War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom

by Oliver North

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #33

  With HMLA-267

  Eastern Iraq

  Saturday, 12 April 2003

  2345 Hours Local

  By the time Griff and I bed down on the night of April 11, the immediate area around the RCT-5 HQ at the sports complex is secure. Earlier in the day, while I was out poking around the warehouse/home, S/Sgt. Riayan Tejeda, of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines—with whom I had gone on patrol a few nights earlier—was killed by an Iraqi or fedayeen sniper. But by dark last night, things in Baghdad are remarkably quiet. Wrapped in my poncho liner on the concrete steps of the stadium, I can see stars overhead—and the Marine sniper team on the roof of the school next door. And though there are occasional bursts of AK-47 fire off in the distance, for the first time since March 20, we don’t hear the sound of U.S. or British jets or UAVs overhead.

  In the morning, Capt. Allen Grinalds, a Cobra pilot with HMLA-267, offers to have me ride along on a “hunter-killer” mission. Grinalds was flight leader for two AH1J Cobras and two UH1N Hueys. They are heading north toward Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, looking for a fight. It sounds like a way to get some good footage for one of my FOX News Channel feeds and see some of the country I haven’t yet been over, so I go along. As is so often the case in war, things don’t go as intended.

  The original flight plan called for us to fly the route that would be taken by Task Force Tripoli. This hastily organized unit, comprising 1st, 2nd, and 3rd LAR Battalions, an artillery battalion, an infantry company, a Marine engineer detachment, and a Navy SEAL team—all commanded by Brig. Gen. John Kelly, the 1st Marine Division assistant commander—was to take Tikrit as fast as possible. Task Force Tripoli had two missions: kill or capture any leaders of the regime who might have taken refuge in the city, and make sure that the Kurds didn’t get there first. The CENTCOM staff was justifiably concerned that if Kurdish pesh merga troops got to Tikrit before U.S. forces arrived, there would be a slaughter of biblical proportions. There isn’t a Kurdish fighter in Iraq who hasn’t lost at least one family member to Saddam’s goons. And in this part of the world, retribution is a way of life.

  The mission to be “the firstest with the mostest” in Tikrit fell to I-MEF, even though the Marines had already come farther, faster than anyone else in the war, and farther from water than any Marine force had ever gone before.

  Grinalds and his four-bird flight take off and head north for about ten minutes. But shortly after we leave the Baghdad skyline behind, an urgent call comes over the radio diverting the mission to a “high-priority target”—an enemy armor concentration to our east—in the Task Force Tarawa zone of action. As the four helicopters wheel right and head off in the new direction, I fumble with my laminated map to plot the grid. I am astounded—we are being sent more than 150 miles east, to the vicinity of Al Amarah, within sight of the Iranian border.

  The Marines of Task Force Tarawa, having fought the bloody battle of An Nasiriyah and then all the way north to An Numiniyah, have spent the last two weeks holding more than 150 kilometers of MSR (main supply route) on Routes 1, 7, and 27, keeping them open for Marine and Army convoys rolling up from Kuwait. Despite being spread thin—and even though some units have suffered combat losses of more than 20 percent—not one convoy has been ambushed by roving bands of fedayeen. Now the exhausted and depleted TF Tarawa is tasked with the “urgent mission” of racing east to Al Amarah because someone at “higher headquarters” perceives a threat from an Iraqi border outpost.

  We refuel twice on the way, and just as we finally arrive at the outskirts of the city, Grinalds receives a radio call canceling the mission. The target has been hit by a fixed-wing air strike.

  As it turns out, the whole venture is for naught. When Task Force Tarawa swarms into Al Amarah, they confirm what was apparent to all but those who sent us there: the Iraqis have already fled, leaving mountains of unattended weapons, equipment, ordnance, and armor behind.

