War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom

by Oliver North

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #46

  1st Marine Division

  Ramadi, Iraq

  Friday, 23 April 2004

  1400 Hours Local

  The Marines here in Ramadi are continuing a 200-year-old tradition in the United States Marine Corps—fighting terrorists. The Corps’ history of such confrontations dates back to 1804, when Marine 1st Lt. Presley O’Bannon led his men to defeat the Barbary Pirates.

  During an early morning ceremony, 1st Lt. David Dobb was among twenty U.S. Marines who received the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in recent combat. Since arriving “in-country,” 116 Marines in this battalion have received the Purple Heart, and yet over seventy of them have decided to stay in Iraq rather than return home, even though, by consequence of their wounds, they can do so.

  I asked 1st Lt. Dobb, who sustained injuries to his hand, why so many of these young men decided to stick it out even though they’d been hurt. “This is what these Marines signed up to do,” he told me, “and we’re going to see this mission through until the job’s done the way it is supposed to be.”

  Sergeant Kenneth Conde, a squad leader with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, was leading his unit in a nighttime raid this week when insurgents tried to ambush his platoon. In the intense gunfight that ensued, Conde was hit in the shoulder. His corpsman quickly treated him and he stayed in the fight. By the time it was over, they had killed six terrorists and collected a pile of enemy weapons and ordnance. Conde’s grievous wounds were a free ticket home, yet he decided to stay with the battalion. I asked him why. “There’s no other choice for a sergeant in the Marine Corps,” Conde explained. “You have to lead your Marines.”

  It’s this kind of courage that makes me wonder what some in our media are thinking. A few weeks ago, Andy Rooney, a syndicated newspaper columnist and commentator for CBS News’s 60 Minutes, wrote a column titled, “Our Soldiers in Iraq Aren’t Heroes.” Rooney is part of a team of “journalists” at CBS News who have gone out of their way to protest U.S. policies in Iraq and the War on Terror.

  Rooney, who to my knowledge hasn’t been to Iraq, wrote, “You can be sure our soldiers in Iraq are not all brave heroes gladly risking their lives for us sitting comfortably back here at home.”

  Not heroes, Andy? Meet Lance Cpl. Conyers, a member of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. On 6 April, Conyers was on patrol with his squad when they were ambushed. “I was out in front at an unlucky moment and took a round to the chest,” Conyers told me, “then one ricocheted off the light pole next to me and hit me in the leg.” The corpsman rushed to Conyers’s side and treated him, and Conyers stayed in the fight.

  In his column, Rooney insists that our troops “want to come home,” and says if he had the chance to interrogate our guys in uniform to prove his point, he’d ask them, “If you could have a medal or a trip home, which would you take?”

  Which do you think Conyers chose, Andy? The bullet Conyers took in the chest was fired from an AK-47. It struck inches from his heart and could have killed him. But because of the plate of armor he was wearing—armor that critics claim either doesn’t exist, or if it did, it wouldn’t work—Conyers is alive. The wound Conyers received to his leg, a “through and through” wound, was his ticket home. But did Conyers take it? Of course not. Of the wound, he told me, “That won’t keep me down.” He said he owes it to his squad to “continue on and fight.”

  Lance Cpl. Conyers is just one of hundreds of Marines and soldiers who, while fighting to defend the American public and liberate the Iraqi people, have been shot, hit, wounded, and treated, only to stay on the battlefield with their units instead of going home. These are remarkable young Americans.

  Rooney complains in his column, “We don’t learn much about what our soldiers in Iraq are thinking or doing.” Well, Andy, now you know—they’re fighting heroically. Want to know more?

  They go on patrol—wearing twenty-five-pound flak jackets and six-pound helmets. They carry another thirty to forty pounds of weapons and ammunition. On longer missions they carry up to seventy pounds on their backs. By day, they’re America’s diplomats—canvassing neighborhoods to befriend the local Iraqis, conducting intelligence operations, and bringing supplies and gifts to Iraqi families and children. By night, they use the intelligence they gather from Iraqis who want the terrorists out of their neighborhoods and conduct raids to root them out of their hiding places.

