by John McCain
What had looked to be a mounting catastrophe for al Qaeda in Iraq became a military and propaganda victory. Fallujah became AQI’s primary base of operations, a sanctuary almost entirely under their control and from where they planned and organized attacks on targets elsewhere in Iraq. By the fall of 2004 the situation had become intolerable. A second Battle of Fallujah was ordered, a joint operation led by the marines and including three U.S. Army battalions, as well as Iraqi and British soldiers, and using air, armor, and artillery to make short work of enemy strongholds. The bloodiest battle of the war to date began on November 7. It would kill more than a thousand insurgents and about a hundred Americans. The insurgents fought tenaciously, and sporadic fighting continued well into December. But major fighting was over within two weeks. Much of the city was wrecked. Two-thirds of its buildings were damaged or completely destroyed. And many of the insurgents who escaped death in Fallujah fled to Ramadi.
The first Battle of Ramadi had played out while the press’s attention was mostly focused on the interrupted first Battle of Fallujah. The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines had suffered more casualties battling insurgents in Ramadi in the spring of 2004 than any battalion in the war to date. Twelve marines were killed in one day alone. But in four days of fighting the marines succeeded in killing hundreds of insurgents, driving the rest into hiding and halting the insurgency’s momentum in the city. But once Fallujah was taken in November and December, Ramadi, thirty miles to the west, became the center of the insurgency. Al Qaeda in Iraq and its sadistic leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, would eventually declare it the capital of the Islamic State of Iraq. Insurgents overwhelmed Ramadi police and other local authorities and claimed most of the city as their sanctuary. They planted IEDs everywhere. They contested most patrols by U.S. and Iraqi forces, which in 2005 and part of 2006 still operated out of three main bases except for the brave company of marines garrisoned in the isolated outpost near the Government Center. Al Qaeda was ascendant in the Sunni insurgent movement throughout Anbar and was challenging Sunni tribal sheiks for control of the province.
The 2nd Brigade, stitched together from National Guard units in a dozen states, was a force suitable for garrisoning a pacified city, training civilian authorities, and other nation-building exercises. But a brigade of mostly part-time soldiers, some of them approaching middle age, is obviously not ideal for contesting a major insurgent stronghold. They did fine under the circumstances, with less armor, equipment, and experience than MacFarland’s 1st Brigade would bring to Ramadi. During their year there they fought hard, losing over eighty soldiers and marines to hundreds of IEDs and rocket attacks and firefights. They secured the main road, Route Michigan, and manned checkpoints into and out of the city. But they could never take back the city from the insurgents. They held their own. No more could have been expected from them. And they managed to clear some neighborhoods. But most of Ramadi, and practically all the city center, remained a no-go zone for coalition forces. By the end of 2005 Ramadi was in fact as well as declaration the capital of the Sunni insurgency as the enemy occupied neighborhoods within mortar and rocket range of the main U.S. bases.
The situation could not be allowed to continue. Ramadi was too important, the key to winning Anbar Province. There were other coalition forces in Anbar in the same situation, operating from mostly secure bases, subjected to mortar and rocket attacks, patrolling cities teeming with insurgents, contending with IEDs, rocket-propelled grenades, snipers, and hit-and-run ambushes. In addition to being the capital and the largest city in the province, Ramadi sat astride the major rail line and numerous roads and was a gathering place for foreign fighters entering the country from Syria. It was the bellwether. “If Ramadi fell,” General Mattis explained, “the whole province goes to hell.” Take it back, and the rest of Anbar would likely follow.