  As the discouraged pilots fly back to the west, one of the Cobra pilots sees a large enclosure surrounded by guard towers, and a berm topped with barbed wire. On closer inspection it turns out to be a tank park. There are dozens of Iraqi T-72s, T-55s, BMPs, BTRs, and anti-aircraft weapons scattered about the site—far too much to be destroyed by four helicopters carrying 2.75-inch and five-inch rockets, Hellfire and TOW missiles, 20mm cannons, and machine guns. But after marking the GPS position of the site, the pilots take out their frustration by destroying the anti-aircraft weapons protecting the facility so that they can’t threaten any other aircraft. Then, for good measure, they unleash their TOWs and Hellfires on the armor. As the birds wheel away into the setting sun more than thirty of the Iraqi armored vehicles, AA guns, SAMs, and trucks are blazing.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #34

  With 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines

  Baghdad, Iraq

  Palm Sunday, 13 April 2003

  2345 Hours Local

  We spent last night on the captured runway at An Numaniyah. This is now a full-fledged Marine airbase—MAG-39 and MAG-13 both have operations and logistics centers here. I had just unrolled my poncho liner beside the skid of the Huey when Lt. Gen. Conway, the I-MEF commander, drove up in a Humvee and invited me to join him for a late-night snack. Since he didn’t have room in his vehicle for all twelve of the Huey and Cobra pilots and aircrews, I respectfully declined his hospitality and got my first full night’s sleep in weeks.

  Shortly after dawn, as I am wolfing down a jambalaya MRE for breakfast, my satellite phone rings and the duty officer at the FOX News Channel foreign desk in New York politely inquires if I could link up with Task Force Tripoli, now on its way to Tikrit. I explain, without going into the details, that I was about seventy-five miles southeast of Baghdad and looking for a ride to link up with RCT-5 and HMM-268.

  “Why do you want me to cover Task Force Tripoli?” I ask. “We already have Rick Leventhal and Christian Galdabini with 3rd LAR and they’re part of TF Tripoli. They’re as good or better than anybody out here. Why can’t they cover the attack on Tikrit?”

  “Their Humvee broke down,” he replies.

  “I’ll do my best,” I say, and sign off. Then I make a frantic dash for the MAG-39 Forward Operations tent. Inside I find Gunnery Sgt. Robert Pequeno, the MAG-39 Ops Chief—who also happens to be the best barber in all of I-MEF—and he snags me a ride in a CH-46 up to RCT-5.

  But by the time I arrive back at the Baghdad sports complex, find Griff, pack up our satellite gear, and go into the RCT-5 CP to scrounge another hop north to link up with TF Tripoli, it is too late. All the HMM-268 “frogs” and HMLA-267 Hueys are committed to other missions. Breaking one loose to fly two guys from FOX News Channel up the Tigris to Tikrit just isn’t in the cards.

  Seeing my disappointment, Joe Dunford suggests that we join up with Sam Mundy’s 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines again, because they are headed up that way. We promptly load our gear into two Humvees and head across town, where Mundy’s Marines are preparing to roll out of Baghdad and head north. We arrive just in time for a Palm Sunday service being offered by the battalion chaplain.

  I’ve been to hundreds of these church services over the years. “Church” has been the hangar deck of an assault landing ship, a bomb crater at Khe Sanh, an artillery revetment at Con Thien, a jungle-covered hillside in Central America, a bunker in Beirut, a sweltering tent in Kuwait, and countless other venues. None of those are more memorable than this gathering of 250 or more bone-weary, grimy young men, clad in their battle gear, standing, sitting, and kneeling in the dusty courtyard of a former Republican Guard barracks.

  The sergeant major has organized a choir, which sings as well as any in a cathedral. The chaplain’s words are inspiring and almost prophetic. He uses the Gospel text about Christ entering Jerusalem a week before his terrible death as a lesson for the young Marines gathered for worship. “The crowd’s cheers turned to jeers. Jesus didn’t live up to their expectations,” he said. “Most of the people didn�
��t understand his purpose in being there and turned on him.”

  It somehow seems as though that is already happening to these Marines. Most of the people here in Iraq welcomed them, showering them with flowers, handing them little handmade American flags, and loving them for having ended Saddam’s reign of terror. But back home, as evidenced by the criticism in the media, it seems as though their victorious entry into Baghdad, like Christ’s into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, is widely misunderstood. Complaints in the U.S. press and in Paris about their “failures to prevent Iraqi looting,” the destruction of “cultural sites,” the “inability to get water and electricity flowing” seem grievously unfair to these boys-turned-men who have fought so hard and sacrificed so much to get this far.

