War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom

by Oliver North

  But that may have already happened. As my camera documents, many of the surface-to-air missile and RPG boxes are open and empty.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #42

  With 3rd Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment

  4th Infantry Division, U.S. Army

  Bayji, Iraq

  Saturday, 26 April 2003

  1200 Hours Local

  We spend most of April 23, 24, and 25 with the 3rd Battalion scouts patrolling the area between Tikrit and Bayji. Terrigino’s troopers are eager to do what’s right, and I continue the practice I started early in the war of letting them tell their own story on the air with FOX News Channel. As often as I can, I put a microphone up to the face of one of these youngsters and have Griff point the camera at him while he tells the American people what he does and how well he does it.

  And just like the Marines before them, each time we dial in to FOX News Channel in New York, a crowd of soldiers gathers around our miniature TV set to learn what’s happening back home or elsewhere in the war. That’s how we learn about the capture of other Iraqi leaders and how well things are going for U.S. forces north of us in Mosul and for the British in Basra.

  On Thursday, one of SFC Terrigino’s patrols followed a looter from a Republican Guard camp just south of the city back to his home. He had a truck full of sinks, toilets, and plumbing fixtures ripped out of the government facility and was apparently intending to make a new start in the home improvement business. The looter’s house was then surrounded by scout platoon Humvees while Terrigino called the MPs and the battalion’s intelligence officer. A truck was dispatched to the site and seven Iraqi males were taken into custody. Also taken were the stolen plumbing fixtures and a number of weapons and grenades that the scouts removed from a chicken coop.

  Yesterday, a twenty-six-year-old Army 1st Lt., Osbaldo Orozco, became the first Fort Hood soldier to die in Iraq, when his Humvee flipped over while on a patrol. The incident prompted me to go back over to Saddam’s palace in Tikrit and chat with Col. Joe Campbell about how he sees things shaping up.

  “Our biggest challenge right now is civil affairs,” Campbell tells me. “We’ve got to get the infrastructure up and running again. We’re working civil affairs to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi civilians,” he says, and then adds, “American soldiers are here to liberate. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes.”

  But it might well matter how long it takes.

  He tells me, “The security of Tikrit and this part of Iraq, the home of Saddam Hussein, makes it especially tough. But our soldiers are up to it. They’re conducting aggressive patrolling.”

  When I ask Col. Campbell what the most difficult aspect of all this is for him, he says, “I think it’s tougher now because you don’t know who the enemy is. He’s dressed like the normal civilian in the city, so you really have to keep your guard up. And you have to be vigilant in terms of how you execute your missions and have to keep your eyes and ears open.”

  When I return to our lonely outpost in Bayji, I learn from FOX News Channel that Tarik Aziz—Saddam’s former deputy prime minister and the only Christian in the Baath Party inner circle—has been captured. As in so many other cases, he was fingered by an Iraqi civilian. The Iraqi people really do hate Saddam’s regime.

  It’s late when we retire. Griff is exhausted, but before he takes off his boots and puts his head down on top of the Humvee next to the one I’ll be sleeping on, he calls back to the FOX News Channel bureau in Kuwait to order more videotape—we’re almost out. When he finishes, he tosses the Iridium sat-phone to me, reminding me that we have to do a live “hit” with the Friday night edition of Hannity & Colmes that, for us, comes before dawn on Saturday morning. I tuck the phone up against my chest, inside my flak jacket, so that its vibration will awaken me when they phone up from New York. That’s where it is when the foreign desk calls to tell us, “Come on home.” But as welcome as those words are, as is so often the case in this war, it’s easier said than done.

  AFTER ACTION REPORT

  Dulles International Airport

  Washington, DC

  Monday, 28 April 2003

  1830 Hours Local

  If getting there is half the fun, then arriving home is the other half. It’s been that way every time I’ve come home from war: twice from Vietnam, multiple times from Central America, Grenada, and Beirut. But this return was really special. My wife, Betsy, has contacted all our children and they are there to welcome Griff and me at Dulles Airport. It is the first time in nearly two months that we actually arrive at our intended destination, at the appointed time, and without casualties.

