War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom

by Oliver North

  Now that we’ve finally crossed the river, we’re in the midst of the filthiest slum I’ve ever seen. This is Saddam City. The Iraqi dictator mandated that the Shi’ites who fled to the capital of Iraq had to live in the “planned community” he named after himself. It is a rabbit warren of crumbling, multistory, Soviet-style apartment buildings without running water or functioning sewage systems. It’s worse than anything I’ve ever seen in Calcutta, Haiti, or Bangladesh. The whole place is home to more than a million “internal refugees,” teeming with naked children, their stomachs distended from malnutrition. There is raw sewage running in the streets, and piles of trash—some of it smoldering with a stench that is enough to make even Marines who haven’t bathed in weeks smell good.

  And how we smell is something that’s suddenly much more obvious. For the past nineteen days—since D-day—we’ve all been wearing chemical protective suits: baggy bib overalls and a hooded jacket. The tough, tightly woven, Teflon-treated nylon outer shell is hot, but the activated charcoal lining that protects the skin from chemical or biological agents also absorbs odors. Now that we’ve entered Baghdad, CENTCOM has advised everyone that Saddam is unlikely to use such weapons in his capital city, so we have shed the suits for the first time in nearly three weeks. We’re all much more comfortable wearing field uniforms, but the inevitable consequence of not bathing is now greatly evident.

  We’re told to keep our gas masks on our hips and keep the chemical suits in our packs just in case this psychotic regime decides to do the unthinkable. Throughout the campaign, chemical weapons have been a threat, and every Marine unit has been on the lookout for any signs of WMD. In every Iraqi military installation we have overrun, the Marines have found large quantities of chemical protective suits, atropine antidote syringes, and Russian, Chinese, Yugoslav, Czech, French, and Jordanian gas masks—even some empty chemical artillery rounds and aircraft dispersal canisters—but they haven’t found any of the chemical agents they’re designed to hold. Given all the defensive preparations both sides have made in providing chemical protective equipment for their military forces, there’s no doubt that both the Iraqis and the coalition forces expected Saddam to use them. What’s unclear is where the weapons are now.

  What is obvious to all, however, is that if Saddam uses such weapons against the American or British troops, he won’t kill many of us—thanks to our protective NBC suits and masks—but he will succeed in killing thousands of Iraqi civilians. Up until now, we’ve all played it very safe. In addition to the protective gear, every unit has sophisticated, state-of-the-art chemical detection equipment—in some cases even a specialized vehicle for this purpose. And though this apparatus has given us several “false alarms” over the course of the past three weeks, causing us to quickly “mask up,” no one suggests that such alerts be ignored. We’ve all worn our NBC suits, put on our “rubber duckies”—rubber overshoes—when necessary, and kept our rubber gloves handy. But Marines being Marines, they have also taken additional steps, just in case the expensive high-tech equipment doesn’t work as advertised. Before leaving Kuwait, almost every unit’s NBC NCO bought some chickens and pigeons. The birds, kept in cages on the back of a Humvee, serve as the caged canary in a coal mine—they will succumb to smaller amounts of a chemical agent than humans. Griff, fascinated by what the Marines called their FEWGAD—“fowl early warning gas alarm device”—spent almost an hour “interviewing” Geraldine, one of the RCT-5 chickens. He decided not to videotape the other chicken, nicknamed Kung Pao; he thought the name was too descriptive of the bird’s ultimate fate.

  Our entry into east Baghdad with RCT-5 is almost anticlimactic, although it hasn’t been for other Marine and Army units. After patrolling north along the Diyala River for forty-eight hours searching unsuccessfully for another crossing point, RCT-5, which led the 1st Marine Division the whole way from Kuwait, became the last Marine Regimental Combat Team to enter Saddam’s capital. Without a third crossing point, Gen. Mattis decides that RCT-7 will seize a damaged footbridge in the south, just above where the Diyala joins the Tigris, as well as a larger damaged highway bridge farther to the north.

  Col. Steve Hummer, commanding RCT-7, gives the task of capturing the southern footbridge to 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, led by Lt. Col. Brian McCoy. For the northern span, the mission is assigned to Lt. Col. Jim Chartier’s 1st Tank Battalion, supported by 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines and the LAVs of 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.