In 2005 and throughout 2006 it appeared that the opposite was happening. Ramadi, and with it all the province save Fallujah, looked increasingly to be slipping beyond the reach of the central government’s authority and possibly beyond pacifying by force, at least at a cost acceptable to Washington and Baghdad. Most press reports described the situation going from bad to worse to hopeless throughout 2006 and into 2007. A few observers glimpsed the reality. Starting in the summer of 2006, when the Ready First assumed responsibility for Ramadi, the tide began turning very slowly, barely perceptibly. The pace quickened with the Anbar Awakening, when Sunni tribal leaders started turning against the foreign jihadis in the fall of that year. But no one in the press could be blamed for missing the signs of the turnaround when many people in the U.S. intelligence community, who possessed more knowledge of the situation, believed Ramadi and most of Anbar were probably beyond recovering.
In September 2006 an assessment by the marines’ chief intelligence officer in Iraq, the highly respected Colonel Pete Devlin, was leaked to the Washington Post, and an updated assessment was leaked to the same reporters in November. “The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq,” the report bluntly asserted, “or counter Al Qaeda’s rising popularity there.” That certainly appeared true to many observers, including most Bush administration officials. In his memoirs President Bush would recall 2006 as the bleakest time in the war and the lowest point of his presidency. Mounting casualties in Ramadi and elsewhere in Anbar, vicious sectarian fighting in Baghdad, and three years of occupation mistakes by American civilian and military authorities in Baghdad and Washington, which were by then obvious to almost everyone, made it seem all Iraq was a hopeless cause.
That wasn’t the case, and, thankfully, no policy steps were then taken that would have made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the contrary, it was in this bleak and discouraging moment that President Bush made the hardest and best decisions of his presidency. He replaced Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, ordered increased troop levels for Iraq, and authorized General David Petraeus to conduct the counterinsurgency that eventually snatched success from the jaws of defeat.
Colonel MacFarland, and the force he had the honor to command, launched a counterinsurgency in Ramadi in June 2006 using tactics that would be the hallmark of the “surge” the following year. They stuck it out through a long, hot, hard summer and fall, when hard-won gains were modest and mostly unnoticed and casualties mounted. Anbar tribal leaders, disgusted and angered by the viciousness of al Qaeda and the imposition of its customs on local traditions, rebelled and made common cause with the Americans, a development partly orchestrated by one of the most enterprising soldiers in the U.S. Army, Captain Travis Patriquin, sometimes called “Lawrence of Anbar,” who was killed in Ramadi by an IED in December 2006. What began in Ramadi wasn’t merely the pacification of one city or even an entire province. Ramadi is where the rescue of the American effort in Iraq began.
By the spring of 2007, as U.S. forces surged in Iraq and the marines at Ramadi had their tours extended three months, what had appeared lost was well on the way to recovery. It began with the decision to fight, which was first evident in the decision to send the Ready First to Ramadi with instructions to take the city back without destroying it. Americans from every service carried out that tough assignment—army, marine, navy, and air force. They were infantry, armor, artillery, engineers, intelligence, and Special Forces. Their cooperation and mutual respect set a high standard that joint operations don’t always meet. They were all a credit and invaluable to the country that had sent them there.
THE FIRST SEAL TASK unit in Ramadi arrived in October 2005. They were from the East Coast–based SEAL Team 2 and tasked mostly with training Iraqi Army scouts in Camp Ramadi. The SEALs camped on the Euphrates River outside the wire of Camp Ramadi in an old guardhouse that had once housed Saddam Hussein’s bodyguards. They called it Shark Base, apparently because of its proximity to the river. The accommodations were too small for the SEAL detachment, and what the camp lacked in amenities it also lacked in security. The SEALs’ first job in Ramadi was to improve both with the help of
navy Seabees. Then they started training Iraqis, which was a learning experience for both trainers and trainees, as each worked to overcome cultural differences that made the job harder than it needed to be.
The hairiest part of the job was running patrols in the city with the Iraqis. At first they went out only at night. Night vision equipment and the SEALs’ experience fighting in the dark gave them an unmatchable advantage, and insurgents rarely challenged them—although, as many SEALs later remarked, you don’t need night vision to detonate IEDs, which remained a problem day and night.