  And they’re having a great deal of success. Second Lt. Tim Mayer told me, “When we first got here, things were a little challenging. But every day, the situation seems to get a little better. We’re getting weapons and IEDs turned in by the local people, and they are happier that we are here.”

  A lot of the Marines who are here now were also here for the first semester of the war. Many, including those in Conyers’s unit, which was in Okinawa this time last year, have been away from home and their families for the better part of eighteen months over the last two years. Their motivation and morale remain high. But to Andy Rooney, these courageous young Americans “are victims, not heroes.”

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #47

  Ramadi, Iraq

  Tuesday, 11 May 2004

  1400 Hours Local

  A video was posted on a militant Islamic website today. The grisly tape shows the beheading of Nicholas Berg, a U.S. civilian whose body was found near Baghdad three days ago.

  Just about a week or so ago, CBS News showed some other videotaped footage on its 60 Minutes television show. It was part of a report on abuse of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison by U.S. soldiers. It’s pretty obvious that things were not what they should have been at Abu Ghraib. But those responsible will be held accountable, and rightfully so. However, those acts are an aberration compared to the thousands of acts of kindness that U.S. troops are showing to the Iraqi people daily. And as bad as the Abu Ghraib misdeeds were, they pale by comparison with the brutal atrocities being perpetrated by the terrorists here in Iraq.

  Bush administration officials rightly condemned the repugnant behavior at Abu Ghraib. The president called it “abhorrent,” and Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld said it was “totally unacceptable and un-American.” The Pentagon announced that those responsible would be court-martialed. But that isn’t enough for the press and the president’s political opponents in an election year.

  Sadly, the drumbeat over Abu Ghraib is having an adverse effect on morale. Tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines who have served honorably in Iraq now wonder if their service will be tainted in the minds of their countrymen by the shameful behavior of a dozen or so miscreants.

  Over the past two years, I’ve spent months in the field with U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the Middle East. During the march to Baghdad in April 2003, I saw hundreds of Iraqis taken prisoner—many of whom turned themselves in to American forces, knowing they would fare much better in U.S. custody than in Saddam’s army. They were all treated humanely.

  In battle, I watched a Marine risk his life to rescue a wounded Iraqi woman. Troops in the units with which I was embedded treated the Iraqi people with dignity and respect. U.S. forces have played soccer with the kids and built schools with supplies sent by the American public. I’ve seen Marines give their last MREs to hungry Iraqi children.

  I’ve also seen why these troops are in Iraq. I’ve looked into Saddam’s mass graves—a site that makes you sick to your stomach. I saw the evidence of atrocities committed by Saddam, Uday, and Qusay—tapes showing innocent Iraqis having their tongues cut out, or being blindfolded, bound, and marched off the edge of two- and three-story buildings. I saw Iraqi schools turned into ammunition depots and mosques used as bunkers.

  U.S. forces are hard at work in their daily efforts to free Iraq and pave the way for their coming democracy and free elections. And just yesterday, American forces destroyed the Baghdad headquarters of rebel Shi’ite Muqtada al-Sadr and killed eighteen of his high-level cohorts during an overnight firefig
ht.

  There is no doubt that crimes were committed at Abu Ghraib. But if Abu Ghraib becomes the story that Americans most remember about this war, that would be a crime too.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #48

  Baghdad, Iraq

  Thursday, 19 June 2004

  0950 Hours Local

  Eleven days ago, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved Resolution 1546. Sponsored by the U.S. and Britain, the resolution is intended to end the formal occupation of Iraq on 30 June and transfer “full sovereignty” to an interim Iraqi government. This temporary authority—composed of people selected by Iraqis, not Americans, Britons, or the United Nations—will in turn arrange for nationwide elections in January 2005. The resolution also authorizes a continuation of the U.S.-led multinational force for Iraq until a constitutionally elected government takes power, expected by early 2006, or if the Iraqi government requests it.

  But Americans are an impatient lot. We’re used to movies on demand, fast food from drive-thru windows, express oil changes, and high speed Internet service. Americans want it when we want it—and we want it now!