  For the first time, the Iraqis have made a serious effort to use obstacles to delay the forces closing in on Baghdad. Until now we have all been amazed that bridges, so essential to moving the thousands of military vehicles in this operation, have been largely intact. But now, as the 1st Marine Division is literally at the gates of the capital, the Iraqis have succeeded in badly damaging all the bridges over the Diyala on the eastern approaches to the city. Mattis is undeterred. Overflights by UAVs and helicopter pilot reports—along with some nighttime patrols by Marine Recon teams—convince him and his engineers that all the spans are repairable. He orders an attack for the following morning.

  The attacks on the bridges begin simultaneously early on the morning of April 8 with heavy artillery bombardments. The day is overcast, and for a while it looks as if we’re in for a repeat of the MOASS sandstorm of two weeks ago. And though the weather never turned as foul as what we’d experienced on the road north through the desert, the ceiling is low enough to limit close air support to only what the Cobras can deliver.

  After a heavy prepfire by the 11th Marines’ 155 howitzers and, later on, 81mm mortars, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines conduct a classic infantry assault across the damaged footbridge. McCoy had brought up a dozen M-1 tanks on the west bank of the river to provide covering fire over the heads of his troops, and the tanks succeed in keeping the Iraqi defenders on the far side of the river pinned down.

  As the assault commences, the Iraqis make a futile attempt to halt the Marines’ advance. They begin by firing artillery at the Marine vehicles assembled and clearly visible on the east side of the river. The tankers simply button up the hatches on their Abrams and continue firing, though one enemy round hits an AAV not far from McCoy’s CP, killing two and wounding four.

  The Iraqi fire does nothing to stop or even slow the attack, however. Two companies of Marines force their way across the damaged footbridge using boards and metal engineer planking to span holes in the structure. More than half a dozen intrepid photojournalists—some embedded correspondents, some not—follow McCoy’s Marines over the Diyala and into east Baghdad.

  Meanwhile, a few kilometers to the north, 1st Tank Battalion, 3/7, and 3rd LAR are forcing a crossing over the larger highway bridge into east Baghdad. Again, the cameras of embedded journalists capture some of the very dramatic close combat at this bridgehead and the subsequent movement into the city. The videotaped footage offers stark testimony to the courage of small-unit leaders who lead the fight as they maneuver into the Iraqi capital. As with the footbridge farther to the south, Marine, Navy Seabee, and Army engineers quickly move in behind the infantry to repair the span under the protection of the armor.

  As the Iraqis try to deal with the two RCT-7 bridgeheads, RCT-1 is forcing a third crossing farther north. Col. Toolan’s troops use AAVs to traverse both an irrigation canal and then the Diyala. This creates a sufficient diversion for the engineers with RCT-7 to lay down a pontoon span next to the captured footbridge and repair the highway bridge, enabling it to carry the heavy Marine armor into the city. Finally, late in the day, RCT-5 rolls across the Diyala behind RCT-1. As soon as his lead elements are assembled, Dunford drives hard to the north, on the west bank of the Diyala, making a long right hook. He is aiming for a rendezvous with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division along the banks of the Tigris.

  Griff and I ride into the city with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines through streets littered with garbage and lined with people. From the open hatch of an AAV, our cameras record Iraqis waving and cheering. C
hildren, many wearing little more than rags, run beside our armored column, splashing barefoot through puddles of raw sewage, waving and yelling. The sixteen Marines in our vehicle are standing on the troop seats, facing outboard with their weapons at the ready. Behind us, an LAV, its 25mm chain gun traversing ominously, is not threatening enough to keep children from running up beside the large wheeled armored car and asking for food.

  The poverty and hunger are so obvious that these battle-hardened Marines reach into their rucksacks, and soon candy, crackers, peanut butter, cheese spread, jelly, and even whole MREs are raining out of the slowly moving vehicles. Fearing that a child will fall beneath the treads or wheels in an effort to retrieve the morsels, someone finally puts a stop to the spontaneous “relief operation” by broadcasting over the tactical net, “Everybody, knock off throwing the food!”