  The odyssey didn’t start out that way. The H-60 Black Hawk we boarded on the morning of April 26 didn’t get anywhere close to Baghdad, our intended next stop. Instead, we landed at Tikrit South, a captured Iraqi air base—and eventually caught another H-60 for the long run down the Tigris to the new Baghdad International Airport. Actually, the only thing “new” about it is the name—“Baghdad” has replaced “Saddam”—but I suppose another new thing is the fact that it is now under U.S. management.

  The Army pilots drop us at the main terminal, where we off-load our gear and find our way—courtesy of a Civil Affairs unit from the Illinois National Guard, to the Army’s V Corps Operations Center, a cluster of interconnected, air-conditioned, sandbagged tents set up on the apron. That’s when we learn that it really pays to work for FOX News Channel.

  From the reception we receive, one would have thought Griff and I had won the war single-handedly. The officers, senior NCOs, and enlisted troops manning this facility have, it turns out, been glued to FOX News Channel since the war began. They describe in intimate detail reports they have seen on the FOX satellite feed for the past two months, including Greg Kelly’s and Rick Leventhal’s dramatic reports from the vanguard of the 3rd ID and 3rd LAR as they closed in on Baghdad two weeks ago.

  Here there’s no need to huddle around a tiny satellite transceiver, as the troops did when we were broadcasting in the field. Hanging from the roof of this insulated tent, in front of rows of computers at the watch station, is a huge plasma-screen TV. And there are Brit Hume and Tony Snow with news for Sunday morning in the United States.

  Griff and I have instant culture shock. We’re filthy. Our clothing is grimy from living in the field. Our flak jackets and gas masks have so much dirt ground into them that they are the color of Iraqi sand. The scores of officers and senior NCOs gathered around us are . . . well, clean. They are all clean-shaven, wearing clean uniforms. Their hands and fingernails are clean. There isn’t a gas mask or flak jacket in sight. We smell. They don’t—though some may have been wearing aftershave.

  After nearly two months in the field, the welcome is, as Griff put it, “awesome.” But not so overwhelming that he loses his head. After hearing people ask us, “Is there anything we can do for you?” several dozen times, I am about to suggest a shower when Griff says, “We’re trying to get back to Kuwait. Are there any aircraft headed that way?”

  There are none going there directly, but an hour later we are aboard a C-130 assigned to Brig. Gen. Gary Harrell’s Special Operations Command, headed to CENTCOM “Forward” at Doha, Qatar. Harrell’s 5th and 10th Special Forces Groups have waged the war with almost no media visibility, and that’s the way they want to keep it. We are admonished that if we wanted a ride to Kuwait, we cannot report who goes with us, what cargo the aircraft carries, or even what model C-130 it is. We put away our cameras and get aboard.

  After a brief stop in Qatar to drop off the cargo and passengers we can’t report about, we take off for the hour-and-a-half flight to Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. There we return the gas masks, chemical protective suits, flak jackets, and NVGs I signed for with HMM-268. Then we make a quick round of goodbyes again at MAG-39 and throw our personal gear and broadcast equipment into the back of a Suburban that Gary Gastelu has dispatched from the FOX bureau in Kuwait City.

  The Kuwait City w
e return to is completely transformed from the capital we left two months before. Gone are the air raid wardens at the hotels. The police roadblocks and highway checks at key intersections are absent, as are the sirens wailing their warnings about inbound Iraqi missiles. The people on the street seem genuinely pleased to see Americans.

  When we arrive at the FOX News Channel bureau at the Marriott Hotel, we are issued room keys and extra towels and are informed that our flight home, via London, departs the following morning. Two hours later—showered, shaved, fed, but still longing for any kind of cold drink with lots of ice in it—we fall asleep. Twelve hours later we are on our way home to our affectionate families at Dulles Airport.