  Our eagerness for instant results has served as a stimulus to the U.S. economy, inspired scientific progress, and promoted advances in technology. We now build homes and commercial structures in days and weeks that used to take months and even years.

  But when it comes to constructing institutions of democracy, the desire for immediate outcomes is a vice rather than a virtue. When interim Iraqi president Ghazi al-Yawer visited the United States, he thanked the American people for the sacrifices we’ve made in liberating his country and offered assurances that, despite the difficulties, things are on track for a real democratic government in Baghdad. There is, of course, one pre-condition—the transition to democracy will only work as long as the U.S.-led coalition continues to stay the course.

  Therein lies the rub—staying the course. According to recent public opinion surveys, a majority of both the American people and the population of Iraq have lost patience with our efforts to bring democracy to Baghdad. Fifteen months after the fall of Saddam’s statue in Firdus Square, and six months after he was dragged from a rat-hole, most Iraqis and most Americans want U.S. troops out—now.

  Set aside the fact that both U.S. and Iraqi polls sampled public opinion in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib prison fiasco and its attendant tidal wave of negative publicity. As long as Abu Ghraib remains the focal point of a hostile media, it is unlikely that public perception of recognizing the progress in Iraq will improve.

  In addition to Abu Ghraib, the media is focused on the perceived increasing violence of the jihadists. Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld answered a salvo of press-conference queries based on the premise “that because the violence is escalating,” shouldn’t we “cut our losses?”

  Such a course of action is unthinkable. In the months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, President George W. Bush warned that the War on Terror would be a long, tough fight. Marines and soldiers on the ground in Iraq acknowledge that the violence is likely to increase, right through the establishment of a new Iraqi government. They see the rash of terror attacks on Iraqi civilians and leadership targets as a sign of increasing desperation by foreign terrorists, tribal sheiks and imams who will lose power once a democratic regime is installed in Baghdad.

  Progress in Iraq was never going to be immediate. The global War on Terror was never going to be won in Afghanistan alone. Don Rumsfeld referred to it as a “long hard slog.” That’s the kind of message Franklin Delano Roosevelt repeated time and again during our last war of national survival—World War II. It’s the kind of message that Lyndon Johnson failed to deliver during Vietnam.

  But the war on jihadist terror in Iraq isn’t Vietnam. We survived fatigue and failure in Vietnam. We won’t survive failure in this war. Unless we want our children to live in constant fear of Islamic radicals bringing down buildings on their heads, there has to be a democratic outcome in Iraq. That’s why the president’s words at MacDill Air Force Base on 16 June were so important. “With each step forward on the path to self-government and self-reliance,” Bush said, “the terrorists will grow more desperate and more violent. They see Iraqis taking their country back. They see freedom taking root. The killers know they have no future in a free Iraq. They want America to abandon the mission and to break our word. So they’re attacking our soldiers and free Iraqis. They’re doing everything in their power to prevent the full transition to democracy.”

  President Bush added, “We can expect more attacks in the coming few weeks . . . more car bombs, more ‘suiciders,’ more attempts on the lives of Iraqi officials. But our coalition is standing firm. New Iraq’s leaders are not intimidated. I will not yield, and neither will the leaders of Iraq.”

  The troops out here are hoping that the American people in the fast lane have the patience not to yield either.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #49

  Ramadi, Iraq

  Saturday, 23 July 2004

  1500 Hours Local

  “There was about a half-mile stretch of the main road in town that instantly became a battlefield as we moved through it,” explained Maj. Mike Wylie, the executive officer of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. Wylie was describing the genesis of a truly violent clash on “Wicked Wednesday” here in Ramadi, the provincial capital that lies about seventy miles west of Baghdad.

  Marines and soldiers were on patrol, making their way through town in 120-degree mid-afternoon heat, when insurgents set off an IED in an attempted ambush on the Marine convoy. The IED exploded beside the vehicle that was carrying our FOX News cameraman, Mal James, who jumped out of the Humvee to capture some of the most dramatic war footage since the major hostilities of sixteen months ago.