Eventually, as they learned the city better, they started patrolling during the day, teaching the Iraqis how to clear buildings and other tactics of urban counterinsurgency, and regularly running into resistance. They started in some of the quieter neighborhoods before venturing deeper into what they called “Indian country.” When intelligence started giving them valuable target leads, the SEALs set up and executed assaults. But throughout their deployment the first SEAL task unit’s primary mission remained training Iraqis to take and hold their cities.
The second Ramadi SEAL task unit relieved their predecessors in early April 2006, six weeks or so before MacFarland and the Ready First arrived in Ramadi. The new task unit, two full platoons, was from San Diego–based SEAL Team 3, the task unit commanded by Lieutenant Commander Willink. It was the start of Willink’s second rotation in Iraq. It was the very first combat rotation for the heavy weapons guy in Delta platoon, Petty Officer Monsoor, who was considered one of the most dependable SEALs in the unit.
MICHAEL ANTHONY MONSOOR WAS born in 1981 in Long Beach, California, the third of George and Sally Monsoor’s four children, and raised in Garden Grove in Orange County. He suffered from asthma as a child and trained himself to become an athlete and overcome his condition. He was a typical athletic, outdoorsy kid from southern California, tough but fun-loving and good-natured. He surfed, snowboarded, spearfished, played tight end for his high school football team, and rode a motorcycle. After he joined the navy, he drove a Corvette.
The Monsoors were devout Catholics, and Mike was a practicing Catholic all his life, regularly worshipping God at Mass and turning to the solace of the confessional at home and overseas. He was said to have attended Mass before every mission. The SEALs’ chaplain, Father Paul Halladay, remembered Monsoor asking him to hear his confession just after he arrived in Ramadi.
He came from a tradition of military service. His dad was a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War. His brother, Jim, had also served in the Corps, and Mike felt pulled from childhood to military service. He was drawn to the navy, though, and not to any billet. He wanted to join the most selective outfit in the navy, some would argue in all the armed services. He wanted to be a frogman, one of the Sea Air Land commandos, who trace their lineage to the navy combat demolition units in World War II. They are elite warriors, whose toughness, weapons and tactical skills, and legendary perseverance are formed in what is arguably the toughest training in the military, BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) in Coronado, California. It’s a six-month trial of the outer limits of human endurance and rigorous instruction in the frogman’s special skills and tactics. Each new class has about two hundred candidates. On average, 150 of them drop out of the program by the end of the third week, the notorious “Hell Week,” five and a half days of brutally difficult, sleep-deprived training. Candidates can quit when they “ring the bell,” sounding a bell three times to signal their inability to continue. Those who succeed will have proven their physical stamina, mental toughness, leadership, and ability to work as a team as much as can be outside of combat. They will receive the SEAL trident insignia to wear on their uniforms and ample opportunity to prove themselves loyal to the SEAL creed, which reads in part:
In the absence of orders I will take charge, lead my teammates and accomplish the mission. I lead by example in all situations.
I will never quit. I persevere and thrive on adversity. My Nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission. I am never out of the fight.
We demand discipline. We expect innovation. The lives of my teammates and the success of our mission depend on me—my technical skill, tactical proficiency, and attention to detail. My training is never complete.
We train for war and fight to win. I stand ready to bring the full spectrum of combat power to bear in order to achieve my mission and the goals established by my country. The execution of my duties will be swift and violent when required yet guided by the very principles that I serve to defend.
Brave men have fought and died building the proud tradition and feared reputation that I am bound to uphold. In the worst of conditions, the legacy of my teammates steadies my resolve and silently guides my every deed. I will not fail.
Monsoor graduated from high school in 1999 and enlisted in the navy two years later. After basic training at the Naval Station Great Lakes, he went to BUD/S. He broke his heel during Hell Week but tried to stick it out. He described to his younger brother, Joe, the excruciating pain he experienced running hard in the sand, telling himself, “Don’t pass out. I can’t pass out.” But he couldn’t go on, and he rang the bell. The navy sent him to the Naval Air Station in Sigonella, Italy, for two years. His mother visited him there and remembers him constantly “working out, running and swimming,” hoping for another crack at qualifying as a frogman.