  Following the service, Griff and I videotape Mundy’s Op Order to his company commanders for the attack north. We’ll drive through northern Baghdad, pass through the 3rd Infantry Division’s lines, and pick up the route north taken by Task Force Tripoli. The battalion’s mission is to drive north through hostile territory for sixty kilometers and search for “high-value leadership targets,” look for American POWs, check out a major pharmaceutical plant in Samarra for weapons of mass destruction, secure the nearby airfield, and be ready to reinforce TF Tripoli in Tikrit if needed. Just an average day for a Marine infantry battalion.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #35

  With 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines

  Samarra, 60 km north of Baghdad, Iraq

  Monday, 14 April 2003

  2345 Hours Local

  Before retiring for a few hours sleep on April 13 we hooked up our satellite gear and dialed into FOX News Channel center in New York. The first report is great news. The Marines of 3rd LAR—part of Task Force Tripoli—have rescued seven American POWs in Samarra. Five are soldiers from the ill-fated, 507th Maintenance Company ambush of March 23 in An Nasiriyah. The other two are Chief Warrant Officers David Williams and Ronald Young, Jr., the Apache helicopter pilots assigned to the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment based in Ft. Hood, Texas, shot down the same day near Karbala.

  The POWs had apparently been moved constantly since their capture. They were rescued in Samarra without a shot fired thanks to information provided by an Iraqi—and the quick response of the Marines.

  We took this as a sign that the Iraqis are becoming less fearful of Baath and fedayeen reprisals for cooperating with U.S. forces. It also meant that as 3/5 moved north, they would have one less mission to perform.

  After a few hours of sleep, we’re on the road. I ride with Mundy, his sergeant major, a gunner, and a driver. Griff is in a Humvee behind us with the battalion XO, Maj. Jason Morris. In front of us are two M-1 tanks and two AAVs loaded with infantrymen standing in the open hatches, their weapons at the ready.

  The move through Baghdad goes smoother than expected because of a curfew that keeps civilian traffic down to a minimum, and before Tuesday’s dawn we’re well north of the city, moving at twenty-five to thirty kilometers per hour. By the time the sun comes up over the Tigris, we’re surrounded by fields of grain and orchards of fig trees that give off a much nicer fragrance than do our unwashed bodies.

  Using a Blue Force Tracker mounted on the Humvee dashboard and his PRC-119 radio, Mundy keeps careful track of the vehicles in the fast-moving convoy. By the time we reach the outskirts of Samarra, some sixty kilometers north of Baghdad, he’s fully closed up and well prepared for a fedayeen ambush just after we cross the hydroelectric dam west of the city. He dispatches two tanks and a rifle company mounted in AAVs, supported by a section of Cobras, to deal with the fedayeen, and rolls into the pharmaceutical plant.

  The plant is directly across the highway from a reconstruction of the Tower of Babel and a fortress built by Alexander the Great 2,300 years ago. I decide to go get a closer shot of these while the intel officers and the guys from OGA look for any signs that the pharmaceutical facility is being used to manufacture chemical or biological weapons. But as I’m crossing the highway accompanied by a Marine rifleman, a three-Mercedes motorcade pulls up beside me. Armed men in western dress, who look much like the Iranians I used to meet with when I was trying to get American hostages out of dungeons in Beirut, get out of the first and third cars. One of them opens the back door of the middle Mercedes and a tall Shi’ite imam emerges.

  I’m wondering how fast and far the young Marine and I can run after the shooting starts when the mullah says in perfect English, “How do you do? Would you please escort me to your general?”

  Realizing that this is my “get out of jail free” card, I reply, “Please wait right here and we’ll be right back,” and the PFC and I head for the pharmaceutical plant’s main gate.

  Since the closest thing we have to a general at this location is Lt. Col. Sam Mundy, he leaves Maj. Morris in charge and goes to meet with the imam. The imam explains that he has just returned to Iraq from exile in Iran and he wants to help us “get rid of the foreigners.”

  My Arabic isn’t as good as Mundy’s, and I think at first that he means he wants to get rid of us, but the imam explains by “foreigners” he means the Syrian, Saudi, Egyptian, Jordanian, Palestinian, and Lebanese fedayeen who have “invaded”—his word, not mine—Iraq. The imam, now joined by a local sheikh, invites Mundy and all of our “soldiers” to come to a feast to celebrate the victory over Saddam.