  Our warm welcome obscures three important dynamics that, if we were less fatigued, would be obvious. First, the American people are still, despite the stunning victory in Iraq, deeply divided over the war. Second, though we are home with those who love us, the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines we have covered throughout the campaign are without their families, and will be for a long time to come. But most important, some of those families, instead of gathering in joy to meet their returning warrior, will come together to mourn an irreplaceable loss.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AFTERMATH

  Though much of the “good news” from Iraq dried up when the embedded news teams came home, there was still plenty of positive information to report from the war-torn country. Unfortunately, many of these stories never got printed or aired or were buried beneath a deluge of criticism, casualty statistics, and negative anecdotes.

  The events of Tuesday, July 22 in Mosul, Iraq—a major victory in Operation Iraqi Freedom—is but one example of how quickly a “good news” story can disappear. Since we were already home, the following account was prepared from news reports and information supplied by soldiers, Marines, and OGA personnel who were in Iraq when these events occurred.

  AFTER ACTION REPORT

  Al Falah District, Mosul, Iraq

  Tuesday, 22 July 2003

  0955 Hours Local

  It has been 122 days since the coalition forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. For the past month only occasional skirmishes have interrupted the daily routine in Mosul. There has been an American presence in the al Falah district, an area of Mosul that’s shared—not always peacefully—by Sunnis and Kurds.

  The looting and revenge-taking by the Kurds eased up when the Kurdish troops retreated in late May, and the relieved locals felt that things were getting back to normal. There’s been relative freedom of movement for the Iraqis since then.

  Iraqi businessman Nawaf al-Zaidan was especially relieved that the Kurds were gone. As someone close to the Hussein clan, he’d have been one of their targets and probably would have been shot and hung from a lamppost like others in Saddam’s regime or the Baath Party. Al-Zaidan’s neighbors said that he had obtained lucrative contracts from the regime as part of the Oil-for-Food Program. Al-Zaidan made money from his connections with Saddam’s family, and probably didn’t even resent having to pay a kickback to them for getting his contracts.

  After the Kurds left in May, all was quiet for a while. Then there was some unusual activity at al-Zaidan’s house in Mosul. The homeowner told his friends and clan members that he had visitors—female relatives. In his culture, males were not allowed to visit while the women were there. For nearly a month none of his friends or neighbors were invited to his house because his “female relatives” were still visiting.

  The truth, however, was that the visitors were not female. Nor were they relatives. After several days of preparations during the last week of June, Nawaf al-Zaidan received important visitors who were going to entrust him with their safety. The visitors were Uday and Qusay Hussein. They arrived June 30, with their bodyguard and Qusay’s teenage son Mustafa. The fugitives would stay under the roof of the Mosul businessman until their presence was compromised.

  At about 2200 local on July 21, an unidentified Iraqi citizen tipped a young U.S. Army sergeant, an intelligence specialist, that Saddam’s evil sons were hiding in Nawaf al-Zaidan’s house. The young sergeant’s report—at the time only a suspicion—was immediately relayed to Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division. He in turn directed his deputy, Brig. Gen. Frank Helmick, to develop a plan for capturing or killing the high-value targets said to be hiding in the Mosul residence.

  Most think it was al-Zaidan who contacted the Americans about the HVTs living in his villa—no doubt for the $30 million bounty. Everyone knew about the $15 million reward for the death or capture of each of the infamous brothers. No one from the American military confirmed that al-Zaidan tipped them off, but no one seems to doubt that he was the one who betrayed Uday and Qusay.

  There is, however, another possibility. The Kurdish families who live in the al Falah district near al-Zaidan’s villa are loyal to Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). These neighbors may have seen Saddam’s sons at the villa. According to intelligence sources, someone from the PUK group went to Talabani with the news and he took the information directly to U.S officials in Baghdad. If that’s the case, the $30 million bounty went to the PUK.

  The Americans used a Predator drone to do surveillance on the villa to determine how many people were inside the compound with the Hussein brothers. The 101st Airborne Division’s Second Combat Brigade Team—the “Strike Brigade”—sealed off the neighborhood. Also taking part was the same covert Task Force 20 that handled the rescue of PFC Jessica Lynch. Since that famous rescue, Task Force 20 had been chasing leads on the whereabouts of Saddam and his sons. Planning, reconnaissance, and coordination continued through the night of July 21–22.