  Before nightfall, the city is virtually surrounded. RCT-1 is to our immediate south and RCT-7, coiled up near the junction of the Tigris and Diyala rivers, is prepared to press on into the city with nighttime patrols. Joe Dunford sets up his RCT-5 CP in an abandoned Republican Guard officer housing area, where there’s barely room to park the four CH-46s and two UH1Ns among the U.S. vehicles and dozens of abandoned and mostly intact Iraqi army tanks, armored vehicles, and anti-aircraft weapons. For our evening satellite feed, we set up our camera next to a 57mm anti-aircraft gun that still has a round in its breech and crates of ammo beside it, indicating that the Iraqis deserted it quickly. Just down the street from us, a large tire factory is on fire and producing heavy volumes of billowing black smoke.

  Once again, we learn more about the course of the war from the FOX News Channel broadcasts originating in New York and Washington than we do from what we can see from our own narrow vantage point. Farther to the west, elements of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division have been conducting “thunder runs”—armored sorties into the city and back out to the area north of the airport. Iraqi command and control has largely broken down. What organized units remain in the city seem to be demoralized by news being broadcast by U.S. Commando Solo aircraft that Saddam and his sons were killed in an air strike yesterday in the Mansour section of Baghdad. Whether they were killed or not, most of the Iraqi civilians that we’re seeing seem to believe it—and don’t appear to be in mourning.

  According to the news, paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade have linked up with Kurdish pesh merga forces in the north and chased the Iraqi army out of Ain Sifni, a strategic town just north of Mosul—not far from ancient Nineveh, made famous by the biblical prophet Jonah. Well to our south, the British have entered Basra after a two-week siege. Strangely absent from the U.S. broadcasts are the retired generals and admirals who just days ago were prognosticating that we faced months of heavy combat and thousands of U.S. casualties before getting to Baghdad.

  CENTCOM says that coalition forces are facing “sporadic resistance”—a term that has meaning only to anyone not being shot at. Part of the “sporadic resistance” that we’re now experiencing is an occasional mortar round fired from the area just beyond the limit of the Marine advance. Just before dark I go up in one of the HMLA-267 Hueys on a quick hop to see if they can spot the shooter or a forward observer. Flying at about two hundred feet, the two helicopters sweep over crowded streets where civilians are camping out, with small fires, cooking or just staying warm in the cool night air, since the electricity is off in this part of Baghdad. Just outside the Marine lines, the gunner on the right side of our bird spots a man in civilian clothes on the roof of an apartment building. He clearly has an AK-47 and what appears to be a radio. It’s logical to assume that this is a forward observer (FO) for the mortar that has been dropping rounds on us. Yesterday, this would have been a no-brainer—with the flick of an arming switch and the squeeze of the trigger on our GAU-17 mini-gun, the FO would have had more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. But when we crossed the Diyala, the rules of engagement (the ROE) changed. Because of the dense civilian population, the Marine gunners, both in the air and on the ground, have been told to “fire only when fired upon.”

  On the ground, five hundred yards away, we can see Marine LAVs, who obviously cannot see the guy on the roof. And of course nobody knows what or who else is in the apartment building. It may be hiding a fedayeen platoon, or it may be home to several hundred of the civilians who just hours ago were cheering our arrival.

  As we circle the building, trying to make radio contact with the LAV unit on the ground, two USAF F-15 Strike Eagles are running an air strike off to our west over what appears to be the center of Baghdad. As the lead jet pulls up from his run, he’s chased by a stream of tracers, and then the arc of a SAM follows him. Even though it’s several miles away, and we’re peering into the sunset, the missile looks big—an SA3 or 6. It resembles a telephone pole streaking up at the U.S. aircraft. Flares and chaff drop from the lead F-15 as it dives for the rooftops, and his wingman unleashes what looks to be a missile—a HARM, I’m guessing—at the offending Iraqi launcher. The skyline erupts in red where the missile hits, clearly inside the city, and the two aircraft disappear into the clouds.

  This whole exchange has taken less than a minute, and I have managed to capture some of it on my camera. The result can only be presumed, but it’s very likely three or four Iraqis manning a fire-control console at a surface-to-air missile battery, and possibly ten or twelve other Iraqis loading a ZSU-23-4, are now dead.