  Sam Mundy is not only a warrior, he’s also a diplomat. He explains that all of the “foreigners” have not yet been captured or killed, and that while we very much appreciate the kind invitation, it will have to wait.

  After another hour of searching the pharmaceutical plant, Mundy decides he needs more expertise to determine whether the plant was making cough drops or something worse. RCT-5 HQ tells him to remain in Samarra overnight and they will send some experts in the morning.

  We’ve just rolled out of the plant to find a suitable place to bivouac his battalion when an urgent call comes in on Mundy’s Iridium phone: a Cobra has gone down at the air base about fifteen kilometers east of Samarra. Mundy quickly organizes his TRAP response unit—two tanks, six AAVs full of troops, and four Humvees—and I tag along as we race out to recover the two pilots before the fedayeen can get to them.

  The road to the airfield is lined with well-maintained farms—on which Saddam has hidden tanks, armored vehicles, and even disassembled MiG fighters—all abandoned. The up guns on the AAVs—and even some of the .50-caliber gunners on the Humvees—each take turns putting a few rounds into the Iraqi equipment just to make sure that it won’t move or be used again.

  When we arrive at the air base and find the wreckage of the Cobra, it looks like a giant piece of aluminum foil balled up and tossed on the desert sands. The helicopter had been attacking anti-aircraft weapons around the airfield when it was blown out of the sky by a secondary explosion from one of the hundreds of ammunition storage revetments spread around the field. If you didn’t believe in miracles before seeing this wreckage, you’d have to when you learn that the pilots have survived both the explosion and the crash. Though the Cobra was totally demolished, the pilot suffered only a separated shoulder and his copilot/gunner had minor lacerations after crawling out of the wreckage. It’s astounding that these guys were recovered alive.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #36

  With 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines

  Samarra, Iraq

  Tuesday, 15 April 2003

  2345 Hours Local

  It’s well after dark when we finally got back to Samarra, where Maj. Morris has coiled the battalion just outside the city for the night. From our bivouac we can see the city lights about a mile to the west. Power was never lost from the hydroelectric generators up here. Though this is Saddam’s neighborhood, the locals don’t seem to be in mourning.

  At 0430 hours local this morning, Maj. Morris joins me in front of the night lens of our camera for the Hannity & Colmes show. In response to a question from Alan Colmes, who is wondering how the negative press is affecting morale, Mo
rris responds, “Well, I’ll tell you, sir, we’ve got a great sense of accomplishment. . . . It’s a real testament to the skill and fighting spirit of the Marines for getting where we have.” And then Colmes asks about the announcement from CENTCOM that major combat activities have ceased and that all units are to transition into “security and stability operations.” Morris answers, “We’re looking forward to this mission, sir. It’s going to take us back a little ways. We’re not going to be quite as ramped up, but we’re ready for it.”

  When we finish, Morris asks me, “How did I do?”

  I respond, poking fun at my favorite liberal, “You did fine. But you don’t have to call Alan Colmes ‘sir.’”

  On Wednesday, shortly after dawn, I am sitting on the ramp of an AAV washing my feet and changing my socks—one of those pleasant, solitary rituals that infantry Marines try to practice daily but often don’t get to—when Griff comes running up to me with the Iridium satellite phone. “CENTCOM says that the Marines down south have captured ‘Abu somebody’ you were looking for,” he exclaims breathlessly.

  “Abu who?” I ask, somewhat irritated that my ablutions are being interrupted.

  “I don’t know,” Griff replies. “Here,” he says, handing me the phone, “talk to New York.”

  The foreign desk had the story right. The name is Abu Abbas, and he was captured last night by Marine and Task Force 20 operators during a raid on the outskirts of Baghdad. Abbas is the Palestinian terrorist who masterminded the October 1985 hijacking of the Italian Achille Lauro cruise ship.

  When I served as the U.S. government’s coordinator for counter-terrorism, I was deeply involved in the effort to capture Abbas and his three fellow terrorists. It was an operation in which those who claimed to be our friends thwarted the United States at every turn.