He graduated BUD/S in September 2004, at the top of his class. The Monsoors remember his graduation as their proudest moment—not only Mikey’s but the family’s. He completed advanced SEAL training in the spring of 2005, before being assigned to Delta Platoon, SEAL Team 3. He went to war for the first time a year later, at the age of twenty-five. Just before he deployed he took a last trip with his brother Joe, driving him to his university in North Dakota. “He knew what he believed in and would stand by what he believed in,” Joe remembered. “He couldn’t be corrupted.” He assured his family he would be okay. He trusted himself and his teammates to come through whatever dangers they faced. Most of them would.
THE TASK UNIT INITIALLY thought they would be based in Baghdad, helping to train the Iraqi Special Operations Force headquartered there. They found out they were going to Ramadi only a few weeks before they deployed. They came ready for combat. By then the decision had been made to take the city from the insurgents, although ways and means had yet to be decided. The SEALs knew a big fight was coming, and their primary mission would change from training to operational. They didn’t know when exactly that transition would occur, but whenever it did, they would be ready for the perils of operating in Iraq’s most dangerous city.
The departing SEAL team stayed in Ramadi a few weeks to give their relief the lay of the land and introduce them to the Iraqi scouts they would be training. For their first six weeks in Ramadi, Monsoor and his teammates focused on close-quarter fighting and fire and maneuver drills at Camp Ramadi. Later, when trainers and trainees were familiar with each other, patrols in the city resumed.
Early on, Lieutenant Willink made a decision to send one platoon, Delta, to support the 1st Battalion of the 506th, which had arrived in Ramadi in advance of MacFarland’s brigade. They were based on the eastern edge of town at Camp Corregidor, a smaller and less secure base than Ramadi and a pretty miserable place. It was situated a few hundred yards from one of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. The 506th had quickly gotten used to dodging regular mortar, RPGs, and small arms fire. Enemy snipers often took potshots at the camp from the minarets of mosques in the city, although they never hit anyone from that distance. Radar gave only a few seconds’ warning before an incoming mortar round hit. Soldiers wore their body armor and helmets to and from the toilet. So did the SEALs. In their spare time SEAL snipers would climb up Corregidor’s observation towers and pick off insurgents planting IEDs nearby. The accommodations
were far more spartan at Corregidor than at Camp Ramadi. Frogmen and grunts grew close in their shared danger and discomfort. They would come to respect each other as warriors, too, when the hard fighting got under way in June.
Until then Delta Platoon spent most of its time training soldiers from one of the Iraqi Army’s oldest and most prestigious brigades, which had recently arrived in Ramadi and was camped just across Route Michigan from Corregidor. SEALs and scouts got along well. The scouts whom Delta Platoon trained seemed more experienced and quicker learners than other Iraqi soldiers they had encountered. As they crossed an open field on one of their first patrols together, they were pinned down by sniper fire. The Iraqis reacted exactly as they had been trained to react: aggressively. The men nearest the shooter laid down cover fire, while the scouts behind leapfrogged them, drawing steadily closer to the enemy until they drove him off.
In the beginning they stuck to patrolling a couple of the comparatively quiet neighborhoods, first at night and then with growing confidence in day patrols. By May they were pushing deeper into “real Indian country,” including the Ma’Laab, where they took fire on every patrol, often operating with larger U.S. Army units, including elements of the 506th. “The deeper we went, the stiffer the resistance became,” a Delta Platoon lieutenant remembered. They were getting themselves and the Iraqis they trained ready for the decisive battles to come. “Some of the Iraqi units felt the enemy was ten feet tall.” But with their aggressive responses to the enemy, the SEALs “convinced our scouts . . . that we could beat these guys.”