  By early Tuesday morning, the 101st Airborne Division had armored Bradleys and Humvees at five strategic points around the neighborhood, blocking any traffic coming in or out of the target building on the corner of a neighborhood street and a major boulevard. Troops from the division manning TOW missile-equipped Humvees went through the neighborhood to clear out civilians.

  Meanwhile, twenty operators from Task Force 20 moved out on foot for the target building. They were quickly in position. They climbed over a wall and headed for the front entry, going through an unlocked gate. Nawaf al-Zaidan opened the door for them.

  Things began to happen immediately after the Special Forces team came to the door. They hurriedly escorted al-Zaidan and his wife and son away into the protective custody of the American military. At the same time, a bodyguard for the two brothers saw what was happening and, from an upstairs balcony, began to fire at the Special Operations troops and 101st Airborne soldiers down on the street. In the initial fray, one U.S. soldier was hit by AK-47 fire from the balcony. Inside, three of the TF-20 special ops team, wounded by gunfire and grenade fragments, were forced to withdraw.

  A few minutes later, Uday and Qusay were urged to surrender by a translator on a Psy Ops loudspeaker. Qusay must have regretted their choice in selecting al-Zaidan’s house, since it had no interior fortifications or exit tunnels. The brothers and the surviving bodyguard hastily tried to “fortify” the second floor by using mattresses and bed frames as a makeshift buttress. But both brothers had to know that while mattresses might stop a few bullets, the ultimate outcome of their situation didn’t look good.

  Uday and Qusay had well-deserved reputations for cruelty: Uday, the elder sibling, who was partially disabled in a 1996 assassination attempt, apparently enjoyed raping Iraqi women, torturing and terrorizing members of the Iraqi national soccer team for poor performances, and executing those he perceived to be his adversaries or rivals. Qusay was said to take pleasure in killing political prisoners, stuffing them into oversized wood chippers, and supervising group executions. The mass graves being exhumed across the Iraqi countryside today provide evidence of their lust for wholesale murder as sport. If anyone can be labeled as truly evil, it would surely be these two.

  By midday, Uday and Qusay Hussein, whose names mean “wolf”
and “snake” respectively in Iraqi Arabic, seemed to have lost any of the mystique and cunning of their animal namesakes. After being on the run for more than three months, they were now merely pathetic caricatures of themselves, cowering in a bathroom outside the bedroom they had shared for the past three weeks.

  No one knows if they ever entertained the possibility of surrender. Most of those involved think not. They no doubt feared the Americans more than any international justice that might be meted out if they were captured. They were probably willing to take their chances if the UN took custody of them and tried them as war criminals. There would probably be a chance that they’d get off lightly.

  Neither Saddam nor his two sons had made any visible or effective efforts to take command or control of the Iraqi army since the beginning of the war. The earliest coalition air attacks had decapitated their control of the troops in the field by destroying their communications. By the time entire regular army units and divisions of the Republican Guard began to surrender, Saddam and his sons had to see that there was no hope of waging any kind of credible response to the American and British invasion.

  Since March 20, this family of evildoers seems to have been spending its time and effort evading capture by using the hoard of cash and jewels they had accumulated to pay for personal protection and eventual escape.

  Uday is largely credited with having devised the scheme for recruiting foreigners to fight for his father, and there are reports that he grew increasingly desperate as the Republican Guard began to desert. He apparently tried to stiffen the backbone of the regulars by using fedayeen execution squads, but that eventually failed as well, when the executioners themselves began to desert. Things got so bad that even his bodyguards were vacillating over the mission of protecting him. When things began to look really bleak, and the possibility that the Americans might capture them seemed imminent, Uday allegedly had nearly twenty of his bodyguards killed—they knew too much about him and his father’s regime and couldn’t be trusted not to divulge this information to the Americans should there be a war crimes trial.