  While I was distracted by the “air show” off to our west, below us the suspected FO gathers his weapon, picks up his military radio, and disappears into a doorway on the roof. All that the two heavily armed helicopters can do is mark the location with a GPS plot and hope that an infantry patrol will check out the site tonight or tomorrow. The frustration is palpable. The commentary over the intercom is unprintable.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #30

  With RCT-5

  East Baghdad

  Wednesday, 9 April 2003

  2200 Hours Local

  It rained on us last night, a cold drizzle that made sleeping on the hood of a Humvee, rolled up in my poncho and poncho liner, particularly uncomfortable. The precipitation forced us to break down our satellite gear; we didn’t reestablish communications with New York until after sunrise. The first news of our day is actually the last news from yesterday in the United States. Nearly all of it’s bad.

  There’s one positive story, with some good footage from Rick Leventhal, about the Marines moving across the Diyala into east Baghdad. The next report from Iraq is about an Air Force A-10 Warthog getting shot down yesterday by a French Roland SAM just north of the Saddam International Airport—proving again that not all of the Iraqis have given up. The “big story,” as my friend John Gibson would put it, is about a U.S. Army M-1 Abrams tank round that hit the Palestine Hotel, where most of the members of the international press corps—those who chose to be “embedded” with the Iraqi regime—have been living. The tank round reportedly killed two foreign journalists and wounded several, and there is apparently an international uproar.

  The Marines who gather around our little TV set to catch up on the news from home absorb all of this. The only story that evinces any response is one about the Baghdad bureau of Al Jazeera having been hit during a U.S. air raid yesterday, killing one of the TV network’s reporters. That prompts a Marine staff sergeant to observe, “Now isn’t that a damn shame. ‘Jihad TV’ didn’t seem to get that upset when four hijacked planes killed three thousand Americans on nine-eleven.” Sympathy for the enemy has never been a strong suit among Marines.

  And sitting still isn’t one of “Fighting Joe” Dunford’s strong suits either. Even before first light he has his battalions preparing to move, completing the “right hook” into the city proper. He wants the Marines of RCT-5 to press on all the way to the Tigris, in the heart of the city, and link up with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division. The company commanders are provided with the grid coordinates to plug into their GPSs. These coordinates are fo
r various high-value targets selected by the OGA teams roaming around the city looking for Baath Party facilities, weapons of mass destruction, and, of course, any surviving regime leaders.

  Interestingly enough, nobody here in Iraq seems to have any of the now famous decks of cards depicting the leaders of Saddam’s brutal establishment that show up frequently on U.S. TV. The OGA guys, the SEALs, Task Force 20, and the Recon Marines have JPEG images of various wanted Iraqis on their laptops, but there probably aren’t a dozen Marine or Army grunts who would recognize Uday or Qusay Hussein if they drove up to a military checkpoint and asked directions. Nonetheless, this morning the leathernecks of RCT-5 are going hunting for whatever members of Saddam’s inner circle they can find.

  Farther to our south, RCT-7 is moving into the Al Karradah neighborhood of the city, located in the “hook” of the Tigris, with the goal of pushing all the way south to Baghdad University. The sprawling campus occupies much of the terrain at the tip of the peninsula formed by the looping river and is believed to be a bastion for the foreign fedayeen who have flooded into the city since March 20.

  On the night of April 8, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines finds uniforms and documents at the Al Rasheed Medical Center, indicating that American POWs have been held and treated at the facility. Some of the OGA folks believe that the U.S. captives might have been moved to the university. Lt. Col. Chris Conlin, the CO of 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, given the mission of securing the once-respected institution of higher learning, doesn’t waste time getting there. When 1/7 arrives, they find the trouble they are looking for—the fedayeen are still there. It takes the rest of the day to dig them out, even though their AK-47s and RPGs are no match for the Marine firepower, training, and discipline. In the end, the foreign fighters and the handful of young Iraqis with them get what they were seeking. They wanted to die for Saddam. The Marines of 1st Battalion, 7th Marines have obliged.