  The ensuing battle, involving more than 600 soldiers and Marines, lasted well over four hours and raged over ten city blocks in the vicinity of the government center. During the battle, twenty-five insurgents were killed, seventeen more wounded, and another twenty-five taken off the streets and into custody. Fourteen Marines sustained only minor injuries during the clash.

  The IED—and its deadly cousin, the VBIED (Vehicular-Borne Improvised Explosive Device) or car bomb—is now the preferred form of attack against coalition forces and the new Iraqi government. They are used in every way conceivable—in vehicles, hidden in trash cans beside the road, even placed in dead animals. The enemy no longer wants to face soldiers and Marines head-to-head, as evidenced by the lopsided outcome of Wednesday’s firefight.

  One evening earlier in the week, just after 2100 hours, the Marines responded when Iraqi police called in a suspected VBIED. The Iraqi officers pulled up to a vehicle parked in the middle of a six-lane highway, inspected it, and quickly realized it was a car bomb. Though the Iraqi police are training to deal with IEDs, they don’t yet have the kind of equipment that the Marines do to neutralize them. So the Marine Explosive Ordinance Disposal Team was dispatched with a security force from Weapons Company.

  While the engineers and EOD specialists attached to the Weapons Company prepared to deploy a robot to detonate the bomb, insurgent mortars attacked us. Since speed was now a necessity, the Marines decided instead to use a TOW, a wire-guided anti-tank missile, to destroy the VBIED. Mal James’s camera caught the dramatic effect of Sgt. Jeremiah Randall, the TOW section leader, firing his weapon and eliminating the IED before it had the chance to do any harm.

  Here in Ramadi, the Iraqi national police and national guard are now out in force. It’s noticeable how much they have progressed since I was here in April. They now patrol streets, guard checkpoints, and search neighborhoods, helping to root out terrorists. As one Marine put it, “The Iraqi police realize it is up to them to provide safety and security for their fellow citizens,” so it gives them incentive.

  When I interviewed Gen. Michael Hagee, the commandant of the Marine Corps, during his visit to Ramadi, he acknowledged the complexity of the task—as well as
the progress. In speaking of his Marines, he said their job “is difficult. But, are they making a difference? Are they helping the Iraqis to help themselves? Absolutely. And, if you call that winning, then we probably are.”

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #50

  Ramadi, Iraq

  Thursday, 18 August 2004

  1925 Hours Local

  There is little doubt that the violence is escalating as the U.S. and Iraqi elections approach. An insurgent missile killed six Iraqis and wounded twenty-one others in Mosul today. In a central Baghdad neighborhood, a mortar round killed seven and injured another forty-seven.

  Here in Ramadi, an Iraqi male suspected of hijacking vehicles to be used for car bombings was hauled into police headquarters. We were granted unprecedented access to watch and listen while the chief of police interrogated the suspect, who confessed to hijacking two cars and four trucks. Without coercion or humiliation, he also confessed to being “a soldier of God” and of killing a police officer.

  Yesterday we were embedded with the Marine Weapons Company when an IED was detonated beside the convoy nearly killing the 2nd Brigade commander, Col. “Buck” Conner. Staff Sgt. Michael Drake, a Weapons Company platoon sergeant, described the attack this way: “We received a call while we were at the hospital with the battalion commander that the brigade commander had been hit by an IED and was taking fire, and they were forced to respond. We hurried to their location, became engaged behind the mall, and took heavy fire for over four hours.”

  In fact, it was an amazing demonstration of Marine and Army firepower. Though they had Cobra gunships and two fixed-wing aircraft overhead, the close urban streets had to be secured building by building, using firepower from Marine infantrymen, armored Humvees, and a platoon of Army Bradley fighting vehicles. When it was over, twelve enemy combatants were dead, four were wounded, and fifteen others were detained. During the fight, eleven Marines were wounded—including Cpt. Mark Carlton, the Fox Company commander, who suffered dozens of shrapnel holes in his body from an enemy RPG.