took a nearly impossible situation and made it work.

  Erik Prince and Blackwater took on a mission that had never been done before or since. To have a private company protect a head of state in a war zone was a decision that took real balls. If we had failed, Blackwater would have forever been remembered as the company under whose watch Ambassador Bremer was killed. To have a private citizen become the agent-in-charge of a head of state’s protection team in a war zone was also unheard of. It had never been done before, and it has not been done since. With all the extra scrutiny that we were under every single day, we would have been quickly replaced if the DOD, the U.S. Secret Service, the State Department, or anyone else felt that we were not up to the job of keeping the ambassador safe, or that we were not behaving or acting in the best interests of the United States.

  Failure would have been catastrophic for the United States. To criticize what we did without speaking to any of us, or knowing us, is disrespectful to the highest degree. Do people realize that Blackwater got the contract because there were no federal agencies that could provide adequate protection at that level? Mr. Prince should be applauded for stepping up to the plate and saying that he would take it on. And my team should be too.

  The proof that we were extraordinarily successful in what we did, and how we did it, lies in the sole sourcing of the contract that Blackwater got to protect Ambassador Negroponte after Ambassador Bremer departed. This decision was not made lightly by the State Department. I know, as I spent many hours with State Department officials dissecting every aspect of The Bremer Detail.

  There was no template for our mission; no doctrine for this type of protection operation; no tactics, techniques, or procedures—commonly referred to in the industry as TTPs—to study and rehearse. We stole ideas and techniques from every resource we could find. We invented new things every day. The guys who worked with me would evaluate what was working and what was not working and we would change accordingly. There were no egos. If it worked, we would use it and we did. If it did not, we discarded it as quickly as we could. The tactics and techniques that we finally established were eventually distilled into a working form and became the basis of what would become the State Department’s Worldwide Personal Protection Security (WPPS) program. Our tactics became the curriculum, and our professionalism became the standard. The earliest Blackwater instructors for this program were all guys who had worked for me. They knew what worked and what did not work, and they had the knowledge and the skill sets to teach it and show you why and how it worked.

  Leadership is a strange concept. Leaders lead from the front, not from the rear. Monday morning quarterbacks never win games—only the guys who play on Sundays do. I played the game every day for over ten months. I signed up for 30 days and stayed for 313. When I signed on I was going to be one of two Blackwater guys providing a support element to the U.S. Army CID.

  Roughly nine days later I was the first and only private citizen AIC to protect a head of state in a war zone. It was an interesting ride. Despite the problems that I have discussed in the preceding narrative, every decision came down to the two basic leadership tenets that I learned in the Marine Corps:

  1. Accomplish the mission.

  2. Look out for the welfare of your men.

  I sent many guys home who were not prepared mentally or physically to be there. I have no hard feelings toward them. They were out of their league. They did not know what they did not know. Blackwater management did the best job they could to keep the pipeline of men flowing, but they were also running a business and sometimes lost sight of what we were actually doing. And the reason was simply—they also did not know what or why we were doing what we were doing. It had never been done before. They should have come over and worked the detail for a period of time. If you have never done something, how can you judge it?

  When The Bremer Detail was started there were, in my estimation, perhaps 250 guys in the U.S. private security sector who had the skill set and mental toughness to do the job. Of these 250 there were about 60 working on the Karzai detail in Afghanistan. This left Bl
ackwater with about 190 from which to choose. By the time we left, I probably had somewhere in the vicinity of 130 or so guys who rotated in and out. Ten percent were fired. Ten percent completed one rotation and I sent word back I did not want them back.

  So in February 2004 there were approximately 180 of the 250 skilled, private protection guys under contract. By March 2004, between Blackwater, Triple Canopy, Dyne Corps, Aegis, Erinysis, etc., there were nearly 2,000 guys under contract providing PSD services in some capacity. This eventually swelled to more than 5,000. Some were non-US companies, and non-US citizens.

  My point is that what we accomplished while on The Bremer Detail apparently seemed easy to some, and the results speak for themselves. We had zero incidents, no one was killed, no one was shot at by my team, and the ambassador got home safe. Other details cannot make this claim even though the threat level we faced was considerably higher and the profile and schedule that Ambassador Bremer kept more arduous.

  I have written this to ensure the legacy of fhe Bremer detail, to ensure that the incredible body of work that my team accomplished and things that we did are not diminished, devalued, belittled, or taken for granted.

  Before anyone gets the idea that I am somehow being disrespectful to all the guys who followed us, I am not. The problem was not in the people who filled the positions, but in the selection and training phase that failed to deselect those who really weren’t cut out for the work. This was a systemic problem for all the companies chasing the contracts. Of all of them, Blackwater did the best job. To fill this many positions so quickly, corners may have been cut. When money becomes the overriding factor in chasing contracts without realizing the extreme difficulties of the job, there are bound to be problems. Unfortunately, in a war zone, these problems can result in catastrophic incidents. I cannot reiterate enough, there was no template or handbook written on how to perform what eventually became Combat PSD protection operations. You had to learn by doing it. You had to see what was happening and react accordingly. Overreact and innocent people might be killed. Underreact and you or your people got waxed. The sandbox was an unforgiving classroom. You could make all the plans you wanted, but when you walked out the door, the plan changed. The bad guys didn’t read our plans; they did what they wanted, when they wanted. They had formulated their plan based on the surveillance they had done on us. We reacted to their actions. They played offense, and we played defense.